9.1 Categorising Learners' Mistakes by Linguistic Type

9.1 Categorising Learners' Mistakes by Linguistic Type

Elsewhere in this chapter you learn why a mistake happens and when to treat it. TKT Module 3 Part 1 tests a narrower skill: putting a linguistic label on one specific mistake. The format is predictable: a sentence from a homework text or a speaking transcript, with one mistake underlined, plus a list of labels such as spelling, wrong verb form, subject–verb agreement, word order, wrong preposition, register. You choose the label. You do not rewrite the sentence; candidates lose marks by supplying an elegant correction and no category.

Which level of language has broken down?

Work up a ladder from the smallest unit to the largest: sound → spelling and punctuation → word choice → grammar → discourse and register. The right label sits on the lowest rung that fully explains the fault, and the reference table below corrects every example.

Spelling and punctuation

A spelling mistake means the letters of an existing English word are wrong while the word choice and grammar are right (I recieved your email). If the letters are fine but the word itself is wrong, the label is lexical. Punctuation covers full stops, comma splices, apostrophes (the boys book, its / it's) and capitalisation; Cambridge files capital-letter faults under punctuation unless a separate label is offered.

The verb cluster — four labels that look alike

Wrong verb form: the tense is right but the shape of the verb is wrong — infinitive, -ing, participle or third-person -s (He want to going home). Wrong tense: the verb is well formed but points at the wrong time (I live here since 2019). Missing or wrong auxiliary: a form of be, do or have is absent or mismatched (What you doing?; He don't like fish). Wrong modal form: modals take a bare infinitive and do not inflect (She must to finish it). Rule of thumb — changing only an ending or a non-finite shape means wrong verb form; moving to another tense means wrong tense; inserting or swapping be/do/have means an auxiliary problem.

Agreement, number and word order

Subject–verb agreement: the verb does not match its subject (My friends is coming; Everybody are ready). Singular/plural: two brother. Countable/uncountable: a mass noun pluralised or given a countable determiner (many informations, a furniture). Word order covers displaced objects and adverbials (I like very much this film), adverb placement (I go always to the gym) and faulty question inversion (where is it). Boundary rule: a word that is absent rather than misplaced gives a missing-article, auxiliary or preposition label, not word order.

Function words and word class

Wrong preposition, missing or wrong article and wrong pronoun or possessive are distinct labels; never blur them into a vague "grammar" answer. A wrong part of speech / word-formation error keeps the right root but takes the wrong word class or the wrong affix. He did it careful (for carefully) uses an adjective where an adverb is needed — a change of word class. She is very interesting in music (for interested) stays within the adjective class but takes the wrong participial affix. Cambridge does not consistently split these two, so treat "wrong part of speech" and "word formation" as one category unless a task offers both. Never call these spelling: the learner has written a real, correctly spelled English word.

Lexis, L1 influence and discourse

A wrong word (lexical choice) does not carry the intended meaning (He borrowed me his pen). A collocation error joins two real, grammatical words that do not partner in English (do a mistake, strong rain). A false friend is an L1 look-alike used with its L1 sense; an L1 word insertion leaves the mother-tongue word untranslated. A wrong linker or discourse marker breaks the logical relation (I was tired, however I went to bed). A register / appropriacy error is grammatically flawless but socially wrong for the task; a sentence with no locatable grammar fault signals register.

Pronunciation-related labels

When the stem quotes spoken language, the labels shift to wrong word stress (phoTOgraph for PHOtograph) and wrong sound / phoneme (ship /ʃɪp/ for sheep /ʃiːp/).

Reference table of mistake categories

Exam technique for Module 3 Part 1

1. Read the whole sentence — the trigger for a tense or agreement label often sits outside the underlined chunk (Last night, My parents).
2. Repair it silently: the smallest change that fixes it names the category.
3. Ask which level is wrong — sound, spelling, word, grammar or discourse.
4. Eliminate labels whose repair is a different operation: swapping an ending is not moving a word, and inserting a word is not reordering.
5. If nothing is grammatically wrong, check register and linker choice.
6. Record the label only; never write the correction.

Three tricky worked items

"Last night I have watched a film." Wrong tense and wrong verb form both look possible, but have watched is a perfectly formed present perfect, while Last night is finished past time. The clash concerns time reference, so the label is wrong tense.

"My teacher gave me a good advice." Missing/wrong article and countable/uncountable compete. Deleting a fixes the surface, yet a is impossible only because advice is a mass noun, so choose countable/uncountable noun error, the label explaining the whole fault.

"My brother made his homework." Make is a real verb used grammatically here; its only fault is the partner word, since English fixes do homework. That is a collocation error, not a wrong-word choice.