Identifying the Grammatical Errors Committed by EFL Learners: A study of Public Sector Universities Sindh, Pakistan

Abstract

Grammar is considered very important for learning a foreign language as it is an important pedagogical skill and a significant part of target language proficiency. Teachers are, thus, supposed to identify L2 learners’ common grammar mistakes for addressing them in their teaching.   This study is intended to investigate the most common errors made by Pakistani students at university level. Data was collected through Google Survey by dispatching questionnaire to the participants (n=80) also distributed manually. The data was analyzed using SPSS software version 21. The results show that Pakistani university EFL students make a large number of both intra-lingual and inter-lingual errors.  The results also revealed that there was consensus found about the effectiveness of error correction. Teachers supported the use of different methods and stated that it has a positive impact on EFL learners' correct use of grammar. It is recommended that grammatical errors need more attention and the teachers need to provide essential feedback to minimize the error occurrence.

Keywords: Error Analysis, GTM, Perceived Common Errors, Interlanguage, L1 Interference