Errors of Students’ Posts in English on Facebook

This qualitative study titled “Errors of Students’ Posts in English on Facebook, employing content analysis, was conducted at Trinidad Municipal College, Población, Trinidad, Bohol. Facebook posts of participants were evaluated to measure the writing errors in terms of grammar, vocabulary, spelling, conventions, emerging grammar, vocabulary, and spelling. The results revealed that the majority of the participants’ Facebook posts are erroneous. Among all categories of errors, punctuation, capitalization, spelling, and subject-verb agreement were the top four most common errors identified. Among all of the categories of errors, punctuation errors emerged as the most common in the participants’ Facebook posts. The majority of the participants had inadequate writing skills in English based on the emerging language errors identified from their Facebook posts. The results of this study, however, were inconclusive to affirm or negate the assumption of contrastive analysis that individuals transfer the forms and meanings of their native language when attempting to produce the language. The participants were recommended to immerse themselves in the English language to achieve mastery. The role and functions of grammatical competence must not be ruled out in English classroom instruction. Furthermore, teachers should pay more attention to spelling, grammar rules, vocabulary, and conventions in both formal and casual writing. They should encourage students to avoid committing grammatical errors even on social media; thus, they should keep their students disciplined in following grammar rules.