Error Analysis: How To Improve Writing Skills

Writing skill must be practiced and learned through experience; it is not an acquired skill and is not developed naturally. In order to refine writing skills, the writer has to be involved in "a two-way interaction between continuously developing knowledge and continuously developing text" (Bereiter & Scardamalia). Writing has always been an essential part in English curriculum as well as for academic function. It is in fact a difficult skill to acquire for both native and non native as it is a productive and an active skill. In the views of Langan (1987) and Gunning (1998) writing is difficult as they stated that writing is more complex and abstract than talking.

Therefore, it is evidently true that writing becomes a problematic area for the students who write in second language (L2). Besides students, teachers too face difficulties in teaching this skill as students find it complicated to acquire and deal with confusion when they practice academic writing. Teacher’s plays an eminent role in language classes as it is his/her duty to keep students engage in different activities which not only polish their listening, speaking and reading skills but writing as well. It can be said that a good speaker may not always be a good writer as writing requires much more than speaking. Moreover, writing involves a standardized form of grammar, structure,

In his influential article Corder (1967) remarks:"they are significant in three different ways for the three beneficiaries: First, to the teacher, in that they show how far towards the goal the learner has progressed. Second, they provide to the researcher evidence of how a language is acquired, what strategies the learner is employing in his learning of a language. Thirdly, they are indisputable to the learner himself because we can regard the making of errors as a device the learner uses in order to learn" (p.