An analysis of Thai students errors on English fragments, run-ons, and comma splices : a comparison between science-math and intensive science-math programs

Name: Prapaipun Pornthanachotanan

keyword: EFL learners

; Error analysis

; L2 written errors

; NESTs and NNESTs

; Sentence errors

; Thai clauses

Abstract: The research study aimed to investigate three types of errors, i.e., run-on sentences, comma splices, and sentence fragments, to determine the most frequently occurring type of writing errors made by science-math students and intensive science-math students. In addition, the current study identified similarities and differences in the types of errors made by both groups. The participants of this study were 40 students, consisting of 20 students from a science-math program and 20 students from an intensive science-math program. They were studying in the twelfth grade in the academic year 2020 at a public school in Bangkok. The data were collected from 80 pieces of students’ writings. Corder’s paradigm (1974) was adopted to analyze the three types of writing errors. In addition, L1 Thai was highlighted as a factor that could play a role in the errors. The findings showed that comma splices occurred most frequently in the science-math group, accounting for 44.44% (36 tokens). In the intensive science-math group’s errors, run-on sentences occurred most frequently, accounting for 47.24% (60 tokens). There were individual differences in these results. In terms of the similarity, sentence fragments were the second most frequently occurring error type in both groups. This was in contrast to the previous studies of Pongwacharapakorn (2014) and Sermsook et al. (2017), which found that sentence fragments occurred most frequently. The slightly greater accuracy in the science-math groups compared to the intensive science-math group could be attributed to the instructor’s role, i.e., non-native English speaking teachers (NNEST) vs. native English speaking teachers (NEST). This suggests the enhancement of English grammatical accuracy by NNESTs, consistent with Al-Shewaiter’s (2019) findings. As certain types of errors could have been influenced by L1 Thai, it can be inferred that both groups of students committed interlingual errors (Zobl, 1980, as cited in Al-Khresheh, 2016) and local errors (Ellis, 1994 ; Burt (1975) and Ellis (2008), as cited in Phoocharoensil, 2016 ; Touchie, 1986)

Thammasat University. Thammasat University Library

Address: BANGKOK

Email: preserv@tu.ac.th

Name: Pornsiri Singhapreecha

Role: advisor

Created: 2020

Modified: 2023-02-13

Issued: 2023-02-13

วิทยานิพนธ์/Thesis

application/pdf

DOI: 10.14457/TU.the.2020.1015

eng

DegreeName: Master of Arts

Level: Master's Degree

Descipline: Career English for International Communication

Grantor: Thammasat University

©copyrights Thammasat University

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