Analysis of Errors in Students’ Writing in EFL Context: The Case of Three Selected Secondary Schools of Sidama Region

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to analyze errors in secondary school students’ writing in EFL context. Three secondary schools were purposively selected from Hawassa town, Sidama Region. A quantitative approach was employed in order to investigate the type of errors and their frequency of occurrence in students’ writing. A total of 26 students with different L1 background participated in the study of which four-fifth were Geez-script L1 speakers, and the remaining one-fifth were speakers of Latin-script L1. Chuang & Nesi’s (2006) error categorization system was adapted for analyzing errors in the paragraphs. In terms of the target language level, the errors categories identified in the students’ writing were grammatical, lexical-grammatica, and lexical errors. The first one was a predominantly identified error category and the third one was also common in the students’ paragraphs. Based on the linguistic unit they belong to, the top ten errors in order of frequency were punctuation, capitalization, misspelling, sentence part, lexical misconception, preposition, verb, determiner and noun of which the third and the fifth were lexical errors and the remaining eight were grammatical errors. Of the surface structure errors misselection, misformation and ommission were frequent errors though there were also overinclusion and misordering errors. The findings also reveal that Geez-script L1 speakers and Latin-script L1 speakers had some differences in terms of error categories as well as frequency of occurrence. Finally, it is recommended that secondary school students should be given opportunities to practice writing and to tackle their deficiency of lower order linguistic and surface structure skills of writing. They should also be supported to strive for achieving higher order skills.