Chapter 2
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE AND STUDIES
To gain a better understanding of the topic, literature and studies both foreign local were
reviewed to conceptualize the research problem. Researchers considered significant to the study
were taken from library and internet sources.
Related Literature:
I. Error Correction Techniques and Error Analysis
Error analysis for Javed (2013), have been considered as one of the approaches of
linguistic study which focuses on error learners make and it assists educators in understanding
the process of learning a language. Some researchers tend to look for and discover the corrective
techniques that can sure aid the effectiveness of English teaching and learning. This is probably
because of, through writing, one can evaluate the language competency and capability in
recalling and thinking.
As cited by Foppoli (2012), ESL students who are starting to learn a new language, it is
essential that they learn first the basics of grammar rules in the target first. In Malaysian context,
students are expected to write grammatically correct sentences as much focus on different
examinations, He stated thoroughly the thought that grammar is a foundation of language
learning for second language learners.
Ghabool, Edwina and Kashef (2012) stated that students have problem in writing
especially in grammar and use of punctuation. The only way to lessen this is to make them do
and develop a good piece of writing. Students tend to have a constant monitoring and further
explanation from the teachers so that, as the teacher allow them to make an essay. The students
can easily notice the errors in their writing.
With accordance to Presada and Badea (2014), through the method that they have
discovered, the primary and major causes of errors made by students in their translation classes
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could help them sort out the real problems and reasons on why they’ve done such error. As they
prove that it could lessen the number of errors in their students work.
For Iamsu (2014), the error analysis in language teaching and learning is defined as the
study of the uncertain and unacceptable forms of errors produced by student when learning a
language, especially the result of a foreign language investigation of errors done by second
language can be both well-known and contemporary. Error analysis pertains to the study and
analysis of the errors mainly produced by second and foreign language learners, and both done
and found at the beginning and ruing the various stages of a foreign and second language
teaching program can be useful. The success and the failure can be both revealed through the
implemented program. It can also benefit teachers in such way that they can design proper
materials for teaching and appropriate teaching plans for the whole discussion.
II. Grammar Errors
Phuket and Othman (2015) presented grammatical errors started from tenses,
prepositions, word choice and comma in writing narrative essays. The main cause of the errors
was the negative transfer of the students’ first language into wider sense.
As Kleiser (2014) defined that the process of communication mainly includes speaking,
listening and writing. When one comes to learning a new course or subject in English language,
one needs to study its grammar as the importance of grammar cannot be neglected. As he said
that to contend with the importance of English as a world language. In widening the learning of
different disciplines, the knowledge or lessons from the world is very helpful specifically in
career advancement. As a result of its rise, and as a world language, English language no longer
known as most difficult thing to teach and to learn.
Based from Zheng and Park (2013), misinformation can be categorized as noun
misinformation, and even preposition misinformation. Errors tend to be classified to simply
assist the teachers in planning for student learning and assessment.
Likewise, Runkati (2013) outlined the two (2) main types of errors. One type of the error
relates to the sentential level which can be classified as run-ons, fragments, word order, tenses of
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the verb, SVA, use of capital letters and use of punctuation. On the other hand, the errors were
the nouns and numbers, prepositions and articles. On the other hand, the addition and omission
were also referred to as sub-categories of the sentential level errors and the word level errors.
Related Studies
I. Observation of Common Grammar Errors
In the study conducted by Sumalinog (2018) of Cebu Normal University, he concluded
that students struggle in remembering and applying grammar rules and patterns. In fact, their
mistakes were the ones repeatedly taught to them in previous grade levels. He discovered about
eight (8) grammatical errors which are: (a) using of preposition in, on, and at, (b) observing the
correct non-pronoun antecedent, (c) determining the singular-plural forms of foreign nouns, (d)
spelling of foreign words including spelling variation, (e) using the perfect tenses of the verb,
determining the past tense and past participle of verbs, (g) observing the correct subject verb
agreement, (h) forming sentences in the active and passive voice. These show the thought of
students are leaning but with confusion.
Moreover, as cited by the group of researchers in Malaysia (2017), out of 140 samples of
written reports by Diploma students, their findings revealed a total of 744 errors. The subject-
verb agreement garnered 1.79, verb tense with 1.57, noun with 0.98, preposition with 0.13,
pronoun with 0.11, adverb with 0.03 and conjunction with 0.01. It just simply concluded that,
though students were taught about the different grammar rules in primary and secondary schools,
students in tertiary education are still involve in grammar issue especially in written outputs.
According to the study conducted by the National Commission in writing (2014), reading
is a widely-needed skill but writing is an elite skill. It is more than 90% mid-career professionals
indicate that writing is vital in their work. Writing is essential for success in higher education, yet
more that 50% of first year college students have serious writing problem. If we want to become
successful in our chosen career, students should learn first the basic of writing, which is to learn
how to write sentences and learn good compositions.
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The study of Omidipour (2014) focusing on error analysis on two sample writings of 40
Iranian students revealed that there are different types of errors just like what he has adopted on
Corder’s analysis. These are: orthographic, syntactic-morphological, and lexico-semantic errors.
The results revealed 120 errors in learner’s writings. A total of 19 were orthographic, 76 are
syntactic-morphological and 25 are lexico-semantic errors. As for this study, we are not
attempting to classify the errors but we intend to analyze the common misinformation that
appears to assist teachers in planning for student learning and assessment.
From the study conducted by Wu and Garza (2019) entitled “The Nature and distribution
in writing errors of 6th grade EFL learners, it clearly shows that out of 22 categories of errors, the
prominent were grammatical errors with connection to subject-verb agreement. There are also
grammatical errors arranged in descending order like sentence fragment, sentence structure, and
singular and plural form of the verbs and its omission. In general, findings therefore concluded
that students had more interlingual transfer of errors rather than intralingual/ developmental
errors.
Also, with regards to the study conducted by Shumalia Khan and Mohammad Riaz Khan,
(2016) in Japan University, Saudi Arabia, the grammar errors were analyzed through written
works given to the students. Their study shows that there are nine (9) most common grammatical
errors found in each students’ composition. These are verb tenses and forms, subject-verb
agreement (SVA), word order, prepositions, articles, auxiliaries. Spellings, pronoun, passive
voice and run-on sentence. This study simply proved that no matter how long a student is being
taught by grammatical rules, there is still a big chance that they are not going to remember it all
especially the basic ones.
A Ghanaian study by Owu-Ewie and Lomotey (2016) on L1 interference in the L2
writing of Akan Junior High School Students. Data were collected by the use of documents
(students’ written essays). The researcher used content analysis approach to analyze 90 written
essays of the students to find out the writing errors of students in their essays having to do with
L1 interference. The study found both grammatical and lexical errors which include
transliteration, omissions, wrong word use, L1 induced spelling errors, and wrong pronoun uses.
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According to Wayar and Saleh’s study (2016), “it can be concluded that the respondents
had positive attitudes towards their mother tongue – Hausa as the respondents‟ choice of their
language at home and school was one of the causes of their less proficiency in English. This is
because the feeling people have towards a language will dictate their preference regarding the
choice. Another cause of the students‟ errors was due to interference of mother tongue. This is
because certain verbs in Hausa language do not inflect for number and gender.” The greater the
exposure to the use of mother tongue language, the great the chance of its high acquisition
especially in comprehension and communication. It is visible that the dominant language is with
the greater chance of greater usage compared with the second language.
II. Reasons for Grammatical Errors
In the study conducted by Case in (2019), he gave the reasons why students committed
errors in doing their written compositions with English as their medium. He then gave a sum of
ten (10) reasons why students most commonly commit grammatical errors and these are: (a)
students are not ready in language learning, (b) students don’t realize that they are learning the
same grammar, (c) they are overloaded because of random school works, (d) they are overusing
one point for good reason, (e) they always had a bad day, (f) they don’t think that grammar point
is important, (g) they think that as they learn, it becomes harder than it is before, (h) they attempt
to use informal language, (i) accuracy is not their priority, (j) they just have that personality of
overdoing. Different reasons were presented and that makes sense for other researchers to come
with the thought of interventions and/or recommendations for the errors commonly made.
According to the study conducted by Ancheta in 2017, the most common grammar error
committed by the students is the subject-verb agreement. This is as sighted by this finding:
“students top most grammar error is in subject-verb agreement. It is obvious that this item has
the highest percentage of error with (96.6 %)”. Aside from is finding, the next most common
errors are as follows: sentence structures and word order with (93.3 %), tenses of the verbs
(90%), spelling (86.6 %), punctuation and capitalization (76.6 %), and the use of articles and
preposition with (66.6 %). The rules are discussed since primary until tertiary but the product of
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this teaching is quite disturbing for it affects the grammar comprehension of the students in
different fields of learning.
Synthesis of the State of the Art
All of the abovementioned studies were similar to the present study because all focused
on common grammar errors in writing composition. While the major difference lies on the total
number of population used.
The foreign and local literatures which have in common. Foppoli, Musa, Lie, and
Azman and Alinsunod both tackled about the difficulties experienced by the ESL students which
investigated all types of errors using the error analyses and contrastive analyses while the other
literatures talks about the mother tongue and the three recurrent grammatical errors were
reported including the misuse of articles, to be verb, and subject-verb agreement that is
connected to Omnidipour and Owu-Ewie and Lomotey study about the wrong word use and
spelling errors, While Presada, Badea and Iamsu tackles about the teaching methods of teaching
English as second language. While Phuket, Othman and Runkati tackles about the grammar rules
and word choices to be used verb agreement, word order, tenses and punctuation which are
connected to Sumalinog and Ancheta for grammar reports and errors which talks about the right
choice of words and tenses. Meanwhile Sokeng, Kleisler, Zheng and Park that talks about the
language as communication and a process of teaching and learning English language in terms of
writing which are connected with the study of Wayar and Saleh and concludes the topic of Case
as for the topic of Wu and Garza that tackles about the student which have a difficulty in writing
about the grammatical errors.
There are common grammar errors which are usually mentioned in writing English
compositions like Javed which sure aid the effectiveness of English teaching and learning as
Ghabool, Edwina and Kashef to monitor students that are connected to also Case and by
Shumalia Khan and Mohammad Riaz Khan that discusses what matters the teaching of students
that is taught by grammatical rules.
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Moreover, there are also studies which are a bit contradicting to the main point of the
study.
Theoretical Framework
This chapter explained about theoretical framework, which consists of Writing skills:
theory and practice, Grammatical theory and Composition Theory.
Writing skills: theory and practice primarily pertain on the writing has long been
considered to be a necessary for learning grammar in foreign language instruction. Their research
looked beyond for traditional writing practices as to how second language acquisition for new
instructional possibilities.
Grammatical theory gives an observation regarding the use of the correct spelling and
punctuations used on the on each sentence that will be the combined with words to give the
appropriate meaning to the topic as to how the readers will receive the information.
Composition theory focuses more on the application of the new writing system to
integrate the knowledge of the students in writing a composition. They rely on the different
theories supporting this one. They considered the composition pedagogical theory, research
methodologies in rhetoric and compositional theory. This is to support writing system and focus
on more effective and efficient way of forming a composition.
The theoretical paradigm of this study is shown on the next page.
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Writing skills:
theory and
practice
GRAMMAR
ERRORS IN
WRITING
ENGLISH
COMPOSITION
Grammatical Composition
theory Theory
ANALYSIS OF COMMON GRAMMAR ERRORS IN WRITING ENGLISH
COMPOSITION OF SECOND YEAR ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS IN MABINI
COLLEGES INC.
Figure 1. Theoretical Paradigm
15
Conceptual Framework
This study was premised from the errors committed by the students in writing their
English compositions.
The INPUT. This will state how or what are the possible things which the researcher may
consider in conducting her research. There are at least (3) three inputs placed to the input’s
section.
The PROCESS. This will explain the different way/ways on how to get input’s output or
the result of the topic. It is the possible project which may develop in the process of conducting a
research.
The OUTPUT. In this section, the researcher put the outcome or possible outcomes in
her study which she can recommend to others. This will surely help not only the graduating
students but the following ones.
The contextual paradigm of this study is shown on the next page.
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INPUT PROCESS OUTPUT
This study seeks to answer Gathering of related Findings of the
the following: Literatures and study focusing on
1. Common errors Studies the grammar errors
committed by the Using the sample commonly done by
students in written
written the students.
composition.
compositions of the Recommendations
2. Factors
students to validate and actions for the
contributory to
the research grammatical errors.
the grammatical
instrument
errors in writing
Analysis of data
composition.
through the use of
3. Significant
frequency count,
relationship
percentage,
between the
weighted mean and
grammatical
ranking statistical
errors in writing
treatment.
composition.
Findings
4. Intervention can
be designed to
lessen the
grammatical
errors in writing
composition.
FEEDBACK
Figure 2. Conceptual Paradigm of the Study
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Notes:
Javed, M.S. (2017). A study of students’ assessment in writing skills of the English language.
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%3Dview_citation%26hl%3Den%26user%3NAMFvYUAAAAJ%2citation_for_view
%3DNAMFvYUAAAAJ%3A_B80troHkn4C 26tzom%3D-480.
Hamzah, Hamzah. (2014). AN ANALYSIS OF THE WRITTEN GRAMMATICAL ERRORS
PRODUCED BY FRESHMENT STUDENTS IN ENGLISH WRITING. Lingua
Didaktika: Jurnal Bahasa dan Pembelajaran Bahasa. 6. 17. 10.24036/ld.v6i1.3127.
Scribd. (2019). Grammatical Errors in the Compositions of the Second Year Students of the
English Department of FKIP-UKI Jakarta | Grammatical Number | Phrase. [online]
Available at: https://www.scribd.com/doc/40004971/Grammatical-Errors-in-the
Compositions-of-the-Second-Year-Students-of-the-English-Department-of-FKIP-UKI
Jakarta
guest3ad685 (2019). AN ANALYSIS OF GRAMMATICAL ERRORS IN WRITING
COMPOSITION MADE BY THE …. [online] Slideshare.net. Available at:
https://www.slideshare.net/guest3ad685/an-analysis-of-grammatical-errors-in-writing
composition-made-by-the-second-year-students-of-madrasah-aliyah-asmaul-husna
central-lombok-west-nusa-tenggara-in-academic-year-20092010
G.M.A. Grami and B.Y. Alkazemi, Improving ESL writing using an online formulaic sequence
word‐combination checker, Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 32, 2, (95
104), (2015).
Polio. C. and Shea. M.C., An investigation into current measures of linguistic accuracy in second
language writing research, Journal of Second Language
Writing, 10.1016/j.jslw.2014.09.003, 26, (10-27), (2014).
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9922.2010.00621.x
YAO, X. and COLLINS, P. (2019). Exploring grammatical colloquialisation in non-native
English: a case study of Philippine English.
Presada, D. and Badea, M. (2019). The Effectiveness of Error Analysis in Translation Classes. A
Pilot Study. [online] Digibug.ugr.es. Available https://digibug.ugr.es/handle/10481/53695
[Accessed 16 Dec. 2019].
Iamsiu, C. (2014). An Analysis of Grammatical Errors in Srinakharinwirot University Student's
Writing.Retrievedhttp://ir.swu.ac.th/xmlui/bitstream/handle/123456789/3671/
Chada_I.pdf?sequence=1 Jamil, S. (December 2016). Analyzing common Errors in
English Composition at Postgraduate Level in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (Pakistan). Bulletin
of Education and Research, 38(2), 53 63.
Phuket, N. (2019). Understanding EFL Students' Errors in Writing.. [online] Eric.ed.gov.
Available at: https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1083531 [Accessed 16 Dec. 2019].
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Alinsunod, J. (2014). A study on common writing errors of engineering students: A basis for
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