Second language acquestion errors analysis

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1. INTRODUCTION
Writing in English tends to be a complex process especially for second language
learners. In this regard, committing errors in the course of writing can be an inevitable part of
the writing process. Ellis and Barkhuizen (2005) stated that the influence of the learners’
grammar acquired from the first language affects grammar acquisition in the second
language. The grammatical errors committed by learners are evidence of the learners’
language advancements in an independent system of learning. Therefore, the analysis of L2
learners’ problematic and grammatical errors prepares the L2 teachers to predict and solve
problems associated with the errors encountered in language teaching. The classification of
the errors committed by learners makes it easier for researchers to learn a great deal on the
process of acquiring the second language and hence identify the best strategies for the
language learners to employ.
Learning the English language requires an individual to learn its structure. According
to Johansson and Geisler (2011), groups of words cannot convey any meanings if their order
is not recognised by the listener or reader. Besides, Bock and Miller (1991) argue that the
importance of understanding the grammar of a language in general lies in the relevance that
the learner draws from processing domains and vocabularies in that language. An English
learner not only needs to learn grammar but also use it correctly. However, there are
difficulties that learners face in learning grammar: understanding grammatical rules and
internalizing the grammatical rules in order to use them correctly (Ellis & Barkhuizen, 2005).
According to Mossman (2012), grammatical errors made by learners have been of no
significance considering that teachers tend to focus on the language as used by the learners.
Here, some researchers assume that bad teaching is responsible for the errors by learners and

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it only requires improving the teaching methodology to avoid the errors in the target language
(Ellis & Barkhuizen, 2005; Mossman, 2012).
Different teachers have their own ways of teaching grammar. On the one hand, some
teachers have grammar isolated from other linguistic areas, which they focus on within a
certain period. On the other hand, other teachers prefer not to isolate grammar and instead
integrate it into other projects, hence giving their students an opportunity to acquire it through
natural communication. However, regardless of the method used to teach grammar, the most
important factor for teachers to consider is to base the teaching process on the students’
knowledge. Students’ knowledge of grammar forms the basis of this research that
investigates students’ grammatical errors through an analysis of their writing. The researcher
seeks to identify the areas that present grammatical difficulties in written English with the
hope that teachers will be in the best position to adjust their teaching strategies to the
students’ knowledge. The researcher further compares the level of errors between junior and
senior students in Swedish secondary schools.
In previous research, error analysis has involved the identification, description and
clarification of errors made by L2 learners across the same level of education (Archibald,
2000; Brown & Rodgers, 2002). However, there has not been any significant attention to the
differences in the patterns of grammatical errors between junior and senior secondary school
students in Sweden. This study compares samples of the learners’ English text productions
from the two groups, which Archibald (2000) finds to be the best technique for investigating
the acquisition of the second language. This research uses students’ written text from the
Uppsala Learner English Corpus for Swedish junior and senior students in Swedish
secondary schools to conduct an error analysis. In this regard, detecting the grammatical
errors, analysing them and coming up with recommendations on how to solve them will be an

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effective way of improving Swedish teaching and the students’ proficiency in the English
language.
1.1 Aim and research questions
This study was designed to analyse grammatical errors made by Swedish students in
junior and senior secondary education in their writings. In this sense, the study will answer
three research questions:
 What are the grammatical errors that Swedish junior and senior students in Swedish
secondary schools make frequently in their written productions?
 Are there similarities and differences in the frequencies and types of errors made by
junior and senior students in Swedish secondary schools?
 What reasons cause the similarities and differences in the respective written
productions?
Based on the Error Analysis (EA) theory, the aim of this study is to find out the main
grammar errors types and reveal the similarities and differences between the two groups of
language learners, which would help both the students and English language teachers by
giving them a general scope of the grammatical areas that they need to focus on when
teaching English grammar to junior and senior students in secondary schools.
1.2 Research objectives
The objectives of this research are:
 To identify and categorise grammatical errors produced by Swedish secondary
schools students
 To compare the frequencies and types of errors made by junior and senior students in
Swedish secondary schools

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 To identify the reasons for the similarities and differences in frequencies of errors
1.3 Significance of the Study
The teaching of English language focuses on essential skills, which Brown (2000)
considers being critical in mastering the English language. Besides, it is not possible to learn
a language without making errors. Thus analysing learners’ errors is serves as an initial way
for investigating foreign language acquisition. If the researcher is able to identify the major
areas causing problems for language learners and the relevant teaching methods suggested,
the learners will surely end up making less errors in their writings and in turn improve their
writing proficiency.
2. BACKGROUND
2.1 Second Language Acquisition
Second Language Acquisition (SLA) involves learning a language different from
one’s mother tongue. The term ‘SLA’ refers to all other subsequent language acquisitions,
whether third or fourth. Gardner (2001) categorises second language acquisition as either
formal or informal. In the case of formal SLA, learning takes place in classrooms, where the
intention is to teach the second language using clear language instructions. However,
informal learning occurs under more free and natural environment, for example when visiting
a foreign country and the person learns new words from the citizens of that country. The
focus of informal learning is the ability to communicate whereas formal learning puts
emphasis on all aspect of the language system. However, Gardner (2001) argues that it is
difficult to exclude one form of learning from the other since SLA may occur in both
contexts. Researchers of SLA have always focused on two goals. The first involves
describing the linguistic or communicative competence of learners and the second is
explaining how learners acquire and develop an L2. According to Ellis (1994), researchers

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must examine the learners’ knowledge through the collection and analysis of specific data to
achieve these two goals.
There have been considerable changes in SLA related research over the years. In the
past, SLA researchers examined errors made by learner using Corders’ Error analysis (Al-
Khresheh, 2016). Interestingly, Ellis (1994) notes that despite the developments in SLA
research, Corders’ Error analysis is used by many researchers as the favourite method for
investigating learners’ L2 acquisition. Different views have emerged regarding the potential
of SLA research to equip teachers with the required information on how they ought to teach
the second language. For instance, Ellis (1997) claimed that rather than providing teachers
with the content to be taught, SLA research only provides guidelines on how to go about the
teaching process. On the other hand, Archibald (2000) considers the great importance of SLA
research in providing information on how learners tend to acquire the second language.
Gardner (2001), therefore, insists that by investigating and learning more about students’
ability to use grammar, teachers can help the students improve their SLA.
2.2 Error analysis
Error analysis (EA) plays a critical role in studying on second language acquisition.
According to Heydari and Bagheri (2012), EA involves studying and analysing of errors
produced by second language learners. The purpose of conducting EA is to find out the
students’ knowledge of language and obtain information regarding the difficulties the
students are likely to face in language learning (Köhlmyr, 2003). Ultimately, the goal is to
come up with teaching aids or develop teaching materials in the foreign language. Error
analysis views the acquisition of the second language as a process that requires an active
participation of learners. In this approach, researchers consider errors to be natural
phenomena common in learning before the student can completely internalize the language.
Much of EA research is attributed to Corder (1967) who was the first to suggest that

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systematic investigation of learners’ errors can be used to better understand language
learning.
Ellis and Barkhuizen (2005) developed four steps to be used in error analysis. The
first step involves the collection of samples of texts done by the learner in the target language
followed by the process of identifying errors. The third process involves a description of the
errors and lastly giving explanations to the errors. Heydari and Bagheri (2012) also cited
Richards (1971) classification of errors into three forms. First are interference errors, which
occur in cases where the learner’s mother tongue influences the act of creating sentences in
the target language. The second category of error is intra-lingual, which is the violation of
general learning rules like failure to apply grammatical rules and faulty generalization. The
last category is developmental errors, which occur when learners develop a hypothesis on the
target language guided by limited experiences.
There have been many studies that were conducted in the past analysing students’
grammatical errors in the context of English as an L2. The aim of these researchers was to
provide cognizance for researchers, teachers, and students, for instance, Katiya et al.’s (2015)
analysis of a corpus of Chemistry essays. The analysis resulted in a conclusion that student’s
first language has an influence on punctuation and spelling errors. Furthermore, the students
wrongly applied rules on essay construction and presented morphological errors, which
affected the quality of their contents. Karlsson (2015) also examined students’ development
of prepositional errors and found it to be a predictability continuum. In this regard, he
categorised prepositional use as basic, systematic and Idiomatic prepositional uses based on
their predictability. Karlsson (2015) found that idiomatic prepositional uses had the highest
number of errors followed by systematic and basic prepositional uses.

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In another case, Darus and Subramaniam (2009) analysed the most common errors
done by Malaysian junior students in high school and found them to comprise of verb
inflection errors, verb tense errors, and subject-verb agreement. According to Darus and
Subramaniam (2009), the errors occurred because the students lacked grammatical
knowledge and were unable to transfer from Swedish to English. In a comprehensive review
of the source of errors among second language learners, Heydari and Bagheri (2012)
examined the taxonomies of interlingual and intra-lingual errors done by Iranian students.
According to them, the errors were as a result of the complex English language, the effect of
spoken English on written English, students’ failure to pay attention to grammatical
structures, memory lapses, and failure to practice writing. Thagg Fisher (1985) investigated
plural nouns in post-verbal complements and pointed out some ambiguities in subject verb
agreement with unmarked what-clauses. In this regard, only the noun was the only element
marked for number. The what, therefore made it difficult to determine the number in the
related clauses. Similarly, Bock and Miller (1991) also found that in situations where the
preverbal noun represented the subject of a verb, there was likely to be subject-verb
agreement error.
3. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
3.1 Theoretical Context
The process of learning involves making errors; therefore, validating the phrase, "to
err is human." Language learning, as in any other process involving skills acquisition,
involves making many errors (Köhlmyr, 2003). This means that L2 learners are prone to
committing a number of errors regardless of the learning method used and the prevailing
learning conditions. According to Mossman (2012), it is impossible to learn without making
errors. This makes errors a natural product of the second language learning process for which

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there should be no blame. However, there are controversies surrounding the nature,
description, and explanation of error and mistake (Al-Khresheh, 2016). The study occurred
within Corder’s (1967) differentiation of errors and mistakes. He argued that errors result
from the gaps in the learner’s knowledge of English while mistakes occur because the
learners are yet to learn certain grammatical forms. Studying an L2 based on the errors
committed by learners is something that teachers do for very practical reasons. The errors
committed by the L2 students guide the teaching-learning process (Archibald, 2000). Thus,
L2 teachers should not only identify grammatical errors but also determine the reasons for
their occurrence. The process of analysing learners' errors, therefore, is a first step towards
the introduction of L2 teachers to learner’s language (Corder, 1967).
Up until the late 1960s, theories in SLA were dominantly behaviouristic, claiming that
learning occurred because of the acquisition of a set of new language patterns (Al-Khresheh,
2016). As a result, L2 errors were influenced by the learners' L1 affecting the target language.
This means that researchers underestimated the errors that could not be explained using this
assumption. The Contrastive Analysis theory (CA) was the first to be used to investigate
errors made by L2 learners and became a well-known theory in L2 learning (Al-Khresheh,
2016). The theory assumed that the errors produced by L2 learners' were as a result of
negative inter-lingual interference, particularly from their first language. Despite the
popularity of the CA theory, it did not go without limitations. There were questions regarding
its lack of predictive power and its subjectivity to interpreting errors (Al-khresheh, 2015).
According to Al-khresheh (2015), the main weakness of CA theory was that inter-lingual
interference from the mother tongue is not the sole cause of grammatical errors in SLA.
In reaction to the criticisms against CA, Error Analysis theory came up to occupy the
mainstream in SLA research, which was praised for its great contributions (Katiya, et al.,
2015). Stephen Pit Corder introduced error analysis in SLA in the late 1970s after which EA

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become very popular for identifying and understanding L2 errors. Brown (2000) stated that
L2 errors are significant because they are a reflection of the underlying grammatical rules that
guide a language. The emergence of the error analysis theory was in reaction to the severe
criticisms of CA. it, therefore, marked a change from focusing on potential errors to focusing
on actual errors (Brown & Rodgers, 2002). According to Brown and Rodgers (2002), the
focus of EA has been on the actual errors committed by second language learners, making it
very popular in applied linguistics. They also add that unlike in the case of CA, EA offers
both a pedagogical orientation and scientific orientation of grammatical errors in SL learning.
In finalising the theoretical background, it would be important to examine the reaction
and experience of people with regards to ‘grammatically erroneous’ (breaking away from the
rules that guide standard English). Thagg Fisher (1985) brought up the discussion of whether
or not constructs can be validated as errors. According to Thagg Fisher (1985), considering a
construction to be error amounts to admitting that there is a standard that the error deviates
from. It is therefore important to validate an error in terms of the correct version of the
construct. In other words, errors are norm-related. While Thagg Fisher’s (1985) argument
was relevant in 1985 when there were no clear standards in the Swedish secondary English
syllabus, the idea tends to be more current and important. Karra (2006) also claimed that
teachers must first determine what amounts to an error before considering the need to correct
it. In this case, Karra (2006) set a criterion agreeing with Thagg Fisher’s (1985). Karra (2006)
therefore asserted that an error must impede communication before necessitating correction.
This idea raises questions regarding what amounts to a serious error and which errors do not
need to be corrected. According to Karra (2006) non-serious errors are caused by learners’
nervousness, stress or the pressure to give accurately forms of the L2. In that case, they are
what Corder (1967) referred to as “mistakes”.

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3.2 Theoretical assumptions of error analysis
EA emerged as a challenge to CA on the assumption that the errors made by second
language learners are caused by many other factors than interference from the L1, including
intra-lingual interference by the target language itself (Darus & Subramaniam, 2009). Error
analysis makes the assumption that many of the errors presented by L2 learners tend to be
similar irrespective of their first language because of intra-lingual transfer (Richards, 1971).
In this regard, intra-lingual errors refer to the errors caused by incomplete learning of the
grammar rules in the target language. Given this assumption, error analysis serves two main
functions: first, it provides data on the areas of interferences of the second language within
the language learning process and second, it guides teachers and curriculum developers to
identify the areas of the target language that are difficult for learners to produce and the error
types preventing the learner from communicating effectively.
Another assumption underlying error analysis is that learners are likely to transfer
forms and meanings of the L1 to L2 both in a productive and receptive manner in an attempt
to understand L2 (Brown & Rodgers, 2002). The reasoning behind this assumption is simple:
L2 leaners tend to use L1 structures when producing texts in L2 and in cases where the
structures in L1 differ from those of L2, errors will be made. In this sense, identifying the
differences and similarities between L1 and L2 is enough curb errors produced by EFL
learners. For languages with similar structures, positive transfer may occur, while for those
with different structures negative transfer will occur. Moreover, when there is a great
structural difference between L1 and L2, students will find it more difficult to acquire L2 and
vice versa.
EA tends to be more tolerant of L2 learners' errors compared to CA because it views
the learning of a language as a hypothesis-formation and testing process rather than a habit-
formation (Al-Khresheh, 2016). Given this perspective of EA, grammatical errors are

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regarded as natural, inevitable, and important to the learning process. According to Ellis
(1997), the most significant roles of error analysis is to evaluate the status of errors, taking
them from being undesirable and using them to guide the language learning process.
Alternatively, Bock and Miller (1991) consider performance in language to represent just one
of the many components of cognition, which have little in common. Given Bock and Miller’s
(1991) view, assumptions can be made that students’ language performance contributes to
language use and this process tends to be dynamic. It also means that the learner's interim
grammar of L2 is in constant change, and is prone to revision as the learner encounters and
absorbs new language items.
The last assumptions of Error Analysis relates to dealing with regular and systematic
errors. According to Corder (1967) the focus of the error analyst is only on systematic errors
and not non-systematic. In the precence of a sufficiently large corpus, it would be easier to
identify regular errors. Apart from the frequency of the errors, Corder (1967) suggests later
that it would be necessary to take into account other factors like irritability and
comprehensibility. In this regard, researchers should not find it difficult to distiguish what is
right from wrong in students’ productons. Furthermore, the error analyst should focus on
more fundamental issues instead of areas where even a native L2 speaker would not be sure
of himself.
3.3 Investigating L2 problematic and grammatical errors
Error analysis differs from CA in its view, investigation, description and analysis of
learners' errors (Darus & Subramaniam, 2009). As mentioned in previous sections, CA
compares the systems of the target language and learners’ L1 to identify errors (Corder,
1967). However, it has been proven that negative interference from L1 is just part of the
sources of errors in SLA (Archibald, 2000). In this sense, the influence of the first language
cannot be the only factor used to explain L2 errors (Katiya, et al., 2015). Error analysis

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approach, therefore, takes into account all other causes of errors encountered in SLA.
According to EA, either inter-lingual or intra-lingual interference or both cause second
language learners’ errors (Al-Khresheh, 2016).
Al-khresheh (2015) tried to shoe the effectiveness of using EA to investigate word
order errors in simple sentence structures. According to Karlsson (2014), for L2 learners to
successfully guess the meaning of and how to use unknown words, they need to understand at
least 95% of the text used in the sentence. In this regard, they need to be familiar with at least
19 out of every 20 words used in a sentence. Besides, developments in L2 acquisition tends to
mirror the learners’ development in the first language (Karlsson, 2015). The role played by
L1 that is mostly discussed in the development of L2 is language transfer, both positive and
negative. Bock et al. (1999) also found that number agreement form the basis of syntax in
language. In this regard, syntax refers to the process of stringing words together to come up
with phrases that make sense. Karlsson (2001) found the process of understanding the
formation of phrases to be incremental for L2 learners, which means that the L2 learner were
likely to take long to develop affixation skills. Thagg-Fisher (1985) found difference in how
agreement errors manifest in the written and spoken language as well as in the production of
creative and non-creative text. This means that EFL learners are likely to avoid errors as
much as possible in their creative text production. The use of error analysis to identify
students’ problems in L2 makes it easier to collect and document errors on a large scale.
While teacher may not have the time to fully assess errors, documenting them provides the
teachers with the opportunity to formulate beliefs around their occurrence and deal with
them.

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4. MATERIALS AND METHODS
4.1 Materials
The collected data for the study will consist of written productions by learners in
Swedish secondary schools. The study will investigate texts written by two categories of
students. The first group comprises of written productions made by junior students from
specified topics during their usual English lessons and contributed to the Uppsala Learner
English Corpus project. The other group comprises of written productions from senior
students in secondary schools who have contributed to the Uppsala Learner English Corpus
project. Uppsala Learner English Corpus (ULEC) consists of short written productions within
different topics by junior and senior high school students. Student teachers in the course of
undertaking their degree projects collect the texts in ULEC. According to Johansson and
Gesler (2009), the corpus provides student teachers with the right materials to use in the
investigation of students’ English grammatical knowledge. In fact, the essays within the
target group were written in controlled environments. Here, Johansson and Gesler (2009)
state that the students were not allowed access to any books or assistance from a teacher
when writing the productions. Furthermore, all the essays were written under limited time.
The focus of this study was on the essays on the topic:
 Do you believe in ghosts and the supernatural?
4.1.1 Uppsala Learner English Corpus
The Uppsala Learner English Corpus was the primary source of data in this study with
a focus on classifications of grammatical error and their causes. There have been continuous
updates on the corpus since its inception in 2008. The study used the 2017 version of ULEC
containing 270,431 words. Trainee teachers visit schools where they deliver tasks to the
students, which involve writing the essays in a web window. According to Johansson and

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Gesler (2009), ULEC corpus is colloquial in nature considering that most students write as
they speak. The advantage associated with using ULEC is that it is more of a representation
of a spoken English register than written. The ULEC corpus has several sub-corpora
representing year seven junior secondary up to upper secondary year twelve. The study did
not involve the analysis of data produced by students from non-Swedish L1 backgrounds.
Only texts from students who indicated in their texts that they were of Swedish origin were
analysed.
4.2 Methods
4.2.1 Research Design
The present study adopts a mixed research approach with quantitative and qualitative
processes. Treiman (2014) defines quantitative approaches as the techniques used for
collecting large amounts of measurable data. In addition, the quantitative research approach
makes it easy to summarize and compare the data and perform statistical calculations. The
researcher used a quantitative approach to provide the frequencies of errors in the learners’
texts. In the case of the quantitative approach, aspects such as the learners’ gender, the
number of errors in the texts and the lengths of these texts in words are considered. In order
to analyse the content in the texts and identify issues related to grammatical errors, the
researcher took a qualitative approach. According to Orpin (2005), qualitative analysis seeks
to observe and classify the nature and variety of particular phenomena. Unlike the
quantitative analysis part of the methodology that observed and classified the magnitude and
frequency of the errors, the qualitative part helped to determine the basic structural units that
led to the magnitude and frequency of the errors. These include the descriptive techniques
used to analyse the nature and variety of errors. Massey (2011) points out that the qualitative
part of error analysis studies is a prerequisite to a successful quantitative analysis.

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4.2.2 Identification of errors
The errors were identified using the Grammarly and Microsoft Word software. This
grammar check software has a high Accuracy Score and categorises grammatical errors
making it easier for the researcher to classify them. However, the researcher did not use
Grammarly as the ﬁnal means of identifying errors. The researcher also used Microsoft
Word’s default proofing and editing features in order to identify more errors. While the
default function for checking spelling and grammar made it easier to identify errors within
the texts, the researcher also went through the texts in order to avoid missing any
grammatical errors. The researcher used an online-based word frequency counter to come up
with raw frequency of the errors, the learners’ gender, and the number of submitted texts. In
this case, the researcher pasted the text after which he received the word statistics.
4.2.3 Classiﬁcation of error types
The researcher then categorised the grammatical errors based on Taher’s (2011) types
of errors based: verb errors, subject-verb agreement errors, spelling errors, preposition errors,
article errors, punctuation errors, and noun plural errors. The categories themselves tend to be
broad and for the purpose of this research, the researcher split them up. Comparisons were
also made between the two groups to ascertain any difference in grammar proficiency and to
see if particular errors were common to either of the groups.
4.3 Limitations
The researcher addressed some limitations associated with the use of the ULEC as the
primary source of data. One such limitation was that the learners produced the text on
computers. This exposed the essays to typos, which can be mistaken for spelling errors.
According to the researcher, typos are caused by mechanical failure or the slipping of the
finger while typing. In this sense, typos are not caused by errors of ignorance, particularly
spelling errors. The researcher, therefore, made an effort to weed out obvious typos, but still,

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some of them may have been mislabelled. Even though the researcher's exclusion criteria
included eliminating texts from non-Swedish learners, it was difficult to guarantee that all
productions were from Swedish students with Swedish as their first language. It was difficult
to ascertain the respective proficiency of the learners in their first languages, if they were
bilinguals, or if Swedish was their L1. Irrespective of whether the learners had Swedish as
their L1 or L2, grammatical transfers were likely to occur from the other language to English.
However, this may lead to the identification of errors that L1 Swedish learners would not
have made. Even though this may affect the results to a certain extent, the data is valuable for
teachers in multicultural Swedish classrooms. Given a large number of texts, the
identification and analysis of the data was time-consuming. Lastly, the process of data
analysis may also have been prone to bias because of stereotypes and general opinions in the
identification of the causes of certain errors.
5. RESULTS AND ANALYSIS
This section provides an overview of the errors identified in the present study. The
section, therefore, begins with a general overview of the data that was identified in the
corpus, followed by an examination of the frequencies of various types of errors presented by
both Swedish junior and senior students in Swedish secondary schools. The section then
discusses the different types of error and their causes depending on their frequency. The
researcher identified 40 essays from ULEC that were positively marked as belonging to
Swedish L1 learners with a total word count of 9127 and an average of 228 words per essay.
An analysis of the essays resulted in 1,629 errors made by both junior and senior secondary
school students with an average of 40 errors per essay. The essays were on the topic “Do you
believe in ghosts?” there were ten boys and ten girls in junior secondary school between the
ages 14 and 16 and in school years 7 to 9. On the other hand, there were essays from ten boys

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and ten girls from senior secondary school between the ages of 16 and 19 and in year 1 to 3.
The errors percentage was calculated in relation to correct uses.
5.1 Junior High School Students
Junior high school students studied English for approximately 4-7 years before
writing the essays. At this stage, English learning is compulsory. When investigating the
frequency of errors junior students’ English language, the researcher identified 731 errors in
the 20 essays containing 4,504 words of which some errors fell in more than one category.
Table 1: The frequency distribution of errors in junior high school students’ responses,
Source: Author (2018)
Spelling Verb
use
Article
errors
Preposition
use
Pronoun
Errors
Noun
Plurals
Total
Frequency
of errors
201 270 107 62 43 48 731
No of
correct uses
4,504 1,870 890 812 947 458 9,481
Error
percentage
relative to
no. of
correct uses
4% 14% 12% 8% 5% 10% 7.7%
Table 1 depicts the estimated number of grammatical errors found in the written texts of
junior level students. Verb related errors seemed to be the most problematic with 270 errors

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and an error percentage of 14%. The essays also presented many cases of article and spelling
errors with inaccuracies in the use of tenses standing out in this category in the students’
essays especially those in years 7 and 8 of the junior level. Other errors like wrong use of
preposition were also evident in the texts produced by the junior students.
5.2 Senior High School Students
The senior high school students had studied English for a period of between 8-10
years before writing the essays. Year 3 students of senior secondary school learned the
English C course, which is elective. In this regard, only the students in the academic
programs undertake the English C course. According to Johansson and Geisler (2011), the
course prepares students for university studies by stressing correct writing during grading.
Within this group of essays, 355 errors were found in 20 productions comprising 4,623
words. The results are shown in table 2.
Table 2: The frequency distribution of errors in senior high school students’ essays, Source:
Author (2018)
Spelling Verb
use
Article
errors
Preposition
use
Pronoun
Errors
Noun
Plurals
Total
Frequency
of errors
87 80 40 56 48 44 355
No of
correct uses
4,623 1,510 1012 901 1001 507 9,554
Error
percentage
relative to
2% 5% 4% 6% 5% 9% 4%

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no. of
correct uses
Table 2 is a representation of the error analysis of the essays produced by senior high school
students. Verb related errors and spelling errors were the highest at 80 and 87 errors
respectively. The students also experienced challenges in exclusion or insertion of extra
letters in words. There were also cases of punctuation errors and preposition errors as
indicated in the table.
5.3 Error categories
Table 1 and 2 show a general view of all error categories presented in the essays
produced by both junior and senior students respectively, including the frequencies of the
errors as well as the error percentages calculated in relation to the number of correct uses. As
portrayed by the frequency figures, verb related errors and spelling errors were the most
frequent ones in the collected data. Some error categories like preposition and punctuation
errors only made up a small percentage of all errors and may be treated as minor errors, but
were analysed briefly in order to cover all areas that students use grammatical structures
incorrectly.
5.3.1 Spelling errors
Correct spelling has to be mastered by the student for good communication in the written
form. According to Subhi and Yasin (2015), spelling errors are wrong arrangement of letters
to form words. This only means that writing correct spelling increases the quality of the
written texts. The identified spelling errors, therefore, enabled the researcher to understand
learners’ spelling difficulties. The researcher classified and analysed spelling errors according

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to Cook’s (1999) classification. In this case, the researcher identified three common types of
spelling errors:
a. Omissions, where the learners deleted letters from the correct word. These were the
most common among the spelling errors, appearing in almost every essay for the
junior learners as in example (1) and some of the essays for the senior learners as in
example (2)
b. Substitutions, where the learners replaced a letter in the words with another. These
errors had a less frequent compared to omission errors in junior leaners texts but rare
in the senior student’s texts. In examples (1) and (2), there was only one case in each.
c. Insertions, where the learners added extra letters to the correct spelling of a word.
This errors were more frequent with junior students, like in the case of example (1),
which has three such errors (excist, happends, whats). However, junior students like
in example (3) had only one insertion error (scientifical)
Examples of spelling errors committed by the learners in this research are listed below and
categorised in table 3:
(1) no i do not because it dont make sence that they excist…… Many people don´t know
so much about it. No one knows whats happends after ded. And i think that many
people is intrested in that. Because everbody is gonna be there, sometimes and they
wanna know whats happend next. (ULEC male student, aged 14, junior, year 7,
English A)
(2) its people evry where to watch me from many diffrent brands. if a do a godd ride a
probably get sponserd and i have afford to travel around the world on competitions. i
take on my snowboard on my feets glid donw to the start se all the people. (ULEC
male student, aged 18, senior, year 2, English A)

21
(3) There could be numerous scientifical explanations as far as I'm concerned, however. I
don't see a reason to look further into it until something actually happens in my life if
you know what I mean. (ULEC male student, aged 18, senior, year 1, English A)
Table 3: spelling error examples
Error type Example Correct word
Insertion scientifical scientific
Whats What
Excist Exist
Substitution Sence Sense
Godd Good
Omission Diffrent Different
Evry Every
5.3.2 Verb related errors
Quirk (2010) defines verbs as action words indicating a state of being. In this regard, verb
related errors include the misuse of verbs by students in terms of modelling the verb to fulfil
many grammatical functions. Verb related errors were identified in the writings of the
students and were related to various uses and forms. The analysis revealed Subject-Verb
Agreement and Tense Inconsistency categories of verb errors:
Subject-Verb Agreement

22
According to Bock et al. (1999), subject-verb agreement implies that subject and verb within
a sentence must agree in number. For instance, a singular noun needs to be accompanied by a
verb that is conjugated in a manner that suits singular nouns. The same applies for plural
nouns and verbs. In this regard, nouns and verbs form plurals in the opposite way in present
tenses. Failure to implement rule on subject-verb agreement indicated that the learners were
not aware of, among other things, linking number with verbs, identifying the number of
subjects, and identifying the subject within a verb phrase (Bock, et al., 1999). In this category
of verb errors, the students did not inflect the verb correctly with respect to the subject.
(4) Every person have their own opinion about this and every person believe in different
things (ULEC female student, aged 17, senior, year 1, English A)
(5) I do not know someone that in some way believe in ghosts (ULEC male student, aged
14, junior, year 9, English A)
(6) somthing I feel or some other person feel (ULEC male student, aged 14, junior, year
8, English A)
(7) i think aliens is like a gren discusting thing and they is in kids fantasy. (ULEC female
student, aged 13, junior, year 7, English A)
In example (4), the student used have instead of has with the singular noun every person.
Example (5) also involves the use of the verb form believe instead of believes when referring
to the noun someone. Majority of subject verb agreement errors occurred with singular
indefinite pronouns. In example (4) and (5), the students used Every person have instead of
Every person has and someone that in some way believe instead of someone that in some way
believes respectively. However, ther were also cases where the students did not match verbs
correctly with plural noun phrases as in example (7), where the student uses aliens is like
instead of aliens are like.

23
Tense Inconsistency
Correct grammar requires writers to refrain from shifting between tenses for events that occur
within the same time. Some of the examples of tense inconsistencies produced by the
students are
(8) We light up the hole house and then we found wet footsteps behind the sofa (ULEC
female student, aged 16, senior, year 1, English A)
(9) me and my friend believed that we had saw a ghost while constructing a playhouse
(ULEC male student, aged 14, junior, year 9, English A)
(10) we drove to the casttle in the night and we had Heard so much creepy things Abou the
castle (ULEC female student, aged 17, senior, year 2, English B)
The student in example (8) begins the sentence in present tense but shifts to past tense at the
end of the phrase We light up the hole house and then we found wet footsteps. In example (9),
the student confuses between simple past and past participle. He uses the phrase we had saw
a ghost instead of we had seen a ghost. In this regard, the student is inconsistent in how he
uses the past participle tense. A similar case is depicted by the student in example (10). Here,
the student introduces a past participle form of verb in a sentence that began as past tense.
5.3.3 Article Errors
Articles are words that specify the grammatical definiteness of nouns, and in some
cases, they extending to show numerical scope. Article errors involves wrong, overused and
missing definite and indefinite articles ‘a’, ‘an’ and ‘the’. Articles are either definite or
indefinite. The definite article the limits nouns to one particular thing while indefinite articles
a and an indicates noun while referring to a general idea. The use of articles follows some
basic rules in English. For instance, singular common nouns are always preceded with an
article. In addition, the learner may write a plural common noun with or without an article.

24
However, some of the learners that produced the essays in the corpus overlooked the basic
rules that guide the use of articles. In this regard, the article errors were divided into three:
Missing articles
(11) we want to explore earth to the fullest… (ULEC male student, aged 17, senior, year 1,
English A)
For missing article errors, the learners left out articles in the sentences that they produce.
Missing articles was the most frequently committed article error in all the essays. The
sentence in example (11) the student omitted the definite article ‘the’ before Earth. Article
errors took up a smaller percentage of the aggregate errors that were analysed.
Wrong article use
(12) But I do believe that there are other creatures out there, in an other solarsystem
(ULEC female student, aged 13, junior, year 9, English A)
(13) so peolpe who believe in an religion they try to get safe from the unkown(ULEC male
student, aged 16, senior, year 1, English A)
in wrong use of articles, the students included articles in their statements but used them
wrongly. Unlike in the case of missing articles, this type of article error appeared the least. In
example (12), the learner uses the article “an” before “other” instead of “another”. The same
case applies to example (13) where the learner used the article “an” with “religion” instead of
using the term “a” considering that religion begins with a consonant.
Redundant article
(14) I never liked the dark as a child. I don't recall being afraid of anything specific, only a
irrational fear of the dark. (ULEC male student, aged 18, senior, year 3, English C)

25
(15) I was in a old house with some friends I thought that it was a ghost in the house
(ULEC female student, aged 13, junior, year 7, English A)
For redundant articles, students used indefinite articles inappropriately. This implies that
either of the indefinite articles was used in place of the other. When referring to “irrational
fear” in example (14), the learner used article “a” instead of “an”. In another example (15),
the learner writes “a old house” instead of “an old house”.
5.3.4 Pronoun Errors
Pronouns are words used instead of nouns or equivalents of noun ( (Quirk, 2010).
According to Sorenson (2010), pronoun agreement errors are the mistakes made by learners
in matching a pronoun with its antecedent in terms of number, person, relation, or gender.
The most common rule of pronoun agreement is that singular nouns are replaced with
singular pronouns and the same applies in the plural form. In this case, some of the learners
violated their proper use. The researcher identified pronoun agreement errors comprising of
relative demonstrative, possessive, and personal pronouns made by learners. Personal
pronouns refer to it, we, they, you, he, she and I, as grammatical persons. These pronouns
take different forms depending on gender, number and formality. Most of the students failed
to use proper personal pronouns.
(16) from time to time kidnap people to study them and them erase their memory (ULEC
male student, aged 14, junior, year 9, English A)
(17) because theirs parents say that they have seen ghosts (ULEC male student, aged 15,
junior, year 9, English A)
(18) …they who have proof that ghosts exist… (ULEC male student, aged 16, senior, year
1, English A)

26
(19) we have created this ghosts in our minds (ULEC male student, aged 16, senior, year
1, English A)
(20) everyone whose afraid of the dark… (ULEC male student, aged 14, junior, year 9,
English A)
The learner in example (16) shows a shallow understanding of personal pronouns “they” by
using “them” in its place. There were rare cases of errors with possessive pronouns in the
students’ essays. In example (17), the student uses “theirs parents” in the middle of the
sentence instead of “their parents”, which would have been the correct version. This is an
indication that the student is unfamiliar with the applicable rules in English language.
Demonstrative pronouns are pronouns used to indicate specific things. According to Ellis
(1994), errors related to demonstrative pronouns tend to occur because of poor
comprehension of the rules of English grammar. Example (18) is a case where the student
used a personal pronoun “they” instead of “those”. In this case, the correct sentence should
have been “those who have proof that ghosts exist”. A similar case is exhibited in example
(19) in which the student writes, “we have created this ghosts in our minds” rather than “we
have created these ghosts in our minds.” Finally, relative pronouns are used to introduce
relative clauses that modify a noun or pronoun. Some of examples of relative pronouns
include whom, whose, who, which and that. Some misuse these pronouns in place of other
words with similar pronunciation. In example (20), the student used a relative pronoun
“whose” instead of the correct form “who is”. Issues regarding the use of pronouns tend to
affect even those who have a significant mastery of English because they treat the errors as
minor issues yet they play a huge role in perfecting grammar.

27
5.3.5 Prepositions
Prepositions are words that tell the reader the place and location an event took place,
including how it occurred. It is however important to note that while some phrases require
preposition, others do not. The researcher, therefore, used Karlsson’s (2001) model to
categorise errors in the use of prepositions as basic, systematic, and idiomatic prepositions. In
this regard, students’ development in the use of prepositional is predictable.
Basic preposition are those that can easily be predicted because they are identical to both
English and Swedish.
(21) the reason i think like this is because i put my faith on science. (ULEC male student,
aged 17, senior, year 1, English A)
(22) Accually I can´t awnser on that question (ULEC female student, aged 13, junior, year
7, English A)
In example (21), the student used the preposition on instead of in. According to Karlsson
(2001), prepositional errors are persistent among Swedish students. In Swedish, it is common
to follow a preposition with “that”, which causes errors in the English language. In examples
(22), the students misuse the preposition “on” by placing it where it should not be and
following it with “that”.
Systematic prepositional errors are associated with preposition use that requires the students
to memorise prefabricated patterns of preposition use, for example using on before days of
the week
(23) Just that friday my friend went home (ULEC female student, aged 15, junior, year 9,
English A)

28
In example (23), the student omits the preposition on Friday that follows the rule that
requires the use of on when referring events taking place on a specific day of the week
(Karlsson, 2001).
Idiomatic prepositional errors pose the greatest challenge to students because they must be
learnt as phrases with verbs, nouns or adjectives and are unpredictable. However, there were
very few of the errors identified.
(24) we stop believe at supernatural powers and ghosts (ULEC female student, aged 15,
junior, year 9, English A)
(25) When you look at the sky (ULEC male student, aged 16, senior, year 1, English A)
In examples (24) and (25), the student fails to use the correct form of the phrase believe in
and look in respectively. In example (25), the student referred to objects in the sky rather than
the sky itself.
5.3.6 Noun Plural errors
Noun plurals indicate number values of more than one in grammar. Noun plural errors occur
due to the many differences in countability and number between English and Swedish. This
error category classifies omission, addition and irregular use of plurals.
Omissions
(26) the good people that behave and live their life right gets to go to heaven (ULEC male
student, aged 14, junior, year 9, English A)
(27) Or when some person say that they saw somthing and they think it´s a ghost (ULEC
male student, aged 16, senior, year 1, English A)

29
These are cases where the students failed to use noun plurals. In example (26), the student
used the singular form of “life”, probably because of the influence of Swedish. Example (27)
also portrays a situation where the student made an error by using the singular form “person”
to refer to “people”.
Additions
(28) … In my friends house, we saw shadows (ULEC female student, aged 17, senior, year
1, English A)
This category of noun plural errors involved the use of noun plurals where they were not
required. In example (28), the student used the plural noun friends where he was supposed to
use the singular form with an apostrophe.
Irregular use of plurals
(29) … But as there are so many galaxes and the universe is always expanding
(30) …I was with two friends and somethings happened (ULEC female student, aged 16,
senior, year 1, English A)
In this case, the students came up with the wrong forms of plural nouns. In example (29), the
student used the wrong plural noun by following the traditional rule of adding -es, galaxes,
instead of galaxies. In example (30), the student exhibits overused plurals. In this case, the
student should have either used the phrase “something happened” or separated “somethings”
into “some things” in order to communicate the intended meaning.
6. DISCUSSION
The data analysis confirms earlier studies by Bock and Miller (1991) that verb related
errors are common among ESL students. Additionally, the identification of spelling errors as

30
problematic to ESL students is consistent with the study conducted by Karra (2006), which
indicated that spelling mistakes pose serious problems English learners. The results are
similar to the findings of Thagg-Fisher’s (1985) that people make errors with irregular and
unmarked indefinite nouns that lack the regular –s morpheme. In this sense, the students were
likely to make concord errors with nouns that they find difficult to classify differently in
English. From the data analysis, some areas of writing appeared to be more problematic than
others. The frequency of verb related errors was highest among junior students and ranked
second among senior students. Based on the frequency of these errors, majority of students
appeared to have difficulty narrating/giving their views and opinions about ghosts. Most of
the students’ texts contained more than one error type. Furthermore, none of the students’
essays was error free. However, some students had relatively many errors in their texts,
which may have resulted from carelessness and ignorance.
Some of the students in senior school showed a clear understanding of the rules of the
language like in example (3). Even though some of the students produced good sentence
structures by applying the knowledge learned on grammar, their errors occurred because they
used wrong patterns in making sentence structure. Johansson and Geisler (2011) associate
such errors with the enthusiasms of students to put to practice the materials learned in class.
Furthermore, the error percentage of 4% obtained from the results of the senior students
reflect the findings of Karlsson (2014) that there is likely to be errors amounting to between
2-5% of words contained in any text made by students, which may be unfamiliar to the
student. In this regard, all the essays that were analysed portrayed the difficulties experienced
by the students in producing grammatical sentence, and Karlsson (2014) associates this errors
with the difficulty in producing grammatically right sentences structures.

31
6.1 The Comparison between the Junior and Senior Students
The total percentage of errors relative to correct uses made by the junior school
students was higher than that of senior school students at 10% and 5% respectively. This
means that for every 20 correct uses of grammar in the English language, the junior students
presented 1 error, whereas, for every 10 correct uses of grammar in the English language, the
senior students presented 1 error. This confirms the finding of Johansson and Geisler (2011)
that Junior high school students present more errors in written English compared to their
senior counterparts. The junior school students showed a higher frequency of errors in all the
categories. In this regard, the senior students seemed to be more competent in L2 acquisition.
According to Thagg-Fisher (1985), one of the reasons that could explain why senior school
students outperformed the junior students is because they have more experience in using the
English language and its related grammatical rules.
6.2 Vanishing errors
Heydari and Bagheri (2012) conducted a review of studies investigating the sources of
L2 leaners’ errors and found that some errors seem to be common among learners in junior
high school, but seem to be less frequent in senior high school students. The percentage of
errors related to subject verbs agreements tend to reduce significantly between junior and
senior students, therefore, confirming the findings of Heydari and Bagheri (2012). On the
other hand, problems like insertion spelling errors that requires more complex linguistic
understanding are evident in both junior and senior students. However, the reduction in the
number of errors in some categories shows that students of senior high school are more
acquainted with English grammar rules. There were also few idiomatic prepositional errors
identified in the junior and year 1 senior students’ texts whereas none in the junior year 2 and
year 3 texts in the material. This confirms Karlsson’s (2001) assumption that the learners may
either be avoiding to use idiomatic prepositional constructions or they were able to use them

32
correctly. According to Karlsson (2001), idiomatic prepositions are learnt as a group of words
of which the learners must understand their correct uses.
6.3 Developments across age
The error categories were analysed across variable School year levels, thereby taking
into account the age factor. In this regard, errors made by students in the junior high school
level presented high values than the corresponding values in senior high school. However, the
majority of the errors that were committed by year 9 junior high school students were
replicated in the year one senior high counterpart. Similar results were found by Katiya et al.
(2015) and Johansson and Geisler (2011). Year two and three senior high school students
committed less errors compared to year one senior high school students. These differences
show a clear progression from year junior high school straight to year 3 of senior high school.
In this sense, Swedish students in year 3 of senior high school have the highest proficiency
level in the English language. This can be seen in their essays.
(31) I am not afraid of ghosts. However, I am afraid of the unknown. Since nobody knows
if ghosts exists or not, one can argue that that might include ghosts. (ULEC male
student, aged 18, senior, year 3, English C)
(32) Imagine a forest, old and dense, completely untouched and yet to be discovered by
human exploiters. Imagine the sounds made by such a forest, the rustling of the
leaves, the snapping of twigs and branches under the weight of an unknown creature.
(ULEC female student, aged 18, senior, year 3, English C)
7. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
In conclusion, the research identified the types of errors that are commonly made by
Swedish students in English writing as spelling errors, verb related errors, subject-verb

33
agreement errors, article errors, pronoun errors, prepositions, and noun plural errors. The
most common error across the texts was the issue with spelling which may have resulted
from the L1 influence and/or carelessness. Swedish students learning English as L2 are likely
to demonstrate atypical English spellings influenced by exposure to the L1. In this case,
negative transfer occurs when the student is yet to acquire language-specific knowledge in
the L2, thereby wrongfully applying knowledge in L1 in the spellings of L2. Even though the
Swedish language is considered to be similar to English, there are distinguishing
characteristics, particularly with regards to subject-verb agreements. Swedish learners are
therefore likely to exhibit subject-verb agreement errors. This study extends the work of
Karlsson (2001) on Swedish students' proficiency in the English-language from error analysis
to development of knowledge in grammar. In this regard, as learners progress in the
acquisition of the norms of L2 grammar, the frequency of errors tend to reduce.
Error analysis helps teachers and students alike to become aware of the errors
committed when writing the English language and therefore pay attention to them. In
addition, the research is beneficial for future Swedish teachers and curriculum developers in
English as it gives them an overview of the grammatical errors common to Swedish junior
and senior high school students learning in Swedish secondary schools. In this sense, they
will be able to broaden their perspective on the various ways of working with and teaching
English grammar. The indicators of progress in the learning of grammar within the different
levels have been identified in this study as age (in terms of the school year) and education
level (in junior and senior high school). However, the study does not put into consideration
the significance across gender. It is important that future research investigate the significant
gender differences in language acquisition and the prevalence of grammatical errors among
Swedish learners in Swedish junior and senior high school.

34
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