Abstract
CLASSIFICATION OF THE OBSERVED ERRORS IN WRITING SKILLS OF 6TH GRADE STUDENTS
Writing is a skill obtained in primary school period, needed and used life long as other language skills. This skill is expected to develop parallel with class up-grading. In this sense, the student is expected by to develop her / his writing skill producing a text with less errors parallel to developing class grade. To obtain this expectation varies according to each one. While some students produce error-free texts in direct proportion to their writing education, some others write texts below or much more below the expected level. It is needed to evaluate the students who write texts with errors each by each and to decrease those errors to the minimum. To detect the errors in writing education is significant to understand how and in which way those errors will be eliminated. That’s why, primarily, to detect the place of the errors in texts is required.
In this study, the texts written by the students have been evaluated in the light of error topics determined by the researchers. The errors are classified under four topics; word, sentence, paragraph and text, and where the errors appear the most is tried to be established. Where the writing errors done the most in the texts examined with data analysis technic is detected. At the end of the analysis, it is observed that the writing errors at the level of word consist of clerical errors. At the level of sentence, the errors under the titles of punctuation errors, and then ambiguity are observed more. At the level of paragraph, it is observed that the students have difficulty to connect the sentences, to write proper sentences for introduction, development and conclusion parts. At the level of text, the most common error is that the students cannot construct a meaningful transition between the paragraphs. This study is significant as it is based on application, the errors are observed under various titles under cover of the literature, the errors of the students are detected according to their place, and it proposes some advice about how the errors could be eliminated.
Keywords
Writing skill, errors, writing levels, 6th grade.