Do Students Who Continue Their English Studies Outperform Students Who Do Not? : A Study of Subject-verb Concord in Written Compositions in English by Swedish University Students

Abstract: This essay deals with subject-verb concord in written compositions by Swedish students at Uppsala University. The essay investigates the possibility that students who continue studying English beyond the A level at the university make fewer errors than students who do not continue. In order to minimize the influence of the students’ gender and first language, only essays written by female students were included in the study; in addition, all students included had Swedish as their first language, and so did their parents. 25 essays by students who continued their studies and 25 essays by students who may not have done so were chosen. All 50 essays were examined for both correct and incorrect instances concerning concord between subjects and verbs in the present tense. The primary verbs to be, to do and to have were analysed as well as regular and irregular verbs. The results show that the 25 students who continued beyond the A level made fewer errors than the 25 students who may not have continued. The results also indicate that subject-verb concord is not a serious problem for Swedish learners.