ERROR ANALYSIS OF WRITTEN ENGLISH PARAGRAPH (A CASE STUDY ON ZARQA UNIVERSITY)

Abstract

Writing is very important for learners; it is a dynamic and creative skill. The objectives of
this study are to investigate the errors of students' writing and to discover the reasons behind
these committed errors. This research is a qualitative case study. The researcher asked the
participants to write a paragraph in 100-150 words about one of the following topics (Your
Best Friend, A Nice Place to Visit, Your City, and Your Neighborhood). The paragraphs
were collected from the 2nd semester 2017-2018 final exam. Then the researcher interviewed
10 students to discover the causes behind these errors. 60 English paragraphs were written by
60 (Male& Female) participants at Zarqa University. The participants are in the first year and
studying English Language Literature. Their paragraphs were collected, then analyzed. The
researcher analyzed the data based on Chanquoy (2001) classification of writing errors. The
results showed that students had committed different grammatical, spelling, pronouns, and
capitalization errors. Also, the study revealed the reasons for these errors. Therefore the
researcher suggests some solutions to prevent these errors.