Grammatical Error Analysis in Narrative Essays of Secondary Students in Perak: A Case Study
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2025-09
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Peninsula College (Northern) Sdn. Bhd.
Abstract
The results of the English SPM examination, a game-changing assessment for secondary students in Malaysia, indicated a notable decline in performance in the language, particularly in the extended writing section. This section included narrative writing, a genre praised for providing young minds a platform to express creativity in a safe and calm environment. Despite the advantages of narrative writing, students demonstrated a decline in this genre, which was attributed to inadequate language proficiency, specially in grammar. Previous research reported poor performance and provided limited insight into error types. Consequently, this study investigated the error types in narrative essays among students with high language proficiency, minimising the impact of first language interference, which had been identified as a primary cause of Malaysian students’ grammar errors. A total of 180 narrative essays were collected from 60 Form Five students across four secondary schools in Perak, and the essays were analysed using the adapted Error Analysis framework. Four English teachers and Grammarly were used to analyse the essays for grammar errors. The results revealed that students struggled with correctly using determiners, vocabulary, prepositions, and tenses, challenging past research that identified subject-verb agreement as the main issue for Malaysian students. Both inductive and deductive teaching methods for these grammar components can significantly enhance students' writing, contributing
to improved examination performance.