L1 INTERFERING AND L2 DEVELOPMENTAL WRITING ERRORS AMONG IRANIAN EFL LEARNERS

This study aimed to investigate common writing errors among Persian EFL Learners. The focus of the study was to identify Persian interfering and developmental errors based on the four rubrics of sentence styles, mechanics, grammar and punctuations. To achieve this, 80 students and 3 teachers from Iran Language Institute were asked to participate in this study. The instruments for data collection were a proficiency test to test the level of their homogeneity, as well as a written test in which students were asked to write a narrative passage. The content analysis approach was used to analyze students’ writing errors. Afterwards the most representative samples from the narrative texts were categorized based on their lexico-semantic and syntacto-morphological features. The results from this study indicated that English grammar and vocabulary were the linguistic areas that suffered the highest level of L1 language interference. The most common Persian interfering error was the word choice a subtype of grammar and the least common Persian errors were various subtypes of punctuations. The most common developmental error was spelling a subtype of mechanics of writing and the least one was the negation a subtype of sentence style and clarity. A list of common interfering and developmental errors from Iranian intermediate students was provided