Derived Verb Formation Errors among Tamil Vernacular School Students Based on Corder's (1973) Language Error Analysis Theory

The results of the 2024 Final Examination of Academic Session in a prestigious school indicated a decline compared to the previous year's examination outcomes.One of the contributing factors is the high frequency of spelling errors among students, particularly in words involving affixes, which consequently lead to grammatical errors.This phenomenon is more noticeable among students learning Malay as their second language.Consequently, this research is carried out to determine and examine the proficiency level of the usage of affixed derived verbs by Tamil Vernacular School students with specific focus on the derived verb formation.The findings of data gathered from the research show that mastery of derived verbs among 100 Year 5 students in Ladang Kinrara Tamil Vernacular School is below satisfactory level.This study employed a written test on derived verbs as the research instrument, and the findings substantiate that students are encountering difficulties in mastering the use of affixes in the formation of derived verbs.The most predominant errors faced are the incorrect choice of elements, inclusion of irrelevant elements, omission of required elements and erroneous sequencing of elements according to Corder's Language Error Analysis Theory (1973).These results highlight the urgent need to design more efficient pedagogical approaches to improve students' mastery of derived verb formation.