Struggling with English at University level: error patterns and
problematic areas of first-year students’ interlanguage
María Belén Díez Bedmar
University of Jaén
belendb@ujaen.es
ABSTRACT
The proficiency in English of first-year students of English Studies (Filología Inglesa)
varies widely. This is all the more relevant as this first year proves extremely important for
learners to unify and improve their command of English, which will enable them to fulfil
some of the tasks to come along their four-year degree.
A written learner corpus of first-year students of English Studies was compiled at the
University of Jaén (Spain) for empirical evidence of these students’ performance: the
26,259-word corpus consists in the contributions of twenty-nine students who started their
degree in the academic year 2002-2003. This UCLEE-error-tagged longitudinal corpus
casts light on two main issues which may be of use for the teaching of English as a foreign
language (TEFL) in a Spanish-speaking University background. First, the three samplings
carried out at different stages of the academic year allow the study of the evolution of the
students’ interlanguage at various levels (spelling, verb tenses, verb complementation, etc.).
Therefore, specific patterns of each aspect of the interlanguage during this year can be
found out and compared. These patterns also highlight the degree of markedness in the
evolution of each error type and, as a result, the importance of its evolution in the students’
performance. Second, it was possible to empirically pinpoint the main problematic areas (at
morphological, syntactic, semantic and pragmatic levels) that students face when struggling
with the general variety of English.
1. Introduction
The level of the written production in English by first-year students may vary a lot from
one student to another, depending on their academic and personal backgrounds. Even
though they all are supposed to have, at least, an intermediate level of English as stated
in the curriculum of English in secondary schools and the University entrance exam
(Selectividad), the reality lecturers face is that students present various degrees of
proficiency (Magariño González, 1997; Mulligan, 2000 and 2001).
The first year of English Studies (Filología Inglesa) becomes, thus, one of the most
decisive courses for the students’ interlanguage (cf. Selinker, 1972). If we want to
accurately lay the foundations for the improvement of the students’ written production,
unify their level to enable them to fulfil successfully the tasks they are required to do
during their four-year degree, essay writing being one of the most important ones, and
be able to ‘[...] tailor teaching to need’ (Leech, 1998: xiv), then lecturers should be
aware of the main problems their students struggle with throughout this first year.
One of the most useful and efficient tools for research on the students’ interlanguage
cross-sectionally or longitudinally is the computer learner corpus (CLC), that is, an
‘[…] electronic collection[s] of spoken or written texts produced by foreign or second
language learners.’ (Granger, 2004: 124). If strictly designed and quantitatively and
qualitatively exploited, this powerful tool can provide the researcher with appropriate
information concerning the foreign students’ production of English. The endless
research that can be conducted with this tool proves that, even though CLC ‘[…] is little
1
over ten years old […]’ (Granger, 2004: 131), the huge amount of research done ‘[…]
bear witness to the vitality in this field’ (Granger, 2002: 26). As far as the written
production of English by foreign or second language learners is concerned, many
researchers have devoted their efforts to find out the main features of advanced
students’ written language or look into the problems that specific aspects of English
pose to students.
Regarding the advanced students’ interlanguage, investigations have shown that the
overuse of high frequency vocabulary Gillard and Gadsby, 1998; Granger, 1998;
Granger and Tribble, 1998; Lorenz, 1998; Ringbom, 1998), the extensive use of certain
prefabs (de Cock, Granger, Leech and McEnery, 1998) and a high degree of
involvement, due perhaps to the students’ lack of register awareness (Granger and
Rayson, 1998; Petch-Tyson, 1998; Kaszubski, 2001; Aijmer, 2002) are the most salient
features. Some of the fields that have received more attention as far as the problems that
students have when struggling with them are, among others, the study of vocabulary
(Nation and Laufer, 1995; Ringbom, 1998; Altenberg, 2002; Leńko-Szymańska, 2002),
modals (Aijmer, 2002), connectors (Granger and Tyson, 1996; Altenberg and Tapper,
1998; Blagoeva, 2001), collocations and prefabs (Granger, 1998; Howarth, 1998), verb
tenses (Granger, 1999), verb constructions (Nesselhauf, 2004), verb subcategorization
(Tono, 2004), anaphors (Leńko-Szymańska, 2004), writer stance (Neff et al., 2004),
idiomaticity (Kaszubski, 2001), articles (Mason and Uzar, 2000), etc.
Regarding Spanish students of English in secondary education or above that level,
research has revealed interesting aspects of their interlanguage, which are sometimes
shared with other learners of English as a foreign language. These students are prone to
mistakes concerning spelling (Granger and Wynne, 1999: 255), articles, prepositions,
verbs and nouns (Bueno González, 1992: 88-89), they overuse reference devices (Díez
Prados, 2003: 215), get followed by a direct object (Ringbom, 1998: 44), and have
problems with preverbal negation (Linde López, 1992: 140), verb tenses (Celaya
Villanueva, 1995), derived intransitive verbs (Carini Martínez, 1995), the expression of
the perfective aspect (Salvador-Rabaza Ramos and Martí Viaño, 1995), textual and
interpersonal metadiscourse markers (Barrio Luis and Martín Úriz, 2001), the
formulation of writer stance (Neff et al., 2004), etc. All in all, these students seem to
have more problems than their partners studying in other countries at similar academic
levels, as Kaszubski (2001: 317) pinpoints when admitting that the Spanish learner
corpus in the International Corpus of Learner English (ICLE) project, (SPAN), ‘[…]
although officially regarded as ‘advanced’, had to be relegated to a lower level’ for the
purposes of his research.
However, there are not many studies on the overall written production of Spanish
students of English during their first year at University. To the best of my knowledge,
the only one published regarding the first year is Valero Garcés (1997) and, analysing
first and fourth years, Valero Garcés et al. (2000). Similarly, the interlanguage of
second year University students was also analysed by García Gómez and Bou (1990)
and González Cruz (1995) using different categories. In both articles on the first year,
the authors described the interlanguage that these students presented during the first
weeks of the academic year following an error typology divided into seven (Valero
Garcés, 1997: 74) or five categories (Valero Garcés et al., 2000: 1853).
2
Nevertheless, none of them presented a continuation of that analysis during the first
year to see if the students’ prolonged exposure to the foreign language along the
academic year and the formal instruction they were receiving affected their written
performance throughout the year. The search for possible patterns of interlanguage
evolution together with the need to empirically highlight the problematic areas students
struggle with along their first year gave rise to the present study.
2. Methodology
The learner corpus compiled to carry out this investigation is composed of the 67
essays, amounting to 26,259 words, that the 29 voluntary participants who began their
studies of Filología Inglesa in the academic year 2002-2003 at the University of Jaén
wrote for a compulsory course in English language usage at intermediate level.
Not to bias the results of the study, special attention was paid to several compilation
criteria: only the students who enrolled for the first time in the course were considered.
Second, the academic background that these students have was checked to be similar:
all of them did their secondary studies in state high schools and had a low or preintermediate command of another language (French) besides English. The only
distinctive features that some of them had was that six students were also studying
English in a private institution, or official language school (Escuela Oficial de Idiomas)
and five had been to an English-speaking country for a short period of time to take a
course in general English or oral skills. As far as the samples are concerned, only the
essays that the students produced for the above mentioned course were considered to
ensure the homogeneity of the text genres (mainly descriptive) and the register in the
corpus.
Three stages were considered along the year to compile samples which would allow the
analysis of the participants’ interlanguage evolution: the first one (A) took place in
October, when the academic year had just begun, and the second (B) and third (C)
coincided with the exams in February and July. Although the first sampling (A) was not
a real exam, the three sets of samples were collected under similar external factors to
ensure coherence in the corpus compilation. Thus, no reference material was allowed
and a time limit was imposed on essay writing.
Once compiled, the corpus was error-tagged using the UCLEE (Hutchinson, 1996) to
ensure comparability of results with those obtained by research carried out by the
members of the ICLE project (Granger, 1993), by large the ones producing more studies
in this field, or other researchers using this established tagset (Dagneaux, Denness,
Granger and Meunier, 1996). In order to retrieve the instances of errors, the concord
tool in WordSmith Tools version 3 (Scott, 1999) was used. Thus, I devised a
spreadsheet with all the information. On the one hand, the number of errors related to
each tag that individual students had made were added so that the percentage of errors
involved in that specific tag, if compared to the total number of errors by participants in
that sampling, could be calculated. On the other hand, the total number of words that
each student wrote in his or her essay was added to obtain the percentage of errors per
essay.
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3. Patterns of interlanguage evolution in first-year students
Taking into account the resulting figures, I obtained eight evolution patterns from the
number of errors per stage (A, B and C).
Before analysing them in detail, it is necessary to bear in mind that the symbols > and <
are used here to mean that the percentage of errors increases or decreases, respectively,
from one stage (A, B, C) to the other. As far as the figures in the following sections are
concerned, all of them represent, on the horizontal axis, the three stages taken into
account (A, B and C) and, on the vertical one, the percentages of errors (in varying
scales from figure to figure depending on the results of the tag under study).
3.1. Steady evolution
The two patterns found in this section are related, since the behaviour that the
percentages of errors in the essay compilations show is opposite. In the first one,
positive evolution, the number of errors in the three samplings shows a decrease.
Therefore, the students’ interlanguage evolution relating the aspects of language under
the tags that follow this pattern improves throughout the academic year. As we can see
in figure 1, the comparative and superlative forms of adjectives (GADJCS), the phrasal
complementation of verbs (XADJPR), false friends (LSF), subordinating conjunctions
(LCS), word order (WO) and incomplete style (SI) follow this positive evolution.
3
2,5
2
1,5
1
0,5
0
A
GADJCS
B
XADJPR
C
LSF
LCS
WO
SI
Figure 1. Positive evolution.
As can be noticed, word order (1) and the comparative and superlative forms of
adjectives (2) show a slight improvement from A to C, while phrasal complementation
of adjectives (3) is the aspect on which students improve most. The other tags in this
pattern are the ones related to incomplete style (4), use of false friends (5), and use of
subordinating conjunctions (6).
(1)
‘[...] I like (WO) a lot the English language [...]’ (1-J-IIn-A-13)
(2)
‘She is (GADJCS) oldest than me [...]’ (1-J-IIn-A-16)
(3)
‘I was (FS) (XADJPR) confussed of (WO) (GP) what was the city [...]’ (1-J-IIn-A-04)
4
(4)
‘The situation was (LS) desesperating and (S) many of my friends were very,
very nervous. (SI) It was the scene of a child trying to escape from the flames,
all the flat was burning (PM) [...]’ (1-J-IIn-C-06)
(5)
‘[...] and I think that this (LSF) idiom (GVM) can opening a lot of doors [...]’
(1-J-IIn-A-22)
(6)
‘No, he loves me (LCS) like I (GVN) does, I’m sure!’ (1-J-IIn-C-24)
The second pattern, negative evolution, represents the opposite, since the number of
errors increases through the academic year and, therefore, the students’ performance is
worse. Figure 2 shows the evolution of the four tags which follow this negative
evolution: the use of spelling conventions (FS), subject-verb agreement (GVN),
auxiliary verbs (GVAUX) and lexical phrases (LP).
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
A
B
FS
GVN
C
GVAUX
LP
Figure 2. Negative evolution.
In this case, spelling conventions (7) and the use of the auxiliary verbs (8) are the two
aspects where the percentage of errors increased most. Contrarily, the number of
problems concerning subject-verb agreement (9) and the use of lexical phrases (10)
increases slightly from the first sampling to the last one.
(7)
‘Firemen (XVPR) (FS) suceeded on their intention [...]’ (1-J-IIn-C-12)
(8)
‘[...] wondering what (GVAUX) had happened if we had not been [...]’ (1-JIIn-C-06)
(9)
‘[...] and they (GVN) was behind me.’ (1-J-IIn-B-23)
(10)
‘[...] contact with an English (LP) written-friend.’ (1-J-IIn-B-11)
Negative evolution stops at B can be considered as a variant of the previous pattern,
since it also shows a negative evolution, the difference being that it is interrupted at B
and presents the same percentage at C. As can be analysed in figure 3, three aspects
regarding nouns show this type of negative evolution: their clausal (XNCO) and phrasal
(XNPR) complementation and the use of countable and uncountable nouns (XNUC).
5
0,4
0,35
0,3
0,25
0,2
0,15
0,1
0,05
0
A
B
XNCO
XNPR
C
XNUC
Figure 3. Negative evolution stops at B.
The errors under the tags for the phrasal complementation of nouns (11) and the use of
countable and uncountable nouns (12) show a more evident negative evolution from A
to B than the ones under the tag for their clausal complementation (13).
(11)
‘[...] I would like to learn (XNPR) everything of (GP) his.’ (1-J-IIn-B-05)
(12)
‘[...] I had (XNUC) a good luck because [...]’ (1-J-IIn-A-13)
(13)
‘I noticed that the (GNN) (XNCO) reason for living was different in (LS)
every cases [...]’ (1-J-IIn-B-19)
3.2. Incomplete positive evolution
Two patterns share the feature of incomplete positive evolution, that is, essay
compilations A and B show fewer errors, but essay compilation C unexpectedly
interrupts that improvement. If C presents a number of errors which is higher than that
at A, we have the pattern incomplete positive evolution C>A. By contrast, if the number
of errors is lower than the one at A, we find the pattern incomplete positive evolution
C<A.
As noticed in figure 4, the percentages representing the case in nouns (GNC), the word
class (GWC), the morphology of verbs (GVM), verb tenses (GVT), clausal
complementation of adjectives (XADJCO), phrasal complementation of verbs (XVPR)
and unclear style (SU) follow the pattern incomplete positive evolution C>A.
6
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
A
B
C
GNC
GVM
GVT
XADJCO
XVPR
SU
GWC
Figure 4. Incomplete positive evolution C>A.
The tags for which essay compilation C differs most in percentage of errors from essay
compilation B are verb tense (14) and phrasal complementation of verbs (15), as in:
(14)
‘[...] the best experience I (GVT) had in my life.’ (1-J-IIn-B-11)
(15)
‘But I (XVPR) saw to my mother [...]’ (1-J-IIn-C-49)
The other five tags, those for the morphology of verbs (16), clausal complementation of
adjectives (17), instances of unclear style (18), case in nouns (19) and word class (20)
also have a higher number of errors at C than at B, but the change is not as significant as
in the previous two cases:
(16)
‘[...] I (GVM) can to learn (FS) English [...]’ (1-J-IIn-B-22)
(17)
‘We were very (XADJCO) happy of (XVPR) meeting [...]’ (1-J-IIn-C-19)
(18)
‘On (S) (LP) (Semana Santa)’s (GNN) holiday (PM) (SU) (GVT) I’ll stay out
with the Saints.’ (1-J-IIn-B-10)
(19)
‘I can have (GNC) Englishs’ classes [...]’ (1-J-IIn-A-02)
(20)
‘[...] David was (GWC) died [...]’ (1-J-IIn-C-49)
The pattern incomplete positive evolution C<A also shows an incipient positive
evolution which does not continue as would be expected. The difference with the
previous pattern is that in this case the percentage of errors at the third stage does not
supersede that of the first essay compilation. Therefore, students show an overall
improvement when struggling with the selection of lexical items (LS), the occurrence of
redundant words (WR), missing words (WM), register (R), general style (S) and wrong
punctuation (PX). Nevertheless, at the end of the academic year, students face more
problems using these aspects of the foreign language than at the second stage, which
seems to represent a step back in their interlanguage.
7
18
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
A
LS
B
WR
WM
C
R
S
PX
Figure 5. Incomplete positive evolution C<A.
As seen in this figure, the three tags whose percentages decrease most from the first to
the second stage are wrong punctuation (21), occurrence of redundant words (22), and
selection of lexical items (23). However, the tags which show the worst evolution from
the second to the third stage are occurrence of redundant words, style (24), and selection
of lexical items (25). Therefore, it can be said that both the occurrences of redundant
words and the selection of lexis are more likely to instability and experimentation by
students.
(21)
‘[...] (GVT) had always said to me the truth (PX) , to sum up, he [...]’ (1-J-IInB-24)
(22)
‘[...] while I was (WR) I playing, my parents [...]’ (1-J-IIn-C-28)
(23)
‘But (PM) when my family (LS) went, my friends came to my (LS) home and
we went out.’ (1-J-IIn-B-23)
(24)
‘At weekends (PM) we go to our village, (S) the four (LS) are from the same
(GP).’ (1-J-IIn-A-27)
(25)
‘I (LS) came back to Madrid [...]’ (1-J-IIn-A-27)
Examples of missing words (26) and the register that students use in their essays (27)
can also be found in this pattern, but with percentages which do not fluctuate as much
as the ones in the previous cases:
(26)
‘[...] (LS) this protests will not (WM) enough to stop the attack.’ (1-J-IIn-B28)
(27)
‘[...] but my mother (R) rebuked me because [...]’ (1-J-IIn-C-18)
8
3.3. Incomplete negative evolution
Two patterns represent the opposite to the two described in the former section. Their
evolution is negative, but in the last sampling the percentage of errors decreases. As
before, the improvement can show a percentage worse, incomplete negative evolution
C>A, or better than that at A incomplete negative evolution C<A. Thus, in the first case,
we see that the overall interlanguage evolution is negative, because students make more
mistakes in certain respects of the foreign language at the end of the academic year than
at the beginning. A closer examination of this pattern reveals that the situation could
have been worse, as the second stage presented an unexpected peak of errors. In the
second case, incomplete negative evolution C<A, the overall interlanguage evolution is
positive. However, the behaviour of the percentages is quite striking: contrary to all
expectations, the high percentage of errors in the second essay compilation improves in
the last one to such an extent that, at the end of the academic year, students do better
than at the beginning.
As shown in figure 6, even though the tag for missing punctuation represents the pattern
best (PM), morphology (FM), number in nouns (GNN), number in adjectives (GADJN)
and clausal complementation of prepositions (XPRCO) also follow this pattern.
25
20
15
10
5
0
A
FM
B
GNN
GADJN
C
XPRCO
PM
Figure 6. Incomplete negative evolution C>A.
(28)
‘However (PM) we (XVPR) continued in our adventure [...]’ (1-J-IIn-C-07)
(29)
‘[...] I was in Madrid for (FM) fiveteen days [...]’ (1-J-IIn-A-27)
(30)
‘[...] all my (GNN) friend had heard (GP) that I (GVT) heard.’ (1-J-IIn-C-07)
(31)
‘I had (GADJN) differents things [...]’ (1-J-IIn-C-02)
(32)
‘[...] I was looking forward to (XPRCO) see that person [...]’ (1-J-IIn-C-06)
As far as the pattern incomplete negative evolution C<A is concerned (figure 7), the
tags which present the highest percentages are the ones for articles (33) and pronouns
(34), but the ones which fluctuate most from stage A to C are the ones for non-finite
forms of verbs (35) and verbal complementation (36). The other tags in this pattern are
the ones for order of adjectives (37), order of adverbs (38), coordinating conjunctions
9
(39), use of single connectors (40), use of complex logical connectors (41), and
redundancy in punctuation (42).
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
A
B
C
GA
GP
GADJO
GADVO
GVNF
XVCO
LCLS
LCLC
LCC
PR
Figure 7. Incomplete negative evolution C<A.
(33)
‘I play (GA) guitar and compose my own songs [...]’ (1.J-IIn-A-22)
(34)
‘Tell them a story you enjoyed when (GP) were a child’ (1-J-IIn-C-02)
(35)
‘[...] I want the weekend (GVNF) coming soon [...]’ (1-J-IIn-A-03)
(36)
‘[...] I don’t (XVCO) want bore you with my problems [...]’ (1-J-IIn-A-12)
(37)
‘[...] we saw many (GADJO) animals marine.’ (1-J-IIn-A-10)
(38)
‘This (FM) (FS) polititic problem (GADVO) never will have a (WR) a fair
solution.’ (1-J-IIn-B-07)
(39)
‘[...] and they weren’t there (LCC) too!’ (1-J-IIn-B-08)
(40)
‘I (XVCO) like to stay (LS) in home and (LS) see a film, alone or with my
friends or sisters. (LCLS) However (PM) I (XVCO) like to buy clothes.’ (1-JIIn-B-05)
(41)
‘(LCLC) At a conclusion, [...]’ (1-J-IIn-A-11)
(42)
‘Although (PR) , my boyfriend is very important...’ (1-J-IIn-B-09)
3.4. Evolution at one stage
Apart from the third pattern in section one, negative evolution stops at B, which could
also be considered under this section, there is only one pattern in the corpus, evolution
only at the third stage: C<A, which shows no change in the percentage of errors
corresponding to a tag until one stage, in this case the third sampling. This pattern is
positive, because the percentage of errors decreases at the end of the academic year,
10
even if it had remained static for the first two stages. Only the tag for the use of voice in
verbs (43) can be found in this pattern, as seen in the figure below:
0,07
0,06
0,05
0,04
0,03
0,02
0,01
0
A
B
C
GVV
Figure 8. Evolution only at the third stage: C<A.
(43)
‘I suppose that everyone (GVV) is wondered it.’ (1-J-IIn-B-18)
It would be noted that, despite the possibility of four more patterns showing a positive
or negative change in the percentage of tags at one stage, only the pattern in figure 8 is
found. Therefore, instances following patterns such as evolution only at the third stage:
C > A, changes only at B: B > A = C, changes only at B: B < A = C, and positive
evolution stops at B are not to be found in the data of this learner corpus.
4. Problematic areas in first-year students
If the overall written production by these first-year students is analysed along the three
stages considered (figure 9), the peaks that some tags show indicate aspects of the
English language which pose more problems than others. Regardless of the pattern that
these specific areas of the foreign language follow, the problematic areas that first-year
students show along the academic year are, in decreasing order of percentages, missing
punctuation (PM), selection of lexical items (LS), spelling conventions (FS), verb tenses
(GVT), style (S) and articles (GA).
11
25
20
15
IIn-A
IIn-B
IIn-C
10
0
FM
FS
GA
GNC
GNN
GP
GADJO
GADJN
GADJCS
GADVO
GVN
GVM
GVNF
GVV
GVT
GVAUX
GWC
XADJCO
XCONJCO
XNCO
XPRCO
XVCO
XADJPR
XNPR
XVPR
XNUC
LS
LSF
LP
LCLS
LCLC
LCC
LCS
WR
WM
WO
R
S
SI
SU
PM
PR
PX
5
Figure 9. Problematic areas by first-year students.
In this figure we can also see the different scales that could be noticed in the figures 1 to
8, showing the various patterns. As clearly represented in the figure above, the
percentage of errors students made when using the different aspects of the English
language vary, forming peaks and valleys which describe the overall written
competence of first-year students.
It is also worth highlighting that the percentages of errors that some students made
when dealing with some aspects of the English language at the three stages (A, B and C)
fluctuate more in some tags than in others. Therefore, we can see that learners’ language
is more unstable in some aspects of the foreign language, because they experiment more
with these aspects than with those they feel less confident with, as seen in the
percentages of the errors concerning verb tenses (GVT), verbal complementation
(XVCO), phrasal complementation of verbs (XVPR), selection of vocabulary (LS),
redundant words (WR), unclear style (US) and punctuation (PM, PR, PX). The last
three tags may be set as a good example of the instability of students’ production
(Abbott, Greenwood, McKeating and Wingard, 1981: 216). As seen in the figure above,
the percentages related to punctuation widely fluctuate from one stage to another,
perhaps because students need to experiment with punctuation in order to master its
basic rules. In fact, the percentages show that students manage to make fewer mistakes
when dealing with punctuation at the end of the academic year. It is interesting to notice
as well that some of the tags which fluctuate most correspond with the tags that also
present higher percentages of errors, that is, verb tenses (GVT), selection of vocabulary
(LS), and missing punctuation (PM), which may indicate that students make more
mistakes in these aspects because they need to experiment more with them to grasp their
use.
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5. Conclusions
From the data of this error-tagged learner corpus, we can conclude that Spanish firstyear students of English Studies face serious difficulties along the academic year when
dealing with punctuation, vocabulary, spelling, verb tenses, style and articles. Therefore,
if we want to meet our students’ needs to improve their written command of the English
language during this first year, we need to focus on these areas.
Apart from these problematic areas, attention should also be drawn to the aspects of the
foreign language which improve in general terms throughout the year. Thus, it would be
possible to foster this positive evolution and motivate students to achieve an advanced
level of English regarding voice in the verb phrase, use of single logical connectors,
wrong punctuation, order of adjectives, comparative and superlative forms of adjectives,
order of adverbs, phrasal complementation of adjectives, false friends, subordinating
conjunctions, redundancy, missing words, register, incomplete style of sentences, and
redundant punctuation.
Similarly, the aspects of the language showing higher percentages of errors at the end of
the academic year (appropriate word class, phrasal complementation of verbs, auxiliary
verbs, morphology of verbs, subject-verb agreement, number in adjectives, clausal
complementation of nouns, complementation of prepositions, morphology, phrasal
complementation of nouns, lexical phrases and unclear style) need to be pinpointed so
that remedial teaching is implemented from the very beginning of the academic year.
Finally, the aspects that remain stable throughout the academic year (clausal
complementation of adjectives, complementation of conjunctions, clausal
complementation of verbs, use of countable and uncountable nouns, complex logical
connectors, pronouns, number in nouns, case in nouns, non-finite forms of verbs and
word order) are also important. Their low percentage of errors at the three stages may
suggest that a specific focus on form may solve the problems students have with these
aspects and that students avoid using them not to make many errors in areas which they
do not feel competent with.
The patterns described in section 4 also show that students’ interlanguage does not
evolve similarly, that is, there are some aspects of the foreign language which are more
likely to cause errors than others at certain stages of their interlanguage development.
These differences may stem from the intensive real input students receive through the
first year (which they had not received before), the difficulty that it poses to them and
their slight experimentation with certain aspects of the language which they do not
master.
The patterns allow the teacher to be aware of the difficulties English causes at different
stages of the year. Therefore, the curriculum (in general) or lecturers (in particular
terms) can now anticipate problematic areas along the year and provide students with
appropriate exercises at different stages (explicit focus on form by means of DDL
activities or comparison of the learner corpus and a comparable native corpus, etc.) to
make students conscious of these problematic areas.
However, we must also be aware that the low percentages of errors involving some tags
do not mean that students do not have problems when using a specific aspect of the
13
language. A further qualitative study may cast light on the aspects that students avoid
(Hasselgren, 1994: 237) when writing in the foreign language, above all if the essays
are part of an exam. The fact that some sets of tags, that is, the ones dealing with phrasal
complementation (XADJPR, XNPR and XVPR), single logical connectors (LCLS) and
coordinating conjunctions (LCC) present higher percentages than the ones relating to
clausal complementation (XADJCO, XCONJCO, XNCO XPRCO and XVCO),
complex logical connectors (LCLC) and subordinating conjunctions (LCS), as seen in
figure 9, may reveal that students use more and, therefore, make more mistakes when
using the aspects of the language related to the tags they feel more comfortable with,
rather than experimenting with more complex aspects in the other tags, which they
avoid. Similarly, avoidance may also be detected by means of a ninth pattern, no
evolution, where the tag which does not present any errors along the year – as is the case
with the complementation of conjunctions (XCONJCO) – is represented, suggesting
that students do not make any mistake because they do not use this type of
complementation at all. The lack of usage of these aspects would lower the level that
students present by not using complex noun or adjective phrases, subordination, or
clausal complementation with which they also need to experiment to foster their
positive evolution.
The qualitative study would also bring to light whether students take risks when using
the English language and try to improve their level of English to the detriment of their
overall written production. For this reason, the high percentages of errors do not only
provide the researcher with the less optimistic side of the coin. Thus, the specific
problems they have within each tag considered may be specially dealt with (remedial
teaching) and, once solved, lecturers may continue on improving the students’
command of the foreign language by providing them with aspects of the language which
build on their proficiency.
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