Analysis of errors in English verb forms from academic essays by trainees at one of Rwanda Polytechnic (RP) Colleges

The study of grammatical error-making in academic writing has been an important activity in research, especially for students learning English as a second language. This research paper sought to identify and interpret grammatical errors in verb forms from students’ academic writing tasks. Different grammatical theories were explored, including that of Chomsky's Transformational-Generative Grammar (TGG) and Halliday's Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG), among others. The study employed a descriptive research design with a mixed-method research design where the data collected were analyzed using both quantitative and qualitative methods. The specific objective was to reveal the common grammatical errors made by students in their writings. From 20 teachers and 260 students, by using the Yamane formula, 15 teachers and 133 students were reached to participate in the study sample. Data analysis methods employed were document analysis, deductive thematic analysis, and descriptive statistics. The findings revealed that year-one engineering students at RP Gishari College make grammatical errors in all five English verb forms in their writings. Particularly, it was found that many students make errors in the third person singular form of the present simple (58.78%), whereas the errors in the past participle form were the least (6.10%). This scientific proof of error-making can be used by language educators to help trainees to improve their writing skills. Finally, the study recommended teachers and future researchers develop different teaching techniques that can help students to minimize error-making while writing academically.