European Journal of Business and Innovation Research 44 ISSN 2053-4019(Print), ISSN 2053-4027(Oonline) Vol.2, No.5, pp. 44-47, September 2014 Published by European Centre for Research Training and Development UK (www.eajournals.org) SUBJECT-VERB AGREEMENT GRAMMATICAL ERRORS AND PUNCTUATION ERRORS IN SUBMISSIONS OF MALE UAE UNIVERSITY STUDENTS Dr. Ghadah Al Murshidi College of Education, Curriculum and Instruction ABSTRACT: English is a wide spread language across the world and is being taught commonly in many countries. Therefore, many EFL learners commit grammatical and punctuation errors repeatedly, and in this study it is attempted to analyze frequent grammatical error which is the subject-verb agreement and some punctuation errors. Such errors occur systematically, as observed in a total sample of 15 male students from different colleges in the United Arab Emirates University; the sample was asked to write a brief autobiography which was later on analyzed by the grammar being revised and the punctuation. KEYWORDS: Male UAE University students, subject-verb agreement, grammatical errors, Punctuation errors INTRODUCTION Considering English as a foreign language, many students in the UAE University face difficulties in following proper grammar and punctuation, especially when it comes to writing. Students seem to lack basic knowledge of elementary principles of English grammar and punctuation, majorly affected by their mother language, Arabic.Subject-verb agreement is a basic principle of the English language grammar, it simply denotes that a singular subject needs a singular verb and a plural subject needs a plural verb. According to Corder (as cited in Hourani, 2008), when students commit such errors it is thought that either the students have major misunderstandings of the concept or they had been taught by the method of rote memorization rather than practicing. In addition, one of the most common errors in English grammar is punctuation errors. Punctuation is considered as some specific marks which are used to separate sentences and clauses, and to clarify meanings. Errors could be overusing, misusing, or disusing some of these marks. LITERATURE REVIEW Commonly, EFL learners like Arabs face common problems in their writing skills such as grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors. Actually, the cause of these writing errors is mainly the interference of the mother language style in L2 writing (Ahmad & Nazim, 2012). Hence, the errors in EFL’s writing skills might appear because of linguistics differences (Chen, 2006). For example, the misuse of verb forms is one of the most common errors that are produced by EFL learners. Subject-verb agreement as a syntactic error of the misuse of verb forms is much prevalent