This paper unravels aspects of English grammar to be reinforced in the teaching of English as a second or foreign language. The data sources for the study are the following: the broad corpus which consists of 392 BEPC exam essays (2014 and 2015), 46 class test essays (15 in 2016, 15 in 2017 and 16 in 2018) and the narrow corpus which consists of a series of ten (10) designed tests altogether intended for 100 Troisieme class pupils (administered in 2019). The framework used for this study is the Communicative Effect Taxonomy in error analysis as developed by Hendrickson (1976). Findings revealed that Troisieme pupils’ English is strewn with global errors, local errors and ambiguous errors. Actually, 20 global error types (including the choice of the wrong auxiliary), 14 local error types (including the V-ed form attached to irregular verbs) and 9 types of ambiguous errors (including the use of the preposition ‘at’ in place of ‘about’) were identified in the broad corpus and highlighted in the narrow corpus. By doing so, Troisieme pupils’ communicative proficiency as well as their linguistic proficiency was found to be low, and their communicative proficiency was found to be lower than their linguistic proficiency. From the above aspects of English grammar to be reinforced in the teaching of English as a second or foreign language were unveiled. The essence of it all is to improve communicative and linguistic proficiency in English.
Keywords: Aspects of English grammar; communicative and linguistic proficiency; global, English as a second, Foreign Language, ambiguous errors; error analysis, local, the teaching of English
