An Analysis of Grammatical Errors in Writing Made by Turkish Learners of English as a Foreign Language

Abstract

This study investigates and classifies grammatical errors in writing made by twenty second-year students at the Department of English Language learning English as a foreign language in Gazi University of Turkey. The students are enrolled in a writing course in the first semester of the academic year 2011 – 2012. They were asked to write about the difficulties they face while learning English. The errors committed by the subjects are classified under five categories. They are errors in tenses, in the use of prepositions, in the use of articles, in the use of active and passive, and morphological errors. The results show that the participants made 179 grammatical errors of which 27 errors are in tenses, 50 errors in the use of prepositions,52 errors in the use of articles, 17 errors in the use of passive and active voice and 33 were morphological errors.