A Study on Identifying Writing Errors Pertaining to Number Agreement

Abstract

This study investigated errors committed by first year undergraduates pertaining to number agreement. The study examined the corpus of 60 test papers written by 30 participants. Through the study, the types of errors were identified in relation to number agreement and were classified into various categories. The most common errors committed by the participants were number agreement issues with the use of nouns, pronouns and subject and verb. The study is important to educators and study material developers who should become aware of the kind of errors that their target learners make, so that they are in a better position to put appropriate intervention strategies into place. For learners, error analysis is important as it shows the areas of difficulty in their writing. The limitations and some pedagogical implications for future studies are included at the end of this research paper.