An Analysis of Grammatical Error Types in European, Chinese, and Korean L2 Learners’ Writings

This study aims to explore grammatical error types to improve the grammatical accuracy of L2 writing and to explore whether the kinds of errors are transferred from the features of an L1 language group. This study presents a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the most prevalent error types in the essays of 98 L2 learners enrolled in English writing courses at a university and language institutes in London, including European learners (30) of an inflecting language, Chinese learners (33) of isolating language, and Korean learners (35) of an agglutinative language. Findings confirm significant differences in error types among European, Korean, and Chinese learners; in particular, Korean learners exhibited error patterns and error frequencies resembling those of Chinese learners but European learners were found to have different error types and frequencies. The study argues that these results have suggestive implications for teaching instructions, curriculum design, and pedagogy. It can also be assumed that the language group of the learners' L1 may have a cognitive impact on L2 writing.