Error Analysis Report

This report focuses on the analysis of an ESL student’s essay. Some of the

structures we have discussed in English 331 will be used to evaluate the student’s essay.

Specific examples will be provided to explain the rules or knowledge that the learner

possesses, and the grammatical confusion that the learner seems to have. At the end of

the report, I will give a brief summary of this learner’s grammatical skills and needs.

The learner seems to have some knowledge about basic sentence structure. He/she

writes, “My family eat[s] dinner together most of [the] time.” This sentence meets the

basic structure of a sentence, which has a subject, verb, object and additionally two

adverbs. The learner knows that “my family” is the subject of the sentence. The verb type

of “eat[s]” is a transitive verb, which is followed by the noun “dinner” that functions as

the direct objects. The two adverbs “together” and “most of [the] time” are at the end of

the sentence and the sentence can be ended without them.

Another example shows that the learner possesses some basic knowledge about

the structure of a sentence. The learner writes, “My grandmother lived with my uncle in

Masan.” This sentence meets the requirements of a sentence; it also has a subject, verb,

object and additionally an adverb. The noun phrase “my grandmother” functions as the

subject of the sentence. The verb type of “lived with” is a transitive verb, which is

followed by a noun phrase “my uncle” that functions as a direct object. The adverb “in

Masan” is at the end of the sentence and the sentence can be ended without it. The learner

knows that the sentence can be ended as “My grandmother lived with my uncle.”

The learner knows the structure of inflectional morphemes. The learner writes,

“…she lived [for] about six months with…” He/she understands that “six” is plural and

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“month” is countable. Therefore, he makes the word “month” plural by attaching the

letter -s at the end of it. Another example shows the learner knows the correct usage of

inflectional morphemes. The learner writes, “I lived in my country with my family…”

He/she knows how to change the word “live” into past tense. He/she attached the letter -d

after “live”.

The learner possesses some knowledge of the structure of negation. He/she writes,

“But I think it’s not same old day.” In this sentence, the main verb is the verb “BE”.

Before negation takes place, the clause would be “but I think it is same old day.” The

learner makes the sentence negative by simply placing “not” after the “BE”. Another

example shows the learner’s ability to negate a sentence. He/she writes, “But, I don’t

like…” Before negation, the phrase would be “But, I like…” The learner makes the

sentence negative by inserting “do” along with “not” before like. So, in this case, “do”

will indicate the same tense as the verb “like” of the original sentence and that the verb

itself will be in its base form. The verb “do” holds the tense and the verb “like” is non-

finite.

The learner seems to have some knowledge about the structure of determiners.

Determiners include possessive pronouns, which form phrases with nouns right behind.

The learner writes, “I live in my country with…” The learner places the determiner “my”

in front “country”, so that country must be a noun. Nouns have to be followed by

determiners. Another example also shows that the learner understands the correct

structure of a determiner. He/she writes, “…changed our lives.” The learner places the

determiner “our” in front of “lives” and makes “lives” a noun.

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 The learner seems to know the structure of tense. He/she writes, “I came here for

almost 6 month…” Obviously, the learner is talking about the past, which is from the

time he/she has been here. The main verb of this sentence is “came”. The basic form of

“came” is come. The learner uses the word “came” instead of “come.” This implies

his/her knowledge about past tense. The learner also writes, “I remember my old days.”

He/she is talking about the present. The main verb of this sentence is “remember,” which

indicates that the action takes place habitually. Instead of using the past tense

“remembered,” he uses the basic form of the word, which again reinforces his knowledge

of the present tense.

All examples that I have discussed show the learner’s capability of some of the

structures. Now, I will also locate some of the errors that are made for each structure, and

give examples for each of them.

The learner seems to be confused about the structure of pronouns. He/she writes,

“I like she.” The main verb of this sentence is “like” and the verb type is a transitive verb.

A transitive verb is followed by a noun phrase that functions as a direct object. The word

“she” is in the subject form and cannot be used as the direct object. The object form of

“she” is “her.” The personal pronoun “her” refers to previously mentioned noun “her

grandmother.” The correct of writing of this sentence should be “I like her” instead of “I

like she.”

In addition to the confusion with the structure of pronoun, the learner writes,

“Because she told me she’s life.” This main verb of this sentence is “told” and the verb

type is Vg. “She” is a noun that functions as the subject, “me” is the indirect object and

the direct object is needed. “She’s life” can not be the direct object because it is a

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complete sentence. It is necessary to change “She’s life” into “her life” because “her life”

can be a direct object. The word “her” is the personal pronoun which refers to the

previously mentions noun “she”. Therefore, the correct ways of writing this sentence is

“Because she told me her life.”

The learner appears to have problems with the structure of negation even though

he/she negates some of the sentences correctly. The learner writes, “No watch TV and my

family ate dinner together.” First, the phrase “no watch TV” is not a complete sentence.

In order to make the clause negative, the learner can insert “do” along with “not” into the

auxiliary constituent. Therefore, the negation form is “do not watch TV” instead of “no

watch TV.” The tense of this clause is past because the verb “ate” indicates past tense in

the same sentence. Therefore, the structure of negation should be “did not watch”

because “did” holds the past tense. The subject is needed to make it a complete sentence.

The learner appears to be confused about basic sentence structure. The learner

says, “I don’t like live with.” “I” is the subject of the sentence, “like” is a transitive verb

and a direct object is needed. The phrase “live with” is a verb phrase and can not be used

as the direct object of the sentence. Therefore, the sentence is grammatically incorrect

because there is no object followed by the transitive verb, “like.” The correct way to

write this sentence is “I don’t like to live with her.” “To live with her” is a infinite phrase

that functions as the direct object.

The learner also has problem with the structure of tense even he/she uses it

correctly in some of the sentences. The learner writes, “But I don’t like live with, because

she told me she’s life and my life.” In this sentence, the main verb “told” is past tense.

All the other main verbs in the first paragraph are also past tense, except the auxiliary

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constituent “do not.” The modal holds the tense, which is present tense. The sentence

should be changed to “But I didn’t live with, because she told me she’s life and my life”,

so that the tense is consistent with the rest of the paragraph.

Through explicating the learner’s essay, he/she appears to have some basic

knowledge about basic sentence structure, inflectional morphemes, the structure of

determiners, and the structure of tense. On the other hand, the learner still has

grammatical needs about the structure of negation, basic sentence structure, and the

structure of tense even though he/she uses them correctly in some of sentences. Finally,

the learner definitely needs to learn more about the structure of pronouns because he/she

makes a number of mistakes throughout his/her essay.