Acquisition of L2 grammar by EFL Syrian undergraduates: Do grammatical errors matter?

The study aimed to analyze the frequency, categorize, and determine the sources of grammatical errors produced by EFL Syrian undergraduates over four years at Idlib University, Syria. A qualitative approach was followed, including 60 descriptive essays by Syrian EFL undergraduates ranging from first-year to fourth-year at Idlib University. The data were analyzed using James' (1998) framework, Brown's (2000) surface structure taxonomy, and Corder's (1967) model. The results revealed that the most frequent grammatical errors were Articles (21.4%), followed by Tenses (17.5%) and Concord (15.9%), whereas the least frequent ones were Passive Voice (2.5). The results also revealed that Omission was the most frequent type of grammatical error (36.2%), followed by Substitution (33.9%) and Addition (25.1%), but the least frequent type was Permutation (4.8). The interlingual errors dominated the majority of the grammatical errors. Moreover, the findings revealed that grammatical errors decrease as students proceed to the next year. The outcomes of the current study will be beneficial to EFL learners, teachers, and syllabus designers to direct their attention to grammatical errors in writing skills to improve both teaching and learning processes.