analyzing iranian efl learners’ written grammatical errors: l1 interference

One of the significant pedagogical tools in teaching english as a foreign/second language (efl/esl) is considered to be error analysis. as such, abundant research has been conducted in the field of error analysis; however, it seems that the important role of learners’ first language (l1) as one of the probable sources of their written grammatical errors has been overlooked. hence, to fill the gap in the body of literature, the present study was an attempt to investigate and analyze iranian efl learners’ written grammatical errors which occur due to their l1 interference. to this end, 42 lower intermediate male efl learners whose age ranged between 14 and 16 participated in the study. the research was conducted at a private language institute in gorgan, iran. the participants wrote 100-word writing samples on a predetermined subject. the descriptive analyses of the data based on the scoring framework of the study (bitchener, et al, 2005) revealed that majority of the learners’ errors have their origins in their l1 (persian). the outcomes of the present research might be of interest to efl teachers, syllabus designers, and materials developers. furthermore, studies of this kind are requirements to corrective feedback research and could open doors to more pertinent studies.