While acquiring a second language, learners may encounter challenges and difficulties in effectively carrying out verbal communication in the second language. Mastering the apology speech act is a challenge for L2 learners. The objective of this study is to identify the apology strategies utilized by individuals learning the Japanese language, as…

This research conducted diagnostic assessment of problems in first-year undergraduates' English academic papers and tracked potential sources of the problems to the writing process and strategy use. Data collected include 339 term papers and interviews with 17 students. The samples were manually error tagged and marked against a detailed…

This study examines 29 journal abstracts that were completed reviews for publication in the year 2012. It was done to investigate the number (percentage) of abstracts that involved with errors, the most erroneous part of the abstract, and the types and frequency of errors. Also the purpose expanded to compare the results with those of the previous…

Students in higher learning institutions need to write lots of reports based on the projects done. Since they are at the tertiary level of education, they are required to use English in their reports. This is to ensure that they are able to function well in English later at the workplace. Writing requires students to apply rules regarding sentence…

Discusses the collected research on free modifiers and "minor sentences," or "formal fragments." Asks English teachers for less concentration on initial placement of modifiers, less rigidity concerning fragments, and more practice with punctuating final free modifiers. (RL)

Sentences evoked from three- to five-year-olds (N=16), analyzed for errors (particularly copying-without-deletion), showed errors when: the subject noun phrase (NP) contained a relative clause, the relative clause had an object gap, and the relative clause was long. (Author/CB)

A progress report is presented of a study which applies a system of generative grammar to error analysis. The objective of the study was to reconstruct the grammar of students' interlanguage, using a systematic analysis of errors. (Interlanguage refers to the linguistic competence of a student who possesses a relatively systematic body of rules,…

This study examines the usage of preposition "pour" in the written and spoken French of two groups of Grade 9 and 12 Franco-Ontarian bilingual students from Welland and from the Sudbury area. Both the students' written and spoken French are shown to include a substantial proportion of constructions with "pour" which deviate…

A study examined patterns of English usage in 52 Japanese university freshmen's written compositions, particularly in the use of the subordinating conjunction "because." It was found that students often fragmented sentences when "because" was involved, or used a comma to separate a trailing dependent "because" clause…

A study examined whether patterns exist in the kinds and amounts of writing errors students make and whether teachers follow any sort of pattern in correcting these errors. Sixty compositions, gathered from a twelfth grade class taught by one teacher, were analyzed using the "McGraw-Hill Handbook of English." Student written errors were…