An Analysis of Sentence Level Errors of ELT Students

The aim of this study is to identify the types, sources and frequency of errors made by first year ELT students in their compositions. The participants in the study are the 106 first year students who study at Erciyes University, Faculty of Education, ELT Department. For this purpose, errors in 184 compositions written by the 106 students in the Advanced Reading and Writing course were identified through survey method. Of the 106 students, 87 were female and 19 were male. Percentages were calculated for each category of errors. It was found that most students made errors in nearly all categories of grammar and punctuation. The errors in the compositions were put into two main categories: grammar errors and punctuation errors. The grammar errors were later categorized into preposition errors, tense errors, wrong form of adverb or adjective, wrong pronoun, coordinating conjunctions, articles, etc. The number and frequency of errors for each category was calculated. The most frequently made errors are intralingual errors. The intralingual errors contain a number of subcategories. The students also committed errors belonging to the category of interlingual errors with six subcategories. The findings are discussed in line with the literature and suggestions are offered as to how errors can be remedied.