Om Teaching (Journal) : Error Analysis and The EFL Classro
Om Teaching (Journal) : Error Analysis and The EFL Classro
Intralingual transfer (within the target language itself) is also a major factor.
At an intermediate level, learners’ previous experience and existing subsumes begin
to influence structures within the target language itself. Most of time, negative
intralingual transfer or overgeneralization has occurred, and these kinds of errors are
called developmental errors. We have found that overgeneralization makes it
significant for us to study the psychological process of language learners.
The forerunner of EA, Corder (1987) explains the significance of learners errors in
three different ways. The first to the teacher in that they tell him, if he undertakes a
systematic analysis, how far towards the goal the learner has progressed, and
consequently what remains for him to learn. Second, they provide to the researcher
evidence of how language is learned or acquired, what strategies or procedures the
learner is employing in his discovery of the language. Thirdly,(and in a sense this is
their most important aspect) they are indispensable to the learner himself, because we
can regard the making of errors as a device the learner uses in order to learn. Brown
( (1987) gives the definition of error analysis as follows; The fact that learners do
make errors and these errors can be observed ,analyzed and classified to reveal
something of the system operating within the learner led to a surge of study of
learner’ errors, called error analysis.
As it is seen in the definitions the aim of this process is to suggest suitable and
effective teaching-learning strategies and remedial measures necessary in the target
language. It is a multidimensional process which involves much more than simply
analyzing errors of learners. EA becomes distinguished from CA in that it examines
all possible sources of errors.
a. Identification of errors
There are those so-called “errors” or “mistakes” that are more correctly
described as lapses. A mistake refers to a performance error; it is a failure to make use
of a known system. Everybody makes mistakes in both native and second language
situations. Normally native speakers are able to recognize and correct such “lapses” or
“mistakes” which are not the result of a deficiency in competence, but the result of
imperfection in the process of producing speech (Brown 1987).
Errors are deviances that are due to deficient competence (i-e “knowledge” of
the language, which may or may not be conscious).As they are due to deficient
competence they tend to be systematic and not self correctable. Whereas “mistakes”
or “lapses” that are due to performance deficiencies and arise from lack of attention,
slips of memory, anxiety possibly caused by pressure of time etc. They are not
systematic and readily identifiable and self correctable.(Corder1973).
b. Description of errors
As we know error analysis is a comparative process. So, in order to describe
the errors, in a way, we use a special case of contrastive analysis, and we compare
synonymous utterances in the learner’s dialect and the target language, in other words
we compare “erroneous utterance” and “reconstructed
utterance”.(Corder 1973)
Error Analysis
According to Corder (1967), EA has two objects: one theoretical and another
applied. The theoretical object is to understand what and how a learner learns when he
studies an L2. The applied object is to enable the learner to learn more efficiently by
using the knowledge of his dialect for pedagogical purposes. At the same time, the
investigation of errors can serve two purposes, diagnostic (to in-point the problem)
and prognostic (to make plans to solve a problem). Corder (1967) said that it is
diagnostic because it can tell us the learner's grasp of a language at any given point
during the learning process. It is also prognostic because it can tell the teacher to
modify learning materials to meet the learners' problems.
The analysis of error sources has been regarded as a central aspect in the study
of learner errors. Researchers believe that the clearer the understanding of the sources
of learners’ errors, the better second language teachers will be able to detect the
process of L2 learning. As already discussed above, it is competence errors that have
been considered to be central to the study of SLA. In his A non contrastive approach
to error analysis, Richards (1971) identified a number of different sources or causes of
competence errors: interference errors of MT interference, intralingual errors within
the TL itself and developmental errors, reflecting the learners’ attempts to construct
hypotheses about their target language from their limited experience.
From EA
As Richards (cited in Johnson, 2002, p66) stated, the meaning of interlingual errors is
“errors coming from differences between L1 and FL”, while intralingual errors mean
“errors coming from within the language itself”. It is clearly observed that the former
is opposed to the latter errors. Two different types of theories about errors (Johnson,
2002): Contrastive Analysis (CA) and Error Analysis, focus on analyzing interlingual
errors and intralingual errors respectively. As a result, intralingual errors are also
called “Non-Contrastive errors”, as opposed to the other----interlingual errors.
CA theory lies within behaviorism, which believes that learning is a question of habit
formation (means when a new habit was learned, old habits would affect the learning
process) (Johnson, 2002). The effects are known in psychology as the study of
transfer: effects from old habits on new habits being learned. Language Transfer----
mother tongue affects learners’ foreign language learning, is attributed to interlingual
errors. And this sort of transfer is negative transfer, also being called interference. In
contrast, positive transfer might occur when learners’ L1 is similar to their FL. When
does transfer occur? Does it happen in some situations more than others? Taylor’s
studies (cited in Johnson, 2002) revealed that two important factors might influence
its occurrence. One factor is learner level. It has revealed that lower-lever learners are
particularly prone to negative transfer, because they depend heavily on their native
language to help them in times of trouble. Another factor is language area.
Pronunciation is generally regarded as an area of transfer’s occurrence.
The subjects are the undergraduates USM that include eight males and seven
female from Kampar, Perak. The undergraduates are from the first year until the final
year of the studies.15 cassette are used to record the subjects speech within a period
of 3 month are every speeches take about one hour. In the study, it has been found
that the mispronunciations from the undergraduates are influenced by the subjects’
linguistic background, sociolinguistics factors and contexts of communication. For the
Cantonese language, it has the non-contrastive feature as Cantonese does not have
aspirated forms of /p/, /t/ and /k/, or the contrastive feature of length variation between
long and short vowels, voicing in consonant clusters just like the English Language.
Besides that, the subjects have been explained that they talk the same way with other
speakers in the society since they do not realize that they have mispronounced the
words. The linguistic knowledge of English-sound system does not teach in school
also cause the mispronunciation of the undergraduates.
The sample comprised 51 Malay students in their fourth form at Tunku Puan Habsah
National Secondary School in Penang, Malaysia
The data cited as examples in the discussion of the results come primarily from a
survey in the subjects’ responses to pre-structured multiple-choice items and
information on the subjects’ feedback and attitudes related to the use of English
tenses. Percentages of errors made in the use of the eight tenses were analyzed and
explained by 1) identifying the differences between the subjects’ mother tongue and
the target language,2) considering the subjects’ tendency to use certain verb forms in
various situations, and 3) referring to the rule governing the use of different tenses in
English. The findings suggest that both interlingual and intralingual errors occurred in
the second language acquisition of the tenses. Such errors can be ascribed to cross-
linguistic differences in the uses of verb phrases, confusion arising from the
complexities in the English verb forms and the subjects’ ignorance of a large number
of rules governing the use of the English tenses. Most of the errors can be attributed to
intralingual interference as that most plausibly occurred as a result of their ignorance
of the rules governing the uses of the tenses and their confusion with the verb forms
which resemble one another in certain aspects. Intra interference is comparatively
more noticeable than interlingual interference.
Duskova (1969)
Buteau (1970)
This analysis was carried out at the St. Joseph Teacher College at Montreal, Quebec
with a view to improve a foreign language instruction by establishing learners’
difficulties. A 124 first year English Speaking students between the ages of sixteen
and twenty were chosen. Some of these students also speak Italian, French and
various other languages at home. The basic of this analysis was on oral French
grammar and a short written essay. 85 percent of the students committed the same
types of errors. The survey thus indicates that for verb, the correct use of tenses was a
more difficult problem than inflection. In the written test, 90 percent of the students
successfully coped with gender agreement. However, these findings do not support
the notion of Contrastive analysis that is mother tongue interference.
Grauberg (1971)
For the German language, an error analysis, similar to that or Duskova 919690 was
undertaken at the German Department at Nottingham University. 23 first year
students wrote a 20 percent essay, varying in length from a 100 to 200 words. In this
study, 193 errors were categorized, and this classification was based partly on the
parts of speech and on concepts of transformational grammar. The three main classes
of errors were lexical (102), syntactic (70) and morphological (21). Out of the 193
errors, seven were considered as morphological. Out of the 193 errors, seven were
considered as mistakes.
Victor (1972)
In this analysis of compositional writing, victor attempts to assess accurately hat final
remedial work would be necessary after classifying errors obtained from 50 books of
composition. He classified his errors according to spelling, punctuation, sentence
structures, verb groups, noun groups, pronouns and repetition and circumlocution.
Victor believed that no two people could classify errors in the same way as several
errors would fall into two or more 4000 categories. 1081 errors were classified, out of
which sentence structure amounted to the most (695).
This study examined the English Proficiency of twenty-two Arabic speaking students
at the American University at Beirut. Data was collected from written and oral
production samples of students and errors examined. The errors were categorized
according to finite verbs, prepositions, articles, relative clauses, repetition of subjects
and objects, nouns, pronouns. In their analysis, Scott and Tucker found that written
errors comprised of 229 errors, whereas oral errors amounted to 145. Verbs,
prepositions, and articles were the areas where students deviated most. However, in
general, a higher percentage of error was made in oral production (272 in oral
production and 269 in written).
Ghadessy (1980)
Errors were analyzed and tabulated after being corrected by a native speaker. In doing
this, the procedure of analyzing error of Duskova (1969) was used. The results
indicated first language interference, accounting for only 4.7 percent of errors and
developmental errors amounted to 87.1 percent. This study indicated this high
percentage in developmental errors are related to transformation level due to what
Richards (1970) calls “ignorance of rule restrictions” and ‘incomplete application of
rules”.
A total of 33 essays were collected from 33 Malaysian female students in the age of
16-18 years old and the essays are used as corpus for this investigation that collected
from three national type secondary schools in the district of Taiping.( SMJK Sri Kota,
SMJK Hwa Lian and SMJK Convent). There are different types of errors that can be
seen in that 33 essays, 23 percent in morphological errors (articles, pluralization,
genitival ‘of’ and omission of ‘be’), 44 percent in syntactical errors (include the use of
tense, prepositions, verb-to-be, word order, concord, infinite with or without ‘to’, 6.2
percent in lexical errors, 16.8 percent in the error in punctuations, and 10 percent in
the error in orthographic spelling.
English Error Analysis of Chinese Students in a Malaysian Secondary School-An
Examination-Based Approach.
The objectives of this study were to identify the written errors produced by a group of
Chinese learners of English as a second language, trace the source of these errors, and
offer plausible explanations, for their occurrence. The data for this study were
gathered from 46 Chinese students in Malaysian Secondary School. Errors were
examined at the linguistic levels of syntax, lexis and morphology. The study produced
some interesting insights into the interim or transitional grammar of Chinese learners.
The findings should prove useful to those concerned with the teaching of English as a
second language to Chinese learners in particular. The study revealed that Chinese
learners applied various second language learning strategies.
A B
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in terms of YES rules of the target YES
the grammar language make
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