Analysis of higher education students' errors in English writing tasks

The aim of this study is to analyze errors of university preparatory class students in English writing tasks. In the study, the writing questions of the exam papers of 57 preparatory class students studying at a state university in 2017-2018 were analyzed. This study was conducted by using qualitative research method. The collected data were classified and the errors and their frequencies were identified. As a result of the error analysis process, it was observed that the students made four types of errors. These errors include omission, addition, misselection and misordering. A total of 381 errors were made; 113 were misselection errors, 92 were omission errors, 65 were addition errors, 11 were misordering errors. Misselection errors was the most frequent error of the students with 50.39%. In addition, 29.66% omission error, 17.06% addition error and 2.89% misordering error has been detected. This study showed that writing in English is difficult for students. English teachers can use the information of students' types of errors to assess the weakness or progression of their learning skills in English. Teachers' awareness of the errors made by the students in writing helps teachers to identify the difficulties students face. Understanding the problem will facilitate the learning process.