Thai EFL Students' Writing Errors in Different Text Types: The Interference of the First Language

This study aimed at analyzing writing errors caused by the interference of the Thai language, regarded as the first language (L1), in three writing genres, namely narration, description, and comparison/contrast. 120 English paragraphs written by 40 second year English major students were analyzed by using Error Analysis (EA).The results revealed that the first language interference errors fell into 16 categories: verb tense, word choice, sentence structure, article, preposition, modal/auxiliary, singular/plural form, fragment, verb form, pronoun, run-on sentence, infinitive/gerund, transition, subject-verb agreement, parallel structure, and comparison structure, respectively, and the number of frequent errors made in each type of written tasks was apparently different. In narration, the five most frequent errors found were verb tense, word choice, sentence structure, preposition, and modal/auxiliary, respectively, while the five most frequent errors in description and comparison/contrast were article, sentence structure, word choice, singular/plural form, and subject-verb agreement, respectively. Interestingly, in the narrative and descriptive paragraphs, comparison structure was found to be the least frequent error, whereas it became the 10th frequent error in comparison/contrast writing. It was apparent that a genre did affect writing errors as different text types required different structural features. It could be concluded that to enhance students’ grammatical and lexical accuracy, a second language (L2) writing teacher should take into consideration L1 interference categories in different genres.

[1]  Azirah Hashim.  Crosslinguistic Influence in the Written English of Malay Undergraduates , 1999 .

[2]  Ibrahim Abushihab,et al.  An Analysis of Written Grammatical Errors of Arab Learners of English as a Foreign Language at Alzaytoonah Private University of Jordan , 2011 .

[3]  Negative transfer in Maltese students’ writing in English , 2004 .

[4]  S Olsen,et al.  Errors and compensatory strategies: a study of grammar and vocabulary in texts written by Norwegian learners of English , 1999 .

[5]  Alice Y. W. Chan,et al.  Syntactic Transfer: Evidence from the Interlanguage of Hong Kong Chinese ESL Learners , 2004 .

[6]  H. Brown,et al.  Principles of Language Learning and Teaching , 1980 .

[7]  Anchalee Sattayatham,et al.  Analysis of Errors in Paragraph Writing in English by First Year Medical Students from the Four Medical Schools at Mahidol University , 2009 .

[8]  Robert D. Rodman,et al.  An Introduction to Language , 1984 .

[9]  Baljit Bhela.  Native language interference in learning a second language: Exploratory case studies of native language interference with target language usage , 1999 .

[10]  Chittima Kaweera,et al.  The Impact of Different Types of Teacher Written Feedback on EFL University Studentsû Writing , 2008 .

[11]  Кузнецова Ирина Александровна.  Терминосистема методики преподавания современного английского языка в словаре Джека Ричардса и Ричарда Шмидта "dictionary of language teaching and Applied Linguistics" , 2011 .

[13]  Sara Cushing Weigle,et al.  Assessing Writing: Series Editors' Preface , 2002 .

[14]  Jack C. Richards,et al.  Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics , 1992 .

[15]  Tony Silva.  Toward an Understanding of the Distinct Nature of L2 Writing: The ESL Research and Its Implications , 1993 .

[16]  Ken Hyland,et al.  Teachers’ perceptions of error: The effects of first language and experience , 2006 .

[17]  Siriluck Usaha,et al.  HOW EFL UNIVERSITY STUDENTS USE ELECTRONIC PEER RESPONSE INTO REVISIONS , 2009 .

[18]  Carl James,et al.  Errors in Language Learning and Use: Exploring Error Analysis , 1998 .

[19]  ทิพา เทพอัครพงศ์,et al.  Teaching English in Thailand : An Uphill Battle , 2009 .

[20]  Gert Rijlaarsdam,et al.  L1 use during L2 writing: an empirical study of a complex phenomenon , 2009 .

[21]  Dana R. Ferris,et al.  Treatment of Error in Second Language Student Writing , 2002 .

[22]  Wenyu Wang,et al.  L1 Use in the L2 Composing Process: An Exploratory Study of 16 Chinese EFL Writers. , 2002 .

[23]  Jie Xu,et al.  Error Theories and Second Language Acquisition , 2008 .

[24]  R. Ellis.  Second language acquisition , 1997 .

[25]  Khazriyati Salehuddin,et al.  Interference In Learning English: Grammatical Errors In English Essay Writing Among Rural Malay Secondary School Students In Malaysia , 2007 .

[26]  Ai-Hwa Chen.  Discovering the Appropriate Writing Procedures on Basic College Writing , 2007 .