INTERFERENCE IN LEARNING ENGLISH: GRAMMATICAL ERRORS IN ENGLISH ESSAY WRITING AMONG RURAL MALAY SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS IN MALAYSIA

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to present an analysis of interference effect, a factor that plays animportant role in inhibiting the acquisition of English among young Malay learners inMalaysian schools. The data substantiating the discussion throughout this article came froman empirical study of errors in essays written by Form One students in six schools inMalaysia. The findings of the study show that despite having gone through six years oflearning English in school environment, the learners are still having difficulty in using correctEnglish grammar in their writings. The three most frequent errors are: 1) the use of articles, 2)subject-verb agreement, and 3) copula ‘be’.