COMMON SUBJECT-VERB AGREEMENT ERRORS COMMITTED BY GRADE 9-LILAC STUDENTS OF

CABATUAN NATIONAL COMPREHENSIVE HIGH SCHOOL

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

In the Subjects Quantitative Research and Academic Writing

Presented to:

JOHN MARK A. MASAGNAY, PhD

Faculty, WVSU-Janiuay

Presented by:

Ramona M. Soquera

MAEd-ESL Student

January 4, 2023
 COMMON SUBJECT-VERB AGREEMENT ERRORS COMMITTED BY GRADE 9-LILAC STUDENTS OF
CABATUAN NATIONAL COMPREHENSIVE HIGH SCHOOL

Introduction

In the Philippines, English has long been a part of the curricula of varied academic programs. Curriculum
has changed drastically but the learning of English remains intact in the essentials of any curriculum.
With K to 2 coming to fore, English is offered in both the Junior and the Senior High School curricula. It is
also the medium of instruction in teaching other subjects such as Mathematics and Science, among
others.

Filipinos are regarded to be among the more fluent speakers of the English language. This is one of the
reasons that fellow Asians from other ASEAN countries have chosen to study here in the Philippines or
resort to learning English from Filipino mentors(Sioco & De Vera, 2018).

This study, Common Subject-Verb Agreement Errors Committed by Grade 9-Lilac Students of Cabatuan
National Comprehensive High School aims to identify common subject-verb agreement errors
committed by grade 9-Lilac students of CNCHS and the reasons behind committing such errors in order
to find ways to augment/provide necessary instructional materials to help students/learners understand
subject-verb agreement in a more enjoyable way.

Theoretical Framework

English Grammar presupposes eight parts of speech namely: noun, pronoun, adjective, adverb,
preposition, conjunctions, interjections and verbs. Students are taught to be competent in the fictional
use of these grammatical elements. However, the researcher who has relatively spent years in the
English language teaching career has noted that one of the main problems of the students is their
functional grasp of subject-verb agreement. ESL students’ problematic difficulties in their use of subject-
verb agreement are becoming more obvious and rampant, and it cuts across the different grade levels
where students belong. From the primary school towards the university level, many students are noted
in their speech and writing as not being able to abide with the rules of subject-verb agreement. Errors
on subject-verb agreement were found not only in students’ essays but even in writings of colleagues in
universities. The more worrisome dimension of this problem is that such fiasco extends even to
professionals who use English in their lectures or those among the honorable members of state and
national assemblies or those engaged in varied media outfits. Errors in subject-verb agreement are
becoming wide spread and it seems as if many people are either no longer aware of the rules or they
simply undermine the importance of grammar rules, for as long as they are able to convey their message
(Tafida & Okunade, 2016).

Sullivan (2012) mentions that a single relationship lies at the heart of every sentence in the English
language. Like an indivisible nucleus at the center of an atom, the subject-verb pair unifies the sentence.
It can be surrounded by any number of modifying words, taking on new shades of meaning, but no
matter how many adjectives, adverbs, and independent clauses become attached, the basic unit
remains. The subject-verb pair guarantees that the sentence means something. Without this core, a
sentence fragments and loses its power to speak. Indeed, a sentence only becomes complete when it
contains at least a subject and a verb.

Sullivan (2012) mentions that a single relationship lies at the heart of every sentence in the English
language. Like an indivisible nucleus at the center of an atom, the subject-verb pair unifies the sentence.
It can be surrounded by any number of modifying words, taking on new shades of meaning, but no
matter how many adjectives, adverbs, and independent clauses become attached, the basic unit
remains. The subject-verb pair guarantees that the sentence means something. Without this core, a
sentence fragments and loses its power to speak. Indeed, a sentence only becomes complete when it
contains at least a subject and a verb.

The subject-verb agreement is crucial in writing. Without adequate rules of agreement between subject
and verb, written ideas will be difficult to convey and, therefore, will deteriorate the value of the writing
itself. Any mistakes regarding the subject-verb agreement will change the meaning of the sentence. This
study will be based on the Theory of McCray Hill (1987) that subject-verb agreement is the rule of
grammar that states that singular subjects must agree with singular verbs and plural or compound
subjects must agree with plural verbs. A singular subject results in the singular verb ending -s, e.g.
he/she writes, the dog barks, while a plural subject results in no added ending, e.g. we/they write, the
dogs bark. The verb in a sentence must agree with the subjects and not with any other word that is
placed between them (IJARIIE-ISSN(O)-2395-4396 Vol-8 Issue-4 2022).

In addition, Mudrak (2014) reiterates that in English, the verb in a sentence must agree with the subject,
specifically in terms of number. That is, singular subjects require singular verb forms and plural subjects
require plural verb forms. In most cases, writers can easily choose the correct verb form for a subject.
However, when other clauses intervene between the subject and the verb, errors in subject-verb
agreement become more common. Errors sometimes occur because word processing software does not
correctly identify the subject and suggests an incorrect verb form, so be alert as you write any important
documents. In every sentence, it is important to identify the true subject and ensure that the verb
agrees in number with that element and not another noun in the sentence.

Lastly, Vaurula (2012) writes that even though subject-verb agreement is one of the basic features of the
English grammar and has been referred to as a fairly simple or easy semantic feature, even advanced
learners and sometimes also native speakers fail to use the feature correctly. This is especially the case
with the 3rd person singular –s that is acquired fairly late among the different morphemes studied in
English as a second language. Grammatical morphemes of English emerge in learner language at
different times, and the rates at which they are mastered vary greatly. When it comes to subject-verb
agreement, the plural noun –s is acquired much earlier than the 3rd person singular –s and,
consequently, there have been various attempts at trying to explain the phenomenon. Therefore,
learning plural nouns have more meaning to learners than learning to inflect verbs as the plurality
conveys more meaning than adding a 3rd person singular –s to the verb.
Conceptual Framework

Process
Input Output
Written works
Errors in Subject-Verb Error Analysis
Agreement Interview

Descriptive Statistics

Statement of the Problem

This study aims to answer the following questions:

1. What are the common subject-verb agreement errors committed by grade 9-Lilac students of
Cabatuan National Comprehensive High School?

2. Why do learners commit these errors when dealing with subject-verb agreement?

3. What are better ways of teaching subject-verb agreement that would be more effective and
enjoyable to the learners?

Significance of the Study

Students’ subject and verb agreements’ errors viewed surface taxonomy’s perspective are in the form of
misformation, omission, and addition, while viewed from linguistic categorization’s perspective, the
errors are in the form of improper use of singular/plural nouns placed as the subject, inappropriate use
of verbs, and improper use of verbal and nominal sentences in making present tense.

The reason why students commit these errors were not specified.

The results of this study would be of value and use to all grammar and language teachers. It can be
utilized as a basis for identifying the problems of the teachers in teaching grammar and language. The
findings of this study will also enable the teachers to assess their own deficiencies in teaching grammar
and language. As a result, they will be able to find effective means of improving their teaching strategies
in order to acquire rich opportunities for professional development in accordance with the best
standards of good teaching and common sense. Furthermore, the results could serve as a fundamental
point for school administrators and heads of the English Language department in providing training
programs in teaching grammar and language, seminar workshops, and other activities that can be
provided to attain professional growth to be able to carry out contents through methods that can be a
great help to the students. Finally, the school administrators and the heads of the English language
department may use information from this study to assess the existing policies and formulate new ones
for the implementation of effective Grammar and Language programs.
Review of Related Literature

(2017). AN ANALYSIS OF SUBJECT-VERB AGREEMENT ERRORS ON STUDENTS’ WRITING. ELT Echo : The
Journal of English Language Teaching in Foreign Language Context. 2. 13. 10.24235/eltecho.v2i1.1590.
This study is aimed to examine the written subject and verb agreement errors made by the students of
management department studying in Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta when they were writing
their paragraphs in present tense. Error analysis technique was carried out in this research in order to
find the errors faced by the students in terms of present tense, identify the types of errors as well as the
sources of the errors. The research is a descriptive study with 11 students participating in the study. The
data of the research were collected from 1) the students’ writings focusing on students’ sentences
containing subject-verb agreement errors, and 2) interview to triangulate the data obtained from
students’ writings. The findings of the research are as follow: 1) Students’ subject and verb agreements’
errors viewed surface taxonomy’s perspective are in the form of misformation, omission, and addition,
while viewed from linguistic categorization’s perspective, the errors are in the form of improper use of
singular/plural nouns placed as the subject, inappropriate use of verbs, and improper use of verbal and
nominal sentences in making present tense. The analyzed data also show that students’ errors of
subject-verb agreement are classified as local errors. 2) The sources of the errors are inter-lingual
transfer, intra-lingual transfer, and misleading context of learning. The research reveals that the
students are still having difficulties in using correct patterns of subject and verb agreement in their
writing using present tense. Keywords: Subject and Verb agreement, error analysis, inter-lingual transfer
intra-lingual transfer

Thornton, Robert & MacDonald, Maryellen. (1999). Plausibility Effects on Subject-Verb Agreement
Errors in English. earlmutter, Myers, & Lotocky, 1997). ffl Thus, plausibility information may provide a
more stringent task of the role of semantic factors in agreement. ffl In our study, participants got a verb
followed by a preamble. We manipulated the verbs, so that the local noun was either plausible or
implausible as a subject. Predictions ffl If semantic variables do not affect agreement errors in English,
then there should be no differences between plausibility conditions. ffl If semantic variables do affect
agreement errors, then there should be an increase of agreement errors in the plausible condition,
because it should be harder to reject the local noun as the subject of the verb when it is a plausible
subject that when it is an implausible one. Sentence Elicitation Experiment ffl Thirty-eight participants,
twenty-eight items ffl Sentence elicitation task: . Verb is presented visual

Nicol, Janet. (1995). Effects of clausal structure on subject-verb agreement errors. Journal of
psycholinguistic research. 24. 507-16. 10.1007/BF02143164. This paper explores the effect of
manipulating the internal structure of a complex subject on the incidence of subject--verb agreement
errors. Using the sentence completion task (Bock & Miller, 1991), this study followed up on Vigliocco
and Nicol's (1995) finding that the syntactic distance between a head noun and a number-mismatching
noun contained within a modifier has an impact on error incidence: the greater the distance, the lower
the error rate. The study presented in this paper investigated whether this distance effect is purely
syntactic; if so, then it would be expected that there would be fewer errors following The owner of the
house which charmed the realtors... than following The owner of the house who charmed the realtors...,
since in the latter, the mismatch is syntactically nearer the head noun. Results show no hint of a
difference between the two, suggesting that the distance effect is more likely due to temporal distance
rather than syntactic distance per se.

Franck, Julie & Ve, Gene & Vigliocco, Gabriella & Nicol, Janet. (2003). Subject-verb agreement errors in
French and English: The role of syntactic hierarchy. Language and Cognitive Processes. 17.
10.1080/01690960143000254. We report two parallel experiments conducted in French and in English
in which we induced subject-verb agreement errors to explore the role of syntactic structure during
sentence production. Previous studies have shown that attraction errors (i.e., a tendency of the verb to
agree with an immediately preceding noun instead of with the subject of the sentence) occur when a
preverbal local noun disagrees in number with the subject head noun. The attraction effect was
accounted for either by the proximity of the local noun to the verb in the linearised sentence (linear
distance hypothesis) or by the processing simultaneity of the head and local nouns situated in the same
clause (clause packaging hypothesis). In the current experiments, speakers were asked to complete
complex sentential preambles. Contrary to the predictions of these two hypotheses, we found that
agreement errors were more frequent following an intermediate modifier (e.g., *The threat-S to the
presidents-P of the company-S ARE serious) than an immediately preverbal modifier (e.g., *The threat-S
to the president-S of the companies-P ARE serious). It is suggested that attraction is determined by the
syntactic distance between the interfering noun and the head noun at a stage of the grammatical
encoding of the sentence during which syntactic units are organised into a hierarchical structure.

Mali, Yustinus & Yulia, Made. (2017). Students� Subject-Verb Agreement Errors in Paragraph Writing
Class. LLT Journal: A Journal on Language and Language Teaching. 15. 21-28. 10.24071/llt.v15i2.320.
Subject-verb agreement is an essential element to master by English LanguageEducation Study Program
(ELESP) students, who are prepared to be English teachersin the future. However, the researchers still
find the fact that ELESP students makethe errors on the agreement. For that reason, it would be
significant to find out theerrors made by the students as well as to discover the factors behind the
errors.To achieve those purposes, the researchers conducted a document analysis and asemi-structure
interview.The research results showed most of the errors belongedto misinformation category (71.4%)
and were subsequently followed by omissioncategory (17.9%) and addition category (10.7%). In
addition, from the interview,the researchers also found five (5) major factors that caused the students
to makethe errors, namely interlingual error, ignorance of rule restrictions, incompleteapplication of
rules, false concepts hypothesized, and carelessness.DOI: https://doi.org/10.24071/llt.2012.150204

Mali, Yustinus & Yulia, Made. (2012). Students’ Subject-Verb Agreement Errors in Paragraph Writing
Class. Language and Language Teaching Journal. 15. 21-28. 10.24071/llt.2012.150204. Subject-verb
agreement is an essential element to master by English Language

Education Study Program (ELESP) students, who are prepared to be English teachers in the future.
However, the researchers still find the fact that ELESP students make the errors on the agreement. For
that reason, it would be significant to find out the errors made by the students as well as to discover the
factors behind the errors. To achieve those purposes, the researchers conducted a document analysis
and a semi-structure interview.The research results showed most of the errors belonged to
misinformation category (71.4%) and were subsequently followed by omission category (17.9%) and
addition category (10.7%). In addition, from the interview, the researchers also found five (5) major
factors that caused the students to make the errors, namely interlingual error, ignorance of rule
restrictions, incomplete application of rules, false concepts hypothesized, and carelessness.
Bee, Tan. (2022). THE USE OF DRILL EXERCISES IN HELPING STUDENTS REDUCE SUBJECT-VERB
AGREEMENT ERRORS IN ACADEMIC WRITING: A CASE STUDY IN IPBA. The purpose of this qualitative
study was to examine if drill exercises are effective in reducing the Subject-Verb Agreement (SVA) errors
in the academic writings of B. Ed. TESL Year 1 students in the Learning Support programme. For the
purpose of this study, the three participants involved sat for a pre-test which involved the writing of an
expository essay. From the essays, the different types of SVA errors were identified, and treatment in
the form of drill exercises were given for three dominant SVA errors. After the treatment, the
participants sat for a post-test, which again involved the writing of an expository essay on a parallel
topic. Results of the study showed that there was a reduction in the occurrence of SVA errors after the
treatment. The findings were supported by interview data and participants' reflections.

Hudson, Richard. (1999). Subject–verb agreement in English. English Language and Linguistics. 3. 173 -
207. 10.1017/S1360674399000210. The paper rejects the standard view according to which every
tensed verb in English agrees with its subject in person and number. It argues that person is irrelevant to
all verbs except BE, and that past-tense verbs and modals (other than BE) have no number agreement
features. It discusses agreement mismatches which reflect the subject's meaning, but rejects the idea
that subject–verb agreement may be a semantic rule; it proposes instead a new feature ‘agreement-
number’. This extra number feature applies only to the subject of a tensed verb and by default has the
same value as the subject's ordinary number, while also allowing various kinds of mismatch (for I and
you, and for cases of ‘semantic’ agreement). It also offers analyses of agreement with non-nominal
subjects and dummy there, and shows how the analysis for Standard English generalizes easily to a
range of variations found in nonstandard dialects. The theoretical basis for the analysis is Word
Grammar, whose main advantage is that features are free to be assigned by rule because they are not
used in classification.

Alahmadi, Nesreen. (2019). A STUDY OF GRAMMATICAL ERRORS OF SUBJECT VERB AGREEMENT IN

WRITING MADE BY SAUDI LEARNERS. 48-59. This study investigates and classifies grammatical errors
with subject-verb agreement in writing made by Saudi students in the foundation year at Taibah
University. The students were enrolled in an English language course where they were studying English
as a core module. The class was divided into two modules: reading and writing, and listening and
speaking. The data was collected throughout the second semester, where students (intermediate-upper
intermediate level), were asked to write eight different paragraphs on eight different topics taken from
the reading and writing book. The grammatical errors related to subject-verb agreement in writing were
identified and classified into three main categories according to their consistency. These errors are
mainly categorised as: (a) subject-verb agreement errors with singular subjects (b) subject-verb
agreement errors with plural subjects, and (c) subject-verb agreement errors where the main verb or
auxiliary verb is compounded with or separated from the subject. The study found that subject-verb
agreement errors with singular subjects appear to be more frequent and the most committed among
these three categories in students' writing.

Nasuha, Najlaa & Radin, Mohd & lai fong, Lee. (2014). Error Analysis of Subject Verb Agreement in
Argumentative Essays Among Diploma Students of UiTM Dungun, Terengganu. This study was carried
out to investigate errors in subject verb agreement in argumentative essays written by diploma students
of UiTM Dungun, Terengganu and the factors that caused them to commit such errors. 15 students were
selected and 45 essays were collected from them for data analysis. Apart from that, a set of
questionnaire was distributed to students and semi structured interviews were carried out with seven
random participants. Data collected were analyzed using SPSS software version 18. Findings indicated
that the students had problems in four types of subject verb agreement which were subject verb
agreement for person, subject verb agreement for number, subject verb agreement of indefinite subject
and subject verb agreement of notional agreement and proximity but no error was found for subject
verb agreement of coordinated subjects. This study also revealed that three sources of errors namely
induced, intralingual and interlingual errors affected the students' mastery in using subject verb
agreement in their essays. This implies that teaching strategies should be revisited by language
instructors at the university level to help the diploma students improve in their use of SVA in their
writing. The factors that caused students to commit errors should be used as a platform for available
strategies to be implemented to help students use SVA accurately in their writing.

Stapa, Siti & Malaysia, Kebangsaan. (2010). Analysis of errors in subject-verb agreement among
Malaysian ESL learners. 16. This article analyses errors on subject-verb agreement among post-graduate
teacher trainees in a college in Malaysia. Twenty postgraduate (English Language Studies) students from
a teachers' training college from the northern state of Malaysia participated in the study. The study
examined errors in 5 types of subject-verb agreements: person, number, coordinated subject, indefinite
expression of amount and also notional agreement and proximity. 2 types of written compositions
(argumentative and factual) were analyzed to identify the problems in writing grammatically correct
subject-verb agreement by the students. The results of the study reveal that the majority of the
students commit errors in subject-verb agreement, especially in SVA of number followed by SVA of
person. The students were found to avoid using the complex sub-rules of SVA that include the
agreement with coordinated subject, agreement with indefinite expressions of amount and also
notional agreement and proximity.

Gunawan, Rasyid & Indah, Reny & Putri, Gitari. (2018). Error Analysis of Subject-Verb Agreement Made
by Students in Meurandeh Langsa. LANGUAGE LITERACY: Journal of Linguistics, Literature, and Language
Teaching. 2. 157. 10.30743/ll.v2i2.571. This research aimed at identifying the subject-verb agreement
errors in students’ writing. This research applied a descriptive research. The data were collected through
test and non-test instruments. Test instruments were conducted through writing test and non-test
instruments were through questionnaire and interview. The data obtained from both test and non-test
instruments were conducted by employing descriptive analysis. This research analyzed students’
narrative writing based on Surface Strategy Taxonomy proposed by Dulay, Burt and Krashen (1982). This
result revealed the types of error in subject-verb agreement in the students’ narrative writing covering
omission, addition and misinformation. In conclusion, the students involved in the research made a
number of errors. It was found that the students’ ability to use subject-verb agreement in English was
still low.

Susfenti, N.. (2020). STUDENTS’ ABILITY IN USING SUBJECT-VERB AGREEMENT. Journal of English
Language Teaching and Literature (JELTL). 3. 94-101. 10.47080/jeltl.v3i2.967. This research was aimed at
investigating the Students’ Ability in Using Subject- Verb Agreement and the error made by the students
in using subject-verb agreement. The writers was used the deductive approach to minimize the errors
on learning grammar process and improving their ability in using subject-verb agreement. The students
ability in using subject-verb agreement was categorized into the poor categories with 17 students and
followed by very poor categories with 8 students from 34 students are there in the class. This research
also found some causes of the students error while learning the grammar structure especially subject-
verb agreement. The error occurred while learning subject verb agreement was on intralingua error like,
false analogy and misanalysis.

Elmejie, Eman & Elzawawi, Fatima & Msimeer, Amel. (2021). The Effect of English Language Proficiency
Level on Undergraduate Libyan Students’ Use of Subject Verb Agreement. (Faculty of Arts Journal) ‫مجلة‬
10.36602 .98-79 .‫ جامعة مصراتة‬- ‫كلية اآلداب‬/faj.2021.n18.05. This study aims to examine the proficiency
level of Libyan EFL (English as a Foreign Language) undergraduate students in terms of the types of
subject-verb agreement errors they commit. It also attempts to identify, analyze and categorize the
frequency errors related to subject-verb agreement into three categories. These errors are statically
analyzed and classified into: subject-verb agreement (SVA) errors with third person singular subjects
(TPSS), with third person plural subjects (TPPS), with compound subjects (CS). The participants of this
study were 40 intermediate and advanced students whose major is English at the Faculty of Arts in
Misurata University, Libya. They were chosen based on their level of English language proficiency during
the current study. The data of this study were collected through a written test consisting of six short
passages. The results showed that the percentage of errors made by both groups was below 30% which
refers to non-significant differences among the two groups with respect to the SVA errors made by
them. Consequently, it can be concluded that language proficiency has little effect on the participants'
use of the SVA rule. It was also found that subject-verb agreement errors with (TPPS) were the least
frequent, and the most common errors committed were (CS) and (TPSS). This study is important for EFL
teachers to be aware of the subject verb agreement errors that their target learners commonly produce.
The implications for SLA research and classroom teaching practice are given for foreign language
teachers and researchers.

Syaifurrahman, Muhammad & Miftah, M. Zaini. (2016). Error analysis of subject-verb agreement in the
diary written by the English department students. This study was aimed at investigating the types of
errors and the factors of errors which cause subject-verb agreement errors in the diary written by the
second-semester students of the English Department at IAIN Palangka Raya. The qualitative approach
with content analysis was applied in this study. The analysis was based on surface strategy taxonomy. It
was used writing test, writing task, interview, and documentation for the data collection. The subjects of
the study were three students which were selected from the lowest score obtained from the writing
test. The three students were given writing tasks to write their diaries in two times a week within a
month. In analyzing the data, it was used some techniques such as data collection, data reduction, data
display, and conclusion drawing. The results show that there were 52 subject-verb agreement errors in
their diaries. They were spread out on three types of error on surface strategy taxonomy: 14 (26.92%)
errors in misformation, 19 (36.54%) errors in addition, and 19 (36.54%) errors in omission. The subject-
verb agreement errors in their diaries were caused by 12 (23.08%) interlingual transfers and 40 (76.92%)
intralingual transfers.

Thalib Mbau, Anitha & Marhum, Mochtar & Muhsin,. (2014). AN ANALYSIS ON THE SUBJECT-VERB
AGREEMENT ERRORS IN WRITING PARAGRAPH MADE BY THE SECOND SEMESTER STUDENTS OF
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT. 10.22487/j23341841.2014.v2.i2.3036. This research aimed at identifying the
subject-verb agreement errors in students" writing, finding out the subject-verb agreement errors
mostly made by the students in their writing, and finding out the source of the errors. This research
applied a descriptive research. The data of the research were collected through non-test and test
instruments. Test instrument covers writing test. Non-test instruments cover questionnaire and
interview. Furthermore, the data obtained through non-test were analyzed descriptively while the data
obtained through test instruments were analyzed by employing descriptive statistical analysis. The result
of data analysis showed that error on the basic subject-verb agreement was 70.75%. It was followed by
the errors on final-s/-es (14.15%), the using expressions of quantity (9.43%), the using there + be
(5.66%), and none errors (0%) about some irregularities. This research found that there were six sources
of errors due to the errors. In conclusion, the highest error made by the second semester students of
English Department at Tadulako University dealing with subject-verb agreement was on the basic
subject-verb agreement (70.75%) and it was influenced by 6 sources of errors.

Prayuda, Meikardo. (2021). AN ERROR ANALYSIS ON SUBJECT-VERB AGREEMENT IN CONSTRUCTING

SIMPLE PRESENT TENSE MADE BY THE SECOND SEMESTER STUDENTS OF LAW FACULTY. Kairos English
Language Teaching Journal. 153-161. 10.54367/kairos.v4i3.1145. This research was aimed to find out
the subject-verb agreement error made by the second semester students of Law Faculty UNIKA Santo
Thomas. From the findings, 27% of the instruments answered by the students were identified error.
There were 4 kinds of error made by the students in constructing subject-verb agreement. They were
omission error, addition error, misformation error, and misordering error. In omission error, there were
26 errors occurred. In addition error, there were 5 errors occurred. In misformation error, there were 54
errors occurred. In misordering error, there was 1 error occurred. Among all of the errors that had been
identified, misformation error was the most dominan error faced by the students. Based on the analysis,
the possible cause of error was because of the students did not understand well about the construction
of the simple present tense mastery. Although only 27% instrument was identified error, it was
considered that the students’ lack of knowledge in structure could give serious impact to their
writing. It was suggested that the students need to enrich their knowledge at least in the mastery of the
simple present tense, specially in the construction of subject-verb agreement. In other hand, the faculty
need to make extra class for the English subject to give the students more chance to enhance their
English knowledge. This would support the vision of UNIKA Santo Thomas in achieving International
Level University.

Lasri, Karim & Seminck, Olga & Lenci, Alessandro & Poibeau, Thierry. (2022). Subject Verb Agreement
Error Patterns in Meaningless Sentences: Humans vs. BERT. 10.48550/arXiv.2209.10538. Both humans
and neural language models are able to perform subject-verb number agreement (SVA). In principle,
semantics shouldn't interfere with this task, which only requires syntactic knowledge. In this work we
test whether meaning interferes with this type of agreement in English in syntactic structures of various
complexities. To do so, we generate both semantically well-formed and nonsensical items. We compare
the performance of BERT-base to that of humans, obtained with a psycholinguistic online crowdsourcing
experiment. We find that BERT and humans are both sensitive to our semantic manipulation: They fail
more often when presented with nonsensical items, especially when their syntactic structure features
an attractor (a noun phrase between the subject and the verb that has not the same number as the
subject). We also find that the effect of meaningfulness on SVA errors is stronger for BERT than for
humans, showing higher lexical sensitivity of the former on this task.
Methodology

Error analysis technique is carried out in this research in order to find the errors faced by the students in
terms of : (a) subject-verb agreement errors with singular subjects (b) subject-verb agreement errors
with plural subjects, and (c) subject-verb agreement errors where the main verb or auxiliary verb is
compounded with or separated from the subject, identify the types of errors as well as the sources of
the errors (Alahmadi, Nesreen, 2019).

The research is a descriptive study with 43 students participating in the study. The data of the research
is collected from 1) the students’ writings focusing on students’ sentences containing subject-verb
agreement errors using frequency count, and 2) interview to triangulate the data obtained from
students’ writings.