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Concord is one of grammatical items from which many EFL learners still commit deviations. Their deviations from this grammatical item are a reflection of their concord mastery. There are five kinds of concord. However, this article aims at describing to what extent EFL learners have mastered 3 types of concord: subject-verb, subject-complement, and subject-object. The article was based on a part of the research entitled EFL Learners’ Concord Mastery and their grammatical Deviations carried out by the writer two years ago. The population was 120 EFL learners consisting of three classes of the third year students of the English Department of the Faculty of Languages, Literature, and Arts of the State University of Padang, and with cluster-sampling technique one class of them was chosen as the sample comprising of 32 subjects. The data were gathered through a fifty-item test with one administration, but the sample students were required to write 4 versions of the answers. There were 2 versions of concord mastery (CM), CM1 which was based on the correct answers of version 1 and CM 2 which was based on the correct answers after the grammatical deviations were split into mistakes and errors. With the use of quantitatively descriptive method, it was found out that on the average the EFL learners’ CM1 was only 64 which was categorized into satisfactory level based on 5 achievement categories proposed by UNP (2005): excellent, good, satisfactory, weak, and poor. However, CM2 on the average increased significantly to 70, and the achievement category changed into good level. The writer believes CM2 was the actual concord mastery of the EFL learners. Thus, he suggests that an EFL lecturer/ teacher not neglect concord and (s)he split grammatical deviations into mistakes and errors in order to know actual mastery of any grammatical item. Key words/ phrases: EFL learners, concord, subject-verb concord, subject -complement concord, and subject-object concord A. INTRODUCTION Learning English as a second or foreign language (ESL or EFL) in natural settings is about the same as learning English as the first language (EL1) in a way that the learners learn the first two skills (listening and speaking skills). Nevertheless, learning ESL or EFL in the classroom settings is very different. In learning ESL or EFL in the classroom settings, the learners learn the language consciously. They learn the sounds (pronunciation), vocabulary, and grammar of the language consciously and relatively at the same time through the processes of teaching and learning without which they will not have the ability to acquire the language. In this case, the ESL learners seem Lingua Didaktika Volume 3 Edisi 1 Tahun 3 Desember 2009 2 luckier than the EFL learners do because the former can practice speaking the language daily in the society in which they live. On the other hand, when the latter want to practice the language daily in actual communication in the society where they live, it is impossible for them to do it so. Most of the time, they practice using the language in artificial situations in the classrooms. Moreover, they learn to listen, speak, read and write in the language at relatively the same time. For this reason, the EFL learners who are majoring in English potentially commit hundreds of thousands of language deviations from the native adults' standard in speaking or writing. One of the language components in which they often commit deviations is grammar, although they have been learning English grammatical structures for some years. Based on the daily classroom observation about and interaction with the EFL learners like the English Department students of the Faculty of Languages, Literatures, and Arts of the State University of Padang, many of them still deviate from the native adults' standard grammar when they speak or write their own sentences in structure exercises or compositions. It is not what it is hoped. The hope is that there ought not to be a lot of students who deviate from the grammar. If there are some who commit deviations, the deviations should not be great in number. So, there is a gap between what is expected and what is observed. Judging from what had been observed earlier, many of grammatical deviations committed by the learners in their own written sentences in grammar exercises or in their compositions dealt with concord and it seems that this concord presents a trouble spot to the learners. This can be regarded as a reflection of their levels of mastery of concord. This article deals with a part of the research entitled EFL Learners’ Concord Mastery and Their Grammatical Deviations which was carried out by the writer two years ago at the English Department of the Faculty of Languages, Letters, and Arts of the State University of Padang. The article is about to what extent the EFL learners have mastered concord. Generally, concord means agreement or harmony (between persons or things) while grammatically, concord means agreement between words in number (Hornby, 1981). In fact, grammatically concord and agreement are used to mean the same thing. Grammarians like Quirk and Greenbaum (1979) prefer to use concord while others like Werner and Nelson (2002) prefer to use agreement in their books on English grammar. However, the writer will use concord and agreement interchangeably here. At least there are five kinds of concord in the English language: 1) the concord or agreement between a (sentence) subject and its verb (subjectverb concord), 2) the concord between a subject and its verb complement (subject-complement concord) especially when the complement is a noun or noun phrase, 3) the agreement between the subject and its verb object (subjectobject concord) particularly when the object is a reflexive pronoun, 4) the agreement between a noun/pronoun and its possessive adjective (noun/pronounpossessive adjective concord), and 5) the concord between a noun/pronoun and possessive pronoun (noun/pronoun possessive pronoun concord). Nevertheless, not all of them will be discussed here. The discussion is limited to only the first three types because the research dealt with those three types. Subject-verb concord is the agreement between a subject and its verb. Quirk and Greenbaum (1979), Allen (1995), Kirn and Jack (2002), Lingua Didaktika Volume 3 Edisi 1 Tahun 3 Desember 2009 3 Fuchs and Bonner (2002), and Werner et al. (2002) say that this kind of concord exists in seven out of twelve tenses covering 1a: the Simple Present Tense with be, 1b: the Simple Present Tense with other verbs, 2: the Simple Past Tense with be, 3: the Present Continuous Tense, 4: the Simple Future with be going to, 5: the Past Continuous Tense, 6: the Present Perfect Tense, and 7: the Present Perfect Continuous Tense. The subject-verb concord or agreement in those tenses depends on the subjects of the sentences which possibly consist of personal pronouns or nouns/ noun phrases. Quirk and Greenbaum (1979:180) name the concord between the personal pronoun subjects and their verbs as concord of persons and these grammarians (1979:176) call the concord of noun subjects and their verbs as the concord of number. He claims that this concord of number is the most important type of concord. In addition, the verbs are possibly lexical verbs (LVs) or auxiliary verbs (AVs). The personal pronoun subjects are grouped into singular pronouns and plural pronouns. The singular pronouns are classified into the first singular pronoun (SP1): I, the second singular pronoun (SP2): you, and the third singular pronouns (SPs3): he/she/it while the plural pronouns are classified into the first plural pronoun (PP1): we, the second plural pronoun (PP2): you, and the third plural pronoun (PP3): they. Besides, nouns are grouped into count nouns (CNs) and non-count nouns (NCNs). CNs are classified into singular nouns (SNs) and plural nouns (PNs). Furthermore, the subject of a sentence is not only a personal pronoun or noun, but it might also consist of a singular/plural demonstrative pronoun (SDP/PDP): this/ that/ these/ those, an indefinite singular pronoun (ISP): somebody/ something/ everybody/ nothing, etc., an indefinite plural pronoun (IPP): all, some, many, several, a few, etc., a gerund/ an infinitive, or a noun clause (NCl). When the subject is SP1: I or SP2: you for tenses 1a, 2 or 1b, the concord is a lexical verb (LV): am/are, was/ were, or a verb stem/ verb 1 respectively. The concord for the same subjects (I or you) with tenses 3 and 4; or 5; is the same as that in tenses 1a and 2, but it functions as an auxiliary verb (AV) while for tenses 6 and 7 the concord is an auxiliary verb (AV): have If the subject is an SP3: he/she/it, an SDP: this/that, an SN, an NCN (which is considered the same as an SN) or an ISP: somebody/ anyone/ nobody/ etc), the concord is a singular lexical/ auxiliary verb (SLV/SAV). It means that in tenses 1a, 2, and 1b, the concord: is, was, or a verb stem/verb 1 plus -s/-es (except for have, it changes to has) as an SLV is used respectively, while in tenses 3 and 4; or 5; the concord is the same as tenses 1a or 2, but its function is an SAV. However, the subject of a sentence with tenses 6 or 7 has the concord: has functioning as an SAV. For PP1: we, PP2: you, PP3: they, PDP: these/those, a PN, or an IPP: all/some/many/several/a few with tenses 1a, 2, or 1b, the agreement is a plural lexical verb (PLV): are, were, or a verb stem/verb 1 respectively, and for the same subject with tenses 3 and 4; 5; or 6 and 7, its concord is a plural auxiliary verb (PAV): are, were, or have respectively. Furthermore, for tense 1b in a negative sentence/question, its concord is the SAV/PAV: does or do when the subject is an SP3/an SDP/an SN, or an SP1/an SP2/a PP1/a PP2/a PP3/a PDP/a PN. For expletive there, the verb depends on the noun that follows it. When the noun is singular or non-count noun, the concord is an SLV or SAV. If the noun is plural, the concord is a

TO WHAT EXTENT EFL LEARNERS HAVE MASTERED CONCORD