Effect of Teaching Graduate Course in English on Errors in English Writing

Abstract

Major purpose of present study is to measure the frequency of errors made by students in different faculties with reference to surface strategy taxonomy and to find out the effect of teaching a course in English “Functional English” on errors made by students with reference to gender. Quasi-experimental pre-test, post-test design allowed four intact groups of students without randomization to have an intervention in terms of a course titled as “Functional English” taught by teachers from English department across four faculties in the period of one semester. As pre and post-test, participants were asked to write an essay on “My Best Summer Vacation” having word limit of 200-250. As a result, a large number of errors are under the four categories of surface strategy taxonomy.Results further show that students have overcome their errors after studying the course of English especially omission errors. This study also indicates that as compared to male students, female students have overcome their errors after studying the course of English. Educational implications are also discussed.