Analysis of Syntactic Errors in English Writing: A Case Study of Jazan University Preparatory Year Students

The present study focuses on the most common syntactic errors which Arabic speaking learners in Preparatory Year, Jazan University (Saudi Arabia) face in learning English as a foreign language. The results of this study reveal that the most common syntactic errors made by the learners are in sentence structure; subject verb agreement, tense, auxiliary verb, number, use of conjunction, preposition, article, etc. Many students in this study were categorized as slow learners who were not even aware of the importance of writing skill. Non-seriousness and less concentration of learners result errors and mistakes in their writing. In addition to that, the errors were hypothetically associated to the transfer of mother tongue and over generalization. In the Arab context, writing is not an easy task; it is, indeed, a challenging job for the teacher. Therefore, traditional methodologies do not help. Unless the teachers create interest about writing skill in the minds of the learners, the desired results can’t be achieved. For the present study, the researchers used the primary source. Different colleges at Jazan University were selected for data collection. The students were tested by asking to write compositions on different topics related to their academic or day to day life. Analysis of previous answer scripts was also a part of study to trace out a common pattern or a series of errors made by the students. Keywords: Teaching English as a Foreign Language, Writing skill, Syntactic errors, Error analysis

A Comparative Study of Students' Perceptions about the Effectiveness of Teachers in English Language Classroom at College Level in Saudi Arabia

English is taught as a foreign language at school and university level in Saudi Arabia. The issue of teachers, who are better performer according to their effectiveness in a classroom, still remains unresolved. The present paper focuses on this issue of native and non-native speaker English teachers about their effectiveness. It reports the outcome of a study carried out in Jazan University, Saudi Arabia. The study was conducted with 120 Saudi male students. The object was to get a deeper insight into the students' perceptions about the Effectiveness of Native English speaker teachers and Non-Native English speaker teachers in English Language Teaching classroom. The effectiveness of the model study was based on enhancing the language proficiency level of the learners in the context of pedagogical behavior of teachers. Qualitative and quantitative data were collected through the questionnaire surveys, interviews and end semester results of the participants. The learners involved in this model study were Preparatory Year students of (Level-1&2) taking Intensive English Language Course at Jazan University, KSA. The findings of the study statistically indicated the students' perceptions in favour of such Native English speaker teachers and Non-Native English speaker teachers (Arabs, Non-Arabs) both, who leave no stone unturned to maintain a serious learning environment. They apply varying strategies in order to enhance and improve the language proficiency level of the learners. The results will be beneficial for native and non‐native teachers in terms of realizing their deficiencies and raising awareness. Keywords: language proficiency, native, non-native, preference, students' perceptio