An Exploration of Grammatical Errors in Written English of Libyan EFL Students with Special Reference to Arabic as their First-Language

This study focuses on an exploration of grammatical errors in written English of Libyan EFL students with special reference to Arabic as their first language. One of the most important factors that negatively affect EFL students' writing is grammatical errors. Several studies have looked at grammatical errors made by learners of English as a foreign language. Some studies have reported that L1 interference has been indicated as an important factor in the commission of such errors. The current study explores the phenomenon of EFL learners making grammatical errors. It also examines whether the time spent learning English and using English in daily life positively affects a student's writing (fewer grammatical errors appear). In addition, it examines whether first language interference leads to errors by Arab learners in particular. Data was collected from 30 EFL participants studying in Faculty of Arts and Sciences Kufrah- Benghazi University by writing an essay, in English, about the students themselves, their families, and the cities where they live in. The subjects also answered a Grammar Recognition Test. The results of this study indicated that the subjects made 205 errors in 10 different grammatical areas, the highest number of errors found in using articles, the second was word/verb form errors, whereas the third was preposition-related errors. Furthermore, errors of active and passive voice, plural, word order, tense, 3 rd person morpheme, and copula “be”. The analysis of these results indicated that the appearance of these errors was more common among learners who have less time learning the language as well as who use the language less in their daily life. Furthermore, the results also revealed that Arab EFL learners tend to translate directly from Arabic to English; in this case, L1 interference appears to be a reason for committing grammatical errors by the Arabs. Moreover, students 'lack of competence in English plays an important role in such an occurrence. The study concludes by giving some suggestions for teaching grammar and reducing the occurrence of errors in this area.

This study focuses on an exploration of grammatical errors in written English of Libyan EFL students with special reference to Arabic as their first language. One of the most important factors that negatively affect EFL students' writing is grammatical errors. Several studies have looked at grammatical errors made by learners of English as a foreign language. Some studies have reported that L1 interference has been indicated as an important factor in the commission of such errors. The current study explores the phenomenon of EFL learners making grammatical errors. It also examines whether the time spent learning English and using English in daily life positively affects a student's writing (fewer grammatical errors appear). In addition, it examines whether first language interference leads to errors by Arab learners in particular. Data was collected from 30 EFL participants studying in Faculty of Arts and Sciences Kufrah-Benghazi University by writing an essay, in English, about the students themselves, their families, and the cities where they live in. The subjects also answered a Grammar Recognition Test. The results of this study indicated that the subjects made 205 errors in 10 different grammatical areas, the highest number of errors found in using articles, the second was word/verb form errors, whereas the third was preposition-related errors. Furthermore, errors of active and passive voice, plural, word order, tense, 3 rd person morpheme, and copula "be". The analysis of these results indicated that the appearance of these errors was more common among learners who have less time learning the language as well as who use the language less in their daily life. Furthermore, the results also revealed that Arab EFL learners tend to translate directly from Arabic to English; in this case, L1 interference appears to be a reason for committing grammatical errors by the Arabs. Moreover, students 'lack of competence in English plays an important role in such an occurrence. The study concludes by giving some suggestions for teaching grammar and reducing the occurrence of errors in this area.
they have some knowledge about them. In other words, "L2 learners show variability with respect to the production of verbal inflectional morphology by either omitting inflections or marking inappropriate substitution of one kind of inflection for another", (White, 2010:9, cited in Muftah and Eng, 2011), for example, the same learner might produce 'she goes' while in another occasion might write 'she sings 'for 'she sings'.Muftah and Eng investigated the auxiliary verb "be", and the third person morpheme in the present tense. 77 Arab adult ESL learners had "an oral production test". The results of this test indicate that the subjects neglect or misuse the copula "be" more than the 3 rd person morpheme. The researchers highlighted that these outcomes refer to variability in producing verbal inflectional morphology, which is in line with MSIH. As the copula "be" and the 3 rd person errors are found in oral language with variability, they might also be found in the written language of students.
Kharma (1981, cited in Khansir, 2013) investigated articles errors in the writings of Arabic ESL learners. He believed that L1interference and wrong techniques in using articles are the causes of such errors. In addition, he mentioned that the teaching approaches lead to these errors.

Approaches of teaching English in the Arabic world
Although great care is given to teaching English in Arabic countries (Gamie, 2009), many Arabic countries still teach with the GTM (Abdel Rauf, 2010, cited in Assalahi, 2013). For example, Al-Jadidi (2009) says that this method is still implemented in Oman where memorization and teaching exclusively from textbooks remain key elements in teaching English. In fact, these researchers did not provide any evidence of their claims. Lightbown and Spada (2006) point out that in GTM; learners receive instructions mainly in the receptive skill of reading and the productive one of writing, where the instructions require translation from the target language to the mother tongue. Cook (1996:119) highlights that GTM provides "unnatural" processes in learning an L2, as it does not make use of the language capability, while it "is exploiting the other faculties the mind has available for L2 learning". In most Arabic countries, English is taught and learned only in classrooms, and there is not enough exposure to the language outside classrooms (Rababah, 2011); therefore, in many Arabic classrooms, instructions are received in learning linguistic features of the L2 where little or no communication is provided for the students. Therefore, it is thought that GTM is not appropriate for teaching grammar, as learners do not use grammar rules they learn appropriately. Learning grammatical rules and using them in speaking and through communication in the L2 might affect the writing skill positively. In line with this, Sun (2014) mentions that although the teaching method in China is GTM, the appearance of grammatical errors is still common among ESL/EFL learners.

Some Factors might affect or cause difficulties for Arabic learners 'writing in English Some Comparisons between
Arabic and English L1 writing system and phonology As De Groot (2006) found, when phonological and orthographic forms are similar in L1 and L2, they do not become difficult to learn, compared to dissimilar forms. The Arabic language is Semitic (Smith, 2001), while English is an Indo-European language. Different languages have different writing systems. The writing systems of languages are classified into three categories: "logographic, syllabic, or alphabetic" (DeFrancis, 1989, cited in Matsumoto, 2013: 162), but the Arabic writing system, unlike English, is written from right to left, which might cause problems for ESL Arabic-first language learners when writing in English (Thompson-Panos and Thomas-Ružić, 1983) since learning an L2 is affected by the differences of L1 backgrounds and the nature of the writing system (Wang and Koda, 2007). Nevertheless, the Arabic and English orthographies are alphabetic, and both "belong to a soundbased type of writing system in which phonemes are represented by graphemes" (Saigh and Schmitt, 2012: 26). However, English also has irregular phoneme mappings (Fender, 2003) which makes the grapheme-morpheme correspondences complex, whereas Arabic has "consistent" representations (Saigh and Schmitt, 2012); thus, Arabic letters are pronounced as they are written (Abu-Amsha, 1997, cited in Dajani and Omari, 2013). This is different from English, where many words are spelled differently but pronounced the same (Dajani and Omari, 2013), as Stein (2010:1) refers to "the English language 's system of many letters representing one sound and many sounds representing by one letter".
Hayez-Harb (2006:322) mentions that "[i]n Arabic, symbols for the vowels (i, u, and a) are typically omitted from written text and are easily filled in by skilled readers". He adds that there is no need to write short vowels in Arabic, as their omission is acceptable, unlike English vowels as they are important; thus, Arabic ESL is less aware of the significance of vowels in English than other learners. In line with this, Thompson-Panos and Thomas-Ružić (1983) state that Arabic learners tend to omit or misuse English vowels. Thompson-Panos and Thomas-Ružić gave an example of an Arabic student who wrote his name differently in three records. The students first spelled his name as Mohamed, then as Mohammed, and finally: Muhamad, as, in Arabic, no vowels are written in his name as they are substituted by diacritics. Moreover, Arabic learners focus on consonants, and do not neglect unpronounced consonants, such as pronouncing the /b/ sound in "climbed". Furthermore, Haggan (1991) highlights that some Arabic learners of English encounter difficulties in spelling English words, as some phonological correspondences are missing in Arabic, such as (/p/ /v/). This is because "Arabic does not have two distinct bilabial plosives, only the voiced /b/" (Thompson-Panos and Thomas-Ružić (1983:611). Arabic has some sounds which are not found in English such as'Ayn ‫)ع(‬ ', 'ðˤaa ( ‫,')ظ‬ and'dˤaad ( ‫')ض‬ (Alshayban, 2012). Nevertheless, Smith (2001:195-96) asserts that "[t]he Arabic and English phonological systems are very different, not only in the range of sounds used but in the emphasis placed on vowels and consonants in expressing meaning". Thompson-Panos and Thomas-Ružić (1983:612) mention that "the vowel system in English is 'complex 'which creates difficulty, for Arab ESL learners, in discriminating some word sounds such as the words boot, boat, bought, as they are "not meaningfully distinct".

Approaches to teaching grammar
Grammar is defined as "the study of the syntax and morphology" of a language, in other words, "the study of linguistic chains and slots" (Thornbury, 1999: 2). "Grammar is fundamental to language without grammar, language does not exist" (Nassaji and Fotos, 2011: 1) but, while learning a language is associated with learning and knowing its rules (Thornbury, 1999), there is no consensus about how grammar should be taught perfectly (Borg, 2003;Ellis, 2006). Assalahi (2013: 590) thinks "grammar teaching can be described as a 'messy construct", so "teachers are left undecided about which approach(s) to survive within teaching grammar lessons".
Teaching grammar could mean teaching covertly by assigning tasks in communicative activities and pointing to grammatical problems, or overtly where the explicit presentation of grammatical rules is regarded (Thornbury, 1999). Teaching covertly could be performed through an inductive approach (IA) to teaching grammar, whereas teaching overtly can implement a deductive approach (DA). The IA "starts with some examples from which a rule is inferred" (Thornbury, 1999: 29) as the students "are asked to arrive at a metalinguistic generalization on their own" (Ellis, 2006:97). It is also "a role discovery, self-directed, learner-centred and bottom-up teaching in which the new grammatical items are presented to learners in carefully selected intelligible linguistic data, in the context, illustrating the use of the particular grammatical point" (Uddin and Tazin, 2012: 166).
The DA, on the other hand, is "the process of learning in which one begins with rules and principles and then applies the rules to particular examples and instances" (Nunan, 1999: 305). Through this approach "a learner merely develops a receptive skill rather than the production one" (Uddin and Tazin, 2012:166), while Thornbury (1999:55) argues that "some language items are better 'given 'than'discovered". Ellis (2006:98) mentions that "simple rules may best be taught deductively, while more complex rules may best be taught inductively".
The DA is not time-consuming, as a rule, is given directly followed by examples, whereas beginning the lesson with grammar rules might be difficult for some students to grasp them (Thornbury, 1999), and "they never get the chance to use the language enough which makes them conscious users of language while writing and especially while speaking" (Uddin and Tazin, 2012:172). On the other hand, the IA "helps the students learn the grammar rules by themselves, and student can know the appropriate use of forms in context" (Uddin and Tazin, 2012:169), while confusion may occur as students might think working out a rule is the main basis for learning a language, and it requires a well-planned lesson which puts pressure on teachers to prepare carefully their lessons (Thornbury, 1999). Long (2000, cited in Gu, 2007 mentions that FoF involves the strong points of FoFS and FoM. Long and Robinson (1998) also highlight that FoFS and FoM should be complementary to each other as they are both beneficial; therefore, FoF involves these two approaches as it "consists of an occasional shift of attention to linguistic code features -by the teacher and/or one or more students -triggered by perceived problems with comprehension or introduction" (p. 23). Long and Robinson explain that dealing with grammatical features as they arise in students 'speech, such as students not using plural "s" where it should be found, teacher noticing this point then drawing learners 'attention to this area. Ellis (2006:101) points out that FoF "implies no separate grammar lessons but rather grammar teaching integrated into a curriculum consisting of communicative tasks". These communicative tasks make it "learner-centered", as it "represents the leaner's internal syllabus, and happens when the learner is attending to meeting and has a communication problem"(Nassaji and Fotos, 2011: 10) and due to its aim of responding to learners' perceived needs in a spontaneous manner (Ellis, 2008: 962, cited in Saeidi et al, 2012), while Doughty and Williams (1998) argue that FoF can happen in two ways, reactively, by focusing on learners' errors as they arise, or proactively by addressing potential new language problems before they happen. Students are required to realize and manipulate the grammatical features of a language in FoF instruction in different ways.
processing instruction (PI) approach which is similar to FoF as its emphasis is on meaning and forms of the target language (VanPatten and Cadierno, 1993, cited in Gu, 2007), and is "to assist the learner in making form-meaning connections during IP [input processing]; it is more appropriate to view it as a type of focus on form" (VanPatten, 2002a: 764, cited in Nassaji and Fotos, 2011).
Learners need input from which intake will be extracted, as this is "a process which will frequently involve the conscious noticing of a new language", and then the input will be "sorted and restructured" (Batstone, 1994: 42). Batstone (1994:44) further adds "through noticing and re-noticing, learners take in new features of the language as these become significant to them" and then "through restructuring, learners progressively sort out how grammar works, and how forms and meaning map on to each other in the target language" and "through proceduralization, learners organize their knowledge so that it can be activated quickly and efficiently in language use".
VanPatten (2009: 48, cited in Nassaji and Fotos, 2011) highlights that: 1-Learners need input for acquisition. 2-A major problem in acquisition might be the way in which learners process input. 3-If we can understand how learners process input, then we might be able to devise effective input enhancement or focus on form to aid the acquisition of formal features of the language. In contrast, Nassaji and Fotos (2011:33) highlight the importance of output saying that "production may play a crucial role in the development of fluency, accuracy, and automatization of various aspects of language" and "teaching grammar should involve learners with ample opportunities for both input and output".
Libyan classrooms still utilize GTM where memorization of grammatical rules and teacher-centeredness are found (Reza and Manfor, 2007), in fact, Reza and Manfor did not confirm if they had observed these classrooms and witnessed GTM. If Libyan classrooms truly teach under GTM, the DA is implemented in these classrooms (Thornbury, 1999), and as FoFS is associated with GTM (Long and Robinson, 1998; Long, 2000, cited in Gu, 2007), teaching grammar in Libya and in many other Arabic countries is linked directly with these approaches to teaching grammar. According to my own experience as an English teacher teaching for more than 8 years in elementary and secondary schools in 4 cities, teaching English in these classrooms focuses mainly on teaching segmented grammatical features of English in isolation, not presented in a contextualized way (not in a specific context). Although GTM focused on teaching accuracy, many students still commit errors in grammar; therefore, it is thought that FoF and inductive approaches to teaching grammar might be better applied in the Libyan context. Thornbury (1999:117) suggests FoF is "necessary in order to guard against fossilization". Moreover, Sun (2014:176) highlights that "EFL teachers should adopt a more liberal attitude towards EFL learner's grammatical errors, provided their error patterns are consistent and intelligible. Thus 'focus on form 'should be favored over 'focus on forms ', that is, both accuracy and fluency should be highlighted in our real grammar teaching practice". As FoF "includes giving learners clear messages about their errors" (Thornbury, 1999:117). These messages can be in a form of feedback. Ellis (2006:84) posits that "grammar teaching can be conducted by means of corrective feedback on learner errors when these arise in the context of performing some communication task". Hall (2007: 515) mentions that "providing corrective feedback to learners on their non-target like the use of the target language facilitates their language acquisition". In addition, Thornbury (1999) observes that if learners work on grammatical rules themselves, these rules become understandable than rules explained by teachers, as the IA ensures a deeper cognitive process. He explains that inferring grammatical rules makes students autonomous and self-reliant.

Methodology
Empirical research was chosen for this study. The authors wanted to go through the process of collecting data themselves rather than using previously found data; they thought undertaking something themselves might give them more experience in conducting a study in the future.

Tools of Data Collect
Bio-data was collected to obtain background information about the participants; also, two methods were used to collect data for this study and will provide quantitative data. The bio-data raises questions about their first languages, how long they have been studying the language, and whether they always, sometimes use English in their daily life or not. These questions were written at the beginning of the test's first page. The first method is a writing test (WT).
Some researchers highlighted the importance of essay writing as a good means to assess and evaluate student's learning levels (Campbell, Smith and Brooker, 1998). By writing an essay, it will be possible to assess the subjects 'production by looking at the grammatical errors and their types (Nezami and Najafi, 2012).
The participants are asked to write about themselves, their families, and the cities where they live in. This question was written on the first page of the test papers. They were asked to write as much as possible and not less than one page. The students were anonymous and numbers were given as the researcher promised to give feedback on students 'writing, thus the numbers indicate every student's work.
The second method is a grammar recognition test (GRT), where the subjects have to select a letter that shows the right answer (A, B, C, and D) and circle it. This grammatical test "aims to measure knowledge or control of grammatical structures" (Khansir, 2013: 360). This test consists of 20 items (4 errors of the copula be, 5 errors of verb/word form, 3 errors of 3 rd person, 2 wrong word errors, 3 errors of a preposition, and 3 errors of articles). Before the students began these questions, two examples were made in order for them to understand the questions correctly. The first example involved a missing preposition, and the answer was B, thus the students had to circle B for this question. The second example had a wrong verb, and the choice was C, which had to be circled.
These two examples were different in order for students to understand the test well; otherwise, misunderstanding might occur, which might affect the findings of the study. Also, the answers appeared in different positions because if the answers were presented with the same letter, the students might think that all the right answers shared the same letter, thus they might select the wrong answer, which, in turn, might affect the results of the study.
Moreover, the authors ensured that the choices (A, B, C, and D) were underneath the items. In addition, wider spaces were made between the items of the test to make them easier to recognize and distinguish between to avoid confusion. Moreover, the authors were careful not to put a correct item with an incorrect one of the same grammatical feature in the same question in case the test takers copied or transcribed the same thing. Additionally, the orientation of the test papers was landscape to make the test easier to read.
These two tests were chosen because they are helpful in providing data regarding where errors might be found, unlike other methods, for instance, if the participants were given questionnaires or contributed in interviews and were asked whether they made grammatical errors in their writing, they may not tell the truth, and we cannot be sure of what errors might be made in their writing, but when they write, it becomes easier to analyze and notice if there are any grammatical errors. Also, when they contribute to the GRT, the authors can simply see if the subjects have selected the right answers or not, which might indicate their aptitude in using grammatical items correctly when they write. Also, it is possible that the subjects might be able to recognize errors yet still make the same errors in their own production.

Participants
30 participants contributed to the study. They were all Arabic-first-language students and they were all studying in the faculty of Arts and Science Kufrah -Benghazi University.

Presentation and interpretation of results
The results of the WT and GRT After the data samples were collected, the grammatical errors were counted. The grammatical errors spotted in the WT (185) were higher than those found in the GRT (20). There were altogether 205 grammatical errors. There were 10 different types in the WT, which are classified as shown in the table below: In comparison, 5 errors of the above were found in the GRT for all the participants and are shown in the table below:

The discussion
The first research question is what grammatical errors in written English are characteristic of EFL learners? The answer, as mentioned earlier, is that 10 problematic grammatical areas were found in the WT. There were errors in using articles, prepositions, 3 rd person morphemes, tense, the copula "be", active and passive voices, plural forms, word/verb form, word order, and one pronoun error, whereas, only 5 of these errors were spotted in the GRT (articles, prepositions, 3 rd person, the copula "be", and word/verb form). These grammatical errors (except for copula "be" and 3 rd person morpheme) were also found in Arabs ESL learners' writings in a study conducted by Abushihab et al (2011). In another research for Sun (2014), these errors (except the copula "be", active/passive voice, plural, and word order) have appeared among others in Chinese students 'compositions.

Errors found in the WT 1-Article errors
The participants made 46 errors in the articles. This is shown below: For example: My brother was angry from me, but now he is ok. (From instead of with)

3-3 rd person morpheme errors
Only one type of this error was found as in the table below: For example: English is important because it promote my degree.

4-Tense errors
Three types of this error were found as indicated in the table below:

5-The copula "be" errors
Interestingly, these errors were spotted only among Arab learners in both tests. Two error types appeared as shown in the table below:

7-Plural errors
Only 5 plural errors were found, as shown below: For example: China has many number of people.

8-word/verb form errors
This type of errors ranks at second place as there are 28 errors. They are categorized as shown below:

9-Word order errors
Only 6 errors were found under one type as seen below: For example: I like Glasgow because it is a city nice and big.

10-Errors of pronouns
The only erroneous sentence is: My mum always says, it is good for yourself to study abroad.

Errors found in the GRT
The subjects made 20 errors in this test. They are classified under 5 categories as seen in the table below. Interestingly, these errors appeared in both tests as they might be more problematic for ESL/EFL learners. Also, no one made errors of the wrong word that appeared to be problematic in another study (e.g. Nezami and Najafi, 2012). Examples of these errors are: 1-Omar will be good football player in the future, because he always plays football with his The chosen answer was A, while the right answer was B. (The indefinite article 'a' is missed).

2-Ali is very kind and he picks up the rubbish on beach every day, because he A B C
Does not want to injure anybody.
D The correct answer was C (the is missing), whereas D was chosen instead.
3-Mona's party will start 8 o'clock, but she has not invited anyone yet. 5-Rawan's health good because of her diet, lots of fruits and vegetables every day.

A B C D
In this sentence, the copula "be" is missing; C is circled instead of A.
6-We have two cars, so we driving to the city every weekend with our friends.
So was chosen as an error where C has the wrong verb (we drive is needed).
In fact, most of the errors of this test were made by three of the participants as this might be due to their lack of proficiency in English. On the other hand, most of the subjects showed variability in their answers as they performed well in this test, but failed to write more accurately in the WT.

The bio-data information:
The link between time spent on learning English and the commission of the grammatical errors: The participants who have spent less time learning English committed more errors in both tests than those who learn the language for more months (ignoring the one student). This is shown in the table below: The most common errors are found among 3-6-months-of-studying participants 'work. For example, they made errors such as: at beginning of my study (omission of "the" article), and my father supports me to study here (omission of 3 rd person morpheme). While the subjects who are studying English for more than 6 months committed fewer errors than the first group. The more-than-6-months participants made errors in all categories except for plural and pronouns, for instance, this the chance I am waiting. The less-than-three-months participant committed errors in all the categories except for pronouns; he made 6 article errors, for example: in next September (addition of preposition).
The first part of the second research question (as the second part is answered in the literature review, chapters 2 and 3) is what factors (time spent on learning) might account for these errors. It seems that time spent on learning English influences students 'acquisition of English as fewer errors appeared in the work of the students who have more time learning English than those who have less time.
This result confirms the first hypothesis of this study, which is that EFL/ESL learners who have been exposed more to English make fewer errors than those who have less exposure (through their learning) (ignoring the less-than-three-months group as there is a big difference in number).
Using the language in the daily life This outcome proves the second hypothesis, which states that EFL/ESL learners who always use English in their daily life make fewer grammatical errors than those who sometimes use the language.

1-Article errors
The highest occurrence of errors is found in using articles. The Arabic participants made 35 errors of this type in both tests; these errors are divided as in the table below: The indefinite article "a" is not found in Arabic; for this reason, the students omitted this article when they wrote in English.
b-He likes to play football, because the sport is good for his health. In Arabic: / huwa yuhibu an yal'ab koratal kadam, le'anna alreyadhah mofeedatun lilsehha/ He likes to play football, because the sport good for the health. (Word-by-word translation) He likes to play football, because sport is good for health.
In the above sentence, the definite article is added before the word "sport" and "health" where they should have no article. Errors in a and b could be due to L1 interference as the learners translate directly from Arabic to English. These kinds of errors were also found in Kharma's (1981) study (cited in Khansir, 2013) where he believed L1 interference was the reason for these errors.

2-preposition-related errors
Two kinds of preposition errors are found in the Arabic participants 'writings. These are shown in the table below: Hurford (1994) explains that a "preposition is a (typically small) word that occurs before a noun phrase, making another phrase (a prepositional phrase) with it"and "prepositions typically express relationships in time or space between things and events" (pp. 190-91).
As shown above, errors of misuse of prepositions are more common than errors of addition of prepositions. Arabic learners misuse and omit prepositions as the functions of prepositions in Arabic and English are not the same (Abushihab et al, 2012) and as "Arabic has a wealth of fixed prepositions and particles, used with both verbs and adjectives. Many of these do not coincide with their direct English translation" (Smith, 2001:206).

3-Errors of 3 rd person morpheme
The Arabs committed 14 errors related to 3 rd person morpheme. Only one category of these errors appeared which, is shown below:   The information indicated in the table above shows that the affixes (the prefixes and suffixes) associated the perfective form/present tense in Arabic are agreement morphemes only (Muftah and Rafik-Galea, 2013: 148). This shows that agreement morphemes in Arabic are different from English; in the latter, the verb that comes after 3 rd person noun or pronoun, for instance, takes "s" or "es". As Jiang et al (2011:942) mention that "languages differ in terms of which meaning is grammaticalized and thus morphologically marked". Arabic does not require 3 rd person morphemes as that in English to convey correct and meaningful sentence structure. As a result, Arabic learners commit errors when writing in English as Arabic and English are "morphologically incongruent" (Jiang et al, 2011: 942).
3 rd person morpheme errors are also found in studies conducted by Muftah and Rafik-Galea (2013) and Muftah and Eng (2011).

4-Tense errors
Two erroneous types of tense manifested in the Arabic subjects 'compositions. These are shown below: Table ( Since the past perfect "expressed by a past form of have plus a past participle, involves two 'doses'of pastness: one earlier than the time of utterance, and another even earlier than that" (Collins and Hollo, 2000: 33), the above sentence did not offer two events in the past, but only one event (the travelling) and it seems, it is completed in the past, thus the suitable tense would be past simple. Although the past perfect is not found in Arabic, some of the Arabic learners overgeneralize its use.

B-Past simple instead of present perfect:
Biber, Conrad and Leech (2002: 161) explain that "[b]oth the present and the simple past tense normally refer to an event or state in the past. In addition, both can be used to refer to a state that existed over a period of time. The primary difference in meaning between the two is that the present perfect evokes a situation that continues to exist up to the present time, while the simple past tense describes an event that took place at a particular time in the past". There are no such differences between these two tenses in Arabic (Smith, 2001); therefore, the participants made ungrammatical sentences as they translated from Arabic to English.
I never came to Glasgow before. Similar sentence in Arabic would be: / lam a'ati ila Glasgow min gabl/ I never came to Glasgow from before. (Word-by-word translation). I have never come to Glasgow before. It seems that the participants translated directly from their L1 to English and as their L1 does not have present perfect tense, thus they used past simple instead as implemented in Arabic.

5-Errors of the copula "be"
"In English, the copula is any form of the verb be used as a 'link'or 'coupling', between its subjects and a following phrase. The link either expresses identity or describes some property or attribute of the subject" (Hurford, 1994: 51). On the other hand, the copula "be" does not exist in Arabic, for instance: ana bent I girl In English, 'is'is needed in this sentence unlike in Arabic.
The Arabic participants made 21 errors of this type. They are classified as below: Table (21): Errors of the copula "be" made by the Arabs: Type of error WT GRT Omission of the copula "be" 15 3 Misuse of the copula "be" 3 - Examples of these types of errors: a-My city big and interesting. (copula"be" omission).
In Arabic, we say: /madeenati kabeeratunwa jameelatun/ My city big and interesting. (Word-by-word translation) My city is big and interesting. . As mentioned earlier, the Arabic sentence does not need the copula "be", thus the participants omitted it from some sentences as they translated directly from Arabic to English.
b-As every city in my country are beautiful. (Misuse of the copula "be").
It is equivalent to: / kama enna kollu madeenatun fi beladi jameelatun/ , in Arabic. As every city in my country beautiful. (Word-by-word translation) As every city in my country is beautiful.
Here, the student misused the copula "be" as he/she wrote "are" instead of "is". This is might due to the ignorance of the copula "be" rules.
This result is similar to Alshayban's (2012) results where the copula "be" errors were found in his participants' compositions. The copula "be" errors were also found in research done by Muftah and Eng (2011) where they were more prevalent than 3 rd person morpheme errors, while in my study there was no significant difference between them (the copula "be" = 21, the 3 rd person morpheme =22). The copula "be" errors were not found in the compositions of the non-Arabic participants. Collins and Hollo (2000:136) illustrate that in English "the passive can be derived by:

6-Errors of active/passive voice
. converting the object of the active (Jim) into the subject of the passive.
. making the subject of the active (the inspector) into the axis of a by-phrase . making the VP [verb phrase] passive (by adding auxiliary be to the VP before the main verb and converting the main verb into the ven form)", for example "Jim was confronted by the inspector".
On the other hand, Smith (2001:204) points out that "[t]here are active and passive forms for all tenses in Arabic, but they are virtually identical to the active forms, differing only in the pronunciation of the (unwritten) short vowelling.... . "; therefore,"while the concepts of active and passive should readily be understood, the forms and uses of the passive will cause problems''.
Only 5 erroneous sentences were found in the data samples. They are shown in the table below: Examples of these errors described below: a-Our old house sold. Omitting auxiliary "be". /bee'a baituna alkadeem/ (Arabic) Sold our house old.
(Word-by-word translation) Our old house is sold. As the auxiliary "be" does not exist in Arabic, the students made errors by omitting it in English.
b-She was changed her mind to study English. (Using passive for active). In Arabic, it is equal to: / Hiya ghayyarat ra'ayaha letadrus alenglizeyah/ Changed my sister her mind to study English. (Literal translation) She changed her mind to study English.
In the above example, overgeneralization occurred as the subject added past form of verb to "be" where it should not be written. Hurford (1994:176) explains that "[a] noun is usually plural if it denotes a collection of things (where 'things' can be concrete objects or abstract entities). Typical English plural nouns end in the suffix -s or -es, but there are other, irregular, plural forms" such as the words: children, men, and women.

7-Errors of plural
In Arabic, plural is formed in different ways, for both nouns and adjectives, depending on gender and number. For instance: ) is added to form plural when the noun is dual and masculine. I have two books Or ‫كتاب‬ ‫عندي‬ -‫(ين‬ ‫ين‬ ) is added which has the same purpose as the above sentence I have two books ‫كراسة‬ ‫عندي‬ I have a notebook ‫كراس‬ -‫عندي‬ ‫اتان‬ ( ‫ة‬ ) is replaced by ‫)ا(‬ and ( ‫)تان‬ is added when the noun or the adjective is dual and feminine Or ‫كراس‬ ‫عندي‬ -‫اتين‬ ‫)ة(‬ is removed and ( ‫)تين‬ is added when the noun or the adjective is dual and feminine. 3 errors were found in the Arabic participant's essays. They are classified under one category as shown below: Both examples above lack plurality which might be due to the participants'lack of knowledge of singular/plural rules, or careless.

8-Word/verb form errors
Errors made by the Arabic participants under these categories are put in the table below: Both sentences (Arabic and English) require an adverb instead of adjective. "Good"here should be changed to "well"as it provides information about manner. Smith (2001) mentions that Arabic learners confuse using English adjectives and adverbs and overusage of adjectives usually occur. The commission of errors in this sentence could be due to the students'ignorance of the position of adjectives and adverbs, and L1 has no role in such errors. There are regular and irregular verbs in English. The regular verbs ends in "ed" at the end of the verb in the past simple and past participle, while the irregular verbs do not have specific form to follow. In contrast, in Arabic, irregular verbs do not exist, all the verbs follow the same rules and they should agree with number and gender, for instance: ‫مجلة‬ ‫يقرأ‬ ‫هو‬ /Huwa yagra' majallatun/ (He reads a magazine (present tense) ‫مجلة‬ ‫أ‬ ‫قر‬ ‫هو‬ /Huwa gara' majallatun/(He read a magazine (past tense). ‫يجلس‬ ‫هو‬ /huwa yajles/ (he sits down (present tense). ‫جلس‬ ‫هو‬ /huwa jalasa/ (he sat down (past tense).
As can be seen, the first letter in the verbs ‫يقرأ"‬ ‫"يجلس,‬ (reads, sits down) is ‫"ي"‬ in the present tense, while in the past, the"‫"ي‬ is removed. This is the rule to shape verbs in the present and past forms where singular and masculine noun or pronoun is found in the sentence. The participants who committed verb form errors might lack knowledge of forms of irregular verbs as there is no one rule to follow. Arabic requires a noun after"li" (for), whereas English calls this gerund (adding the suffix-ing to the verb). Both the noun and the gerund have the same function here in this sentence. The reason for committing such error could be due to the learners'ignorance of prepositions and gerund form rules.

9-Errors of word order
Biber, Conrad and Leech (2000) mention that"the term 'word order'is used to refer to the order of elements in a clause: subject, verb, object, predicative, and adverbials" (p. 400). They also point out that in English, "[t]he subject normally precedes the verb, and the verb normally precedes its complements" (p. 400). On the other hand, Arabic has different rules, for example, the verb comes before the noun. This difference might cause confusion for Arabic learners (Smith, 2001).
3 sentences were made erroneously by the Arabic subjects. They are put under one category as found below: In Arabic, nouns come before the adjectives (Smith, 2001). In (a) and (b), the Arabic students translated these sentences from Arabic to English word by word; thus, they confused the position of the nouns and adjectives which is indicated as errors.

10-Errors of pronouns
Only one error of pronouns is found in the students'essays.
One Arabic student used a reflexive pronoun instead of an objective pronoun where reflexive pronouns in English have two uses: . 'emphatic' (e.g. Paul himself walks to work, where himself, which is said to be in apposition to 'Paul'emphasises that Paul as opposite to anyone else walks to work. . 'basic'(e.g. Paul injured himself, where himself has a different syntactic function from Paul, namely object (Collins and Hollo, 2000:52). In the sentence written below, "you" is needed instead of "yourself". My mum always says it is good for yourself to study abroad. In Arabic, this is equivalent to: / ommi daeman tagolu mina alahsanu laka an tagra filkharej/ My mum always say(s) it good for you to study abroad. (Literaly translated). My mum always says it is good for you to study abroad.
Both, the Arabic and English sentences above require objective pronouns, thus we can conclude that the reason of such occurrence is that the student confused using reflexive and objective pronouns.
The third hypothesis posed in this research is that the commission of the grammatical errors made by Arabs maybe, in part, a result of L1 interference. Many erroneous sentences were made where L1 interference might be the reason such as the sentences that have the copula "be" omission, wrong word order, using past tense instead of present perfect, and wrong prepositions, thus this hypothesis, in some cases, is proved to be correct.

Conclusion
This paper investigated the grammatical errors found in EFL learners 'writings. The findings indicated that these learners committed 205 grammatical errors in 10 different areas where errors of articles were the highest, the second were word/verb form errors, while the third were preposition-related errors, also errors of 3 rd person morpheme, the copula "be", tense, active and passive voices, plural, and word order and were found. These errors were more common among the learners who have less time learning the language and who use the language less in their daily life. L1 interference and lack of competence in the target language might be the main reasons of such commission. L1 interference plays a significant role in committing grammatical errors, especially for Arab EFL learners as some features of English grammar are not found in the Arabic language such as the copula "be". It is worth mentioning that some students showed variability when they wrote in English. This explains that they might lack competence in mastering some rules in English, but they are less competent in applying other or same rules in different positions. By identifying sources of errors, a remedy can be made when teaching and learning.

Recommendation for future research
These are some recommended points that future researchers and scholars might put into account when working on this area: 1-Conducting a longitude study might be more helpful in understanding the nature and source of committing errors, and also might indicate if the teaching methods are the cause of such errors. 2-Conducting pre and post-tests after teaching some linguistic features and checking if the commission of these errors is the same or not in both tests which again might help in inferring which approach is better when teaching grammar and also in which circumstances the students commit such errors.
3-Conducting oral test to see if these grammatical errors are also found in the speaking language of participants or comparing two tests, oral and written and investigating which test has the most problematic features of English grammar. 4-Other studies might investigate learners of different levels including beginners, low and intermediate levels as looking at these grammatical errors in an early stage and giving pedagogical implications might help reduce these errors later as the learners, might be aware of these errors, thus avoiding them as much as possible.