Abstract:
This study aims to analyze the different types of errors made in Simple Past Tense
in narrative texts by students in the EFL classroom in a high school from Quito. The group
of learners of this study present difficulties in their English writing skills, structuring
sentences, writing paragraphs in a correct way and narrating events in past. The participants
selected for this study were 39 students between 16 and 17 years old. All of them were
native Spanish speakers and learners of English as a foreign language. Three narrative
documents written by the students were collected during synchronous and asynchronous
environments. The researcher identified, classified and analyzed the errors in Simple Past
Tense made by the participants and based the study on Error Analysis theory. The author
found 309 errors items which were classified into Omission, Addition, Misformation, and
Misordering errors (Dulay et al., 1982). These errors were made in Synchronous and
Asynchronous environments. The study found more Misformation errors in students’
writings – 193 total errors, 87 errors in the Synchronous modality and 96 in the
Asynchronous environment. The findings in this study revealed that the high frequency of
errors is caused by Intralingual interference
