[01] Ruba Ahmad Mustafa, Department of English Language and Literature, Faculty of Arts, Jubail University Collage, Jubail, KSA.

This study tackles the issue of the common syntactic errors that Arab learners’ might encounter in the written form of language while using English as a second language. It aims to identify the most common syntactic errors in the writing of Arab learners. It also attempts to discover the reasons behind these problems. This research is conducted on a sample of prep-year students of Jubail University College. The methods used in this study are descriptive and analytic. Several questionnaires were handed to the prep year teachers who noticed these errors while they teach and mark portfolios. The major findings of this study were that the types of errors were classified differently according to different teachers although they follow the same rubric, and that the students actuate their previous linguistic knowledge in transferring a language to another, so they transfer from their first language to the second language. Some suggestions by teachers were listed to aid second language learners in writing. The reasons why punctuation marks are considered a weakness point for the students.

Syntactic Errors, Arab Learners, Writing

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