A Corpus-based Analysis of Verb Errors in Senior High School Students’ English Writing

English verbs have consistently posed a significant challenge for English learn-ers in China, and many students make verb errors in their English writing. To investigate the prevalence and nature of students’ verb use, 242 compositions from 7 different senior high schools were collected to analyze students’ verb errors based on the classification of CLEC. Research findings revealed that the frequencies of verb errors from highest to lowest were as follows: tense errors, finite errors, agreement errors, auxiliary verb errors, set phrase errors, pattern errors, non-finite errors, voice errors, and mood errors. Also, there were statis-tically significant differences across different proficiency levels of students, and the reasons for students’ verb errors were discussed, including interlingual and intralingual transfer. Finally, some pedagogical implications were proposed to guide students’ learning of English verbs.