Systematic Deviation in Subject-Verb Agreement
Rules among Iraqi EFL Students
Keywords: EFL Students,
Error Analysis, Second Language Learning,
Systematic Deviation, Subject-verb agreement.
Dr. Farah Abdul Jabbar Almnaseer
Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics
College of Arts /English Dept. / University of Al-Mustansiriyah
&
Assistat. Lecturer Hamid Tarad Lafta
M.A in Linguistics
College of Education/ English Dept./University of Wasit
1
‫االخطاء المعيارية في التوافق بين الفاعل والفعل في نحو اللغة‬
‫االنكليزية لطلبة قسم اللغة االنكليزية‬
‫الكلمات المفتاحية ‪ :‬نظرية تحليل الخطأ ‪ ،‬متعلمي اللغة االنكليزية‪ ،‬التوافق بين الفاعل والفعل‪ ،‬االخطاء‬
‫المعيارية‬
‫م‪.‬د‪.‬فرح عبد الجبار المناصير‬
‫دكتوراه في علم اللغة التطبيقي‬
‫كلية االداب ‪/‬قسم اللغة االنكليزية ‪ /‬الجامعة المستنصرية‬
‫و‬
‫م‪.‬م‪ .‬حميد طراد لفتة‬
‫ماجستير لغة‬
‫كلية التربية‪ /‬قسم اللغة االنلكيزية ‪ /‬جامعة واسط‬
‫‪2‬‬
‫ملخص‬
‫تهدف الدراسة الحالية الى دراسة أخطاء الطالب من متعلمي اللغة االنكليزية في خمسة أنواع من قواعد‬
‫التوافق بين الفاعل والفعل وهي‪ :‬التوافق مع الضمائر المحددة‪ ،‬التوافق النظري‪ ،‬التوافق المتقارب‪ ،‬التوافق‬
‫مع األسماء الجماعية والتوافق مع الفاعل المصاحب ‪ .‬وتعتزم الدراسة تحديد االنحرافات المنهجية للطالب من‬
‫خالل تطبيق نظرية تحليل الخطأ‪ .‬وتضمن البحث دراسة حالة تشتمل على خمسة وثالثون طالب من المرحلة‬
‫الجامعية الرابعة من قسم اللغة اإلنجليزية‪ ،‬كلية التربية‪ ،‬جامعة واسط‪ .‬ولتحقيق أهداف هذه الدراسة‪ ،‬تم‬
‫اجراء اختبار نحوي على الصعيدين االدراكي واإلنتاجي‪ .‬واكدت نتائج الدراسة أن الطالب يرتكبون االخطاء‬
‫في انواع التوافق التي تم اختيارها للدراسة وكشفت النتائج وجود نسبة عالية من االنحرافات المنهجية في‬
‫ثالث انواع وهي‪ :‬التوافق مع الضمائر المحدده والتوافق النظري والتوافق مع األسماء الجماعية‪.‬‬
‫االستنتاجات التي توصل إليها البحث اكدت على الحاجة إلى تطويرسياقات التعليم داخل الفصول الدراسية من‬
‫خالل استخدام الكتب المدرسية الحديثة والتي تركز على الجوانب العملية في استخدام اللغة فضال عن‬
‫الجوانب النظرية للدراسة‪ .‬عالوة على ذلك‪ ،‬قدمت الدراسة بعض اآلثار التربوية المهمة اعتمادا ً على النتائج‬
‫المحددة‪.‬‬
‫‪3‬‬
Abstract
The present study aims at examining EFL students' errors in five types of subjectverb agreement rules: agreement with indefinite pronouns, notional agreement,
proximity agreement, agreement with collective nouns agreement and agreement
with coordinated subject. The study intends to identify the student's systematic
deviations through the error analysis approach. It is a case study on a population
of thirty-five 4th year undergraduate students from the English department, college
of Education, Wasit University. To achieve the aims of this paper, the method
involved carrying out a grammar test at the recognition and production levels. The
results of the study provide that the students committed errors in the five types of
subject-verb agreement rules. In addition, the results revealed a high score of
systematic deviations in the agreement with indefinite pronouns, notional
agreement and agreement with collective nouns. The conclusions emphasized the
need to develop the contexts of learning inside the classroom through using up to
date and exclusive textbooks which focus on the practical as well as the
theoretical aspects of study. Further, the study presented some pedagogical
implications depending on the results identified.
4
1.Introduction
EFL students in the English department need to write correctly to ensure that they
are going to be able to function well later at the workplace. Writing for EFL
students is a challenging task since they have to overcome the steps of writing
including the prewriting, writing and editing steps and therefore, they frequently
commit errors. Hyland (as cited in Moqimipour and Shahroki, 2015: p.122)
believes that, "error commitments is somehow inevitable in writing". Staba and
Izahar (2010:p.1) state that, "errors in second language learning have been the
center of attention and knowledge of grammar has become one of the most
actively discussed questions in language and literacy pedagogy". Celce-Murcia
and Larsen-Freeman (1983) share the same idea in which they indicate that
despite the fact that the students have studied certain rules of grammar and some
students might have remarkable consistency over them; still they commit the same
types of errors.
Commonly, subject-verb agreement rules are problematic for EFL students at
different levels. This topic is considered as one of the most important grammatical
forms that control the structure of the sentence. In fact, many studies, reference
grammars and style handbooks discuss this topic in details emphasizing the point
that EFL students commit errors regularly as an inevitable part of their output.
Particularly, EFL students commit "systematic deviations" from the rules of the
language being learned (Norrish, 1987: p.7) and these errors can be used to
measure the student's performance in writing. Accordingly, this study intends to
identify the systematic deviations in subject-verb agreement rules which are
considered as problematic for Wasit University EFL students.
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2.Hypotheses
It is hypothesized that the majority of Iraqi EFL college students commit
systematic deviations from the rules of subject-verb agreement. Such learners face
difficulties in choosing the right agreement rule between the subject(s) and the
verb. Accordingly, a grammar test was conducted to test a population of thirtyfive Iraqi EFL students from the Department of English, College of Education,
University of Wasit.
3.Aims of the Study
The study aims at examining systematic deviations in subject-verb agreement
rules among Wasit university EFL students. Henceforth, this paper can contribute
to the teaching and learning of English grammar in general and subject-verb
agreement rules in particular. In addition, it hopes that this study will develop
EFL students' perception of their regular errors and avoid them especially for the
graduate of the college of Education/English Department since they are originally
prepared to be English language teachers. Further, this paper attempts to enrich
the field of error analysis approach and the systematic deviation problems in Iraq
and finding the best academic solutions to develop more practical and effective
methods to help the students to apply what they learn correctly.
4.Literature Review
4.1 Systematic Deviations and Sources of Errors
When dealing with second language learning, the two terms error and mistake
come to mind since they are used interchangeably. Richards and Schmidt (2002)
draw a distinction between the two terms indicating that mistakes are made due to
ignorance, fatigue or lack of attention and these mistakes can be corrected without
6
any external assistance by the person. Errors, on the other hand, are related to
inadequate mastery of some target language rules. Cunningworth (1987: p.87)
defines errors as "systematic deviations from the norm of the language being
learned" and Norrish (1987) shares the same term. The current study deals with
EFL students' errors as being systematic in which they occur regularly in their
writings. Ren and Yu (2013) defines deviation as the opposite to norm, and the
selection of a linguistic item outside the range of normally allowed selections.
When people use a language, they must obey some rules (i.e. norm).
To identify and analyze EFL students' errors, it is important to know the sources
which cause the errors. A preliminary view indicates that errors are related to two
main sources including the "intralingual" and "interlingual" (Richards, 1974:
p.23). The
intralingual factors stand for the students' incomplete or wrong
learning of the second language; in addition to their inadequate competence of the
lexical and syntactic elements of the target language (Moqimipour and Shahrokhi,
2015). The interlingual factors , on the other hand, stand for errors which are
totally caused by mother tongue language interferences. Brown (1980: p.34)
classified the sources of errors into four categories including: Interference transfer
which stands for the negative influence of the mother tongue language,
intralingual transfer which stands for the incorrect generalization of the rules in
the target language; context of learning which stands for the overlaps including
the classroom with the teacher and the material or the social situation in the
classroom context and finally, communication strategies refer to the verbal
mechanisms for communicating an idea when linguistic forms are not available to
the learner. James in 1998 added another two sources of errors: communication
strategy based errors and the induced errors. The communication strategy based
errors are subdivided into the holistic or approximation and the analytic or
circumlocution strategies. The induced errors result of being misled by the way in
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which teachers give definitions, examples, explanations or even assignments.
Despite the different sources of errors which were applicable to different
populations; still there is a need for more investigation to be carried out to identify
errors on many other samples of populations such as Iraqi EFL students of Wasit
University. From the direct observation of the students, the researchers noticed
that, they commit the same errors over and over again. Accordingly, this study
examines errors considering them as systematic deviations from the rules of
subject-verb agreement among EFL students of Wasit University.
4.2 Error Analysis Approach
Error analysis approach is a branch of applied linguistics and it is one of the
major topics as far as second language learning is concerned since errors occupy
an integral part of it. Khansir (2012) states that the learner of English as a second
language is unaware of the existence of the particular system of rules and it is the
role of error analysis approach to describe the learning process and examine the
learners performance in it. James (2001:p.4) indicates that "in the 1950s and
1960s the favored paradigm for studying foreign second language learning and
organizing its teaching was the "Contrastive Analysis". Contrastive analysis
considered the first language interference as the major source of errors and it
failed to account for the errors committed by second language learners. The error
analysis approach on the other hand, emerged to account for the errors committed
by second language learners errors in broader framework of their sources and
significance.
4.2 Subject-Verb Agreement Rules
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Haspelmath (2002: p.65) defines agreement in syntax as "a general term used to
describe a situation in which the grammatical features of a noun or noun phrase
determine the morphological shape of a word that is syntactically related to noun
or noun phrase in some way". In fact, subjects and verbs are distinguished as an
antiquity of two parts of speech without which a complete sentence could not be
formed; often taken to be "substantive universal" (Matthews, 2007: p. 427).
According to Kroeger (2005) a verbs changes its forms depending fully on the
number of the subject(s) and whether the subject is singular or plural. Despite the
fact that most of the concepts of subject-verb agreement are direct, yet; some
aspects of singular and plural usage in English grammar are more complicated.
However, the general rule of subject-verb agreement include the use of third
person singular inflection if the subject is a singular proper name, a singular
common noun, a mass noun , or a third person singular. While proper or common
plural nouns, for first or second person singular pronouns, or for plural pronouns,
no inflection is used as far as the tense is concerned (Celce-Murcia and LarsenFreeman, 1983). In addition, the copula and auxiliary based on "be" have distinct
forms for first and third singular "am" and "is" (Dopke, 1999, p:45).For the
purpose of the study, five types of subject-verb agreement are presented in details.
4.2.1 Agreement with Indefinite Pronouns
It is often difficult to determine whether indefinite pronouns should be singular or
plural because they are simply indefinite. Vitto (2006: p.181) sets two categories of
indefinite pronouns:
A) "some"-,"every-", and "no-" pronouns which take a singular verb form. Vitto
(2006, p.181) indicates that the following pronouns are grammatically singular:
9
anyone
anybody
anything
someone
everyone
no one
somebody everybody no body
something everything nothing
Example (1): Everyone enjoys an intriguing story.
B) The other category of indefinite pronouns involves words that specify a number
of amount such as "enough" , "many", "none", "some" and "much". These
pronouns take either singular or plural verb form. To determine whether to use
singular or plural verb form, it is needed to look for the information contained in
an attached prepositional phrase. In other words, it depends on whether the object
of the preposition is a mass or count noun:
Example (2 ): Some of the cookies are left. (count noun)
Example (3 ): Some the coffee is left. (mass noun)
4.2.2 Notional Agreement
Notional agreement is agreement of subject and verb according to the idea of
number rather than the actual presence of the grammatical marker for that idea. In
other words, the verb agrees with the subject in relation to meaning and not
number.
Example (4): The government have broken all their promises.
4.2.3 Proximity Agreement
Proximity agreement denotes agreement of the verb whatever noun or pronoun
closely precedes it (Vitto, 2006)
Example (5): One in ten take drugs.
For the proximity agreement rule, the correlatives either ... or and neither ... nor
take singular or plural verb form depending on the nearest noun to the verb:
10
Example (6): Either my sister or my brothers are going.
Example (7):Neither the books nor the movie was to do it helpful.
4.2.4 Agreement with Collective Nouns
Quirk and Greenbaum (1973) state that collective nouns, notionally plural but
grammatically singular. In fact, the choice of the verb is based on whether the
group is being considered as a collection of individuals or a whole entity. CelceMurcia and Larsen-Freeman (1983: p.38-41) subdivided collective nouns into the
following cases:
a) Some common and proper nouns ending in –s and -ics nouns-are considered
singular and take a singular verb form.
Example (8): No news is good news.
b) Plural titles of books, plays, operas, films, etc., also take the singular verb form.
Example (9): Great Expectations was written by Dickens.
c)Nouns occurring in sets of two take the singular when the noun "pair" is present,
but the plural when "pair" is absent-regardless of whether one pair or more is being
referred to.
Example (10): A pair of trousers is on the sofa.
Example (11): This pair of shoes needs new heels.
d) "A number of " takes the plural, but "the number of" takes the singular.
Example (12): A number of students have dropped that course.
Example (13):The number of students in this school is 2,000.
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e) Fractions and percentages take the singular when they modify a mass noun and
the plural when they modify a plural noun. Moreover, either the singular or the
plural may be used when they modify a collective noun.
Example (14):Two-thirds of the students are satisfied with the class.
f) Plural unit words of distance, money, time, etc., take the singular verb form
Example (15): 1,000 miles is a long distance.
g) Finally, arithmetical operations take the singular.
Example (16): One plus one { is/equals } two.
4.2.5Agreement with Coordination
Quirk and Greenbaum (1973: p.759) believe that when a subject encompasses two
or more noun phrases coordinated by "and", a distinction has to be done between
appositional and non-appositional coordination and the plural verb form is used.
Example (17): His camera, his radio, his money were confiscated by the customs
officials.
When the nouns are conjoining to represent a single entity, then a singular verb
from is used while nouns conjoining expressing a mutual relationship, a plural verb
form is used.
Example (18): Your problem and mine are similar.
Another type of coordination is what Quirk et al. (1985: p.761) called "QuasiCoordination" in which the subject noun phrases may be linked by prepositions
such as ("as long with", "rather than" and "as well as") and these take a singular
verb when the first noun phrase is singular:
12
Example(19): The captain, as well as the other players, was tired.
4.3 Related Studies
Staba and Izahar (2012: p.2) state that "errors committed by the learners revealed
the true state of second language learners' proficiency of the new language they
are learning at a particular point of time". As a matter of fact, learning a second
language requires learning its grammatical structures to be able to use the
language correctly. Due to the important role of subject-verb agreement rules in
the grammatical structure of sentences, many studies have been carried out to
investigate the pedagogical problems of subject-verb agreement in the academic
field. In 1993, Unher studied errors of the second language learners' interlanguage to determine the systematic patterns and their underlying causes. Unher
(1993) proposed a model that introduces a hierarchy of difficulty of rule-types.
The data involved one ESL learner from Japan who learned English for ten years.
The study concluded that error types in subject-verb agreement have important
consequences on the ESL teacher in promoting the most efficient and effective
lessons. Franck, Frauenfelder and Rizzi (2007) used theoretical constructs of
formal syntax as tools to capture the performance data in agreement production. In
their study, they presented a general overview to highlight the different syntactic
factors involved in the interference of subject-verb agreement rules. Franck et al.
(2007) aimed at creating a bridge between psycholinguistics and linguistics in the
domain of agreement. Annala (2008) dealt with subject-verb agreement in relation
to collective nouns from the 18th century to the present day. In this study, four
restrictions were used in analyzing the corpora in order to eliminate the conditions
that cause the variations in the subject-verb agreement relationship.
A study by Al-Qaraghooly and Sultan in 2008 dealt with the scientific writing of
Iraqi EFL postgraduates at the University of technology through error analysis
13
approach. The data involved ten M.A. and Ph.D. theses written in different fields
such computer, laser and electrical engineering. The results showed that syntacticmorphological aspects including the use of tenses, the use of articles, verb groups
and lack of agreement constitute the majority of errors. Al-Qaraghooly and Sultan
(2008) related the reasons behind errors to the intralingual errors. Staba and Izahar
(2008) dealt with errors of subject-verb agreement among
Learners. The data involved
Malaysian ESL
twenty postgraduate students from a teacher's
training college. The study examined five types of subject-verb agreement errors.
The instrument used for this study included two types of written composition tests
and the results of the study revealed that the majority of the students committed
errors in number and person subject-verb agreement. Khudhayer (2010) studied
subject-verb concord through testing Iraqi EFL students in Babylon University.
This study was conducted through error analysis approach and the conclusions
verified certain factors that affect the students' performance in using subject-verb
concord. Duffield (2012) studied the use of agreement speech errors in relation to
the relative clause assuming that producing subject-verb agreement depends fully
on the syntactic presentations. He proposed specific feature–copying relationships
between head nominal's, relative pronouns and traces. The study was carried out
through psycholinguistic models of analysis to identify and analyze subject-verb
agreement errors. A more recent study was carried out by Moqimipour and
Shahrokhi (2015) to examine writing errors caused by the interference of the
Persian language among Iranian EFL students. The study was carried out through
the error analysis approach to examine three types of writing: narrative,
descriptive and comparative essays. The results of the study indicated that first
language interference fell into twelve categories: singular/plural form, modal
auxiliaries, subject-verb agreement, verb tense, infinitive gerund. Pronouns,
14
articles, verb form, prepositions, sentence structure and word choice, comparison
structure.
Despite all the studies done to examine subject-verb agreement errors depending
on different samples of students; still there is a need to investigate EFL students'
errors. Henceforth, the purpose of this study is to examine the students' systematic
deviations in subject-verb agreement rules to enrich this grammatical form and
develop the writing skills of the Iraqi EFL students, in general, and Wasit
University students in particular.
5.Methodology
This study employed the error analysis approach to examine EFL students' errors
and their systematic deviations from the rules of subject-verb agreement. This
approach, which was originally developed by Corder (1967), is valid for the
current study since it helps to identify the systematic deviations, analyze them and
stating clearly the sources of errors resulting in the student's performance at the
recognition and production levels. This study was conducted through the
quantitative research approach since it intends to produce statistically reliable data
concerning the grammatical problems facing EFL students in Iraq.
5.1 Participants
The sample of study involved representative population of thirty-five EFL Iraqi
students out of seventy. The sample involved both males and females from the
English department/ college of Education/ Wasit University. The students were
selected to be those undergraduate from 4th year since those have already studied
15
English grammar for four years in the English department and they are supposed
to know the rules of subject-verb agreement under study. Another reason for
deciding on the 4th year students is that they are prepared to be teachers and
accordingly, they should not have any grammatical mistakes which might affect
their level at the workplace and according to their monthly grades. The
researchers through the direct observation inside the classroom decided to choose
the best students. This point is, in one hand, related to productivity which stands
for those students' abilities to study hard in an attempt to avoid committing errors.
On the other hand, selecting the best students can help to identify which subjectverb agreement rules are mostly problematic for EFL students.
5.4 Producers
The instrument used in this research paper to identify and measure student's errors
was achievement test including two questions: one question is to identify what
deviations students perform at the recognition level and another question is to
measure students' performance of errors at the production level. At the recognition
level, the question was in the form of choose the correct answers. At the
production level, the students were asked to put the verb into its correct form
making the required changes. The items of the test were taken from the grammar
sources involving Barkho (2011: p.30-32), Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman
(1983: p.38-41), Quirk et al (1985: p. 759-763) and Vitto (2006: p. 180-183). The
test included thirty items divided into fifteen items for each question. The marking
of the test was out of thirty in which each correct answer was given one mark only.
Before conducting the test, the researchers identified the objectives of the research
for the students. The students were told that the results of the test will not affect
their semester grades. Approval for conducting the test was assigned from the
16
head of the English department. The students were given forty-five minutes to
answer the questions. The five types of subject-verb agreement which were tested
involve agreement with indefinite pronouns, notional agreement, proximity
agreement, agreement with collective nouns and agreement with coordination.
Having finished the tests, the answers were corrected and were measured
statistically to get the final results of the data.
The
study has validity which is considered as important tool for positivist
epistemology (Winter, 2000). It is valid since the error analysis approach was
applicable to the sample of study and the objectives as well. Moreover, this study
is valid since it can be carried out to test other types of systematic deviations from
other rules of grammar in addition to being applicable to different samples.
6. Results and Discussion
This section represents the results of the test according to the student's
performance in both questions in order to confirm or refute the hypotheses of this
research paper. The results are divided into two levels depending on the two
questions of the test. The results are shown in the table below:
Table (1): The frequency of errors and percentage of the test
Errors frequency
%
Errors frequency(Q1)(recognition level)
264
17.60%
Errors frequency (Q2) (Production level)
290
19.33%
Total
554
36.99%
The results indicate that the frequency of errors at the recognition level is
(264/17.60%); while the frequency of errors at the production level is little bit
higher (290, 19.33%).The total number of errors is (554/ 36.99%) out of the total
17
number of answers which is (1050). The figure below presents the percentage of
errors in the five types of agreement.
Figure (1): The total percentage of subject-verb agreement errors
50
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
agreement with
indefinite
pronoun
notional
agreement
proximity
agreement
agreement with
collective nouns
agreement with
coordination
Having analyzing the errors produced by the students, it is found that the students
committed errors in the five types of subject-verb agreement under study as is
given in the table below:
Table (2): Errors frequency in the types of subject-verb agreement rules:
Types of subject-verb Errors
agreement
frequency
of (Q1)
64
Agreement with
indefinite pronouns
61
Notional agreement
Proximity agreement
Agreement with
collective nouns
Agreement
With coordination
%
21.33%
Errors
frequency
of (Q2)
66
%
22%
Total
of
errors
130
%
43.33%
20.33%
65
21.66%
128
42%
40
58
13.33%
19.33%
49
64
16.33%
21.33%
89
122
29.66%
40.66%
41
13.66%
46
15.33%
87
28.99%
The results shows that the students committed higher percentage of errors in
agreement with the indefinite pronouns (130/43.33%), notional agreement
(128/42%) and agreement with collective nouns (122/40.66). In addition, the results
18
indicates that the students committed almost all the same amount of errors in the
rest two types of subject-verb agreement including, proximity agreement
(89/29.66%) and agreement with coordination (87/28.99%). The figure below
exemplify the results of the research.
Fig. (1): The percentage of subject-verb agreement errors.
25
20
15
10
5
Recognition level
0
Production Level
The findings of the study reveal the point that the students committed the errors
regularly in which they committed the errors more than once in both questions.
Having identifying the results, the discussion of the results can be supported by
examples from the students' answers . Since the highest errors were committed in
the agreement with indefinite pronouns (type one), the notional pronouns (type two)
and agreement with collective nouns (type four), it is very important to identify the
reasons behind committing such errors. The examples below are related to the
agreement with indefinite pronouns.
Example (20): What I think and what I do is my own affairs.(is/are)
Example (21): No one want to play with me. (want)
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Example (22): No one wanted to play with me. (want)
Example (23): None of the speculation were accurate. (be)
Example (24):None of the speculation are accurate. (be)
At the recognition level in example (20) almost all the students used the singular
verb form "is" since they are asked to choose one answer. Examples (21,22,23 &
24) are related to the production level. Using plural verb forms in examples (21&
23) and in different tense structure means that the students do not know that the
singular verb form in the past tense is required in this case of agreement. In
example (21), the students used the past tense form. These errors are related to the
intralingual aspects in which the students did not know what rule to apply. It is
clear that the students at the production level have the probability to give the
students more options in their answers. In the notional agreement and at the
recognition level, the following samples of errors are given:
Example (25): The audience was standing on their feet. (was/were)
Example (26 ): The committee had decided to approve his proposal. (have)
Example (27): The committee have decided to approve his proposal. (have)
At the recognition level in example (25), the answers show that the students are not
aware of the notional nouns in English and this is related to the context of learning
resources of errors. The text books for EFL students do not focus on the details of
the notional nouns and only few examples are presented. At the production level in
examples (26 & 27), the students used the past tense and the plural verb form.
These errors related to overgeneralization and ignorance of the rules restrictions
(Richards, 1971). In the agreement with collective nouns, the students also
committed a lot of errors as is shown in the examples given below:
20
Example (28): Two-thirds of the students is satisfied with the class.(is/are)
Example (29): Ten divided by two equaled five. (equal)
Example (30): Ten divided by two equally five. (equal)
Example (31): Ten divided by two equal five. (equal)
It is clear again that at the recognition level exam(28), the error is related to the
intralingual aspects including basically the overgeneralization and failure to learn
the conditions under which rules apply. At the production level, the students
commit different errors which are related to the ignorance of rule restrictions and
the incomplete application of the rules themselves and this is why they put the
verb into different forms such as the past tense, adverb and plural instead of the
appropriate singular verb form.
7. Implications of the Study
Having discussing the findings of the study and identifying the sources of errors, it
is very important to provide some implications in the academic field:
a) Almost all grammar textbooks taught for EFL students at the University of Wasit
are related to 1980s which remarks a gap or deficiency in the learning process
which is a developmental process. Accordingly, it is strongly recommended to
exchange the old textbooks with new ones that are up-to-date and accumulative
that can cope with the students performance at the recognition and production
levels.
In addition, the syllabus must be set to include all the information
concerning the basic topics of sentence structure like subject-verb agreement.
b) Using the new technology such as smart board, online learning, data show and
videos inside the classroom, is important to encourage the students to learn and
practice the language easily.
21
c) It is very important to focus more on the grammar o the postgraduate students
especially before graduation to prepare professional teachers in English.
d) lecturers should focus more on modern methods of teaching with a focus on the
practical aspects The student must be encouraged to practice the language inside
and outside the classroom to have a full control over the rules they learn.
8.Conclusions
The findings support the hypotheses proposed in this study in which subject-verb
agreement rules are problematic for EFL students. The student of Wasit
University/College of Education are unable to master the rules of agreement and
they commit errors in the five types of subject-verb agreement namely: Agreement
with indefinite pronouns, Notional agreement, Proximity agreement, Agreement
with collective nouns and Agreement with coordination. Almost all the errors
related to the intralingual and context of learning sources of errors. At the
recognition level and as far as the intralingual aspects are concerned,
overgeneralization is considered the most affecting reason for committing errors .
At the production level, the intralingual aspects; in addition to the context of
learning exemplified basically through the textbooks being taught for the students.
Moreover, committing errors at the recognition level means that the students will
commit more errors at the production level since they are both associated with each
other and since the students are unable to understand the rules clearly, then they
will not be able to use the rules probably. A very important point is that the
students' deviation from the rules of grammar affect on the performance to be
systematic in which they commit they errors again and again since they don't know
the details of the rules in the same type of subject-verb agreement. Another
important point, is that despite being students in the English department and about
to graduate and be teacher, Iraqi EFL students of Wasit University are unable to
22
master the rules of the sentence structure and specially the subject-verb agreement
rules.
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Appendix 1: The Test
Q1: Choose the correct word to complete the following sentences:
1.The audience ______standing on their feet. (was/were)
2. The Pirates of Penzance ______a lovely operetta. (is/are)
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3. Sixty-six percent of the students _______satisfied with the class. (is/are)
4. Both the secretary and the treasure ______expected to give reports. (was/were)
5. A number of cities involved _____talking about a class-section lawsuit. (was/were)
6.This pair of shoes ______ new heels. (needs/need)
7. What I think and what I do _____ my own affairs.(is/are)
8 . Some cement ______arrived.(has/have
9. The family______ got a new song to reveal their Christmas Wishes. (has/have)
10. Every man and woman _______ required to check in.(is/are)
11. Dogs and cats both ______ available at the pound. (is/are)
12. Either John or Mary ______working.(is/are)
13. The team _____ decided not to play. (has/have)
14.Two-thirds of the students ______ satisfied with the class.(is/are)
15. I believe that neither the politicians nor the electors ____very clear about the issue. (is/are)
Q2: Put the verbs between brackets into their correct form.
1. Neither your father nor your brother _______here. (be)
2.Physics _______a difficult subject (be)
3. A doctor, along with three nurses,______ on call the night of the disaster. (be)
4.Some books ______ been placed on the shelves. (have)
5. His family _______ renowned for its rugby players. (be)
6. One-half of the toxic waste _______escaped. (have)
7.No one _______ to play with me. (want)
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8.Their defeat and subsequent ______the war is over. (mean)
9. The government _______prepared for a shutdown. (be)
10. 2 million dollars ______a lot of money. (be)
11. Either the strikers or the bosses _______misunderstood the claim. (have)
12. The hammer and sickle ______flying from a tall flag pole. (be)
13. Ten divided by two ______ five. (equal)
14. None of the speculation ______accurate. (be)
15.The committee ______decided to approve his proposal. (have)
Appendix 2
Answers of the Test
Answers of question1:
1.were
2.is 3.are 4.were
11.are 12.is
13.has
14.are
5.were 6. Need 7.are 8. Has 9.has
10.is
15.are
Answers of question2:
1.is
10.is
2.is 3. Was, were
4.have 5.is 6.has
11.have
13.equals
12.was
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7.wants
4.was 15.has
8.means
9.is