Grammatical Errors in EFL Students’ Descriptive Writing at Al-Ghozali Senior High School

Abstract

This study aims to analyze the grammatical errors commonly found in the descriptive writing of tenth-grade students at Al-Ghozali Islamic Senior High School, Gunung Sindur, Bogor. The study employed a descriptive research design using documentary analysis, with students’ descriptive writing as the primary source of data. The data were analyzed using a checklist of frequent errors made by ESL writers, adapted from La Trobe University. The categories of grammatical errors examined included subject–verb agreement, verb tense, word class, vocabulary, singular/plural forms, articles, sentence structure, spelling, and punctuation. The study identified the types of grammatical errors commonly made by the students and determined the most frequent error categories in their descriptive writing. In addition, the study examined the teacher’s strategies for improving students’ descriptive writing. The findings are expected to provide useful information for students and teachers in improving grammatical accuracy in writing and to serve as a reference for future researchers who are interested in similar studies.