27 Salient Spoken English Grammar Errors Identified in Malaysian Public University Students: A Remedial Guide

Abstract

Poor spoken English has been widespread among Malaysian public university students for decades. Many Malaysian students graduate deficient in English and subsequently face an abrupt reality shared by approximately 40,000 jobless fresh graduates each year: oral English proficiency and employability are correlated in Malaysia. The country’s private sector employers have cited poor English as one of the leading reasons for their rejecting applicants. Meanwhile, a limited quantity of articles has been published on Malaysian tertiary students’ salient verbal grammar errors. To identify such errors as a first step towards remediation, an experimental workshop was created at a Malaysian public university. Using an ethnographic qualitative research method over 3 semesters, an aggregate 50-week period, 27 main recurrent spoken grammar errors were detected among 95 Malaysian students, which consisted of 68 undergraduates and 27 postgraduates. This study attempts to provide a relatively explicit identification of chief spoken grammar errors by Malaysian public university students sampled, with example corrections. Core concepts in findings are intended to aid syllabus design and targeted remedial English instruction by Malaysian tertiary and school teachers seeking to more efficiently facilitate student progress, mitigate pressures on learners, and alter the outcomes for as many future Malaysian public university graduates as the findings contained herein may effect.