The aim of the present study was to examine the most common type of article errors among EFL students at upper secondary school. Also, the aim was to discuss potential causes of article errors. The purpose of examining article errors and potential causes was to discuss different ways teachers can help students avoid article errors. The ULEC Corpus was used to collect student essays. Article errors were identified, described and categorised. I analysed the article errors and discussed them in relation to previous studies. The present study shows similarities and differences in comparison to other similar studies. 1423 articles were found in four files from the ULEC Corpus. 1350 articles were used correctly while 73 article errors were found. The most common article error found in my study is the use of the definite article ‘the’ when it is not needed. In other words, the zero article is replaced by the definite article. The type of article errors found in this study is substitution errors and a few omission errors in 12 student essays from the same four files used in this study. The discussion about different possible causes suggests that some students experience difficulties with English articles due to interference from Swedish to English. Also, some students might experience difficulties due to intralingual transfer. However, some article errors could be discussed as mistakes because they do not occur frequently and consistently. The omission errors found in 12 student essays can also be considered mistakes because the errors were not consistent throughout the whole essays. The article errors show that some aspects of English articles are difficult for some students. Even though articles are only a small part of English grammar, articles are important because they help contribute to correctness and fluency when speaking and writing, which is one of the aims in the curriculum for upper secondary school.
Based on the article errors found in this study, the most significant way to help upper secondary students in Sweden avoid article errors is to help them understand different types of nouns in English and the rules for how to use articles. It is also important to explain the differences between Swedish and English articles. In the end, the level of correct article usage among the students involved in my study suggests that the students have a great understanding of the English article system, possibly due to several similarities between Swedish and English.
Future research could examine article usage by year 1 and year 3 students at upper secondary school in order to see similarities and differences.
Godkänt datum 2020-06-07