Determining Common WritingErrors in the Construction of Simple Sentence among Grade Five Bonifacio Pupils at Balagbag Elementary School: An Intervention Program

Abstract

INTRODUCTION

Writing seems to be the most complex among the basic skills of the English language. After the lesson has been executed, one of the inputs to be tested is whether the writing process with connection to the topic has acquired the consolidated use of grammar, language form, and vocabulary items.

The pupils may have all the ideas on the paper yet expressing these ideas may tend to complicate the written output thereby producing varied grammatical errors. Thus, determining common writing errors is seen as significant alongside the use of the second language.

METHODS

A descriptive study determined the common errors in the writing of a simple sentence. It used to survey, questionnaire and interview with 24 pupils composed of 9 males and 15 females as respondents and prime subjects and were presented in tabular form. To fully determine the common errors, identification and categorization of errors have been monitored.

RESULTS

Throughout the implementation of the study, important data were yielded as regards the quantity and quality of the written sentence made by the respondents. Finally, 24 pupils have written 5 sentences each which resulted in a baseline data of 100 sentences. With these, the following results were identified, classified and analyzed as the most common errors according to the level of mistakes. (1) tense, (2) subject-verb agreement, (3) prepositions, (4) morphology, (5) articles, (6) verbs and (7) pronouns. The errors revealed that while pupils know that these forms exist in English grammar, they still have not mastered the rules governing them.

DISCUSSIONS

This study has seen to provide an insight into language learning problems encountered by pupils which can be useful to teachers because they can tell about the common trouble spots in language learning particularly in the acquisition of the writing skills at a particular point of the educational system.