Error analysis on english compositions and paragraphs of Vietnamese students

 TNU Journal of Science and Technology 225(11): 55 - 63 
 Email: jst@tnu.edu.vn 55 
ERROR ANALYSIS ON ENGLISH COMPOSITIONS AND PARAGRAPHS 
OF VIETNAMESE STUDENTS 
Pham Kim Chi
* 
FPT University 
ABSTRACT 
The present study aimed to explore the writing errors in English compositions and paragraphs of 
Vietnamese students at a university in Vietnam and to compare the shared common errors made in 
their writings. This intended to see whether students with different levels have the same errors. 
The study used a corpus of 36 Vietnamese students’ composition writings and 36 paragraph 
writings. The data committed were categorized into three different error types by the framework of 
Chanquoy (2001). The results showed that the three most frequent writing errors were spelling, 
subject-verb agreement, verb tense and form respectively in paragraphs and compositions. Results 
revealed the three most shared errors involved spelling, subject-verb agreement and verb tense and 
form; nevertheless, there is no significant difference between the number of errors. It is suggested 
that intensive knowledge of language teaching in vocabulary in spelling and English grammar, 
especially subject-verb agreement should be paid close attention. In light of the results obtained, 
implications and recommendations were provided to teachers to assist their students in writing and 
limit common errors among Vietnamese students. 
Keywords: Writing error; error analysis; writing compositions in English; writing paragraphs in 
English; Vietnamese students 
Received: 23/5/2020; Revised: 18/6/2020; Published: 22/6/2020 
PHÂN TÍCH LỖI TRONG VIẾT LUẬN VÀ ĐOẠN VĂN TIẾNG ANH 
 CỦA SINH VIÊN VIỆT NAM 
Phạm Kim Chi* 
Đại học FPT 
TÓM TẮT 
Nghiên cứu hiện tại tìm hiểu các lỗi viết trong các bài viết luận và đoạn văn bằng tiếng Anh của 
sinh viên tại một trường đại học ở Việt Nam và để so sánh các lỗi phổ biến trong các bài viết của 
sinh viên. Điều này nhằm mục đích xem sinh viên với các cấp độ tiếng Anh khác nhau có cùng 
một lỗi hay không. Nghiên cứu đã sử dụng 36 bài luận và 36 đoạn văn của 72 sinh viên học tiếng 
Anh. Dữ liệu đã được phân loại thành ba loại lỗi khác nhau theo khung của Chanquoy (2001). Kết 
quả cho thấy ba lỗi viết thường gặp nhất là chính tả, sự phù hợp giữa chủ ngữ, động từ và hình 
thức câu tương ứng trong đoạn văn và bài luận; và không có sự khác biệt về tổng số lượng lỗi của 
hai nhóm sinh viên. Từ kết quả nghiên cứu, tôi đề xuất giáo viên dạy viết Tiếng Anh nên chú ý đến 
chính tả và ngữ pháp, đặc biệt là phù hợp giữa chủ ngữ và động từ của sinh viên để hỗ trợ sinh 
viên viết và hạn chế các lỗi phổ biến ở sinh viên Việt Nam. 
Từ khoá: Viết lỗi; phân tích lỗi; viết luận tiếng Anh; viết đoạn văn tiếng Anh; sinh viên Việt Nam 
Ngày nhận bài: 23/5/2020; Ngày hoàn thiện: 18/6/2020; Ngày đăng: 22/6/2020 
 * Corresponding author. Email: chipk@fe.edu.vn 
DOI: https://doi.org/10.34238/tnu-jst.3183
Pham Kim Chi TNU Journal of Science and Technology 225(11): 55 - 63 
 Email: jst@tnu.edu.vn 56 
1. Introduction 
In the Vietnam context, English is considered 
as a foreign language and a compulsory 
subject for all university students prepared 
before entering specialized subjects. Students 
are required to master four skills to pass every 
single level in the curriculum. Vietnamese 
students find writing skills difficult to master 
and complete since backward and forward 
ideas and grammar structures. Besides, 
students today usually appeal for technology 
as the foremost learning practice by the 
reason of software support, but the number of 
common writing errors seems to appear 
repeatedly on final exams. Therefore, 
Vietnamese students’ writing problems need 
to analyze in order to improve the quality of 
teaching and understand students’ common 
errors to raise their awareness. 
To analyze the database of writing, Error 
Analysis, first established in the 1960s by 
Corder and his colleagues, is a preferred tool 
to concentrate on. According to Corder [1], 
correcting learners’ errors is substantial in 
three crucial ways as telling the teachers 
about their learners’ progress; supplying 
evidence of how a language is acquired and 
what strategies the learner employs in 
language learning; and as a device the learner 
uses in order to learn. 
Numerous studies in writing have been shown 
the different types of errors committed by 
students with paragraphs, sentences or 
compositions. However, the research has not 
yet investigated into students’ writing errors 
between students’ paragraphs and students’ 
compositions in the two sequential levels. 
Consequently, the current study narrows 
empirical gap on errors by 36 pre-
intermediate Vietnamese students in writing 
paragraphs and 36 intermediate Vietnamese 
students in writing compositions to identify 
the types and the frequency of errors. 
As a result of the significance of students’ 
errors themselves, English teacher in this case 
as a researcher, needs to find out what types 
of common errors made by students’ 
paragraphs and students’ compositions in two 
different levels in order to find out common 
errors to apply strategies in language teaching 
effectively by the taxonomy of Chanquoy [2] 
produced by students. 
1.1 Research question 
1. What types of writing errors are (if any) 
frequently found in Vietnamese students’ 
English compositions and paragraphs in two 
sequential levels? 
2. Is there any significant difference between 
Vietnamese students’ compositions writing 
errors and students’ paragraphs writing errors? 
1.2 Significance of the Study 
This study will contribute to enhancing 
teaching and learning the English language to 
encounter in the process of English Second 
Language (ESL) learning. 
Lightbown and Spada [3] argue that when 
errors are persistent, especially when they are 
shared by almost all students in a class, it i ... e data was 
based on this taxonomy to code the errors. 
After data collection, the following steps of 
EA by [4] were followed. Firstly, each 
composition writing was counted number of 
errors examined according to the coding 
scheme. After that, quantifying and analyzing 
errors were applied with inter-coders. 
In order to ensure the reliability of coding, 
20% of the entire data was coded by two 
independent coders. The coders agreed on 
90% of their coding, suggesting that the data 
were coded with strong consistency. Then, the 
pair sample t-test was applied to find out the 
significant difference between the two 
groups’ writing errors. 
Pham Kim Chi TNU Journal of Science and Technology 225(11): 55 - 63 
 Email: jst@tnu.edu.vn 59 
Table 1. Writing errors coding scheme with definitions from [2] 
Type of writing errors Explanation 
Spelling error 
spelling 
the act or process of writing words by using the letters conventionally 
accepted for their information 
Grammatical error 
subject-verb agreement wrong combination of subject and verb 
verb tense and form error of constructing a verb 
singular and plural form a mistake with number (singular or plural) 
word order syntactic arrangement of words in a sentence, clause, or phrase 
preposition the relationship between a noun or pronoun and other words in a sentence 
articles used with a noun to indicate the type of reference being made by the noun 
fragment the sentences miss a verb or a subject, so it becomes disconnected 
Punctuation error 
capitalization 
writing with a word with it is first letter as a capital letter and the remaining 
letters in small letter 
punctuation 
he marks, such as period, comma, and parentheses, used in writing to 
separate sentences and their elements and to clarify meaning. 
4. Results and Discussion 
4.1. Frequent types of writing errors found in Vietnamese students’ English compositions 
The analysis of the writing errors on compositions indicated that 164 (25.6%) was spelling, 137 
(21.4%) was the subject-verb agreement, 109 (17%) was verb-tense and form and 58 (9.1%) was 
fragment error. 
Table 2 below shows the result of the most frequent writing errors occurring in English 
compositions were grammatical error category with 380 (59.4%) and the second one in spelling 
category with 164 (25.6%). 
Table 2. Frequency of writing errors committed by writing compositions 
Type of Error Frequency Percentage (%) Rank 
Spelling error 
Spelling 164 25.6 1 
Grammatical error 
Subject-Verb agreement 137 21.4 2 
Verb tense and form 109 17.0 3 
Singular and plural form 37 5.8 7 
Word order 12 1.9 9 
Preposition 3 0.5 10 
Article 24 3.8 8 
Fragment 58 9.1 4 
Punctuation error 
Capitalization 47 7.3 6 
Punctuation 49 7.6 5 
Total 640 100 
Pham Kim Chi TNU Journal of Science and Technology 225(11): 55 - 63 
 Email: jst@tnu.edu.vn 60 
4.2. Frequent types of writing errors found in Vietnamese students’ English paragraphs 
The errors from paragraphs showed that subject-verb agreement was ranked the highest with 130 
(21.1%), the second one was verb tense and form with 127 (20.6%) and the third one was 
spelling with 94 (15.3%) illustrated in Table 3. 
Table 3. Frequency of writing errors committed by writing paragraphs 
Type of Error Frequency Percentage (%) Rank 
Spelling error 
Spelling 94 15.3 3 
Grammatical error 
Subject-Verb agreement 130 21.1 1 
Verb tense and form 127 20.6 2 
Singular and plural form 35 5.7 8 
Word order 49 8.0 4 
Preposition 24 3.9 9 
Article 23 3.7 10 
Fragment 44 7.1 6 
Punctuation error 
Capitalization 42 6.8 7 
Punctuation 48 7.8 5 
Total 616 100 
Table 3 above shows that grammar classification was most frequently observed with 432 errors 
(70.1%) in comparison with the second most common spelling errors 94 errors (15.3%). 
4.3 Significant difference between students’ compositions writing errors and students’ 
paragraphs writing errors 
Table 4 shows the three common errors as spelling, subject-verb agreement and verb tense and 
form in students’ compositions and paragraphs. However, there is one highlighted difference 
between the two groups was word order. The group of compositions writing, word order placed 
the ninth while the group of paragraphs writing placed the fourth. 
Table 4. Types of errors difference between students’ paragraphs writing and students’ compositions 
Type of Error 
Paragraphs writing 
Percentage (%) 
Compositions writing 
Percentage (%) 
Spelling error 
Spelling 15.3 25.6 
Grammatical error 
Subject-Verb agreement 21.1 21.4 
Verb tense and form 20.6 17.0 
Singular and plural form 5.7 5.8 
Word order 8.0 1.9 
Preposition 3.9 0.5 
Article 3.7 3.8 
Fragment 7.1 9.1 
Punctuation error 
Capitalization 6.8 7.3 
Punctuation 7.8 7.6 
Total 100 100 
Pham Kim Chi TNU Journal of Science and Technology 
 Email: jst@tnu.edu.vn 61 
Table 5. The significant difference between writing errors in paragraphs
 and writing errors in compositions 
Paired samples t-test 
 t df 
Pair 1 
total writing errors in paragraphs 
total writing errors in compositions 
.309 35 
Pair 2 
spelling errors in paragraphs 
spelling errors in compositions 
2.390 35 
Pair 3 
subject-verb agreement errors in 
paragraphs 
subject-verb agreement errors in 
compositions 
.305 35 
Pair 4 
verb tense and form errors in 
paragraphs 
verb tense and form errors in 
compositions 
-.766 35 
225(11): 55 - 63 
 Sig. (2-tailed)
 .759
 .022
 .763
 .499
Table 5 illustrates that there is no significant 
difference between the total number of errors 
in students’ paragraphs and in compositions; 
however, spelling errors showed a significant 
difference (with p=.022). 
The results highlighted some significant 
errors made by Vietnamese students when 
taking paragraphs writing exam, they showed 
considerable errors in subject-verb agreement 
with simple present tense most observed. 
Likewise, the group of higher-level, writing 
compositions revealed the same problem in 
using the subject-verb agreement. The most 
striking result to emerge from the data is that 
students with two sequential levels did not 
recognize this type of error. 
It highlighted the three important common 
errors. The most considerable awareness is 
spelling errors. Students seem to learn 
phonological sequence rather than spelling 
practice in vocabulary learning. 
Consequently, when they have to test writing 
skill, they apply phonetics leading the 
majority of spelling errors. To illustrate this, 
“performent” was written by students when 
they misunderstood “perfor-mance” into “-
ment”. In the same way, there were a lot of 
words which indicated their knowledge of 
vocabulary practice in classroom or 
themselves as “havest” instead of “harvest”, 
“convinence” instead of “convenience”. 
Moreover, adding some unnecessary letter 
was the problematic one. Most of spelling 
errors are from common words of usage 
suggesting a big question in language 
teaching method. Teachers seem to ignore 
students’ errors causing the extensive 
problem in writing. They may think that 
spelling is not the primary concern comparing 
with ideas or other elements. However, it 
shows the big gap in vocabulary competence 
and performance. Therefore, students should 
change learning strategies to be sure of 
vocabulary spelling. Besides, teachers should 
create more classroom activities to teach them 
from competence to performance. Teaching 
vocabulary should change in order to let 
students be aware by long. 
The second common error is surprising to 
students and teachers when it was subject-
verb agreement. Most of the errors belong to 
simple present tense which are likely to be the 
basic tense to students in both levels. 
However, the students forget to change verb 
forms. They show poor knowledge of basic 
tense leading to the teaching and learning 
progress considerably change. Agreement or 
concord is a rule that ensures the harmonizing 
of different grammatical units. Furthermore, 
a plural subject is not followed by a plural 
verb form, and a singular subject is not agreed 
with a singular verb form. Agreement errors 
indicate that some of the participants have not 
mastered how concord works. 
Pham Kim Chi TNU Journal of Science and Technology
 Email: jst@tnu.edu.vn 62 
Verb tense and form is the third attention in 
learning and teaching. Students did not show 
great understanding of tense usage; they use 
base form in most cases. 
5. Conclusion 
The current study shows the shared errors 
observed in the two varied groups of students 
in terms of spelling, subject-verb agreement 
and verb tense and form. The results are 
consistent in previous studies since grammar 
is the most problematic error for EFL 
students. Significantly, the total number of 
errors between the two groups of students is 
not different; but spelling errors show a 
significant difference. There are some 
highlights to consider students’ written 
performance. Teachers are centered-teaching 
to instruct students on the writing process. 
Teaching methods should be implemented to 
suit the outcome. Vocabulary spelling must 
be concerned in order to improve students’ 
regular usage. Furthermore, frequent practice 
between pronunciation and writing practice 
should be prepared adequately under instant 
corrective feedback. Besides, teachers 
should modify and classify groups of 
students’ errors to inform them accordingly. 
Having an overview of the scope of writing 
and learning process will be trained for 
teachers; besides, students’ level appears not 
to be consistent to their performance. 
Teachers should not have an assumption of 
students’ high proficiency. Practice tests 
before writing course should be applied. 
Students should be encouraged to read more 
in English to be familiar with vocabulary. 
This also implies the lack of reading habits 
and limited understanding of grammar. From 
the list of spelling errors, they should spend 
time on common words, they may think of 
advanced vocabulary to foster or upgrade 
their knowledge; however, the minor errors 
should not be ignored because they indicated 
the basic proficiency. 
 225(11): 55 - 63 
Grammar structure, especially subject-verb 
agreement should be checked and inform 
students repeatedly whenever it occurs in 
writing in order to raise their awareness on 
this error. 
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