An Investigation of EFL Learners’ most Common Grammatical Written Errors and their Causes

Abstract

EFL learners confront many difficulties in learning the English language, especially with regard to the writing skill. In fact, they may commit numerous errors in their writing. This study is an investigation of EFL learners’ most common grammatical written errors and their causes. The aim of this study is to explore the most recurrent grammatical errors made by second year Licence students and their causes in their writing productions at the University of Mohammed Seddik Ben Yahia Jijel. Two questionnaires were addressed to 97 second year students and 5 teachers who are specialized in teaching writing classes. In addition, 31 essays of second year students were analysed to find out the most frequent errors in their writing. Based on the overall results obtained from the two research instruments, namely questionnaire and document analysis, it was found that students’ most frequent grammatical errors are tenses, punctuation, subject-verb agreement, and capitalization. Moreover, the findings of this research work showed that intralingual transfer, negative transfer of students’ mother tongue, lack of practice, and low level of proficiency are the main causes behind students’ grammatical errors. Furthermore, there are other less influential causes to students’ grammatical errors such as negligence, skipping classes, misorientation in majoring, demotivation, poor teaching skills, time limit, and lack of reading.