Uzbek students learning English as a foreign language: Error analysis using corpora

Abstract

[Abstract] he current study analyzes various types of errors that occur in IELTS academic writing essays by learners of English as a foreign language with the first language being Uzbek.A corpus of overall 40 written essays wascollected in the form of a case study to determine the major types of errors from undergraduate students of English philology at Urgench State University, Uzbekistan. The corpus was uploaded to the Sketch Engine platform for compiling and further analysis. Collected essays were checkedfor errors, which were then extracted, classified into 13 different categories based on specific aspects those errors possess.The results obtained in this work represent that the most common types of errors Uzbek EFL learners are prone to are spelling, article, punctuation, as well as word choice ones, while sentence structure, linking word, and confusing expression types of errors occur rarely.Our study presents some interesting insights for error analysis, including gender-based error frequency comparisons, as well as explanations of reasons why some common error types occur more than others using contrastive analysis between the Uzbek and English languages.Analyzing the written errors of EFL learners is considered as a crucial basis for identifying the parts of the language problematic for the learners and determining the right methodology to make the best of the learning process.