Abstract:
The system of rules and categories that underlies sentence formation is called syntax. As
Corder (1973: 167) noted: "Errors provide feedback to the teacher on effectiveness of the
teaching material, teaching techniques and show what part of the syllabus has been
inadequately learned or taught." In Error Analysis, samples of learner language are
collected and errors are identified, described and classified according to their
hypothesized reasons.
In the Faculty of Commerce and Management of the University of Kelaniya, the first year
students study English as a Second Language and they follow a course titled "English for
Business Communication", which is compulsory to complete their degree. With fourteen
years of experience in English language teaching, the researcher has noticed that there are
some individual variances in sources of errors, indicated by students' performance in
English language learning. Also it has been observed that the knowledge in syntax is
crucial in their examinations and assignments. Therefore the analysis of errors of ESL
students in the Faculty of Commerce and Management would be useful and worthwhile.
The paper focuses on the syntactic errors of about 40 randomly selected first year
Commerce and Management students and they were given a questionnaire to find out
their difficulties in syntax of English language. The necessary data will be obtained by
analyzing the students' errors in their written work. The descriptive method will be used
and statistical analysis will follow to identify the sources of errors. At the conclusion of
this investigation, remedial measures will be discussed, and some suggestions for
teaching ESL will be proposed in this context.
