Exploring English Education Students’ Difficulties in Forming Passive Voice Constructions

The present study developed a corpus of spoken English produced by Korean EFL learners to identify its characteristics, types of errors and collocational errors. The spoken corpus was compiled of interviews with 134 Korean university students. Descriptive statistics were computed, and errors were identified and then classified accordingly using a qualitative approach. The study identified a total of 33,306 tokens and 2,308 types of words in the spoken corpus. In examining the frequency of all the individual words (types) that made up the corpus, it was discovered that almost 90% of the word families belonged to the first 1,000 most frequent English words native speakers use. With respect to error analysis, omission was the most frequent type of error, with misformation in second place and addition in third. In terms of collocational errors, G8-D (verb + preposition + object) and L1 (verb + noun/pronoun) were the most frequent types of grammatical and lexical collocation errors in the spoken corpus. Some implications are drawn concerning types of errors, including collocational errors, with respect to improving English learning and teaching as well as materials’ development.

Abstract. Degree adverbs are one of the important and difficult learning points in Teaching Chinese as a second language (TCSL). Commonly, Chinese degree adverbs are divided into two types and four levels. Each type and level have different collocations, semantic features, etc. According to the academic article collections in CNKI and google scholar, research on Chinese degree adverbs from the perspective of TCSL for Indonesian students is still very limited. This study discusses the use of Chinese degree Adverbs by Indonesian students. This study aims to describe the student selection of Chinese degree adverbs and to find the most frequent error types in using four commonly used comparative degree adverbs: low-level ‘shaowei’, medium-level ‘bijiao’, high-level ‘geng’, and extreme-level ‘zui’. The approach to this study is a quantitative-qualitative method. The samples are Chinese Department students at one of the universities in Bandung city. The data was collected from two exercises. This study applies the error analysis procedure introduced by McDowell to find the most frequent error types. The result shows that the students tend to use pure degree adverbs, and the most used pure degree adverb is high-level ‘hen’, followed by its synonymous words ‘tebie’, ‘feichang’, ‘tai’, and ‘shifen’. In using synonymous degree adverbs, students tend to use the first learned word. The form of exercises in the teaching material should encourage the student to use more varied degree adverbs. The most frequent error types in using four different levels of comparative degree adverbs are selection in bijiao word sentences and zui word sentences, misordering of degree adverbs, and the omission of complement ‘yidianr/yixie’ in shaowei word sentences. The major cause of the errors is intralingual interference. This study made some suggestions for the improvement of Chinese degree adverbs teaching material based on the findings.Keywords: Chinese Degree Adverbs, Selection Tendencies, Frequent Error Types, Indonesian Students

We read with great interest the article by Ferner [1], which focused on the methodological difficulties of detecting medication errors. The author has acknowledged the limited reliability of epidemiological data collected by the self-report method. There is a high possibility that spontaneous error report leads to significant underestimation of true error frequency, since personnel may omit to report errors. On the other hand, direct observation, especially by trained, disguised observers, is considered the most efficient and accurate method for detecting medication errors [2]. We believe that the self-report method may further be associated with underreporting of specific medication error types, especially with dose errors. In a recent multinational study, Valentin et al. [3] used self report to assess the types of parenteral drug administration errors in Intensive Care Units (ICUs). They found that the frequency of dose errors was much lower compared with the frequency of administration time errors and dose omission errors. In contrast, in five ICU studies [4–8] based on error direct observation, wrong dose was observed and included among the three more frequent error types in all five studies, while administration time and dose omission errors were observed in four and three of these studies, respectively, and were included among the three more frequent error types in only two of these five studies each. There are two reasons why different medication error types may not be equally reported. First, personnel must become aware of an error in order to report it and, compared with administration time and dose omission errors (which can be detected through ICU daily charts), dose errors are much less likely to be noticed. Second, well-described self-report bias includes social desirability bias and self-esteem bias; according to them, respondents tend to reply in a manner either viewed favourably by important others or consistent with their self-esteem perceptions, respectively [9]. Dose errors have been primarily attributed to individual deficiencies, such as inadequate mathematical skills or medication knowledge, limited experience and failure to follow policies (i.e. properly checking drugs) [10]. In contrast, administration time and dose omission errors have generally been associated with organizational deficiencies, mainly increased workload. Due to the subconscious tendency to be socially agreeable and protect self-esteem, it seems plausible to expect that self-reporting individuals would more likely underreport medication error types associated with personal deficiencies. If dose error underestimation is really a problem in self-report studies, this could lead to erroneous conclusions about medication error epidemiology and contributing factors, and, more importantly, to ineffective preventive interventions. The hypothesis that dose errors are underreported during self-report could be tested by studies designed specifically for comparing the frequencies of different error types detected by direct observation vs. self-report. However, simultaneous medication error detection by these two methods during a study could lead to increased error self report, because even if disguised observation is used, personnel may suspect the true reasons for the observers' presence (since they are concurrently asked to self-report errors). We would therefore suggest that a more appropriate way to compare error types between direct observation and self report would be by conducting the study sequentially, in two phases. During phase 1, only self report would be used for medication error detection, whereas during phase 2 self report would be combined with disguised observation. This study design would allow comparison of self report error frequency between phases 1 and 2 (to test whether even disguised observation can affect error self report), and comparison of self report error frequency during phase 1 vs. direct observation error frequency (to test whether certain error types are underestimated during self report). To minimize bias, individuals asked to self-report errors and being observed in the two study phases should be the same, while factors contributing to errors (e.g. nursing workload) should not differ much. Finally, employing a large sample and a multicentre study design could minimize random variation in error incidence between the two study phases.

This study is conducted as an attempt to examine the errors in English writings committed by Arab learners who live in Israel. These students were required to write an essay in English. The participants were 22 students, four males and 18 females. For error identifications and categorizations, the researchers developed, based on the Israeli matriculation (Bagrut), and on the literature (Ellis, 2004; Fries, 1974 and Robertson, 2000), a table of categories and subcategories. The findings of the current study reveal that the participants committed four types of errors in varying degrees, they are: Errors in content and organization, vocabulary, language use and mechanism. The most frequent error type is 'language use'. This type of errors consists of word order, negation, copula and auxiliary omission, subject-verb agreement and prepositions. The causes of these errors are attributed to interlingual factors, i.e. negative transfer of interference and overgeneralization, especially in cases of differences between English and Arabic (negative interference. In cases of similarities between L1 and L2 (positive transfer), errors are less frequent. Neither gender, nor age played an important role in this study. Finally the researcher recommended conducting another study to investigate the types of errors in speaking skill committed by Arab learners of English in Israel.

This study was aimed at finding out: (1) the types of grammatical errors in narrative writing made by eleventh-grade students of one private Islamic senior high school Palembang, South Sumatera, Indonesia and (2) the most frequent type of grammatical errors in narrative writing made by eleventh-grade students of private Islamic senior high school Palembang, South Sumatera, Indonesia. This study was a descriptive qualitative research. The data were collected from narrative writing written by the 32 eleventh grade students. In this study, grammatical items analyzed were covering noun, pronoun, verb, conjunction, adjective, adverb and preposition. In analyzing students’ errors, some procedures of error analysis were applied. They were identification, description, and explanation. The frequencies of errors were calculated in percentages. Based on the result of the analysis, there were 621 grammatical errors found in students’ narrative writing. Errors in using verb became the most frequent type of errors with 308 errors (49.59%), followed by errors in pronoun with 136 errors (21.90%), in adjective with 87 errors (14.00%), in preposition with 61 errors (9.82%), in noun with 13 errors (2.09%), in conjunction with 10 errors (1.61%) and the last errors in adverb with 6 errors (0.96%).

Objetivo descrever e quantificar os erros de fala de crianças com transtorno fonológico de acordo com seu desempenho no índice porcentagem de consoantes corretas-revisado e process density index, além de determinar se as crianças com diferentes graus de gravidade diferem quanto ao erro articulatório predominante na fala. Métodos foram analisadas as amostras de fala de 21 crianças com transtorno fonológico de ambos os gêneros, com idades entre 5;2 e 7;11 anos. A partir de duas provas de fonologia (nomeação de figuras e imitação de palavras) foram calculados os índices absolutos de substituição, omissão e distorção, a porcentagem de consoantes corretas-revisado e o process density index Resultados houve diferenças quanto ao tipo de erro predominante na fala indicando que a substituição foi o tipo de erro mais ocorrente. Para as crianças com maior gravidade a substituição foi o tipo de erro de fala predominante e, para aquelas com grau menor gravidade, observou-se ocorrência semelhante dos diferentes tipos de erros. Na análise da amostra total as correlações apontaram que quanto maior a ocorrência de substituição menor o número de distorção Conclusão de forma geral, a substituição foi o tipo de erro mais ocorrente. As crianças menos graves apresentaram equivalência entre os tipos de erros e as mais graves, maior ocorrência de substituições. Os índices absolutos foram efetivos e eficientes para indicar o tipo de erro mais frequente em função da gravidade do transtorno.

This study investigates the syntactic and morphological errors made by Korean learners of Indonesian, focusing on word order, passive sentence construction, affixation, and subject omission errors. The findings indicate that these errors primarily result from negative transfer, where learners apply Korean grammatical structures to Indonesian, leading to systematic mistakes. A major challenge is word order errors, as Korean follows a Subject-Object-Verb (SOV) or Subject-Adverbial-Object-Verb (S-Adv-O-V) structure, whereas Indonesian adheres to a fixed Subject-Verb-Object (SVO) order. This difference leads learners to misplace objects and adverbial phrases, producing unnatural sentences. Another frequent issue is passive sentence construction errors. Korean learners often place the agent before the passive verb, mirroring Korean syntax, resulting in incorrect structures like “Surat ini dia dikirimkan kepada guru” instead of “Surat ini dikirimkan kepada guru oleh dia.” Affixation errors also arise due to differences in morphological structure. Korean learners incorrectly apply “-kan” to intransitive verbs or overuse repetition, influenced by Korean verb formation patterns. Subject omission is another common mistake. Korean frequently omits pronouns when understood from context, while Indonesian requires explicit subject pronouns. This results in incomplete sentences like “Pergi ke sekolah” instead of “Saya pergi ke sekolah.” These findings align with Selinker’s (1972) Interlanguage Theory, which explains how second-language learners create a transitional linguistic system influenced by their first language. To minimize these errors, Indonesian language instruction for Korean learners should emphasize contrastive grammar analysis, focusing on sentence structure, passive voice usage, affixation rules, and subject placement. Explicit instruction and targeted exercises can help learners develop greater grammatical accuracy and fluency in Indonesian.

In a previous study (here termed Study 1), we explored the effects of working memory loads on young children's recall of passive voice structures. We found that participants (n = 36) were more likely to use the passive voice in recall responses when holding an unrelated memory load but were more likely to use the active voice when not under load. In the two new studies presented here (Studies 2 and 3), I extend these findings to explore how working memory loads impact not only children's recall but also their construction of original passive voice structures. In the first new study, I used a similar method to Adams and Cowan (2021) but gave 4- and 5-year-old participants (n = 38) more instruction and practice recalling the passive. Responses were categorized as either passive or active voice sentences (a small subset of responses could not be categorized as either syntax). Participants were more likely than in the previous work to use the passive voice overall, but use was not significantly impacted by memory loads. Participants were more likely to use the active voice when there was no load, as in the previous study. In a second study, I explored if 4- and 5-year-old children (n = 36) could form their own passive voice constructions about animations depicting transitive actions. Participants used the passive voice in around 21 percent of all responses, and used the active voice for most of the remaining responses. Working memory loads did not cause participants to speak in the passive or active voice more often. Performance on the QUILS, which combined measures of vocabulary, syntax, and processing abilities, predicted participant's ability to use the passive voice, especially when under working memory load. Combined results demonstrate the difference in task demand between recalling passive sentences versus constructing passive sentences and how working memory contributes to each.

This research aimed to find out the types of sentence structure errors in English paragraphs written by tertiary English students and the factors causing the errors. This research employed an explanatory mixed-method design. Fourth-semester students from the English department of IAIN Curup were engaged as the subjects of this research. Positivism-governed document analyses and constructivism-based interviews were conducted to solicit the data as desired. The quantitative findings garnered from document analyses endorsing a ready-to-use construct proposed by Dulay, Burt, and Krashen (1982), revealed that there were four types of sentence structure errors students made, namely omission, addition, misformation, and misordering. Those types of errors were exhibited in a proximate composition which meant that the students had compatible difficulties in terms of the four types of errors. As uncovered from students' writing works, the four types of errors were found in the domains of words, phrases, and clauses. Subsequently, the qualitative findings, elicited from interviews, demonstrated that the factors of sentence structure errors extended to students' mother tongue interference, overgeneralization in the use of English rules and norms, and the lecturer's teaching material delivery and method. Anchored in the data gained, this research discussed the data from the perspective of interlanguage theory, wherein some reviews of SLA and EFL pedagogy-related theories were offered to help lower the factors causing English sentence structure errors in writing skills. Keywords: Errors, Sentence Structure, English writing skill

<p>This study, titled <em>“An Analysis of Students’ Grammatical Errors in Writing Report Text at Eleventh Grade SMAS Tamansiswa Singosari Medan”.</em> The study aimed to find out what types of grammatical errors in the students' report text writing and the causes of the errors. The research employed a descriptive qualitative method, focusing on 11th-grade students from the IPS2 class at SMAS Tamansiswa Singosari Medan. Data collection was conducted through documentation and interviews. The analysis followed the steps outlined by Gass and Selinker, which included collecting the data, identifying students’ errors, classifying errors, and analyzing cause of error. The findings revealed four types of errors in the students' report texts: omission, addition, misformation, and misordering, totaling 44 errors. Specifically, there were 10 omission errors (22.72%), 13 addition errors (29.54%), 12 misformation errors (27.27%), and 9 misordering errors (20.45%). The most frequent error type was addition, with the total 13 or 29.54% errors. The causes of these errors were identified as carelessness, influence from the first language, and issues with translation.</p>

Writing proficiency is a vital academic skill that must be developed among students; however, the correct use of language structure and adherence to writing standards remain a challenge for many. This study aims to examine the common errors committed by Senior High School students of the University of Mindanao in their academic essays. The researchers also aim to identify the types of errors with the highest and lowest frequencies, which will serve as a basis for future instructional interventions. The study employed Corder’s (1967) Error Analysis as the primary methodology in analyzing 100 academic essays written by students. Based on the analysis, substitution, or the selection of incorrect linguistic elements, emerged as the most frequent type of error. This was followed by errors in mechanics, addition (the insertion of unnecessary elements), omission (the absence of required elements), and finally, permutation (incorrect arrangement of sentence components), which had the least occurrences. The results also revealed that students struggle with the correct application of grammatical rules, such as the appropriate use of adjectives, proper affixation, sentence structure, and the accurate placement of elements within a sentence. The findings suggest that teachers must employ strategies focused on increasing grammatical awareness to further enhance students’ proficiency in Filipino and academic writing.

This study was aimed at finding out: (1) the types of grammatical errors in narrative writing made by eleventh-grade students of one private Islamic senior high school Palembang, South Sumatera, Indonesia and (2) the most frequent type of grammatical errors in narrative writing made by eleventh-grade students of private Islamic senior high school Palembang, South Sumatera, Indonesia. This study was a descriptive qualitative research. The data were collected from narrative writing written by the 32 eleventh grade students. In this study, grammatical items analyzed were covering noun, pronoun, verb, conjunction, adjective, adverb and preposition. In analyzing students’ errors, some procedures of error analysis were applied. They were identification, description, and explanation. The frequencies of errors were calculated in percentages. Based on the result of the analysis, there were 621 grammatical errors found in students’ narrative writing. Errors in using verb became the most frequent type of errors with 308 errors (49.59%), followed by errors in pronoun with 136 errors (21.90%), in adjective with 87 errors (14.00%), in preposition with 61 errors (9.82%), in noun with 13 errors (2.09%), in conjunction with 10 errors (1.61%) and the last errors in adverb with 6 errors (0.96%).

Background Transition of care on admission to the hospital and between clinical areas are risk points for medication errors. All type of medication errors can be reduced by improving communication at each transition point of care. Objectives This study examines the impact of pharmacist obtained best possible medication histories on medication errors at admission due to unintentional medication discrepancies in older patients. Setting This was a prospective, single-center study conducted in an Internal Medicine Department of a tertiary care teaching hospitalin Saudi Arabia. Methods Patients ≥ 65years with an existing drug therapy on admission were eligible. The best possible medication historytaken by the pharmacist from different sources of medication information was compared to theadmission medication order to identify and correct unintentional discrepancies. The discrepancies were classified according to the type of errors. An independent multidisciplinary team adjudicated the potential for harm of each type of medication error. Main outcome measure Number and proportion of unintentional medication discrepancies upon admission and associated medication errors. Secondary outcomes included clinical significance anddrug classes involved in the discrepancies and risk factors for the occurrence of these discrepancies. Results A total of 375 evaluable patients were identified. Among 375 medication histories, 609 discrepancies were detected of which 226 were recorded as unintentional. 151 patients (42.4%) had ≥ 1 unintended discrepancy. Drug omission (37%) was the most frequent type of error. Nervous system (24.5%), and cardiovascular system (21.2%) were the most common drug classes involved in medication errors. Three-fifths of the UMD had the potential to cause temporary harm with initial or prolonged hospitalization. The number of medications prescribed upon admission (OR 1.32, 95% CI 1.09-1.54, p < 0.034), number of sources consulted for the best possible medication history(OR 1.53, 95% CI 1.38-1.76, p < 0.01) and the completion of medication review process within 24h (OR 0.89, 95% CI 0.86-0.94, p < 0.03) of the admission were the 3 most significant predictors of the discrepancies. Conclusions In elderly patients, medication histories are often recorded inaccurately by physicians at the time of hospital admission, this creates the potential for medication errors starting at admission. In older adults, best possible medication historiesare also useful in detecting drug related pathology or drug-drug interactions.

This research is aimed at identifying the grammatical errors focused on English Prepositions produced by Senior High School’s Students in Garut. The objectives of this research are to investigate the types of grammatical errors focused on English prepositions by Senior High School Students and to find the most frequent type of these errors. The method of this research is the descriptive qualitative method. The researcher gave the test consists of 20 sentences that were incomplete in narrative composition. The students were asked to complete the sentence with the correct preposition chosen in multiple-choice. The finding shows that the twelfth-grade students as the participant contributed three types of errors on the use of prepositions to complete the sentences. Those errors are 30,93% in the error of omission, 26,25% in the error of insertion, and 42,81% in the error of selection. Thus, the most frequent type of errors produced by students of twelfth grade is the error of selection that reaches 42,81%. It indicates that students faced difficulties in using prepositions appropriately.

RESUMO Objetivo Comparar a performance motora oral complexa em crianças com gagueira persistente do desenvolvimento e em crianças fluentes, a partir do cálculo da velocidade de produção da diadococinesia sequencial (DDK/SMR) e análise da tipologia de desvio da consoante alvo. Métodos Participaram do estudo 46 crianças com idades entre 4 anos e 11 anos e 11 meses, divididas em dois grupos: Grupo Pesquisa (GI), composto por 23 crianças com diagnóstico de gagueira; Grupo Controle (GII), composto por 23 crianças fluentes, pareadas por gênero e idade aos participantes do GI. Para cada participante, foram coletadas e gravadas três amostras de DDK/SMR em janelas de 15 segundos cada, sendo analisadas, posteriormente, a velocidade de produção articulatória, o número e os tipos de erros apresentados nas amostras. Resultados Os grupos não se diferenciaram em nenhuma das variáveis testadas, ou seja, apresentaram desempenhos semelhantes quanto à velocidade de produção articulatória, quanto ao número de erros e quanto aos tipos de erros (o desvio da consoante alvo mais frequente foi a inversão, para ambos os grupos). Conclusão As crianças com gagueira do desenvolvimento e as crianças fluentes apresentaram desempenho semelhante nas variáveis testadas, sugerindo que a prova de diadococinesia sequencial não foi eficiente para auxiliar na identificação precoce da gagueira em crianças.