COURSE CODE: BIL 3013

COURSE TITLE : ENGLISH GRAMMAR

SEMESTER : SEMESTER 1 2012/2013

TASK TITLE : TASK 2 : ERROR ANALYSIS

PREPARED BY

MATRICULATION TELEPHONE
NAME GROUP
NUMBER NUMBER

MOHD HALIM SHAH

D20102046784 UPSI02(A121PJJ) 013-2498474
BIN MISWAN

LECTURERS NAME : DR NAPISAH BINTI KEPOL

HAND IN DATE : 30 NOVEMBER 2012

INTRODUCTION

Grammar is said to be the heart of any language. Learning the correct grammar is very
important in order to produce proper sentence structures. The rules of these structures are known
as grammar. They are the buildings blocks which a language learner must know how to use when
he or she constructs sentences in order to communicate effectively and be understood.
Individuals with writing problems may have difficulties in one or more aspects of writing skill
such as proper use of grammar, conventions, punctuation, capitalization, spelling, and some of
the basic and initiating aspects of writing. Very often, students use the wrong form of verb in a
sentence which does not agree with the subject as well as the tense.

This error analysis is done with my Year 6 (Level 2) pupils. They are from medium and
low proficiency levels. Less than 25% pupils attended tuition classes because of the
unavailability of such services or their parents cannot afford to send them to one. A combination
of factors such as poverty, unavailability of tuition services / centers, social environment, interest
and attitude contributes to the pupils inability to acquire the target language, which is English.

1. Choose one part of speech

a. The part of speech that I choose is verb.

2. Examine the errors that your pupils make when using the part of speech in their
written work. Group the errors into different types.

a. When I read my pupils written work, I find out that the one of the highest errors
when using the part of speech is concerning the verb. They are not very sure and
not confident with the usage of the verb. These pupils are confused when using
certain types of verbs which is not likely the same with their mother tongue,
Bahasa Melayu / Bahasa Malaysia. For instant, in Bahasa Malaysia, they dont
have auxiliary verbs (or helping verbs), regular and irregular verbs and
changes in verb forms when the tense is different. Based on these observation, I
will group the pupils errors as follow:

1
 Error groups:

i. Auxiliary verbs
a. wrongly used auxiliary verbs (wrong type, wrong place)
b. over-used of auxiliary verbs (putting them unnecessarily)
c. omission of auxiliary verbs (leaving out auxiliary verbs)

ii. Regular and irregular verbs

a. Pupils are confused with the changes in verb forms (spelling)
between regular and irregular verbs

iii. Omission of the main verb

a. Pupils leave out the main verb in their sentences

iv. Verb after infinitive to

a. Wrong use of verb forms after infinitive to

3. Describe each type of error thoroughly. Provide examples of the errors as used by
the pupils.

i. Auxiliary Verbs.
a. Wrongly used auxiliary verbs (wrong type, wrong place)

Description / explanation of error:

The pupils use the wrong type of auxiliary verb. They are not sure
which is the correct auxiliary form to use when the sentence is in the
Present Tense or the Past Tense. Pupils simply write / put down an
auxiliary verb which is in the past tense, into a sentence which is in the
present tense. The pupil should have written is in place of was since
the sentences are in the Present Tense. Another possible explanation is the
Subject-Verb Agreement rule which says that the verb must always
agree with the subject. This particular pupil may have followed the rule

2
 partly since he managed to use was which agrees with the subject Encik
Jasin and the pronoun He. However, he may overlooked the tense of the
sentence, which is in the Present Tense. So, he should have written is in
place of was.

There are two examples for this group of error:

Example 1: Encik Jasin was a kind man

Example 2: He was an owner of a foodstuff in his village.

These are the correct forms of the verbs:

Example 1: Encik Jasin is a kind man.

(The auxiliary verb is replaces auxiliary verb was)

Example 2: He is the owner of a food store in his village.

(The auxiliary verb is replaces auxiliary verb was,
an owner change to the owner,
foodstuff to food store)

Supporting resource:

Richard Hughes & Carmel Heah in Common Errors in English:

Grammar Exercises for Malaysians, p.133, explain that you cannot
begin to write in English until you have decided which group of tenses
you wish to use. There are two basic groups; present and past.

Supporting this explanation, Magdalene Chew & Surinder Kaur

(2003), in their book, The New Students Companion: for Malaysian
Students, pp.136-137 stated that the verb must always agree with the
subject.

3
 b. Over-used of auxiliary verbs (putting / placing them unnecessarily)

Description / explanation of error:

The pupil uses more auxiliary than is needed in a sentence. He is not

supposed to write two auxiliary verbs side by side in a sentence. One reasonable
explanation for this over-used of auxiliary is perhaps due to the structure in the
Bahasa Malaysia sentence; telah melihat is written as had saw. The pupil
should have just leave out the auxiliary verb had and just write , One day three
boys saw a young boy grabbed a tin of biscuits. This error is possibly based upon
the interference of the pupils mother tongue.

Another possible explanation for this error is perhaps due to

misunderstanding between the Past Tense and Past Perfect Tense. This is possible
because both have almost similar characteristics. For example, both mean
something had been done in the past. In Past Perfect, the basic sentence structure
is,

Subject + verb to have + participle + object

So, this pupil may get confused and has written,
Three boys + had + saw (supposed to be seen) + a young boy ...

Thus, he may not know what to choose and simply write the above sentence.

There is one example for this group of error:

Example 1: One day, three boys had saw a young boy grabbed a tin of
biscuits.

The correct form is ,

One day, three boys saw a young boy grabbed a tin of biscuits.

4
Supporting Resource:

Betty Schrampfer Azar (2003) in Fundamentals of English Grammar,

p.164, stated that the simple past expresses an activity that occurred at a
specific time (or times) in the past. Betty further added that, the present
perfect expresses an activity that occurred at an unspecified time (or times) in the
past.

c. Omission of auxiliary verbs (leaving out auxiliary verbs)

Example of error : Encik Jasin mad at him.

The correct version : Encik Jasin was mad at him.

Description / explanation of error:

The most possible explanation for the pupils error is quite similar to (i) b,
which is possibly caused by interference of the pupils mother tongue. The pupil
might be influenced by the Bahasa Malaysia sentence structure which may look
like this,

Encik Jasin marah padanya,

which cause the pupil to directly translate it into
Encik Jasin mad at him,
instead of writing
Encik Jasin was mad at him.

The auxiliary verb was should be used since the sentence is in the Past Tense.

5
The second type of error that the pupil has done is,

ii. Regular and irregular verbs

a. Pupils are confused with the changes in verb forms (spelling) between regular
and irregular verbs

Example of error:

Example 1: They maked a long line in front of the counter.

Example 2: They taked him to met Encik Jasin.

Description / explanation of error:

The pupil is possibly confused of the changes in spelling or the changes in
the verb form of irregular verb such as make and take.
She may not realize that the sentences should be written as,

Example 1: They made a long line in front of the counter.

Example 2: They took him to meet Encik Jasin.

Supporting resource:

According to E.W. Roberts & Martins in A Practical Approach to English

Grammar and Composition for High Schools (2001), p.115, many other Verbs
form their Past Tense by simply changing their inside vowel or by having several
letters added on to the Present Tense. In some cases only vowel is changed, while
in other case several letters have to be added on. We call such Verbs the irregular
Verbs because they do not take ed or d to form their Past Tense.

Another reference material supporting this explanation is English

Grammar: A Malaysian Student Guide by Peggy Chan (2012), pp 21-24, which
explains explain that Irregular Verbs may include two of the three forms are
identical.

6
 A brief example showing that two of the three forms of the Irregular Verbs
mentioned by Peggy Chan is shown below,

Base Simple Past Tense Past Participle

Become Became Became
Keep Kept Kept
Make Made Made
Take Took took
Win Won Won
Tell Told Told
Think Thought thought

The third type or group of error is,

iii. Omission of the main verb

Example 1: He pity because the young boy was jobless.
The correct sentence is,
He felt pity because the young boy was jobless.

Description / explanation of error:

The pupil once again is influenced by his mother tongue, Bahasa Malaysia
which possibly says,

Dia kasihan sebab budak lelaki itu tiada pekerjaan

and directly translate it into

He pity because the young boy was jobless.

Another possible explanation is that the pupil may not know or simply has
forgotten the simple basic rule of an English sentence which says that every
sentence must have a verb /main verb. According to this simple basic structure of
an English sentence,

7
 Subject + Object + Object
(S) + (V) + (O)

Supporting resource:

Richard Hughes & Carmel Heah in Commmon Errors in English:

Grammar Exercises for Malaysians,p.181, explain that every English
sentence has at least two parts: a subject and a verb. The subject, placed at or
near the beginning of the sentence, tells us what the sentence is about; it always
consists of a noun, or some words which can function as a noun. They further add,
but every English sentence follows the same basic pattern. Hence, in this
example, the pupil has definitely missed out the most basic rule in an English
sentence by leaving out the verb / main verb of the sentence.

Peggy Chan (2012) in English Grammar: A Malaysian Student Guide pp-

126-127, also supports this by saying that a basic sentence pattern consists of
the subject and the predicate. The subject is the doer of the action while the
predicate refers to the words that tell us something about the subject and always
has a verb.

The fourth and final type of error made by the pupil is,

iv. Verb after infinitive to

a. Wrong use of verb forms after infinitive to

Description / Explanation of error:

Possibly, the pupil has forgotten the rule which says that in certain
parts of sentences , the main verb written after the infinitive to should
be in the base form (original form). Another explanation is perhaps due
to the verb took which is in the Past Tense. He is influenced by this
and simply write meet as met, thinking that it is in the Past Tense.
8
 Example of error:

They took him to met Encik Jasin.

The sentence should be written as,

They took him to meet Encik Jasin.

Supporting resource:

Marian Tan (1989) in Basic Grammar 3, p.66, explains that infinitive

is the root word or base of a verb. We can make tenses from it. We can use an
infinitive in many ways. Two common forms of infinitive are:

a. With to : to walk, to go, to catch, to thank

b. Without to : w\alk, go, catch, thank

We often use an infinitive with to to show the purpose of an action.

Examples:

a. Salmah went to the market to buy some vegetables. (Correct)

b. Salmah went to the market and bought some vegetables. (Correct)
c. Salmah went to the market bought some vegetables. (Wrong)

9
CONCLUSION

A thorough examination of syntactical differences between the Malay language and

English has been shown to be one of the major factors in students inability to successfully
master the English language; to successfully understand and apply their existing knowledge of
English grammatical structure, as reflected in the results of the written work done by the pupils.
Various efforts, on both national and individual levels, have been poured into the strategies to
improve students ability or command of English language. However this usually focuses on
pedagogy or the teaching of the target language. Perhaps it is timely now to suggest that English
teachers should be exposed to linguistic knowledge to better equip them in teaching the
language. Because as was previously explained, comparative analysis of the two languages ie
Bahasa Malaysia dan English Language may be one of the ways in understanding and solving
this persistent problem of inadequacy in target language application. In addition, attention should
also be given to conducive and comfortable learning environment to make learning English more
fun and exciting, which in turn makes learning more meaningful. All these factors beg the
attention of all parties involved in the effort or drive to improve students acquisition of the
English language.

One of the main constraints of English acquisition among Malaysian students is the
differences of syntactical structures between the Malay and English language. Syntax is one of
the main areas of linguistics in which sentence structures and patterns are analyzed. Although
Malay and English share the same basic structure, that is subject-verb- object (SVO), there are
numerous other differences between the two languages such as the usage of copula be, subject-
verb agreement, articles, determiner and relative pronouns.

In the English grammatical system, the form of copula be is crucial in a sentence to

connect the subject of a sentence with a predicate. There are three forms of copula be for the
present tense namely am, is for the third person singular subjects and are for plural ones as
well as you. As for the past tense form was is used for singular subjects (I, he, she, it) while
were is for plural subjects (you, we, they) including you in the form of second person
singular. This phenomenon, which does not exist in the Malay language and the complexity of
the grammatical rules leads to the students failure to acquire the target language.

10
 Also, there have been studies that analyze the structural differences between the Malay
and English language. The studies revealed that differences between the two language structures
interfere in the learning of English grammar, which consequently will hinder the acquisition of
English as a second language. A review of the related studies on English language learning in
Malaysian schools context indicates that the first language (Bahasa Malaysia) interferes
considerably with the second language learning.

Then, it was claimed that using the correct form of English grammar is the main problem
with Malaysian students writing. The three recurrent grammatical errors were the misuse of
articles, to be verb, and subject-verb agreements. Finally, the researchers concluded that the
majority of the grammatical errors are due to the first language interference which is Malay
language or Bahasa Melayu.

SUGGESTIONS

The following suggestions and remedies have been proposed by some experienced
teachers and the researchers based on their experience to reduce the problems in conventions,
punctuation, and language use.

They are:
Writing classes must witness more practice than delivering lectures
The teacher must explain the use of all the punctuation marks
The teacher must explain the rules of capitalization
The teacher must engage the learners in memory/vocabulary games
The teacher must motivate and encourage the learners before the actual writing
The teacher must provide the language support on every single topic
The teacher must act as a prompter to assist the student at times
Students should be encouraged to do home assignment as much as possible

11
Remedial Exercises

A. Conventions
Copy and dictation
Jumbled words exercise, and peer editing.

B. Punctuations
Storytelling (melody of speech),
Editing, and
Loud reading with proper punctuation awareness

C. Language use
Form and functions exercises,
Sequence of tenses exercises, and
Gap filling/story writing exercises.

Therefore, all ESL teachers are suggested to deeply give attention to their students errors
and practice innovated styles to face these complexities in writing classes. Further studies can
also measure the effect of teachers feedback and teaching style of writing errors changes.

12
REFERENCES

Betty Schrampfer Azar (2003) , Understanding and Using English Grammar Second Edition,
New Jersey: Prentice Hall Regents.

E.W. Roberts & Martins (2000), Practical Approach to English Grammar and Composition for
High Schools, Kuala Lumpur, Golden Books Centre Sdn Bhd.

Magdalene Chew, Surinder Kaur (2003), The New Students Companion For Malaysian
Students, Cheras: System Publishing House Sdn Bhd.

Marian Tan (1989) Basic Grammar 3, Petaling Jaya, Longman Malaysia Sdn Bhd.

Peggy Chan (2012), English Grammar- A Malaysian Student Guide, Petaling Jaya, Sasbadi Sdn
Bhd.

Richard Hughes, Carmel Heah(1989), Common Errors in English Grammar Exercises for
Malaysians, Petaling Jaya, Penerbit Fajar Bakti Sdn Bhd.

13
APPENDICES

Students written work based on Question 3, Section C of the UPSR English Language format.

14
Student A

Encik Jasin was a kind man. He had a business. He was an owner of a foodstuff in his
village. Every day, his villagers, young or old went to his shop to buy for some food. They
maked a long line in front of the counter. Some of his customers talked each other happily. He
talked to his customers politely and smiled. His customers were very satisfied with the service
quality of his job that he gave to them.

One day, three boys had saw a young boy grabbed a tin of biscuits from Encik Jasins
shop. They chased after him. The young boy felt worried and he ran more faster than them but
suddenly, he knocked on a stone and fell on the ground. He was lucky because he was not
injured. They taked him to met Encik Jasin.

Encik Jasin mad of him. The young boy told that he not had enough money to buy for it.
Encik Jasin pity of him. He gave the boy advice and also took the boy to work with him. The boy
was very grateful and promised not to do it again. The three boys got some present from Encik
Jasin for their help and them thanked him.

Students B

Encik Jasin was the owner of a foodstuff shop. He did his work with his household. They
cooperate together.

Last Sunday evening, young boy went to Encik Jasins shop. He was so hungry. That
time, Encik Jasin was talking to his customer.

Suddenly, Encik Jasins assistant saw the grabbed a container of biscuits. He ran away
with the container. Encik Jasins assistant chased the young boy.

After Encik Jasin knew that the young boy stole his biscuits, he pity because the young
boy was jobless. The young boy was grateful.

15