Categories of Errors Corder (1974), Richards (1974), James (1998), Selinker (1972 ) in Abisamra (2003) classified the errors

including the following categories and sub-categories: 1. grammatical

a. Prepositions

Crystal (2000), Metcalfe and Astle (2004) in Onike (2007) described preposition as a word which expresses the relationship between one word to another, usually (but nor always) of a noun, a pronoun or a participle. Prepositions are short words (on, in, to, etc) that usually stand in front of nouns (sometimes also in front of gerund verbs). Perrin (2002) in Onike (2007) also contributed that the principal function of a preposition is to signal the unity of the phrase e.g. in turn, after the first try, for a long time. He also emphasized that sometimes prepositions are tend to be too bulky and may require carefulness for its effective usage. He also agrees that preposition could be placed either at the beginning or end of a sentence. Simmons (2007) provided lists which contain rules for some of the most frequently used preposition in English as follows. Table 2.4. Prepositions Time Preposition On In

Usage days of the week months / seasons time of day year

Example on Monday in August / in winter in the morning in 2006 in an hour

after a certain period of

At

time (when?) for night

at night at the weekend at half past nine since 1980 for 2 years 2 years ago before 2004 ten to six (5:50) ten past six (6:10) from Monday to/till

for weekend a certain point of time (when?) from a certain point of

Since For Ago Before To Past to / till / until till / until By

time (past till now) over a certain period of time (past till now) a certain time in the past earlier than a certain point of time telling the time telling the time marking the beginning and end of a period of time in the sense of how long something is going to last in the sense of at the latest up to a certain time

Friday He is on holiday until Friday. I will be back by 6 oclock. By 11 o'clock, I had read five pages.

Table 2.5. Prepositions Place (Position and Direction) Preposition In

Usage room, building, street,

Example in the kitchen, in London

town, country

book car, taxi picture, world meaning next to, by an

in the book in the car, in a taxi in the picture, in the

At

world at the door, at the station

object

for table for events place where you are to

at the table at a concert, at the party at the cinema, at school, at work

do something typical (watch On a film, study, work) attached

the picture on the wall on the table on the left

being on a surface for a certain side (left,

right)

for a floor in a house for public transport for television, radio left or right of somebody

on the first floor on the bus, on a plane on TV, on the radio Jane is standing by / next to / beside the car. the bag is under the table

by, next to, beside Under

or something on the ground, lower than (or covered by)

Below Over

something else lower than something else but above ground covered by something else

the fish are below the surface put a jacket over your shirt over 16 years of age walk over the bridge

meaning more than getting to the other side

(also across)

climb over the wall

overcoming an obstacle

Above Across

higher than something

a path above the lake walk across the bridge

else, but not directly over it getting to the other side (also over)

Through To

getting to the other side something with limits on

swim across the lake drive through the tunnel

top, bottom and the sides movement to person or building

go to the cinema

movement to a place or

go to London / Ireland

country Into Towards

for bed enter a room / a building movement in the

go to bed go into the kitchen / the

house go 5 steps towards the house

direction of something (but Onto From not directly to it) movement to the top of something in the sense of where from Table 2.6. Other Important Prepositions Preposition From Of

jump onto the table a flower from the garden

Usage who gave it who/what does it belong to what does it show who made it

Example a present from Jane a page of the book

By

the picture of a palace a book by Mark Twain

On

walking or riding on horseback

on foot, on horseback

entering a public transport vehicle entering a car / Taxi leaving a public transport vehicle leaving a car / Taxi rise or fall of something

get on the bus get in the car get off the train get out of the taxi prices have risen by 10

In Off out of By

percent

travelling (other than walking or horseriding) for age for topics, meaning what about

by car, by bus she learned Russian at 45 we were talking about

At About

you

b. Article Aryani (2008) stated that article errors that commonly made by the students of English in their writing namely redundant use of the article the, misuse of the article a before words with vowel sounds, omission of article, use of article for countable nouns, misuse of the article the when making reference for the first time, and misuse of the article a for plural nouns. Manjusha (2009) stated that indefinite article a occurs before a singular noun beginning with a consonant and the indefinite article an occurs before a singular noun beginning with a vowel sound. The letters of alphabet a, i, u, e, and o represent vowel

sounds. All other letters represent consonants. Below is a table that show the examples of the use of indefinite article a and article an. Table 2.1. Examples of the use of article a and an. Article a You are a doctor. I am a businessmen Bob is a doctor. Article an I am an actor. You are an engineer Jack is an American.

Definite article the is used with a noun that speaker already knows about or that has been mentioned previously. But, the indefinite article a/an is used with a noun that has not been mentioned before, or a noun that the speaker does not already know about. For example: I see a school. The school is big. I know a pretty girl. The girl is a student.

c. Reported Speech Reported speech is used to report what another person has said

d. 1. Reported speech

Sources done 2. Singular/plural Sources done 3. Adjectives done 4. Relative clauses Sources done
5. Irregular verbs,

done 6. tenses, done

7. Possessive case

done e. syntactic 1. coordination, done

2. sentence structure, done 3. nouns and pronouns, done

4. word order),

done f. lexical 1. (word choice), g. semantic, & substance 1. punctuation & capitalization 2. spelling.
h. As for the organizational/discourse errors, we shall mention them but will not

quantify them since, first, it is difficult to do so, and, second, we had trained our students, prior to the exam, to write a well-organized essay (thesis statement, restatement of the thesis, and the use of transition words).