Error analysis of academic essays of senior high school students /

Abstract

Grammatical errors are committed by the students in their composition of writing due to a lack of knowledge of conventions in the English language, which hampered their competence. This study sought to analyze errors in academic essays committed by Senior High School students of the University of Mindanao. The study utilized Corder’s Theory on Error Analysis to examine 100 academic essays of Senior High School students. The results revealed that under five categories of errors, Mechanics (46.98%) has the most problematic errors committed by the students with 514 error counts, preceded by Omission (20.84%) with 228 error counts. This is followed by Addition (17.37%) with 190 error counts, Substitution (13.99%) with 153 error counts, and Permutation (0.82%) with nine error counts, the least problematic category. The results further revealed that the SHS students are experiencing difficulties in applying grammatical and writing rules in their academic writing, such as appropriate usage of prepositions, omission of morphemes, proper structure of sentences, and substituting elements of sentences, causing them complexity in reading. The study implied that the concept of the English language must be taught by the teachers directly to the students with feedback because their mother tongue hampered their acquisition of L2. This study can contribute to the teachers supplementing students' competence in writing by conducting interventions in the school. Keywords: education, Senior High School students, academic essay, error analysis