The study of Errors made by Iranian EFL and AFL Students

This study aims to investigate errors made by Iranian EFL (English as a Foreign Language) and AFL (Arabic as a Foreign Language) by comparing them separately and with each other. Previous studies, however, have paid less attention to the area of error analysis, especially in terms of comparing two common foreign languages, that is English and Arabic, in the context of Iran. 107 Iranian university students majoring in Arabic (56) and English (51) were selected from two universities in Sanandaj, Universities of Kurdistan and Farhangian. Their writing compositions for a final writing exam, were utilized for the purpose of this study. Using three separate tables, one for English, one for Arabic, another one for common ones, the errors were classified into three main areas for each language to be descriptively analyzed by the means of Ch-square formula. The results revealed significant differences among the errors made by EFL and AFL learners although, in some cases, such as comparing common ones, the results should be interpreted cautiously due to weak effect size value.