Mapping Grammatical Errors in EFL Students’ Writing: Evidence from Indonesian Junior Secondary School Learners at SMP Muhammadiyah Pangsid

Abstract

Grammatical accuracy plays a crucial role in developing English writing proficiency, particularly among English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners. However, students frequently encounter difficulties in constructing grammatically correct sentences due to limited grammatical knowledge, differences between their first language and English, and challenges in applying grammatical rules in written communication. This study aims to investigate the types and patterns of grammatical errors in English paragraph writing, with a particular focus on sentence structure, noun usage, adverbials, and the simple past tense. The study is proposed to be conducted at SMP Muhammadiyah Pangsid, Sidenreng Rappang, South Sulawesi, Indonesia. A descriptive quantitative approach is employed using the Surface Strategy Taxonomy, which categorizes grammatical errors into four types: omission, addition, misformation, and misordering. Students' written paragraphs serve as the primary source of data, while error identification, classification, frequency calculation, and percentage analysis are used to examine grammatical error patterns. The original research conducted at SMK PGRI Pekanbaru identified 371 grammatical errors, consisting of 45 omission errors (12.13%), 21 addition errors (5.66%), 303 misformation errors (81.67%), and two misordering errors (0.54%). These findings indicate that misformation was the most dominant grammatical error in the original study, particularly in the use of the simple past tense. However, these results represent the original vocational school participants and cannot be attributed to students at SMP Muhammadiyah Pangsid without additional empirical investigation. The proposed study is expected to provide context-specific insights into grammatical difficulties experienced by junior secondary EFL learners and contribute to the development of more targeted grammar instruction, corrective feedback strategies, and writing activities. The study emphasizes the importance of systematic error analysis as a diagnostic approach to improving grammatical awareness and English writing proficiency.