An Analysis of Grammatical Errors in Academic Essay Writing among the Students of Jazan University

Applied linguistics has been very concerned with the description of the linguistic behavior of foreign language learners in recent years. Mistakes that constantly appear in certain structures of a target language learnt by people speaking the same native tongue draw the researcher’s attention to the foreign structures that are difficult to acquire for learners. The present study aimed to discover the most common grammatical errors in academic essay writing among the students at Medical College, Jazan University. The research was conducted in a series of steps to answer the research questions. The researcher investigated what kinds of grammatical and other errors students make and how frequently they occur so that remedies can be sought. The study used 103 essays and elements of essays (39,655 words) produced by 80 second-semester students in the mid-term examination at medical college (boys), Jazan University. Through the analysis, 1307 errors were found. The errors were classified into 11 types. The spelling errors, verb errors, and noun/pronoun errors were the most frequent errors, constituting 60.36% of the total errors identified. The further classification into 49 subtypes reveals that incorrect spelling, wrong use of capitalization, wrong use of singular and plural nouns, unnecessary use of verb be, and misuse of run on, were the most prevalent grammatical errors committed by the participants in this study. The results showed that many EFL learners still experience difficulties in writing with grammatical accuracy. This study will thus provide the teachers with an idea of how to help the students overcome these difficulties so that the quality of their writing can be improved. Such attempts are crucial because, without them, university students may continue to commit these grammatical errors, which will definitely prevent them from producing writings that are of publishable quality in the future.