Writing – common mistakes.

 

 

 

 

 

     Writing – not an easy task, but is it really useful, and can it be a pleasure? As far as its usefulness is concerned, many students question it, since we are living in the fast  moving world where instant messaging and e-mails have replaced traditional letters. Pleasure, on the other hand, can only be derived from writing when it is not a struggle with grammar rules.

 

    I have been teaching writing for three years now and I have noticed several areas that cause the greatest trouble for the students of English. These are the following:

 

Grammar mistakes:

WF – the wrong form

T –  tense

WO – word order

Art - articles

Prep – prepositions

P – punctuation

 

Lexical mistakes:

WW – the wrong word ( collocations)

Sp – spelling

 

    I have analysed  36 written assignments of first year students (descriptions and stories) and the most notorious mistakes occurring  are:

 

WF – 90

ART – 74

Sp – 48

T – 42

WW – 42

Prep – 40

WO -11

P – 9

 

 

 

 

 

    The results clearly show that the most difficult area are the forms of verbs ( to infinitive, base form, gerund) and, not surprisingly, articles. Students also have problems with choosing the correct tense and prepositions. As for the lexical area, collocations and spelling are the most common mistakes. Punctuation and word order mistakes are the least frequent ones. Below some examples of each type of mistakes will be presented.

 

Examples:

 

1.     WF

    In most cases the mistakes are the wrong use of infinitives and gerund but also the wrong use of passive voice and plural form of nouns. The –s ending in the 3rd person singular is very often omitted.

 

Incorrect                                                     should be

                                            

When I was arrived ….

When I arrived …

I decided to came back.

I decided to come back.

I had to paid.

I had to pay,

The place was really worth to see.

… worth seeing

 

The participants were chasing a cheese which weigh 8 Ibs.

Weighs

… a lot of leafs were flying around

… leaves

 

 

2.     Art

    Some students generally do not bother to use articles for two reasons. Firstly, it is non existent in Polish, therefore it seems something strange and artificial, and, secondly, it is not considered as a very serious mistake. Most students, however, try to use articles but they succeed only in some cases. The table shows two situations: missing articles and the wrong use of articles.

 

Incorrect                                                        should be

 

It was rather like roaring of lion.

the roaring of a lion

It was cool night and moon was shining.

a cool night, the moon

I had a mixed feelings.

mixed feelings

The Spain is a place where we can’t be bored.

Spain

 

 

 

3.     T

    Tenses also cause much trouble and generally are among the most feared grammar issues. My report shows that actually more students make WF mistakes, but T are  also quite frequent. Most examples below come from stories, therefore the past tenses have been used incorrectly.

 

Incorrect                                              should be

 

He told me to look nice because we are going to some special place.

Were going

When I arrived, my Mum was looking at me without a word.

looked

I went to the railway station passing on my way trees which turned green.

had turned

Last month I have seen the festival ….

saw

 

 

1.     Prep

     The most difficult thing about prepositions is that  they not always appear in Polish translations. English is not a language based on inflection, thus a lot of prepositions (also depended ones) must be used.

 

Incorrect                                            should be

 

My girlfriend smiled to me.

smile at 

We were standing by a moment looking at him.

for a moment

I couldn’t hear because of the howling the wind.

of missing

We decided to leave from his house.

From unnecessary

                                                                                         

2.     WW

    Collocations are one of the most difficult areas when learning a foreign language – especially English. One may learn all the rules of grammar but without the knowledge of how to use words together the success is still far away. No wonder that a lot of students make WW mistakes, even if equipped with a dictionary. Students rarely look at a given word in context, especially when using a bilingual dictionary. In most cases thus the word is inappropriate in a given context.

 

Incorrect                                             should be

 

It didn’t look nicely.

It didn’t look nice.

After a few days we removed to a new house.

We moved to a new house.

 

 

 

 

 

6, Sp

    The students were usually not allowed to use dictionaries while writing a class assignment, however when they were the number of spelling mistakes did not vary greatly. Some students felt that there was not enough time, some were too lazy and others were too certain of their spelling. It is also noticeable that some students make much more spelling mistakes than their mates. Here are some examples of commonly misspelled words:

 

Incorrect                                              should be

 

Accomendation

accommodation

Begining

Beginning

Apperiance

Appearance

buisness

Business

 

7.     WO

    Although the number of such mistakes was relatively small, some problems with sentence structure were clearly visible. In most cases they were literal translations from Polish and for a native speaker of English they would be virtually impossible to understand. The most notorious mistake was not using the structure There is/ there are while describing location.

Incorrect                                              should be

 

In Pamplona are nice architecture buildings.

In Pamplona there are some nice buildings with an interesting architecture.

Has its own culture and music

It has its own culture and music,

And also every year takes place a very dangerous bull race,

A very dangerous bull race takes place every year.

 

8.     P

    English punctuation, as opposed to Polish, is generally not very complicated. Thus, a lot of students think it is almost inexistent.

 

Incorrect                                                  the problem

 

In my opinion it is a very nice city,

Lack of a comma

Jane on the other hand is quite tall and slim.

Lack of two commas

Spain has it’s own unique culture.

The wrong use of apostrophe

 

 

Conclusions:

 

    Personally, I believe that most of the problems presented above are caused by neglecting grammar in secondary schools in favour of communication skills. Although I believe the latter are important, learning grammar should not be underestimated. Writing may be hard work but it reflects the true language proficiency.

A report by Dorota Błoch

NKJO Leżajsk