ISSN 1799-2591

Theory and Practice in Language Studies, Vol. 10, No. 5, pp. 520-526, May 2020
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17507/tpls.1005.05

Errors in English Writing of ESL/EFL Students:

A Systematic Review
Tawos Mohammadi
English Department, Languages and Literature Faculty, Kabul Education University, Kabul, Afghanistan

Hema Rosheny Mustafa

Language Academy, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Malaysia;
University of Tasmania, Australia

Abstract—Errors in the English writing of students have been studied in different levels of education and in
different genres of writing in different countries. The study of writing errors is considered essential for
improving the writing of students. This systematic review studies the research papers which have been
conducted in the surrounding countries of Afghanistan to find out the most common errors in the writing of
EFL/ESL learners in this region, and to find the gap in the existing literature in this region. The studies were
identified through a search in three databases: The Science Direct, the Academy Publications, and the Scopus
journals database. The included studies are conducted in EFL/ESL, focused on errors in the writing, and
published in one of the three abovementioned journals. The three databases produced 562 articles, from which
nine articles were included in the study based on inclusion/exclusion criteria. After an in-depth study of the
articles, it was revealed that the EFL/ESL speakers of English in these countries commit errors in writing, and
most of these errors are in the grammatical and mechanics category. The most common errors reported in the
studies were in articles, prepositions, punctuation, spelling, and word choice. In these countries, a few genres
of writing, such as essays and journals, have been studied.

Indexed Terms—EFL writing, ESL writing, error analysis, writing errors, causes of errors

I. INTRODUCTION
English as an international language is widely spoken around the world. It is considered the language of
communication, business, trade, diplomacy, and the medium of instruction in higher educations. James (2013) stated
that science and technology are two other domains that are dominated by the English language. The English language
possesses the first place in the world for second language speakers (Christiansen, 2015). It is spoken as a foreign
language in many countries such as Afghanistan, Iran, China, and as a second language in Pakistan, India, and most
countries of south-east Asia.
Due to the international use of the English language, it becomes a requirement for employment and education in the
countries where it is spoken as a second or foreign language. Most people, including students, teachers, scientists, and
the users of social media, feel the need to have the ability to express their feelings and thoughts in the English language.
Among the four skills of the English language, writing is of paramount importance because it is widely used in higher
educations and occupational fields (Walsh, 2010). This skill of English language is vital for writing assignments,
reviews, researches, and many other academic activities, all of which require advanced writing skills, but learning to
write without errors in a foreign language seems to be a challenging task (Hyland, 2003). In fact, it is a difficult task
even for the adult native speakers of a language (Raimes, 1991). It needs the knowledge of the language system,
vocabulary, the skills to put the right words together and create a coherent and cohesive piece of writing, and thinking
strategies to let the learner put their ideas effectively on a paper in another language (Erkan & Saban, 2011). Therefore,
there is a crucial need for learners to improve their English language writing skills to enable them to achieve achieving
the opportunities for employment and education.
In the process of language learning and acquisition, errors may occur (Brown, 2000) as errors are inseparable from
the process of learning (Ling & Stapa, 2011). It shows that when errors occur, learning is taking place (Corder, 1982).
However, the most important thing is that the errors should be analysed carefully because some essential understandings
about second language learning are embedded in learners’ errors (Brown, 2000).
Learner’s errors in writing have been the centre of debates from a long time ago, among linguists, researchers,
English language teachers, curriculum developers, and syllabus designers. Corder (1982) explained that the learners’
errors are essential for three purposes. First, it gives the teachers an insight into the progress that students make toward
their goals. Second, it helps the researchers to understand the procedures and strategies that the learners use for learning
the language. The third advantage is for the learners to help them evaluate their progress in learning the language.
This systematic review is intended to provide essential information about the errors in English writing and the
remedial measures for the errors in English language writing of the students in the neighbouring countries of

© 2020 ACADEMY PUBLICATION

THEORY AND PRACTICE IN LANGUAGE STUDIES 521

Afghanistan, such as Pakistan, China, Iran, and other central Asian countries. In some of these countries, English is
used as a foreign language, and in some of them, it is used as a second language. In the context where English is used as
a foreign language, a lack of exposure to the English language affects English language skills, as stated by Ling and
Stapa (2011). Hence, it makes the language learning process challenging for the learners, particularly for those who live
in a multilingual context. Among the four skills of English language, the productive skills seem to be affected the most,
since there is no direct communication through spoken or written language in the society while the learners have the
opportunities to develop their receptive skills through watching news, documentaries, reading books, English
newspapers, and magazines. Therefore, English language learners in foreign language context are prone to making
different types of errors in their productive skills, mainly writing skills.
Ample studies have been conducted in different countries on different aspects of errors in English language writing,
for instance, Ling and Stapa (2011) conducted a study on the writing skill of non-English major Chinese undergraduate
students in Malaysia. Demailly Tulldahl (2005) conducted a study on the written production of adolescent learners of
English in Sweden. Murad and Khalil (2015) researched the writing of first-year Arab students majoring in the English
language. However, in Afghanistan and the countries surrounding Afghanistan, the issue of error analysis has not been
given enough attention due to two reasons. First, in most of these countries, English is learned as a foreign language in
secondary and tertiary educations. It is taught merely as a subject in schools and universities, but not used in the context.
Second, the English language has only recently gained importance in the region due to its extensive use in technology,
politics, and economics. Only in Pakistan, which was a part of British India before 1947 (Channa, 2017), English is
learned as the second language. In the surrounding countries of Afghanistan, only a few studies on errors analysis in
English writing are available in online databases; this is because in most of the countries surrounding Afghanistan,
Russian is widely used rather than the English language or the national languages of these countries such as Persian is
used. The researcher would like to study the researches on error analysis in English language writing in this region to
find out the common errors committed by EFL/ESL learners and the gap in the existing literature.
To achieve the aim of this study, the researcher examines the studies on learners’ errors in English language writing
in a foreign language or second language settings in the countries surrounding Afghanistan such as Pakistan, Iran, and
China. The researcher has searched the Scopus journals database, the Academy Publications database, and the Science
Direct journals database to find out researches on error analysis in this region. These three databases have been selected
because all three of them are widely known in the region. The Scopus and Science Direct have the biggest database of
articles, and the Academy Publications has journals for language studies that are open access. Besides, based on the
knowledge of the researcher, most of the articles produced in this region are published in these three journals. The study
is aimed to fulfil the following objectives:
1. To find out the most common errors in English language writing committed by learners in the region.
2. To find out the gap in the existing literature in the region.

Figure 1. The map of Afghanistan and the surrounding countries.

II. METHODOLOGY
For this review, the articles in three online databases were searched: The Science Direct journals database, the
Academy Publications journals database, and the Scopus journals database. The Science Direct database was selected
because they have the biggest database of articles, and also the researcher had open access to the articles in this database.
It produced 562 related research papers from the earliest date to 19 September 2019, from which the only one was
included based on the inclusion criteria. The Academy Publications database was chosen because most of the articles

© 2020 ACADEMY PUBLICATION

522 THEORY AND PRACTICE IN LANGUAGE STUDIES

related to language teaching and research and language studies from the region are published in the journals of this
database. Also, the Academy Publications has open access articles, which made it easy for the researcher to get the
articles. The Academy Publications database produced ten related articles, from which five articles were included based
on the inclusion criteria. The Scopus database was also selected due to its availability of open access. The search in this
database produced 38 related articles whereby the initial six were selected, but after careful study of the articles, only
three were included in the study based on the inclusion criteria.
Overall, the three databases produced a total number of 562 articles from which only nine articles met the
inclusion/exclusion criteria and were included in the study. For all the three databases, the search terms used were
‘Errors Analysis in English language writing, Errors in EFL writing, errors in ESL writing, and errors in English
language writing.’ The researcher did not include specific terms such as lexical errors, grammatical errors, or syntactical
errors; since the purpose of the researcher was to investigate the studies which have been conducted generally on errors
in English language writing. At the screening stage, the titles of the papers were searched for the terms Errors and
EFL/ESL writing. Later, both the titles and the abstracts of the studies were investigated to find out the studies related
to the errors in EFL/ESL writing in the countries surrounding Afghanistan. A total number of 9 articles on errors in
English language writing were selected after a long process of filtration.

Figure 2. Flow chart showing the process articles selection.

A. The Inclusion Criteria for the Study

This study comprises the papers which meet the following criteria.
1. The studies are conducted only in the countries surrounding Afghanistan.
2. The studies conducted in EFL/ESL contexts.
3. The studies focused on errors in English language writing.
4. The articles are taken from Science Direct Journals database, Academy Publications database, and Scopus
journals database.
B. The Exclusion Criteria for the Studies
The study excluded the papers which did not meet the following criteria.
1. The articles not conducted in the neighbouring countries of Afghanistan.
2. The articles were not conducted in EFL/ESL context.
3. The articles which have focused on errors other than the writing skills of the English language.

III. RESULTS
The search in three online databases produced a total number of 562 articles. From this vast number, nine articles
were included in this review based on the inclusion/exclusion criteria. From the nine articles, four of them were
conducted in Iran, in which three are quantitative studies, and one is a mixed-method study. One paper was conducted
in two countries; Iran and India. The method of this article was mixed-method. Three of the included articles are
conducted in China, in which two are qualitative, and one is a mixed-method study. Only one study is from Pakistan,
which has applied the mixed-method design. All of the selected articles were published between 2013 and 2019.

© 2020 ACADEMY PUBLICATION

THEORY AND PRACTICE IN LANGUAGE STUDIES 523

TABLE I
THE TABLE BELOW SHOWS THE OVERVIEW OF THE NINE SELECTED ARTICLES.
No. Author/Year Location Research Design
1 Momenzade, Khojasteh, and Kafipour (2018) Iran Quantitative
2 Salehi and Bahrami (2018) Iran Quantitative
3 Nezami and Najafi (2012) Iran Quantitative
4 Khansir (2013) Iran/India Mixed method
5 Marzoughi and Ghanbari (2015) Iran Mixed method
6 Zafar (2016) Pakistan Mixed method
7 Cheng (2015) China Qualitative
8 Liu (2015) China Mixed-Method
9 Yang (2019) China Qualitative

Many researchers have studied the errors in the writing of students, but a few numbers of studies are available in
Afghanistan and the countries surrounding Afghanistan. In Iran, Nezami and Najafi (2012) studied the essays of 103
Iranian undergraduate students majoring in the English language. The students of two universities of Iran participated in
the study, Tehran University, and the Islamic Azad University. This study had two parts. The first part was a reading
comprehension task, and the second part required the students to write an essay in 60 minutes on a given topic. After the
analysis of the essays, 4019 errors were detected in the essays. The ten most frequent errors in students’ writing were
listed as punctuation errors, lexical errors, spelling, article, verb formation, the use of singular & plural forms,
prepositions, verb tense, clause structure, and S/V agreement. Also, Khansir (2013) conducted a study on EFL and EFL
undergraduate students, but the difference is that Khansir’s (2013) study compares the errors between Iranian EFL
learners and Indian ESL learners. Two hundred ESL and EFL students from the Mysore state of India and Bushehr city
of Iran participated in the study. The results of the study indicated that the Indian ESL learners committed 3274 errors
in their writing, while the Iranian EFL learners committed 3045 errors in their writing. The errors were divided into five
categories: paragraph, conjunction, article, punctuation, and spelling. The results showed that most of the errors were
committed in the realm of punctuation (1387), in which 718 were committed by Indian students, and 669 errors were
committed by Iranian students. The least errors were committed in the realm of spelling with a total number of 1050, in
which 578 spelling errors were committed by Iranian students, and 472 were committed by Indian students. Also, the
results indicated that Indian students had committed more errors than the Iranian students, but according to the
researcher, since the difference is not significant, so it is negligible. The study also showed that the students did not
have enough knowledge of the rules of English language writing. Moreover, the researcher stated that there are
systematic errors in the writing of the students which could be the result of English teaching and the strategies of
learning. Several other causes, such as interference of the mother tongue, the complexity of the English language, and
lack of students’ knowledge of English language writing have been identified as other causes of weak writing.
Two years later, Marzoughi and Ghanbari (2015) studied the essays of 80 undergraduate students of Medical Science
University of Bushehr, Iran. The students were asked to participate in an essay writing test. The test had three parts,
errors in recognizing different parts of an essay, errors in recognition of the main idea of the essay, and grammatical
errors. The grammatical part of the test included articles, tense, preposition, and spelling. The total number of
grammatical errors produced in the test was 199. Articles (62) were highly frequent, and prepositions (42) were the least
frequent errors committed in writing. Momenzade, Khojasteh, and Kafipour (2018) studied the expository essays of 49
medical students studying the EFL writing course at Sheraz University of Medical Science. Students’ writings were
collected at the start of the course, and after a few weeks of training, another set of compositions was collected from the
students. The study focused on four types of errors omission, addition, misformation, and misordering. The results of
the study showed that in both pre-test and post-test all the four types of errors occurred: omission, misformation,
addition, and misordering. The omission errors have been the most consistent error both in pre-test and post-test.
Although the number had been dramatically decreased in the post-test comparing to the pre-test, it was still one of the
most consistent errors in the writing. The results of the study showed that despite attending the grammar and writing
skills course, students’ writing did not show a significant improvement in misformation, addition, and misordering
errors. However, the total number of errors had decreased in the post-test, but this reduction was significant (0.000<.05)
only in omission errors; in other types of errors such as misformation (0.588>.05), addition (0.135>.05), and
misordering (0.695>.05) the reduction was not significant. In the same year, Salehi and Bahrami (2018) conducted a
study on the writing of Persian authors. The study investigated 40 articles written by Iranian masters and Ph.D. students.
The results of the study indicated that the students committed most errors in the usage of words (36.2%) followed by
other types of errors such as articles (26.8%), prepositions (16.6%), conjunctions (11.6%), words order (3.5%), active &
passive voice (2.4%), tense (2.2%), and S/V agreement (0.7%).
The issue of error analysis has been studied in Pakistan too. English is spoken as a second language in Pakistan.
Zafar (2016) examined the errors of 37 students of BBA in Mohammad Ali Jinnah University. This study was focused
on verb tense errors in students’ writing, but other types of errors were also recorded by the researchers. The students
participated in a four months English language course, and a pre-test was administered at the beginning of the course.
During the first two months of the course, students’ errors were collected from their written assignments, and for the
following two months of the course, the students were coached by giving them grammar exercises on the errors
recorded earlier. Finally, the students were given a final assignment to check whether the writings have improved after

© 2020 ACADEMY PUBLICATION

524 THEORY AND PRACTICE IN LANGUAGE STUDIES

two months of coaching. The results of the pre-test and post-test showed that the past tense and present tense carried the
most frequent errors in the writing of Pakistani ESL students. The results also indicated that inter-lingual errors were the
majority, whereby it occurred 232 times. The first language interference or intra-lingual errors were 154 in number,
which comes in second place. The errors from the transfer of the structure were 41, and the overextension of analogy
errors were13, but the number of these errors decreased after a two-month coaching session. The results of the post-test
showed that inter-lingual errors decreased to 169, intra-lingual errors decreased to 94, structure transfer errors decreased
to 22, and the overextension analogy errors decreased to five. The results also showed that writing activities could
improve the writing of the students.
China is the country where the English language is used as a foreign language. In China, Cheng (2015) analysed
inter-language errors in the writings of higher vocational and technological college students. In his study, Cheng (2015)
explained the causes of interlanguage based errors, and also he pointed out some implications for the educationists. Liu
(2015) also conducted a study on non-English major students in China. He analysed 68 students’ compositions to find
out the spelling errors in their writings. He divided the errors into three categories; local syntactic errors (32), global
syntactic errors (6), and semantic errors (17). These error types were later divided into sub-types. Local syntactic errors
included grammatically misspelled errors (13), errors in word class (8), and errors in lexical collocation (11). Also, Liu
(2015) pointed out the causes of the errors in students’ composition. The interference of the students’ L1 and the lack of
second language knowledge have been mentioned as the major causes of students’ errors.
Moreover, Yang (2019) reviewed the negative language transfer regarding the errors in English writing of Chinese
college students. His review study indicated that negative transfer exists from Chinese to the English language in terms
of phonological, lexical, syntactical, semantic, and discourse levels. In the study, it was pointed out that most errors in
the writing of Chinese students are the result of L1 thinking. These errors, such as inappropriate use of English articles,
words, sentence structures, and Chinese discourse level, word choice, derivation, and collocation errors, made it
difficult for Chinese students to convey their ideas in formal English. The study suggested that the Chinese English
teachers should provide more input such as writing and reading to the students, encourage the learners to think in native
ways, build up a good knowledge of vocabulary and grammar, raise awareness of language transfer in students, make
contrastive analysis of English and Chinese language, increase comprehensible input and cultural input, and correct
inter-lingual errors.
TABLE II
THE MAJOR CHARACTERISTICS OF THE STUDIES REVIEWED
No. Authors/Year Students’ Level of Education Writing Genre Field of Study Article type
1 Momenzade, Khojasteh, & Kafipour (2018) Undergraduates Expository Essay Medical Research
2 Salehi and Bahrami (2018) Master/Ph.D. Journal papers Different majors Research
3 Nezami and Najafi (2012) Undergraduate/BA Essay English major Research
4 Khansir (2013) Undergraduate None English major Research
5 Marzoughi and Ghanbari (2015) Undergraduate Essay Medical Research
6 Zafar (2016) Undergraduate Essay Business Research
7 Cheng (2015) None None None Review Paper
8 Liu (2015) University level Essay Non-English major Research
9 Yang (2019) None None None Review Paper

IV. DISCUSSION
The study of nine articles from three different journal databases, Science Direct database, Academy Publications, and
Scopus database, revealed that there are a few studies on the issue of error analysis in the countries surrounding
Afghanistan. Also, this review showed that the issue of error analysis had not been studied from different aspects in
terms of the level of the students and writing genres. Since the English language is used as a foreign language in
Afghanistan and the surrounding countries, most of the error analysis studies in this region are conducted at the
university level. The researcher could not find any research conducted at the school level. Besides, most of the papers
reviewed showed that only a few genres of writing had been studied for error analysis in this region. Findings showed
that five articles had studied errors in essays, and one article has studied the errors in journals. Two studies were article
reviews, and one paper had conducted the study through a proficiency test. It shows that there are still other genres of
writing, and the writing of students at a different level of education needs to be studied.
The analysis of the studies showed that the EFL writing errors are almost the same in all EFL contexts, for example,
in most of these studies errors in the use of article, preposition, conjunction, S/V agreement, lexical errors such as word
choice, mechanics or writing errors such as spelling and punctuation were noticed. Based on the results from the nine
articles conducted in the EFL context, the English writing of the students included both inter-lingual and intra-lingual
errors. It was also revealed that the most common errors in the writing of the students in these countries are articles,
prepositions, word choice, spelling, and punctuation errors. In the articles, the causes of errors have also been pointed
out. The influence of first language, overgeneralization of the rules, the lack of article and preposition system in some
of the languages, lack of students’ vocabulary knowledge, lack of students’ second language knowledge, complexity of
English language, and students’ lack of English writing practice have been mentioned as the major causes of errors in

© 2020 ACADEMY PUBLICATION

THEORY AND PRACTICE IN LANGUAGE STUDIES 525

both ESL and EFL context. The studies have also suggested some remedial measures for improving the writing of
students. Providing reading and writing input, encouraging the students to think like a native speaker, building up
students’ knowledge of vocabulary and grammar, raising student’s awareness of language transfer, increasing
comprehensible and cultural input, and correcting inter-lingual errors are suggested to improve the writing of the
students better.
TABLE III
THE TOP FIVE ERRORS IN THE WRITING OF THE STUDENTS IN THE NEIGHBORING COUNTRIES OF AFGHANISTAN.
No. Errors Committed by EFL/ESL Learners Research Article
1 Omission, Misformation, Addition Momenzade, Khojasteh, and Kafipour (2018)
Misordering
2 Word Usage, Article, Preposition, Conjunction, Word Salehi and Bahrami (2018)
Order
3 Punctuation, Lexical Errors, Spelling, Article, Verb Nezami and Najafi (2012)
Formation
4 Conjunction, Article, Punctuation Khansir (2013)
Spelling
5 Article, Tense, Spelling, Preposition Marzoughi and Ghanbari (2015)
6 Past Tense, Present Tense Zafar (2016)
7 REVIEW PAPER Cheng (2015)
8 S/V Agreement, Singular/Plural Form, Word Form, Liu (2015)
Word Choice
9 Articles, sentence structures, word choice, derivation, Yang (2019)
and collocation errors

V. CONCLUSION
The English language is not widely used in the surrounding countries of Afghanistan, especially in the Central Asian
countries such as Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and some other countries which had been a part of the Soviet
Union previously. In most of the countries surrounding Afghanistan, Russian and Persian languages are the dominant
languages, and English is spoken as a foreign language. Therefore, the English language is not given enough attention,
and not many studies have been conducted on the English language. The review of nine articles indicated that both EFL
and ESL speakers of the English language commit errors in their writing. It also indicated that some types of errors are
common in English writing in most of these countries, which are surrounding Afghanistan, such as errors in the article,
prepositions, conjunctions, spelling, punctuation, and S/V agreement. The review also revealed that except for a few
genres of writing such as expository writing, journal papers, and assignments, other types of writing had not been
studied in the region. In addition, error analysis studies have not been conducted on students other than university
students in this region. To conclude, the EFL and ESL learners in this region commit both inter-lingual and intra-lingual
errors in their writing.

REFERENCES
[1] Brown, H. D. (2000). Principles of language learning and teaching (4 th ed.). New York, United States: Longman.
[2] Channa, L. A. (2017). English in Pakistani public education. Language Problems and Language Planning, 41(1), 1-25.
[3] Cheng, X. (2015). Interlanguage-based error analysis in higher vocational and technological college EFL education in China.
Journal of Language Teaching and Research, 6(3), 639-646.
[4] Christiansen, T. W. (2015). The rise of English as the global lingua franca. Is the world heading towards greater
monolingualism or new forms of plurilingualism? Lingue e Linguaggi, 129-154.
[5] Corder, S. P. (1982). Error analysis and interlanguage (Vol. 198). Oxford, United Kingdoms: Oxford University Press.
[6] Demailly Tulldahl, K. (2005). A Study and Analysis of Errors in the Written Production of Swedish Adolescent Learners of
English: Comparing the Evolution of a Class at Two Different Points in Time. In: Institutionen för utbildningsvetenskap.
[7] Erkan, D. Y., & Saban, A. İ. (2011). Writing performance relative to writing apprehension, self-efficacy in writing, and
attitudes towards writing: A correlational study in Turkish tertiary-level EFL. The Asian EFL Journal Quarterly March 2011
Volume 13, Issue, 13(1) 164-192.
[8] Hyland, K. (2003). Second language writing: Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[9] James, C. (2013). Errors in language learning and use: Exploring error analysis. Londone: Routledge.
[10] Khansir, A. A. (2013). Error analysis and second language writing. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 3(2), 363-371.
[11] Ling, S. K., & Stapa, M. (2011). An Error Analysis of the English Essays Written by the Chinese Undergraduates in Universiti
Teknologi Malaysia.
[12] Liu, Y. (2015). Spelling errors analysis in college English writing. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 5(8), 1628-1634.
[13] Marzoughi, M., & Ghanbari, B. (2015). Essay writing errors of Iranian EFL learners at under-graduate level: a case study of
medical learners. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 5(10), 2157-2163.
[14] Momenzade, Z., Khojasteh, L., & Kafipour, R. (2018). An Analysis of the most Consistent Errors in English Composition of
Shiraz Medical Students. Pertanika Journal of Social Sciences & Humanities, 26(2) 1189-1202.
[15] Murad, T. M., & Khalil, M. H. (2015). Analysis of errors in English writings committed by Arab first-year college students of
EFL in Israel. Journal of Language Teaching and Research, 6(3), 475-481.

© 2020 ACADEMY PUBLICATION

526 THEORY AND PRACTICE IN LANGUAGE STUDIES

[16] Nezami, A., & Najafi, M. S. (2012). Common Error Types of Iranian Learners of English. English Language Teaching, 5(3),
160-170.
[17] Raimes, A. (1991). Out of the woods: Emerging traditions in the teaching of writing. TESOL quarterly, 25(3), 407-430.
[18] Salehi, M., & Bahrami, A. (2018). An error analysis of journal papers written by Persian authors. Cogent Arts & Humanities,
5(1), 1537948.
[19] Walsh, K. (2010). The importance of writing skills: Online tools to encourage success. Retrieved from
https://www.emergingedtech.com/2010/11/the-importance-of-writing-skills-online-tools-to-encourage-success/.
[20] Yang, X. (2019). A Review of Negative Language Transfer Regarding the Errors in English Writing in Chinese Colleges.
Journal of Language Teaching and Research, 10(3), 603-609.
[21] Zafar, A. (2016). Error analysis: a tool to improve English skills of undergraduate students. Procedia-Social and Behavioral
Sciences, 217, 697-705.

Tawos Mohammadi is born in Nangarhar province of Afghanistan on 15 November 1990. Mr. Mohammadi
has completed his bachelor’s degree in English language and literature in Kabul Education University in 2012,
Kabul, Afghanistan. Mr. Mohammadi has completed his master’s degree in Teaching English as a Second
Language in University Teknologi Malaysia in 2020.
He has been teaching English at Kabul Education University in Kabul, Afghanistan since 2014. He had
been English to Pashto/Dari language translator for more than four years. He has published his first paper in
critical discourse analysis in 2019. (A critical discourse analysis of the address of president Dr. Mohammad
Ashraf Ghani to the joint meeting of US congress) in the International Journal of Science and Research
(IJSR). His second paper has also been published in 2019 in second language acquisition (The Purposes of
Code-Switching and Teachers’ Perceptions toward Code-Switching in Malaysian Primary Schools) in the
International Journal of Engineering and Advance Technology (Scopus indexed). His research interest in EFL/ESL writing and
Second Language Acquisition.

Hema Rosheny Mustafa obtained her PhD in 2017 from University of Tasmania, Australia. Her research
investigated the use of Facebook among parents of a child with autism. Her other research interest includes
ESL, teacher education, and communication. Currently she is working on the new MUET-CEFR book for
pre-university students. She has recently been accepted as Co-PI for a research project with Universitas
Airlangga, Surabaya, Indonesia, under 2019 SATU Joint Research Scheme. She has more than 15 years of
teaching English in secondary and tertiary education. She is currently heading the MyLinE unit which
manages online English learning portal that is subscribed by users in various countries including Malaysia,
Bangladesh and China.

© 2020 ACADEMY PUBLICATION