Error Analysis in Writing of Grade 10 Students

Abstract

INTRODUCTION

Writing is one of the four basic skills that should be honed for learners. When writing is unsatisfactory in multiple ways, frompoor grammar and syntax to unclear organization to weak reasoning and arguments, complicating matters is the fact that many students' reading skills are also poor. There were already programs and interventions on the poor reading skills of learners in the field of education. However, the continuous problem on the poor writing skills of the learners had been the aim of this study in which it described the errors in writing of learners and determined their writing level.

METHODS

A multi-method design was used. Using the descriptive paragraphs written by 10 randomly selected students from nine sections of the Grade 10 at Sto. Nino National High School, the errors in writing and the frequency of respondents having the same errors were identified. Correspondingly, a self-made rating scale was used to determine the writing level of respondents. Hence, Powell (2008) suggested words in rating scales were adopted.

RESULTS

It was found out in this study that there were 18 poor writing skills revealed in this study. These are the following: use of punctuations, capitalization, S-V agreement, spelling, tenses of the verbs, redundancy, use of nouns, use of conjunctions, use of articles, syntax, run-on sentence, use of pronouns, use of prepositions, indention, spacing,use of adjectives, margins and vocabulary. Moreover, their prominent writing level is Fair (F) with the frequency of 52 (58%).Hence, it was also found out in this study that students have varied errors in writing. If they have that certain error in writing, they kept on committing the same mistakes in the entire paragraph. Generally, they have different weaknesses in writing.

DISCUSSIONS

The results reflect that most of the students have problems in writing. It suggests interventions that would address such problems which contribute to the deteriorating writing skills of students. Out of these results, school administrators and teachers can make plans for classroom and school activities that would expose them in writing (paragraph, essays, etc.).In such, teachers should give emphasis on the correctness of how ideas are being presented. Moreover, they can also come up with a good program for the development of students' writing skills.