An Analysis of Turkish EFL Students’ Writing Errors

Ömer Faruk Kadan

doi:10.51535/tell.1352815

EN

An Analysis of Turkish EFL Students’ Writing Errors

Abstract

Various errors come out during writing as it is a highly complicated skill and requires higher-order thinking skills to activate the cognitive processes. Determining these errors is crucial for eliminating them. Mostly preferred way for determining them is performing an Error Analysis (EA). Hence, employing a screening model, the study aimed to reveal types, categories, and sources of errors in Turkish EFL students’ writings as well as to explore potential differences in error frequencies based on their departments and genders by performing an EA. The data obtained from the research were analyzed through document analysis. The sample of the study included 42 students studying at ELT and ELL departments of a state university in Türkiye. All of them were in English preparatory classes and at B2 level. They were asked to write an essay in 150-250 words about one of the given topics. The error analysis revealed a total of 962 errors in Turkish EFL students’ writings. The errors were gathered under three types: grammatical, semantical, and mechanical errors. Among these, grammatical errors were the most prevalent, encompassing a wide range of categories including verb/tense errors, article errors, preposition errors, and others. Semantical errors, involving word choice, coherence, and ambiguity, followed next in frequency. Mechanical errors namely spelling, capitalization, punctuation, and contractions, were also prominent. The current study sought to explore whether there were statistically significant differences in error frequencies between students majoring in English Language Teaching (ELT) and English Language and Literature (ELL), as well as between female and male students. The analysis demonstrated that there were statistically no significant differences between the error frequencies of ELT and ELL students. On the other hand, a statistically significant difference was observed between error frequencies of female and male students. Female students produced less errors compared to the male ones.

Keywords

writing , error , EFL , error analysis , intralingual , interlingual

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Details

Primary Language

English

Subjects

Other Fields of Education (Other)

Journal Section

Research Article

Authors

Ömer Faruk Kadan ^*
0000-0001-5187-3694
Türkiye

Early Pub Date

October 22, 2023

Publication Date

December 28, 2023

Submission Date

August 30, 2023

Acceptance Date

October 13, 2023

Published in Issue

Year 1970 Volume: 5 Number: 2

DOI

https://doi.org/10.51535/tell.1352815

IZ

https://izlik.org/JA58YH24TD

APA

Kadan, Ö. F. (2023). An Analysis of Turkish EFL Students’ Writing Errors. Journal of Teacher Education and Lifelong Learning, 5(2), 598-609. https://doi.org/10.51535/tell.1352815

Cited By

Identifying Grammatical Errors and Mistakes via a Written Learner Corpus in a Foreign Language Context

Journal of Language Research

https://doi.org/10.51726/jlr.1553484

26172 20107

An Analysis of Turkish EFL Students’ Writing Errors

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Details

Primary Language

Subjects

Journal Section

Authors

Early Pub Date

Publication Date

Submission Date

Acceptance Date

Published in Issue

DOI

IZ

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Cited By

Identifying Grammatical Errors and Mistakes via a Written Learner Corpus in a Foreign Language Context