An investigation into common errors in paragraph writing of the 10th grade students at Hong Linh high school

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
VINH UNIVERSITY


NGUYEN THI THU THUY

AN INVESTIGATION INTO COMMON ERRORS
IN PARAGRAPH WRITING OF THE 10
TH
GRADE STUDENTS
AT HONG LINH HIGH SCHOOL
MASTER THESIS IN EDUCATION
NGHE AN - 2014
MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
VINH UNIVERSITY
NGUYEN THI THU THUY
AN INVESTIGATION INTO COMMON ERRORS
IN PARAGRAPH WRITING OF THE 10
TH
GRADE STUDENTS
AT HONG LINH HIGH SCHOOL
Major:Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL)
Code: 60.14.01.11
MASTER THESIS IN EDUCATION
Supervisor: TRAN BA TIEN, Ph.D.
NGHE AN, 2014
STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP
I hereby acknowledge that this study is mine. The data and findings
discussed in the thesis are true, used with permission, and have not been
published elsewhere.
Author

Nguyen Thi Thu Thuy
i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to express my deepest thanks to my supervisor Dr. Tran Ba Tien
who has enthusiastically helped and encouraged me during the period of writing
this research paper. Without his experienced guidance, valuable comments and
tireless help, I couldn’t have completed the study on time.
My gratitude also goes to all of the instructors in my MA. program at the
Foreign Languages Department, Vinh University. With their precious and
professional lectures and tutoring, I can understand difficult basic concepts related
to English teaching methodology,
I am also grateful to all my friends and colleagues and my beloved family,
who gave me useful advice on writing process.
Finally, I wish to acknowledge the kind help of the 10
th
students at Hong
Linh High School who helped me to collect data, and their valuable support for
finishing the study.
Vinh, September 2014
Nguyen Thi Thu Thuy
ii
ABSTRACT
The findings of the thesis are mainly concerned with the common errors in
writing by the tenth-form students at HLHS. The study reveals the most frequent
types of errors made by the students. The greatest number of errors occurred in this
study were morphological errors, lexical errors, syntactic errors and mechanical
errors. The study also shows the errors of paragraph organization due to the fact that
students at HLHS lack access to the theory of building a paragraph such as building
topic sentences, developing supporting ideas. Based on the findings, implications
for enhancing the effectiveness of English paragraph teaching and learning writing

are put forward. It is hoped that the results of the study can be beneficial for both
students and teachers.
iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Pages
STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii
ABSTRACT iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS iv
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vi
LIST OF TABLES vii
Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION 1
1.1. Rationale 1
1.2. Scope of the study 2
1.3. Aims and objectives 2
1.3.1. Aims 2
1.3.2. Objectives 2
1.4. Research questions 3
1.5. Organization of the study 3
Chapter 2 LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 4
2.1. Previous studies 4
2.2. Theoretical background 6
2.2.1. Teaching writing 6
2.2.1.1. Definition of writing 6
2.2.1.2. The reason for teaching writing 6
2.2.2. Approaches to writing teaching 7
2.2.2.1. Product approach 7
2.2.2.2. Process approach 7
2.2.3. Principles of teaching writing 9
2.3. Teaching paragraph writing 9

2.3.1. Definitions of Paragraph 9
2.3.2. Classifications of paragraph 10
2.3.2.1. Informative paragraph 11
2.3.2.2. Descriptive paragraph 11
2.3.2.3. Narrative paragraph 11
2.3.2.4. Persuasive paragraph 12
2.4. Writing process of paragraph 12
2.5. Error and error analysis 14
2.5.1. Error and error analysis 14
2.5.2. Sources of errors 18
2.5.3. Errors in writing 19
2.5.4. Error classification 20
Chapter 3 METHODOLOGY 24
3.1. Study setting 24
3.2. Participants 26
3.3. Research methods 26
3.4. Research procedures 26
3.5. Description of the sample 27
3.6. Data analysis 27
3.7. Reliability validity 27
Chapter 4 FINDING AND DISCUSSION 28
4.1. Error analysis 28
4.1.1. Morphological errors 29
4.1.1.1. Verb errors 30
4.1.1.2. Noun ending errors 34
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4.1.1.3. Article or determiner errors 35
4.1.2. Lexical errors 37
4.1.2.1. Errors in word choice 39
4.1.2.2. Errors in word form 39

4.1.2.3. Preposition errors 40
4.1.2.4. Pronoun errors 40
4.1.2.5. Spelling errors 41
4.1.3. Syntactic errors 42
4.1.3.1. Word order 43
4.1.3.2. Omitted words or phrases 45
4.1.3.4. Run-ons - comma splices 46
4.1.3.5. Fragments incomplete sentence 48
4.1.3.6. Unidiomatic sentence construction 49
4.1.4. Mechanical errors 51
4.2. Paragraph organization 52
4.2.1. Topic sentence 53
4.2.2. Supporting sentences 54
4.2.3. Concluding sentence 56
4.3. Some solutions to the problem 58
4.3.1. Suggestions on teaching how to write a paragraph 58
4.3.2. Suggestions on reviewing grammar and practicing writing 59
4.3.3. Suggestions on making drafts 60
4.3.4. Suggestions on teachers’ error correction 61
4.3.5. Suggestions on teachers’ checking 61
4.4. Summary 62
Chapter 5 CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS 64
5.1. Conclusions 64
5.2. Implications 65
5.3. Limitations 67
5.4. Suggestions for further studies 67
REFERENCES 68
APPENDIX 72
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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

DA : Discourse Analysis
EA : Error Analysis
EFL : English Foreign Language
ELT : English Language Teaching
HLHS : Hong Linh High School
L1 : First Language
L2 : Second Language
S : Subject
SLA : Second Language Acquisition
TL : Target Language
V : Verb
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LIST OF TABLES
Pages
Table 2.1. Common ESL Writing Errors Based on Ferris’ (2005) Model 22
Table 2.2. Description of major error categories (Ferris, 2005) 22
Table 4.1. Categories of errors in the paragraphs written by HLHS students 28
Figure 4.1. Errors in the paragraphs written by HLHS Students 29
Table 4.2. Morphological errors 29
Figure 4.2. Morphological errors 30
Table 4.3. Verb Errors 31
Figure 4.3. Verb errors 31
Table 4.4. Noun ending errors 34
Figure 4.4. Noun ending errors 34
Table 4.5. Article or determiner errors 36
Figure 4.5. Article or determiner errors 36
Table 4.6. Lexical Errors 38
Figure 4.6. Lexical errors 38
Table 4.7. Syntactic errors 42
Figure 4.7. Syntactic errors 43

Table 4.8. Mechanical Errors 51
Figure 4.8. Mechanical Errors 51
Table 4.9. Topic sentence display 53
Table 4.10. Organization of supporting sentence display 55
Table 4.11. Concluding sentence display 56
Table 4.12. Summary of Errors in Writing by HLHS Students 62
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Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION
1.1. Rationale
In recent years, there has been a growing awareness of the importance of the
English writing skill at high schools in Vietnam. The writing skill is part of the
English syllabus at high schools. In a school-year at high school, there are 105
periods for teaching English in which there is one fifth for teaching writing. Writing
is one of the five parts of every unit in English textbooks from grade 10 to grade 12.
Writing an English paragraph is a main activity as a result of the writing
lesson in the tenth form. Some kinds of writing are writing descriptions, writing
about people’s background, writing about the advantages and disadvantages of
something. Writing paragraphs is basic to students’ development of their writing
skill later. Writing a letter, writing a composition and writing an essay are based on
writing a paragraph because they are constituted from some paragraphs. Hence it is
very important for students to be taught how to write a paragraph.
However, knowledge of how to write an English paragraph is not presented
in the English textbooks. Although the students are required to write a paragraph,
they have not been trained to construct a well-organized paragraph. Though writing
a paragraph has been put into the eighth form textbooks, building a paragraph is still
strange to HLHS students. They learn to write paragraphs with some help from their
teachers. Sometimes their writing is nearly based on a model given out at the first
part of a unit in the textbooks or on a reading passage. At the end of each writing

lesson, they have to complete their writing task. Correspondingly, the result of
teaching the English writing skill is still unsatisfactory and students still have many
dificulties in writing English.
While teaching English I find that my students have difficulties in writing.
Some of these difficulties are problems related to grammar and vocabulary at
sentence level. How to organize sentences into a larger unit like the paragraph is an
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even more important problem. A survey of English paragraphs written by HLHS
students indicates that their academic writings lack unity and coherence as they tend
to pay attention to accuracy at the sentence level rather than to the development of
appropriate discourse organization. Many difficulties in writing lead students to be
more susceptible to producing errors.
For this reason, I choose to do research on the topic “AN INVESTIGATION
INTO COMMON ERRORS IN PARAGRAPH WRITING OF THE 10TH
GRADE STUDENTS AT HONG LINH HIGH SCHOOL”.
This thesis is carried out with the hope that the research results will provide
certain linguistically useful practical knowledge for teachers in charge of the
English writing skill at high schools and improving the students’ skill in writing an
English paragraph. Therefore, I perform a study to evaluate the writing skills of my
students in writing a paragraph in English and identify their errors in order to
develop guidelines for correction and improvement of their writing skills.
1.2. Scope of the study
The study investigates English paragraphs written by the tenth form
Vietnamese students at HLHS, particularly focusing on the discourse features of the
English paragraph. The study is confined to the investigation of linguistic errors and
organization in an English paragraph. In addition, the study is also restricted to
these discourse features in descriptive paragraphs and narrative paragraphs.
1.3. Aims and objectives
1.3.1. Aims

This study aims to identify some discourse features of English paragraphs
written by HLHS students as well as find out the mistakes they often make when
writing English paragraphs and put forward some solutions.
1.3.2. Objectives
The objectives of the study are to:
- Investigate the discourse features of English paragraphs written by HLHS
students (layout, lexical features and syntactic structures).
- Identify problems faced by the HLHS students in the process of English
paragraph writing.
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- Provide suggestions for teaching and learning English paragraph writing
to HLHS students.
1.4. Research questions
Examination of the English paragraphs written by HLHS students aims at
answering the following research questions based on the analysis of students’
written products:
1. What are the types of errors in English paragraphs written by HLHS
students?
2. What are the features of organization of English paragraphs written by
HLHS students?
3. What are some suggestions for the teaching and learning of English
paragraph writing at HLHS?
1.5. Organization of the study
Chapter 1- Introduction
This part introduces the study. It consists of the rationale, the scope of the study,
the aims, the objectives and the research questions .
Chapter 2- Literature Review and Theoretical Background
This part provides the previous study and the theoretical background for the
research questions raised in the study. It also includes the working definitions of the

key terms in the study.
Chapter 3- Methodology
This part concerns itself with the research design, the research methods, data
description and the procedures of collecting and analyzing the data.
Chapter 4- Findings and Discussion
This part deals with error analysis, finding errors in students’ writing and
their organization of English paragraphs, suggestions for the teaching and learning
of writing English paragraphs.
Chapter 5- Conclusions and Implications
This part gives the summary of the development of the study and presents the
conclusions drawn from the study. This is followed by the implications for teaching
and learning English and some suggestions for further research.
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Chapter 2
LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
2.1. Previous studies
Error analysis (EA), offered as an alternative to Contrastive Analysis, has its
value in classroom research. Whereas contrastive analysis allows for prediction of
the difficulties involved in acquiring a second language, error analysis may be
carried out directly for pedagogic purposes. It was S.P. Corder (1967) who first
advocated in ELT/applied linguistics community the importance of errors in
language learning process. He introduced the distinction between systematic
and unsystematic errors. Unsystematic errors appear in native speakers’
language and he called them “mistakes”. Systematic errors, which appear in
nonnative speakers’ language, were called “errors”. He states that only
“errors” are significant to the language learning process. Dulay and Burt
(1974) propose the three categories of errors: developmental, interference and
unique. In their work, Dulay, Burt and Krashen (1982) show that acquiring
language is a process of “creative construction”. In defining “transfer” and

“interference”, Dulay et al. ( 1982) refer to the former as the use of patterns of the
first language in the production of the second language. Up to now, so many
researches have been done on English errors and mistakes, especially on
grammatical and lexical errors. “Common Mistakes in English” written by
Fitikites (1961), “Right Words Wrong Words” by Alexander (1994) and
“Dictionary of Common Grammatical Errors” published by Thong Ke publishing
house (1998) present a large number of errors and mistakes in English such
as grammatical, lexical, phonological errors.
EA with a discourse analysis perspective makes use of DA. A result of EA is
made to show the causal factors of the errors and how the errors may happen
in students’ writing or speaking. Based on Corder’s theory (1981), the reason
that students usually make errors in writing is the wide differences between the native
language and English as the foreign language to be learned. Hence,
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these differences cause interference (they usually carry over the speech habit of
their native language into a second language), over-generalization (they create a
deviant structure on the basis of their experience of other structures in the target
language) and ignorance (they fail to observe the restrictions of existing structures) in
learning English. Gass and Selinker’s theory (1994) of steps in conducting an EA
consists of collecting the data, identifying errors, classifying errors, quantifying
errors, analysis of source, and remediation in Second Language Acquisition.
In Vietnam, the appearance of EA seems to be much later. However, as
regards the study of discourse and discourse analysis, there is a variety of
linguists who have made every effort to embark in pursuing and applying this new
approach into Vietnamese. There are more doctoral dissertations and more master
theses related to DA and many pieces of research on errors of particular groups of
learners. For instance, in “An Investigation into Common Written Errors Made
by High-School Pupils in Danang”, Vo Khac Tien presented most types of
common written errors made by high-school pupils in Danang such as

misspellings, punctuation errors, lexical errors, verbal errors, prepositional errors,
article errors, errors in concord, morphology errors and word order errors. Tran Thi
Ngoc Hien in her research “An Investigation into the Common Grammatical
Errors Made by the Tenth Form Students at Danang High Schools”,
presented most common grammatical errors (errors in tenses, errors in
reported speech, errors in conditional sentences, errors in concord, errors in
relative clauses, errors in preposition, errors in noun phrase, and errors in the
structure “be used for + V-ing”) made by tenth form students in Danang.
In brief, EA in the fields of applied linguistics is the study of kinds and
quantity of errors that occur. In second language acquisition (SLA), EA studies the
types and causes of language errors. Based on the preceding research reports, it
can be seen that researchers have investigated errors at different levels. Errors may
also be classified according to the levels of language: phonological errors,
vocabulary or lexical errors, syntactic errors, and so on. They may be assessed
according to the degree to which they interfere with communication.
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2.2. Theoretical background
2.2.1. Teaching writing
2.2.1.1. Definition of writing
There are various opinions of writing given by different researchers. Each one
has their own idea about writing. Tribble (1996, p. 3) considers writing as language
skill involving not just a graphic representation of speech, but the development and
presentation of though in a structured way. But Byrne (1988, p. 1) considers writing as
the act of forming graphic symbol only such as letters or combination of letters.
Besides, Sokolik (2003, p. 88) defined writing as a physical and mental act. It means
that writing requires writers to commit words or ideas and to convent ideas, think about
how to express them, and organize them into statements and paragraphs. She also
considers writing is a process and product, and writing aims at expressing and
impressing. The writers have to generate ideas, organize, draft, edit, read, re-read to

produce a product-a paragraph, an essay or a report and writers try to express their
ideas, feeling to impress their readers in certain ways. Writing involves many different
aspects. According to Roger, Phillips and Walters (1995, p. 113), writing involves
seven aspects. They are handwriting, spelling, punctuation, sentence construction,
organizing a text and paragraphing, text cohesion and style. All aspects are carefully
considered by any writers.
2.2.1.2. The reason for teaching writing
According to Harmer (1998, p. 79), teaching writing to students of English
include some reasons as follows.
Firstly, it is reinforcement. Most of students gain great benefits from seeing
the written language especially the visual demonstration of language construction is
valuable for both their understanding and committing the new language to their
memory. So it is very useful for them to write sentences using new language after
they have just studied it.
Secondly, language development is also a reason for teaching writing. It
seems that the actual process of writing helps students to learn language better. The
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highest level of writing skill involves critical thinking. To deal with their mental
activities, students have to construct proper written texts using all their learning
experience.
Thirdly, the most important reason for teaching writing is that it is a basic
productive language skill. Obviously, students need to know how to write a letter,
how to write a report, etc. Therefore, they need to know some writings’ conventions
such as punctuation, paragraph construction, forms of paragraph.
2.2.2. Approaches to writing teaching
In the field of writing, product and process approaches are the most popular.
2.2.2.1. Product approach
Product approach is a largely “prescriptive and product-centered” way of
teaching writing (Applebee, 1986).

Product approach pays much attention to the final outcome of a writing
process and supposes that students need to produce only one writing version of the
task (Huong, T.T, Minh N.T.T.etal, 2007, p. 57).
In general, product approach focuses on the end result of the learning
process - what it is that the learner is expected to be able to do as a fluent and
competent user of language. With this approach, the favorite class activities are
engaged in imitating, copying, and transforming models of correct language.
Steel (2002) provides four steps as a model for this approach:
Stage 1: Students study a model text and mimic its highlighted features.
Stage 2: Students are involved in controlled practice of the highlighted
features, usually in isolation.
Stage 3: Students work to organize ideas.
Stage 4: Students choose from a choice of comparable writing tasks.
Individually, they use the skills, structures and vocabulary they have been taught to
produce the product to assess their English progress.
2.2.2.2. Process approach
Process approach encourages students’ communication of ideas, feeling and
experiences (Stanley, 2002).
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Writing is now a multistage process with teacher intervention as needed, and
is evaluated according to how well it fulfills the writer’s intentions (Reid, 1993).
Also teaching and learning writing focus on the process rather than the final
product. (Huong, T.T, Minh N.T.T.etal, 2007, p. 58).
Process approach focuses more on the various class activities which are
believed to promote the development of skilled language use. With the process
approach, writers are encouraged to get their ideas on paper in any shape or form
without worrying too much about formal correctness. It also encourages
collaborative group work among students as a way of enhancing motivation and
developing positive attitudes towards writing. Moreover, process approach

encourages the development of critical thinking skills, which help them to have
chances to challenge their social reality (Nunan, D, 1991, p. 87).
Roger, Phillips and Walters (1995, p. 115) provide some guidelines for a
process writing activity.
Introduction: Teachers create a piece of writing for students to write by the
way of stimulating students’ interests through listening, speaking or reading
activity. Then teacher asks students to discuss the text type, definite the readers who
are they and definite the content that the writer is going to inform, etc.
Working with ideas: Using maps, picture or sketch, etc. to ask students
brainstorm in order to get ideas. After noting down, students need to decide which
ideas can be kept and which ones should be rejected and develop them before
ordering them logically.
Planning: Teachers ask students to remind the typical feature and structure of
the text type they are writing, for example of paragraph: introduction to the topic with a
topic sentence, the supporting ideas for the topic sentence and the writer’s conclusion.
Drafting: The students start to write the first paragraph from their plans.
They may use dictionary to find words, grammatical structures if they need.
Editing: With the teacher comments, students correct and improve their first
paragraph by looking at content, language accuracy, organization, etc.
Re-writing: Students write out the final version and teachers have to decide
to give the final correction and responses to the students’ writings.
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2.2.3. Principles of teaching writing
There are several principles of writing. According to Huong, T.T, Minh
N.T.T.etal. (2007, p. 58), teachers should consider some of following principles
when teaching writing.
First of all, teachers should provide many opportunities for students to write.
Students’ writing skills just improve when they practice writing a lot. So, just
asking students to practice in writing lesson is not enough. Teacher can create

writing tasks from listening, reading and speaking lesions with different style of
writing such as letter writing, e-mail writing, etc.
Then, teachers should make their feedback to students helpful and
meaningful by the way of giving comments in detail at the end of students’
writings. And teachers’ comments should help students to be independent writers. It
means that teachers’ comments should help students to correct their errors instead
of correcting their errors.
Moreover, to evaluate students’ writings clearly and exactly, teachers should
make criteria for each item such as spelling, accuracy of vocabulary, use of
cohesive devices, etc.
Besides, as often as possible teachers should create the right conditions for
students’ generation of ideas, and teachers always consider themselves as a resource
for information and language when necessary.
Lastly, teachers should provide students communicative writing activities.
With this kind of activities, students write with the answer to the three questions:
What they are writing? (genre), for whom? (audience) and why (purpose). This is
useful for students because these writing activities in the class tend to resemble
communicative writing tasks in the real life.
2.3. Teaching paragraph writing
2.3.1. Definitions of Paragraph
There are various definitions of a paragraph but in general a paragraph can
be understood including topic sentence and supporting sentences (if necessary) to
make the main idea clearer.
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According to Oxford Advanced Genie (2002), a paragraph is “a section of a
piece of writing, usually consisting of several sentences dealing with a single
subject. The first sentence of a paragraph starts on a new line”. But Alice & H. Ann
(1996, p2) think that “A paragraph is basic unit of organization in writing in which
a group of some related sentences develop one main idea. A paragraph can be as

short as one sentence or as long as ten sentences. The number of sentences is
unimportant. However, the paragraph should be long enough to develop the main
idea clearly”. Besides, Feist (1996, p. 6) reckons that “A paragraph as a group of
sentences that develop a single idea. We write in paragraphs to make the
organization of our ideas clear to our reader. If you think about paragraph writing as
a step-by-step process, it will help you sort through the confusion. The first step of
the writing process is to gather your ideas and facts”.
In fact, besides elements of unity and coherence, a paragraph should have
three main parts. They are the topic sentence, supporting sentences and the
concluding sentence.
What is a topic sentence? A topic sentence is usually the first sentence that
summarizes the main idea of a paragraph. It states the most important thing that you
want to say about your topic. In the other words, a topic sentence consists of
controlling idea of the paragraph (Feist, 1996, p. 17). To write a good topic
sentence, writer should put it in a complete sentence.
What are supporting sentences? They are the sentences those include the
ideas related to the topic (Feist, 1996, p. 23). Supporting sentences may develop
various aspects of the topic such as causes, effects, reasons, example, etc. All the
supporting sentences are connected together by cohesive devices. What is a
concluding sentence? It is usually a single sentence. But some paragraphs may
require more than one concluding sentence. The conclusion is usually placed at the
end of paragraph. It summarizes or restates the main point you made.
2.3.2. Classifications of paragraph
According to Feist, there are four main kinds of paragraph: informative,
descriptive, narrative and persuasive.
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2.3.2.1. Informative paragraph
An informative paragraph is a paragraph that informs information. For
example, “Write a paragraph to inform your friend about your missing a date” To

write a good informative paragraph, writers need to ask themselves three questions:
1 What do I want to explain? (The answer is also the topic sentence)
2. What steps are needed to do this activity?
3. Who is my audience?
After determining the topic sentence by answering the question 1, students
continue with the answer to question 2 to give the support sentence in chronological
order using signal words such as: first, then, etc. in order to complement the topic
sentence.
Signal words for chronological order are:
First Then Before To start
Second Next After Finally
Third While during In conclusion
(Adapted from Feist,1996, p. 43)
2.3.2.2. Descriptive paragraph
A descriptive paragraph tells what something or someone is like. For
example: “Describe a film” or “Describe a friend”. It helps readers see, feel, taste,
smell and hear the things being described. The topic sentence gives the overall
impression. Supporting sentences include specific details about the person or thing
being described. According Feist, students may be guided to write a descriptive
paragraph following necessary steps.
1. Observe the subject of paragraph carefully. Try to give sensory details.
That is the thing you can see, touch, feel, and taste.
2. Write a topic sentence that gives your overall impression of the subject.
3. Write supporting sentences that contain vivid details.
2.3.2.3. Narrative paragraph
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A narrative paragraph is a paragraph that tells about something that
happened. For example, “Write a paragraph that tells what happened to you last
weekend”. This kind of paragraph is used in newspapers, stories, and novels. A

narrative paragraph is usually arranged in chronological order. It answers following
questions:
1. Who was involved?
2. What happened?
3. Where did it happen?
4. When did it happen?
2.3.2.4. Persuasive paragraph
“Persuasive writing convinces the reader to take action or to support an idea”
(Feist, p. 54). In this kind of paragraph, the main idea is your opinion on the topic. It
is usually stated in a topic sentence. The others support the opinion with reasons,
evidence.
The tone of persuasive paragraph should be strong, but polite in oder to
encourage the reader to act.
2.4. Writing process of paragraph
To perfectly complete a paragraph, the writer needs to conduct four main
stages. The first is prewriting, the second is draft writing, the third is revising drafts
and proofreading is the last one.
There are different tables, charts or articles showing the paragraph writing
process like Ann Raimes, Alice & H. Ann. But in general, when a paragraph is
written, the writer needs to concern about some main steps that cannot be lacked.
They are shown by the following chart.
Start Here X
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The graph of writing process
In the pre-writing stage, writers need to choose and narrow a topic to a
specific focus then they generate ideas. That is called brainstorming. This process
can get them to start the writing more easily and quickly. It means that if they
conduct the stage, it helps them save time in later stages of the writing process.
After brainstorming, listing step is conducted. Students think about their topics

and make a list of any words and phrases coming into their mind on a paper. They think
of as many ideas as possible in a very short time. “Don’t stop free flow of ideas by
judging or editing them before you write them down” (Alice & H. Ann. 1996, p. 5).
The next step is free writing. Students can write any ideas about their topics
to find out a specific focus. While students are writing, their minds will come out
other related ideas from the ones that they have. Writers should write the ideas
down as many as possible without worrying about any mistakes. When they run out
of ideas, they need to reread their paper and underline the main ideas that they think
will develop. All of these activities are to ensure that whether writers are looking
for a narrow topic or not because to find out a narrow topic is very important. It
helps them to choose an appropriate and adequate idea to develop.
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Proof-reading

Draft writing stage is the actual writing stage. It is just an extension of the
pre-writing stage. The students transfer the information or issues they have gathered
and organized them into a simple paragraph. Until this stage, they may not be
exactly certain which direction their ideas will go. However, this stage allows them
to settle on the subject the paper will take.
Revising or editing is usually the most difficult stage of the writing process,
especially for beginning writers. Revising can include adding, deleting, re-arranging
and substituting words, sentences, and even making transparency. Even the most
excellent authors also need to spend the majority of their time on this stage of the
writing process to read again and again in order to find out and edit their writings
better, that will be easy for them to remember the mistakes they make and avoid
them in the next writings.
It is important to gain proofreading skills for students as this improves a
student’s writing over time. Proof-reading stage is a chance for the writer to scan
his or her paper for mistakes in grammar, punctuation, and spelling.
2.5. Error and error analysis

2.5.1. Error and error analysis
According to Crystal (2003) “Error is a term used in psycholinguistics
referring to mistakes in spontaneous speaking or writing attributable to a
malfunctioning of the neuron-muscular commands from the brain. It is thus distinct
from the traditional notion of error, which was based on the language user’s ability
to conform a set of real or imagined standards of expression.” (p. 165). Whereas,
for the error analysis, he defines as follows: “In language teaching and learning,
error analysis is technique for identifying, classifying and systematically
interpreting the mistakes made by someone learning a foreign language, using any
of the principles and procedures provided by linguistics.”
Corder (1971), suggests that errors are “the result of some failure of
performance. They may contain what are often called slips of the tongue, false
starts, changes of mind, and so on. They may be the result of failures in memory.”
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(p. 162). Norrish (1983, p. 7), like Corder, defines ‘an error’ as a systematic
deviation that happens when a learner has not learnt something and consistently ‘get
(s) it wrong’. Corder (1981) also states that the learner’s errors are significant in
three ways: (1) To the teacher, they tell him or her how far toward the goal the
learner has progressed and what remains to be learned, (2) To the researcher, they
provide the evidence of how language is learned or acquired and what strategies the
learner employs in language learning, and (3) To the learner himself, they can be
regarded as a device the learner uses to learn a language. It is a way the learner
employs to test the hypothesis about the nature of language.
Dulay et al. (1982) also see the significance of the learner’s errors. They
view that studying the learner’s errors serves two main purposes: (1) It provides
important information from which inferences about the language learning process
can be made, and (2) It indicates which part of the target language is most
problematic to the learner and which types of errors affect the learner’s ability to
communicate effectively.

Based on those understandings, I assume that doing or having an error is
related with whether each human has good understanding or not of knowledge in
their mind. Therefore, the study of error is part of the investigation of the process of
language learning.
It provides us with a picture of the linguistic development of a learner and
may give us the indications as to the learner’s strategies to understand the second
language. SLA stands in contrast to first language acquisition. It is the study of how
learners learn an additional language after they have acquired their mother tongue.
EA is a type of linguistic analysis which concentrates on the learners’ errors.
It contains a comparison between the errors made in the target language (TL) and
that TL itself. There are some essential terms used in EA: Interlanguage,
Language Transfer.
- Interlanguage: The term “interlanguage” is defined as the linguistic
system the learner produces in the process of learning another language. Selinker
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(1972) points out that since the utterances produced by a language learner are not
identical to those produced by a native speaker of the TL who attempts to express
the same meaning as the learner, it could be hypothesized that there must be a
separate linguistic system governing the language performance of the learner in the
process of learning TL. This linguistic system is what he called “interlanguage.”
- Language Transfer: The term “transfer” was first technically defined by
behaviorist psychologists as “the automatic, uncontrolled, and subconscious use of
past learned behaviors in the attempt to produce new responses” (Dulay et al, 1982,
p. 101). Odlin (1989) defines language transfer as “the influence resulting from
similarities and differences between the TL and any other language that has been
previous (and perhaps imperfectly) acquired”. According to Selinker (1972),
language transfer is one of the processes of interlanguage construction and may
play an important role in the development of an individual’s interlanguage outside
the scope of merely being a learning or communication strategy. Although there is

considerable debate about the extent of this role in interlanguage construction,
many researchers agree that L1 transfer is involved to some capacity in a learner’s
interlanguage continuum.
It has also been used by educational psychologists to refer to the use of past
knowledge or experience in new situations. For example, learners may use their past
knowledge in L1 when they learn L2. If they know how to read in one language,
they do not have to learn written symbols representing sounds in L2. In this case,
“the basic concepts and skills involved in reading are said to transfer to the new
language” ( Dulay & Burt, 1982, p. 101). In SLA, it is believed that the learner’s
first language significantly influences the
SLA.
Based on the above definitions, two types of language transfer
arebdistinguished: positive and negative transfer.
Positive transfer or facilitation is any facilitating effects on acquisition due
to the influence of cross-linguistic similarities. It is believed that much of the
influence of the native language or of some other language that the learner has
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