A Study of Errors and Guidelines for Elementary Japanese Essays: The University Students of a Japanese Business Course at the Panyapiwat Institute of Management, Thailand

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to study the types of errors, solutions, and preventions of errors in a beginner’s class of Japanese essay writing. The participants in this study were 50 regular second-year undergraduates enrolled in the BJ61248 Japanese Writing course at the Panyapiwat Institute of Management. The method was to assign the students to write a Japanese essay on two topics per person: “My family” and “My town,” and the total number of sentences was to be 883. The results showed that there were 339 errors in the Japanese essays. Word-level errors had a higher rate at 193 errors, followed by sentence-level errors at 133, and discourse-level errors at 13. The types of word-level errors were mistakes in spelling, writing Kanji, and using inappropriate words. In the case of the sentence-level errors, it was using wrong particles and predicates, including inappropriate connections of sentences. In the case of discourse-level errors, wrong attributes and classifiers of persons or things were used. In order to prevent errors in essay writing, not only should particles be used correctly, but teaching vocabulary with emphasis on spelling and writing Kanji, and learning types of words and the meaning of words, should be employed. In addition, lecturers should educate Japanese essay writers by moving from simple to complex sentences. This will help learners to be able to transcribe stories and the chronology of written content accurately according to the structure and context better.