Exploring grammar errors in EFL writing of high school students

Abstract

Abstract: The present research aims to find the most common grammatical errors that high school students make when writing. The data was obtained through essays written by ten Ecuadorian first-year high school students from a public school in Loja, Ecuador. Qualitative and quantitative approaches were chosen to conduct this study. The quantitative approach was necessary to obtain the frequencies and percentages of the data. Moreover, it was needed to perform a statistical analysis of the grammatical errors found and discover the most common ones. Likewise, a qualitative method was required since it was essential to carry out a linguistic analysis of the grammatical errors by explaining the reasons that explain why they were errors and the correct way of expressing them. The results of this research show that the most common grammatical errors that students make when writing involve the category of syntax that includes errors such as verb tense, subject-verb agreement, preposition, determiner, noun, pronoun, and number.And within this category, verb tense was the highest grammatical error found in thestudents' writing compositions.