Grammatical mistakes of Albanian students in learning English as a foreign language

Abstract

Mistakes are an unavoidable part of the foreign language learning and teaching. This paper concentrates on the common grammatical mistakes made by Albanian students during the EFL learning process and their sources with the purpose of considering them in teaching the English grammar effectively. Being aware of such mistakes in teaching and learning English grammar for communicative purpose may help the teacher in choosing the right teaching option that would pose fewer difficulties and problems to their learners and therefore, enhance students’ learning of English grammar.The background of this study consists in some important clarifications regarding the terminology (errors, mistakes), typology and causes of mistakes. The terms error and mistake in this study are used synonymously, referring to the production of inaccurate forms in learners’ language output. It is noted that many of the mistakes are caused by the influence the learners’ native language. Some of the most common mistakes of Albanian learners are: verb agreement, tense use, question and negative forms, verb patterns, elliptic structures, articles and prepositions. Many of them have been identified by other foreign researchers. The errors have been gathered form a corpus of written texts produced by 40 students of the first course studying English as a foreign language at the English Department, Faculty of Education, “Fan S. Noli” University in Korca, in the academic year 2013-2014. The model of correct usage employed in this paper is standard British English. The paper concludes with a discussion of what appears to be the most important issues arising from the survey.

DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n19p323