Academic Document Report Writing Errors of Teachers at Lidlidda National High School: A Corpus Study

Academic Document Report Writing Errors of Teachers at Lidlidda National High School: A Corpus Study

Neil Joseph F. Titular

Lidlidda National High School, Lidlidda, Ilocos Sur, Philippines

DOI: https://doi.org/10.51244/IJRSI.2024.11150071P

Received: 06 December 2024; Accepted: 11 December 2024; Published: 10 January 2025

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to analyze a corpus of academic document reports that were written by teachers at Lidlidda National High School. Mixed method of qualitative and quantitative approached has been used to provide insights into the writing errors such as substitution, omission, addition, mechanics and permutations. The corpus of the study was selected submitted schools’ academic documents of the teachers such as narrative reports, documentation reports, anecdotal / incidental reports, minutes of the meetings, action plans, accomplishment reports among others. This study revealed significant results on the frequency of errors committed by teachers which focused on five category of writing errors which includes error counts on substitution which reflects 32.34% with the highest number of problematic errors equivalent to 76 error counts made by teachers, also the faults mechanics, which has 58 error counts (24.68%), and the least problematic categories are addition with an error count of 45 (17.37%); omission had 39 mistake counts (13.99%) and permutation had 17 error counts (7.23%). Committing errors in writing is common based on the literature, especially for teachers whose L1 is not English, for those whose English is not their field of specialization, and those who’s medium of instruction is not English. Therefore, this suggests for future studies on a wider scope of study to provide a more concise assessment on the writing errors of the teachers with significance in areas of planning, reviewing and value for educators and administrators at the same time.

Keywords: academic document reports, corpus analysis, teachers, writing error

INTRODUCTION

The world is home to many different languages, and some of them having gained prominence as a result of their speaking by a billion or more individuals. Individuals in general learn the language used in their birthplace, but advancements in industries like trade, tourism, transportation, and communication have made it necessary for people to acquire languages they weren’t previously required to. English is the most commonly spoken of those languages and is considered the lingua franca by some individuals in our day and age (Modiano, 2004; Becker & Kluge, 2014). One of the active skills in language learning is writing. Writing is a means of putting thoughts into written documents. Writing allows one to express ideas verbally through written products. As a result, writing must be easy to understand. One must be cautious about vocabulary organization, because writing requires a thought process, it is therefore a challenging skill to learn (Pohan, 2017). English is a universal language that is used for social, professional, educational, and governmental communication. Many countries around the world utilize it as a second language. Particularly in the Philippines, students are required to learn English as a foreign language.

Writing is unquestionably a valuable talent in a variety of life circumstances. Roxas (2020) says that it is among the fundamental components of education. Writing in English is viewed as a challenging process by individuals who are learning the language from outside, and errors are regarded as an inevitable part of language learners’ writing (Amiri and Puteh, 2017). Writing is a difficult assignment that requires second language learners to think about a variety of writing-related factors. According to Dewi, et al. (2020), pupils who possess adequate language competency are able to transfer information successfully since they continuously employ writing accuracy when using the language. Writing an academically sound English essay requires taking into account a number of linguistic standards, such as morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics (Bauer, 2007; Gayo & Widodo, 2018).

According to the study conducted by Uka, Gildore and Yting (2023), revealed that senior high school students find it difficult to follow grammar and writing norms in their academic work, including when it comes to using prepositions correctly, omitting morphemes, structuring sentences correctly, and replacing sentence components. The results of this study will also be helpful to scholars in the future who intend to investigate the same subject in circumstances that are pertinent to them. According to Baay, Baritua, and Tonzo (2021), first-year students made mistakes in their writing. Because post-secondary education requires more of students in terms of writing, it is crucial to review the errors made by senior high school students before they proceed.

However, the research of Amiri and Puteh (2017) emphasizes the findings of Katiya et al. (2015), who identify two common errors: developmental errors (forming assumptions about the target language based on limited experience) and intralingual errors (inadequate application of rules, incorrect generalization, and inability to learn the conditions under which rules apply). Additionally, teachers and language instructors can identify and correct errors that may occur during the language learning process by examining the grammatical understanding of language learners. Furthermore, Corder (1967) noted that by classifying the students’ errors, researchers might get a great lot of understanding of the second language acquisition process by identifying the strategies employed by language learners.

Moreso, according to the study revealed by Roxas (2020), that the participants put their ideas into words using a variety of materials. It was brought up that completing an academic writing assignment can be hampered by a lack of understanding of academic jargon and vocabulary. The participants’ other concern is the challenge when it comes to in terms of structuring and preserving coherence. Also, one of the main concerns is grammar and mechanics. The individuals had challenges when it came to recognizing and fixing mistakes. Procrastination also made it difficult for the participants to manage the time given to finish academic writing assignments, he added. Writing is a process of goal-directed thought, driven by the writer’s expanding network of personal objectives. Furthermore, according to Flower and Hayes (1981), writing comprises three primary elements: the writer’s long-term memory, writing processes, and the work environment. From the rhetorical problem to the text itself, the task environment considers everything that was not authored by the author. The subject, target audience, and various writing techniques are all stored in a writer’s long-term memory. The writing process includes planning, translating, and assessing.

Research reports, position papers, project proposals, and correspondence letters—all essential for post-secondary education and careers—were among the academic writing conventions and procedures that the study participants were unfamiliar with, according to another assertion made by Gustilo and Capacete (2021). Their weak proficiency in two macroskills—reading and writing—is the root cause of this. However, Pablo and Lasaten (2018) proposed that one way to tackle this issue would be for teachers to try to learn about their students’ backgrounds in relation to the challenges they have faced and the caliber of their work. This effort may help teachers make more informed decisions about the reading and writing instruction methodologies they use. Given all of these issues, requirements analysis is unquestionably essential.

Moreso, Pohan (2017) found out that the most common mistake committed by the participants was utilizing the wrong verb tense. When participants are creating recall texts, their biggest problem is that they struggle with verb tense form, punctuation, extraneous or absent words, subject-verb agreement, noun singular or plural, word form, articles, and sentence fragments, or incomplete sentences. The majority of students were nonetheless proficient writers. Also, according to Heaton (1988:135), writing skills are intricate and can be challenging to teach.

The call for mastery of conceptual and judgment following skills in addition to grammatical and rhetorical tactics. Consider writing as having several layers of structures, starting small with words joining to form phrases, clauses, and sentences, according to Wilson and Glazier (2009:205).

Additionally, the studies showed that a number of participants made academic writing errors, including a lack of knowledge of academic jargon and vocabulary, a lack of understanding of the conditions under which rules apply, a lack of proficiency with academic writing conventions and procedures, difficulties with verb tense form, punctuation, extraneous or absent words, subject-verb agreement, noun singular or plural, word form, articles, and sentence fragments where the sentence was left incomplete, among other errors that contribute to the problem.

In the conduct of this study the following observations has been identified. The document reports submitted by teachers usually does not undergo quality assurance wherein the reports were not thoroughly checked as regards to its content and structure. There are no proper considerations to its grammar, common errors and identified writing format. The quality of documents presented usually reveals inefficiency and difficulties following the principals in crafting or preparing written document reports.

In terms of documentation report preparations, teachers are hesitant to accept the job of making such school documentary reports due to the responsibility of having it the more comprehensive way, because they opt to just prepare documents the way they use to have it, in its traditional approach without taking consideration into its writing principle approaches in writing, because teachers usually lack of proper training on document preparation with the new trends of writing.

Another observation identified, there is no proper authorities in the school that serves as the quality assurance team, or even if there is a quality assurance team, sometimes their role is neglected due to not functioning managements while others were not given the proper power to play their role due to principal’s ego and decision among other reasons. Some teachers usually given designations that are unfit with their interest and expertise, because seasoned teachers usually wanted to have the designations that they used to have even if it is not in line with their expertise.

English is a global language used for government, business, social, and educational communication. It is used as a second language in many nations worldwide. In certain nations, such as the Philippines, English is a foreign language that professionals need to acquire or become proficient in. Additionally, the Department of Education uses it for instructions and, most importantly, for differentiating papers and letters. Writing is a means of verbalizing thoughts allowing the concepts to be expressed through a written product. The writing should therefore be comprehensible. The ability to write thoroughly must be suitably observed. Additionally, instructors’ greatest challenge while creating recount texts is their poor command of verb tenses. Punctuation, superfluous or absent words, subject-verb agreement, nouns in the singular or plural, word form, articles, and phrase fragments where the sentence was made incomplete are other causes of the error. Therefore, this study suggests improving their writing skills (Pohan, 2017).

Based on the aforementioned research gap analysis observation, the researcher finds it too interesting to explore a study on the academic document writing error of teacher, these study hopes to uncover the experiences of teachers’ common errors in writing. In order to provide a reference that is primarily focused on the area of focus, this corpus analysis document aims to compile all common mistakes in one location. Some of these concepts may be applicable to other technical disciplines, such as mastery of verb tense form, punctuation errors, unnecessary or missing words, subject-verb agreement, noun singular or plural, word form, article, and sentence fragments where the sentence was broken. Lastly, this study is significant in determining the common errors committed by teachers in preparing and crafting of academic related document reports such as narrative reports, documentation reports, minutes of the meetings among others.

In this study, it is necessary to involve several existing theories that recognizes the research gap presented in this study, thus leading the researcher to look into different aspect of writing abilities on academic, documentation making among others, and emphasizing into the common writing errors committed by professionals.      According to Heaton (1988:135), writing skills are intricate and can be challenging to teach. They call for mastery of conceptual and judgmental writing in addition to grammatical and rhetorical tactics. Consider writing as having several layers of structures, starting small with words joining to form phrases, clauses, and sentences, according to Wilson and Glazier (2009). Writing is a difficult assignment that requires second language learners to think about a variety of writing-related factors. According to Dewi, et al. (2020), pupils who possess adequate language competency are able to transfer information successfully since they continuously employ writing accuracy when using the language. Writing an academically sound English essay requires taking into account a number of linguistic standards, such as morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics (Bauer, 2007; Gayo & Widodo, 2018). Nonetheless, faults persist in the academic essay writing of students (Dewi, et al., 2020), such as incorrect usage of singular or plural forms of nouns and noun phrases (Gayo & Widodo, 2018). Students who struggle with vocabulary and grammar and have a deficiency in the English language are likely to face challenges when writing (Alghazo, et al., 2020). As a result, students struggle to write papers that are well-structured, have high-quality content, precise language in their diction and sentence structure, and make effective use of mechanics (Quibol-Catabay, 2016). According to studies, grammar is critical for composition writing in English at the sentence level (Alufohai, 2016) and for communication since it shows how language is utilized correctly (Apsari, 2018). According to Kumala, Aimah, and Ifadah (2018), errors typically occur when pupils are not exposed to English grammar sufficiently. Amoakohene (2017) discovered that students in Ghana continue to face significant obstacles when it comes to creating error-free writings. Alghazo, et al. (2020), found that Arab students also made a range of mistakes when producing their writing, making it challenging for them to achieve the institution’s literacy requirements.

Examining the mistakes in writing can help address the writing abilities, whether they are domestic or international. Research like this is important for education, especially for the English program, as it will enable teachers to augment students’ writing proficiency with evidence-based treatments. Teachers will also gain from this because it will provide them with a foundation for improving their writing skills. The results of this study will also be helpful to scholars in the future who intend to investigate the same subject in circumstances that are pertinent to them. According to Baay, Baritua, and Tonzo (2021), teachers made mistakes in their writing. For this reason, it is critical to examine teacher’s mistakes before submitting a certain report. Therefore, the primary objective of this study was to examine the errors that teachers made when producing academic document reports. Additionally, Corder’s (1967) theory of mistake analysis, which breaks down analysis into five categories—collecting a sample of learner language, finding errors, describing, explaining, and evaluating the analysis—is the source of the theoretical foundation for this study. Additionally, under the same lens, this study will address the lexical, morphological, and syntactic characteristics of language utilizing the four error analysis headings: substitution, omission, addition, permutation, and, depending on requirements, including mechanics mistakes.

An additional interpretation of error analysis is offered by Brown (1980:166). He defines error analysis as the process of recognizing, assessing, and classifying deviations from the second language’s rules in order to reveal the operating systems of the learners. The four types of errors are “Addition, Omission, Substitution, and Ordering,” and there are seven types of overall errors based on the following writing indicators: coherences, diction, grammar, mechanics, title, theme sentences, and developing sentences, according to Brown’s (2007) categories for characterizing errors. The origins of mistakes (Brown, 2007), are referred to as “Interlingual and Intralingual Transfer”, Zinsser (2013) and Thomas (2011) both endorse those errors may arise from “lack of knowledge, insufficient practice, and forgetting.”

Ellis and Barkhuizen (2005) define error analysis as a set of methods for identifying, describing, and clarifying learner faults. Error analysis allows researchers to pinpoint the mistakes that students make, particularly when writing. These mistakes are then categorized into other kinds of errors. Researchers can characterize the mistakes made by learners based on theory when they are aware of their errors. Subsequently, the investigator can elucidate how learners can generate blunders and the reasons behind their mistakes when writing. The knowledge that mistakes made by students may be recognized, categorized, and observed has spurred a growing body of research on student errors known as “Error Analysis” (Brown, 2007). Error analysis differs from “Contrastive Analysis” in that it looks at errors that can arise from any source, not just those caused by the original language’s negative transfer. An over-reliance on production data is another flaw in mistake analysis. In this case, Brown (2007) claims that speaking, reading, and writing are all parts of language. As previously said, several studies have been conducted to look at students’ errors in the context of English as a second or foreign language in order to provide insightful information to researchers, educators, and students alike. Katiya et al. (2015), for instance, examined and evaluated a corpus of essays authored by first-year chemistry students. The researcher discovered that punctuation and spelling mistakes, poor application of essay construction norms, mother tongue interference, and syntactic and morphological problems all had an impact on the quality, meaning, and rhetorical aspect of the contents. Taher (2011) investigated the most frequent errors committed by Swedish junior high school students. Common errors included subject-verb agreement, verb tense, and verb inflection.

The author clarified that the errors resulted from a poor translation from Swedish to English and a lack of command of grammar. The sources of mistakes produced by second language learners were thoroughly examined by Heydari and Bagheri (2012). The authors included taxonomies of common errors made by second language learners as well as explanations for intralingual and interlingual errors made by Iranian students and foreigners. Some of the primary causes of mistakes made by Iranian students include the complexity of the English language, the influence of conversational English on written English, students’ incomplete knowledge or ignorance of particular structures, training transfer, unfamiliarity with the requirements of written English, a lack of practice with informed writing, memory lapses, and communication pressure.

Numerous research have been conducted on the analysis of writing errors made by second or foreign language learners in a variety of contexts, according to the literature review. Nonetheless, most of these courses focus on various kinds of brief essays that are written in class for tests or particular research objectives. However, this study looks at longer term papers with a thesis-related focus that were authored by graduate students. Additionally, the comparative summaries of the participants’ comprehensive readings are used to produce term papers. As a result, it is likely that errors in term paper writing are somewhat different from those in essay writing with regard to length, subject, and student relevance. Error analysis steps for data analysis based on Corder’s (1974) guidelines. Initially, each word and sentence in each report paper was carefully examined. The code categories were developed using all of the written samples. The errors were tallied and converted to a percentage in order to look into the incident. the examination of language faults. As said, the other performance indicator components—content, organization, format, and bibliography list—were interpreted. A few chosen sentences from each category were used as examples to show the classifications.

This study focused on the corpus analysis of the academic document writing errors of teachers at Lidlidda National High School, which sought to answer the question:

1. What are the common errors committed by the teachers in writing academic document reports?

METHODOLOGY

In order to gather comprehensive, descriptive data regarding the surroundings of the participants, this study used a corpus analysis of papers. Using computer-based corpora, corpus analysis is the empirical study of linguistic traits and patterns related to language use in many situations, including genres, settings, and audiences. It can be handled qualitatively or statistically and entails identifying both typical and atypical language use (Encyclopedia of Language & Linguistics: Second Edition, 2006). This study specifically examined the mistakes made by instructors at Lidlidda National High School when producing academic documents. The application of the corpus analysis as the research design is further supported by the fact that error analysis was employed to collect data in order to answer the research question. As a result, the researcher thought this design was suitable.

The general design and analysis approach for this study was based on error analysis. According to Corder, as mentioned in Mukarromah and Suryanto (2022), error analysis looks at the mistakes made by students when learning a language, and then those mistakes are categorized to show what aspects of the system function. Furthermore, Karim, et al. (2018) describe the word as a procedure that involves gathering, categorizing, identifying, disclosing, and assessing errors as a means of analyzing and assessing the errors made by language learners in addition to their frequency according to a certain system. Based on the stated objective and question of the study, the error analysis is most appropriate.

Sources of Data

In order to respond to the research questions, Carrera-Rivera, et al. al. (2022) uses Systematic Literature Review (SLR) to give the reader current information on pertinent publications. The goal of reviewing significant facets of current knowledge on a topic linked to research questions is to pinpoint areas that need more study.

The research and publications that will be included or eliminated in the review are selected by these eligibility criteria (McKenzie, et al., 2023). The boundaries for the literature review are established by the inclusion and exclusion criteria in order to prevent bias. These are essentially two sides of the same coin that are decided upon after the research topic has been formulated, but typically before the search is carried out (University of Melbourne, 2024; University of Missouri, 2023).

Further, the data needed for this study were the submitted schools’ academic document reports of the teachers at Lidlidda National High School, which shall employ document analysis that specifically analyses the different school related documents such as narrative reports, documentation reports, anecdotal / incidental reports, minutes of the meeting, action plans, accomplishment reports among others.

Data Collection Procedure

The researcher first conducted a systematic review of literature on different published journal with topic on corpus analysis of academic document reports. Upon identifying the research gap from the selected research journals, the researcher then arrived to this particular study on the academic document report writing errors of teachers at Lidlidda National High School: A Corpus Study. After which, the researcher asked the permission of the principal to study several reports submitted by teachers for the school years 2021-2022, 2022-2023, and 2023-2024, then a document analysis is conducted to analyze several written documentary reports of teachers at Lidlidda National High School, such reports were, narrative reports, documentary reports, anecdotal reports among others, to draw the common errors committed by teachers in preparing these documentary reports.

Mode of Analysis

The researcher employed error analysis to examine and interpret the data collected for this study. Specifically, the researcher examined narrative, documentary, and anecdotal reports from teachers at Lidlidda National High School, with a focus on the common mistakes they made when writing academic document reports.

After reviewing the information gathered. The researcher adhered to Corder’s five phases, which included gathering data with flaws, categorizing, identifying, disclosing, and assessing the academic paper reports. The researcher employed Corder’s (1967) theory of error analysis as a framework for data analysis. Specifically, the five headings—substitution, omission, addition, mechanic and permutation—in each teacher’s academic document reports were used to identify the precise parts of the academic document reports where lexical, morphological, and syntactic errors were found. We included errors in mechanics—specifically, mistakes in capitalization and punctuation—that were judged significant based on the available data, based on our initial interpretation of the data.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The study’s findings, data analysis, and interpretation are presented in this chapter along with a number of interpretational findings, the study’s conclusion, and its limitations.

Table 1: Analysis of Error

Item	Type of errors	No. of errors	Percentage
1	Sentence structure	11	7.53
2	Articles	4	2.74
3	Punctuations	37	25.34
4	Capitalization	21	14.38
5	Word Choice	13	8.90
6	Singular/plural noun ending	4	2.74
7	Redundancy	3	2.05
8	Spelling	12	8.22
9	Missing words	20	13.70
10	Unnecessary words	6	4.11
11	Sentence fragment	8	5.48
12	Verb tense	7	4.79
	Total	146	100%

According to table 1 on the analysis of teacher errors, the most common error is incorrect punctuation, which is found in 25.34% of cases, particularly when using commas to separate words. Capitalization is the second most common error, with a percentage of 14.38%, while the least common error is the use of redundancy, which is found in 2.05% of cases. Both errors on articles and singular/plural noun endings are found in 2.74% of cases.

The results of the study are presented in this part, including the total errors, the errors themselves, and the linguistic structure levels at which they occur. Contextualization in the body of current literature precedes the findings’ discussion.

FINDINGS

Errors in Substitution, Omission, Addition, Permutation, and Mechanics

The total outcome of how frequently teachers make mistakes when producing academic document reports is shown in Table 2. Among all the error types, substitution (32.34%) is the most difficult, followed by mechanics error (24.68%) as second place. Addition (19.15%), Omission (16.60%), and Permutation (7.23%) have the least amount of mistake after this.

Table 2: Errors in the Academic Document Reports

Item	Type of errors	Count	Percentage
1	Mechanics	58	24.68
2	Omission	39	16.60
3	Addition	45	19.15
4	Substitution	76	32.34
5	Permutation	17	7.23
	Total	235	100%

Errors in Mechanics

The outcome of the mechanics mistakes in the instructors’ academic document reports from Lidlidda National High School is shown in Table 3. Under Mechanics, punctuation (63.79%) and capitalization (36.21%) are the most difficult categories.

Table 3: Mechanics and its error type

Item	Type of errors	Count	Percentage
1	Punctuation	37	63.79
2	Capitalization	21	36.21
	Total	58	100%

Punctuation. A collection of symbols known as punctuation marks are used to divide sentences, clauses, phrases, list items, etc. These symbols are essential because they aid in the arrangement, elucidation, and accentuation of concepts inside a sentence or text. The misuse of commas is a common punctuation mistake made by teachers. Examples of mistakes made by teachers include the following:

For example: To identify non-readers, slow readers, good readers, very good readers and outstanding readers to Grade 7 students is one of the plans of the Language teachers to help the slow readers and most especially the non-readers to develop their reading skills. (from Narrative Report 1)

As demonstrated in the preceding paragraph, it contains punctuation mistakes, notably commas. The line “To identify non-readers, slow readers, good readers, and very good readers” should be followed by a comma since it distinguishes each category of reader, followed by the connecting word “and”. The comma divides two types of readers.

Capitalization. Capitalization must be followed when we start a sentence. It is the most basic grammar rule there is. Next is the capitalization of proper nouns, the name of a person, place, event, date, brand, title, or thing. There are special cases in which we capitalize words when a common noun refers to a person or a place. Also, it is a common error that if it is a title, teachers oft to capitalize all the words including the articles and connectors. In the document reports of the teachers, the errors are mainly inside each sentences.

For example, “Volcano Collage Out Of Recycled and Indigenous Materials.” (from Localized Instructional Materials)

As illustrated in the samples above, all of the opening letters of each word in the title have been capitalized, including the preposition “of” and the linking word “and,” which is a typical blunder, particularly when writing the title of a specific document.

Language instructors agree that one of the most common mistakes in writing is mechanics. Even extremely talented authors can make blunders in mechanics. This means that, while mechanics contains rules and conventions, it lacks a solid foundation, making it extremely difficult to learn. Punctuation errors account for 63.79% of all mechanical errors in student essays. Following careful evaluation and analysis of the data, it was discovered that these errors are primarily caused by misspelling periods and commas. Capitalization errors, on the other hand, were the least problematic at 36.21%. According to Ahmed’s (2019) research, writing is an important language skill that is difficult to master in addition to speaking, listening, and reading. The primary objective of writing is to convey ideas and information to the reader. Writers should avoid formal features, especially those related to mechanics.

Omission Errors

The term “omission” refers to the intentional or inadvertent exclusion of words or letters. The architecture of a word or the sentence is greatly impacted by omissions. This could apply to the text’s articles, word choices, singular and plural nouns. The morphological level (41.03%) and the syntactic level (58.97%) are the problematic categories under Omission in Table 4.

Table 4: Omission and its error type

Item	Type of errors	Count	Percentage
1	Syntactic	23	58.97
2	Morphological	16	41.03
	Total	39	100%

Errors in Omission on the Syntactic Level. The syntactic level includes an error in omitting words in a sentence, mostly articles and other necessary words or phrases. In the document reports of the teachers, most errors are omitted articles and words.

For example: This is to certify that according to the records of this office, Rence John D. Anastacio of Grade 11 – HUMSS is enrolled for School Year 2024-2025. (from Certificate of Enrolment)

As displayed in the example above, the article “the” is deleted from the sentence that is supposed to come before “School Year” to emphasize the importance of the word itself.

Errors in Omission on the Morphological Level. The morphological level includes the exclusion of morphemes affecting the form of the word. Under the umbrella of the morphological level are pluralization and verb tenses. In the document report of the teachers, there are errors in Omission on the morphological level.

For example: The parent can drop the SLK kit in the assigned knowledge box. (from Home Weekly Plan)

As depicted in the example above, the word “kit” has an omitted letter “s” and technically holds a plural form because it is a collection of various learning resources.

Expressing oneself through writing. As a result, it is not recommended to remove crucial notions or components, as this may lead to misconceptions and a disconnected text structure. The concept of omission suggests that if writers disregard their writing, they risk producing omission errors. To elaborate, the findings revealed a recurring error at the syntactic and morphological levels, showing that teachers omitted words and their forms that were necessary to create their sentences. The two most common faults in Omission are syntactic (58.97%) and morphological (41.03%). To generate sentences they believe are correct, teachers delete or add words (or tenses ending in -s, -ed, or -ing) as appropriate.

Furthermore, Syahputri and Masita (2018) said that ignorance and interlingual interference are the leading causes of omission errors. According to their data, omission (43%) ranks highest among the three types of errors—addition, misinformation, and misordering. An 86-occurrence omission suggests a problem with the professors’ writing. The researchers concluded that negligence is what causes these kinds of mishaps. These data demonstrate that omission is a serious error, and that teachers struggle with writing because they regularly leave off articles, prepositions, and verb tenses.

Addition Errors

The addition of extraneous or inaccurate components to a sentence or word falls under the Addition category. Simple words, prepositions, or articles could be included. The results of addition errors of teachers’ academic document reports at Lidlidda National High School are displayed in Table 5. Under Addition, morphological (26.67%) and syntactic (26.67%) are the least troublesome category, while lexical (46.67%) are the most problematic one.

Table 5: Addition and its error type

Item	Type of errors	Count	Percentage
1	Syntactic	12	26.67
2	Lexical	21	46.67
3	Morphological	12	26.67
	Total	45	100%

Errors in Addition on the Syntactic Level. Syntactic errors affect the structure and meaning of the whole sentence, it may be articles, prepositions, phrases, etc. in the academic reports of teachers at Lidlidda National High School, there are errors in Addition on the syntactic level.

For example: Through this output, learners will be able to convey their understanding on volcanoes and allows them to be creative and resourceful as well. (from Localized Instructional Material)

The line above contains an error because the missing article “the” appears as a missing word before the term “learners,” which should be highlighted and followed by a distinct clause surrounded by a comma.

Errors in Addition on the Lexical Level. Lexical words provide a sentence with its context and indicate the text’s subject matter. In this matter, committing lexical errors in Addition are common in writing. In the academic document reports of teachers, there are errors in Addition on the lexical level. The following are the errors in Addition committed:

For example: Whenever I break my promise, the school can impose corresponding disciplinary action or punishment upon me. (from Anecdotal Report)

As presented above, the word structure is needed to be more forceful and more authoritative since the form is dealing with rules and regulation of the school, therefore the use of the proper term is needed as for example the use of the word “can” in the statement “…can impose…”, should be using the word “shall” instead, to express the authority of the school over anyone or anything else and not a polite expression.

Errors in Addition on the Morphological Level. The morphological level studies the ways in which morphemes—the building blocks of words—combine or stand alone to express a range of meanings. This section contains morphologically based addition errors. The following are the errors in Addition committed by the teachers:

For example: We also assure them that our lines will be very open for any inquiries and help if ever they needed us (teachers), and we will also schedule a specific time to do home visitation weekly. (from Narrative Report 3)

As stated in the first extract, the teachers erred by using the first person point of view in a narrative framework when the third person point of view was necessary. This is because a narrative report is intended to be told by the author rather than to share personal experiences; consequently, the writer may use the word “The teacher” instead of the pronoun “We.”

Unlike absence, addition is an error made by authors who include superfluous information in their writing. Writers typically include things they are unsure of since it feels natural to them, but these uncertainties result in unneeded additions. To elaborate, the data revealed alarming inaccuracies at the morphological (26.67%) and syntactic (26.67%) levels, with lexical (46.67%) being the most problematic.

Yilmaz and Demir (2020) discovered numerous errors in omission (22.71%), addition (13.56%), substitution (58.46%), and permutation (5.25%) in a study comparable to this one. Addition is an important component of students’ writing challenges, as seen by its placing third. The researchers identified a mismatch between the mother tongue and English as a potential source of the errors.

Substitution Errors

The results of the substitution errors made by the researcher in the academic report writings are displayed in Table 6. Under Substitution, lexical errors account for the greatest errors (53.95%), followed by syntactic errors (25.00%), and morphological errors (21.05%), which are the least problematic.

Table 6: Substitution and its error type

Item	Type of errors	Count	Percentage
1	Lexical	41	53.95
2	Syntactic	19	25.00
3	Morphological	16	21.05
	Total	76	100%

Errors in Substitution on the Lexical Level. Errors in Substitution occur when a word was substituted in a clause or sentence. Lexical words provide a sentence with its context and indicate the text’s subject matter. In this matter, committing lexical errors in Substitution are common in writing. In this study, there are errors in Substitution on the lexical level. The following are the errors in Substitution committed by the teachers:

For example: The orientation started at 9:00 AM, the program was opened thru a video presentation of prayer and National Anthem. (from Narrative Report 4)

As seen in the first excerpt, the teacher made an error by substituting the term “thru” for the intended word “through” in a statement regarding the mechanism employed to provide a certain action.

Errors in Substitution on the Syntactic Level. In linguistics, the study of sentence structure and development is known as syntax. It describes how words and phrases are put together to make precise sentences. In this study, there are Substitution errors on the syntactic level. The following are the errors in Substitution committed by teachers:

For example: Familiarizing yourself with the different elements is not an easy task especially to the learners. In order to make the learning happen in an easier way, this localized flash cards of elements was made. (from Localized Instructional Material)

The sentence above contains a syntactic error where one thought was separated instead of joined together. The statement “In order to make…” should have been connected with its prior statement “…to the learners…” as the statements were interconnected with thought. And should be linked to the use of “and”.

Errors in Substitution on the Morphological Level. The morphological level looks at the ways that morphemes—the building blocks of words—combine or stand alone to express different meanings. There are morphological substitution errors in this study. The following are the identified errors:

For example: We also assure them that our lines will be very open for any inquiries and help if ever they needed us (teachers), and we will also schedule a specific time to do home visitation weekly. (from Narrative Report 5)

As illustrated by the sentence above, there is a morphological substitution error in which the word “open” from the statement “will be open” should be written as “opened” referring to the act of being open for communication with the other party.

When composing compositions, writers frequently struggle to decide whether to use a term or one that sounds similar but has a different function. Given that teachers are more likely to make substitution errors, the instructor needs to act as a dispensing model by offering advice and criticism. To elaborate, the lexical level (53.95%) rated highest in terms of substitution errors, which included using the proper adverb form in the sentences, misusing pronouns, and substituting prepositions. The syntactic level (25.00%) came next, where pupils made mistakes in correctly using articles. When referring to nouns or other elements, they frequently misuse the words an, a, and the. With 21.05%, the morphological level received the fewest errors. It became clear that teachers were using the wrong verb tense when they failed to employ the proper tense for the verbs in the phrases.

According to research by Ulit (2018), the most common grammatical errors made by pupils were related to important parts that needed to be substituted, such improper usage of prepositions. Additionally, he said that students who don’t understand English rules often misuse articles, verb tenses and forms, and prepositions. Additionally, the problematic grammatical component in the study by Amoakohene (2017) received 584 faults, including erroneous use of the concord rules, inappropriate use of prepositions, incorrect employment of the wrong tense, and incorrect use of articles.

Permutation Errors

This kind of writing error occurs when the sentence’s components are not arranged in the right sequence. Table 7 illustrates that all faults fall within the syntactic level (100%) category.

Table 7: Permutation and its error type

Item	Type of errors	Count	Percentage
1	Syntactic	17	100.00
	Total	17	100%

Errors in Permutation on the Syntactic Level. This kind of writing error occurs when sentence components are not arranged correctly in the right sequence. Students in this category made syntactic level mistakes in how they arranged the sentence’s components. Syntactic permutation faults might be found in the teachers’ academic document reports.

For example: Those some students who did not able to come at the scheduled day and time came on the following days and those who have no means of transportation, the teachers conducted a home visitation. (from Narrative Report 6)

As shown in the preceding samples, it contains faults in Permutation, particularly at the syntactic level. The sentence’s usage of the word “some” in the first portion, “Those some students…” leads to confusion and misinterpretation of the statement, thus providing the word change the meaning and lead to confusion of the statement.

Permutation is a type of error exclusive to syntax. It cannot be lexical or morphological. It is possible for sentence elements to be out of sequence, which results in an improper structure that only exists at the syntactical level. To elaborate, the outcome indicates that there was the least amount of syntactic mistake (100%), which suggests that words were misplaced and that phrases and sentences were not put together correctly. According to Wahyuni’s (2014) study, Corder’s (1967) research also supports the idea that second language learners use the same tactics, they did to master their native tongue, leading to mistakes in word order and permutation.

CONCLUSION

Among the five categories of errors that include mechanics, which has 58 error counts (24.68%), substitution has the most problematic errors among teachers, accounting for 235 error counts (32.34%) in the writing of academic document reports among teachers. The table indicates that the least problematic categories are permutation (17 error counts, 7.23%), omission (39 error counts, 13.99%), and addition (45 error counts, 17.37%). These findings show that the teachers struggle to follow grammatical and writing standards in their academic document report writing, including correctly using prepositions, omitting morphemes, arranging sentences correctly, and substituting sentence parts. According to the literature, writing mistakes are frequent, particularly for teachers whose first language is not English, for those whose English is not their field of specialization, and those who’s medium of instruction is not English.

RECOMMENDATION AND LIMITATIONS

The study’s conclusions led to recommendations for more research in the areas of planning, translating, and evaluating as writing process phases that aid in the creation of better document reports with a clear format and consideration for the writer’s common errors.

There may be restrictions on this study. As such, they are susceptible to pertinent biases and confounding that could have affected the study’s outcome. These were centered on investigating the mistakes made by teachers at Lidlidda National High School when preparing academic documents and reports. Thus, starting with the rhetorical problem and extending to the text itself, the task environment considers everything that was not authored by the writer. The writer’s long-term memory includes information on the topic, the intended audience, various writing techniques, and the meticulous and conventional document producing process. The writing process steps of planning, translating, and reviewing aid in the creation of better document reports with a clear structure and consideration for the writer’s common mistakes.

Meanwhile, this study is focused on a single institution since it is presented in the research gap that such research study is needed to provide assessment to the teachers regarding their Writing Errors. The researcher provided limited scope because of the limited time in the conduct of the study since it is conducted for the sake of partial requirement for graduation, which further suggests that this study shall be conducted in a wider scope in the future to bring a more concise assessment in a wider group of teachers regarding their writing errors.

Funding: Since this research project exclusively addressed issues that pertain to the institution and do not require additional money, it was not supported by any other sources.

Conflicts of Interest: The study was conducted with professionalism and respect, and the author affirms that there are no conflicts of interest.

Acknowledgments : The author acknowledges the people who served as inspiration and motivation in this study, first, is his family for being his ultimate motivation in professional development, also to all his friends for always being there through thick and thin, another is his instructors for always motivating and pushing the author to his full potentials, and lastly to Almighty God for the gift ofd wisdom in accomplishing scholarly works. Min-iyaman as adu!

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