“There is an Italian proverb ‘We can learn through our errors’…making mistakes can indeed be regarded as an essential part of learning.” (Norrish 1983).
Brown (1987) says that language learning, like any other human learning is a process that involves the making mistakes.
In order to understand the process of L2 learning,
the mistakes a person made in the process of constructing a new system of
language should be analyzed carefully. Here we can give the definition of EA as
a process based on analysis of learners’ errors.
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 some thing of the
system operating within the learner led to a surge of study of learners’ errors,
called Error Analysis.’
Error analysis
developed as a branch of applied linguistics in the 1960s. It is of great
importance in second language teaching. Error analysis may be carried out in
order to 1) identify strategies which learners use in language
learning; 2) try to identify the causes of learners'
errors and 3) obtain information on common difficulties in
language learning, as an aid to teaching or
in the preparation of teaching materials. 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.
Contrastive Analysis (CA)
and Error Analysis (EA)
CA was originally developed by Charles C.
Fries (1945) and expanded and clarified by Robert Lado (1957). It systematically
compares the similarities and differences between the native languages and the
target languages systems and predicts the difficulties that learners might
encounter when learning a new language. CA which has been a part of second language
pedagogy (as cited in Chang, 1996), believes that the similarities of the two languages
will facilitate learning whereas the differences will increase the learners’ difficulty
to learn.
Later on, another part of second language
pedagogy had been developed known as Error Analysis (EA). EA in terms of SLA
was established in the 1960s by Stephen Pit Corder and colleagues. EA was an
alternative to CA, an approach influenced by behaviorism through which applied
linguists sought to use the differences between the learners' native and target
languages to predict errors. A key finding of EA has been that many learner errors
were produced by learners misunderstanding the rules of the new language. EA indicates that CA was unable to predict a great majority of errors.
According to Weireesh (1991), EA is an important aid in learning process. The
making of errors is used as a device to identify and explain difficulties faced
by learners. He proceeded to say that EA serves as a reliable observation to
design a remedial teaching method.
Although CA has sometimes been criticized for
its inadequacy to predict transfer errors that learners make in actual learning
contexts, it is still a useful method to explain the errors students have.
Difference between Errors and Mistakes
In order to analyze learners’ errors in a
proper perspective, it is crucial to make a distinction between a “mistake” and
an “error”. Errors are due to deficient competence so they
tend to be systematic and not self correctable. Whereas mistakes or lapses 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. Errors
are assumed to reflect the level of COMPETENCE achieved by a learner; while mistakes
are PERFORMANCE limitations that a learner would be able to correct.
When a student says
"he" instead of "she", it is probably an error, showing
that the student has not mastered this distinction in English.
Sometimes it is not easy for us to tell the differences between
errors and mistakes. For example, when a student gets a poor score in a test,
was he merely careless (making mistakes), or does he perhaps not know the
language (making errors)? As a good test, one of its characteristics is that
most of the wrong answers from the students are really errors, showing us what
the students have not yet mastered, rather than mistakes caused by poor directions,
confusing questions, etc.
Significance of
Error Analysis
Error analysis is
essentially significant because, as Jack Richards refers to Corder’s
observation: “Learner’s correct
sentences do not necessarily give evidence of the rules of the new language and
the rules he has developed at given stages of his language development”.
This can be done only by the errors he makes. And after knowing this only one
can proceed in teaching. So, errors, and its analysis both are an inevitable
part of teaching & learning.
The
pedagogical significance of error analysis is related to the four categories:
the problem of correction; the design of
syllabuses; the remedial work; and the
writing of pedagogical grammars.
CLASSIFICATION OF ERRORS
First of all, we note
down some of the major errors frequently committed by the English language
learners.
1. Regularization
of Irregular Plurals and Irregular Verbs
·
We saw womens and men. (women)
·
The childrens were eating
food. (children)
·
We putted our things in bags.
(put)
·
He writed a letter. (wrote)
2. Omission
of the Plural “s”
·
The student in our class were
excited. (students)
·
Many person came. (persons)
3. Omission/Wrong
Use of Prepositions
·
When we
reached at Multan. (‘at’ is not needed)
·
After we got
Multan.
(got at)
·
We went at the stage. (on)
·
He was on the hospital. (in)
4.
Mis-ordering Errors
·
He bought
for me a present. (He bought a present for me)
5. Use
of ‘me’ as Subject
·
Me asked her to come.
(I asked)
6.
Lack of Gender
Agreement
·
John took her bag. (his)
·
My father told her friend to
come home. (his)
7.
Errors Regarding
Auxiliaries
·
I could
rushed. (could have rushed)
·
The day I
born. (I was born)
·
My mother
was already slaughtered a bull. (has already slaughtered)
8.
Lack of Agreement
of the Subject and Verb
·
All of them was imagining about the ceremony. (All of them were)
·
The owner
of the house were crying. (was)
9.
Attachment of the
Past Marker to an Infinitive
·
Jane went
to the teacher to asked for permission. (to ask)
10.
Mother Tongue
Influence
·
At the
game park we walk with legs. (on foot)
·
The
teacher told us to go and eat our money. (spend)
11.
Spelling Errors
In words that have silent letters in
English; these are letters that are not pronounced, learners leave out these
letters in their spellings. (i) nocked-knocked. There are other
misspellings where the learners interchange letters while writing certain
words. (i) Strat – start , (ii) thier – Their. Omissions of
letters in certain words are also noted. (i) brige – bridge (ii) kichen
– kitchen
12.
The Cell Phone Errors
·
I
luv them very much.
(love)
·
We were there on tym. (time)
Traditionally, the above-mentioned errors
are summed up into four major classes:
2. Addition: Ahmed he is my best friend. (‘he’ is an extra elements)
3. Substitution: He did not wrote a letter. (‘wrote’ for ‘write’)
4. Mis-ordering: Why you are making noise?, (HV after Subj. in interrogative)
1. Phonological
Error:
These are the errors related to pronunciation, e.g. in a word like ‘river’ the
last ‘r’ should not be pronounced fully. If this is done, it’s a phonological
error.
2. Lexical
Error: These
are the errors related to words, e.g. ‘an
educate man’. Here,‘d’ is required. So this is a lexical error. It’s a use
of wrong lexical items.
3. Grammatical
Error:
These are errors due to problem with syntax. It is related to the sentence structure
e.g. ‘I prefer tea than coffee’. Here,
underlined part is incorrect. There should be ‘to’ instead. So there is a
grammatical error.
4. Semantical
Error: These
errors are due to the ambiguity of meaning, e.g. ‘She is like ice-cream’. Here, meaning is not clear. This is called
Semantical error.
5. Spellings: Due to incorrect
spellings, the meaning is either not clear or is totally changed, e.g. ‘He is my sun’.
Now, we deal with Corder's three types of
classification.
1.
Pre-systematic Errors
During this period, the students don't realize the existence of some rules. They have not mastered them. The students
themselves can't explain how the errors take place. They can't correct them
even if the teachers point them out. So teachers don't need to correct every error. Even if they do, the students
don't understand the reasons.
2.
Systematic Errors
The learners have formed some rules, but not complete. For example,
when a student has learned the past tense and its form which is a verb plus
-ed, he doesn't know there are some irregular verbs. So come such errors as
"comed", "goed", etc. If you ask him why, he can explain.
But he can't correct them, for he lacks the knowledge. To these questions,
teachers need to make some explanations, and give the correct forms, which will help him to build up the complete
knowledge.
3.
Post-systematic Errors
The learners have learned comparatively complete knowledge. For
example, they know the past form of the verb "go" is
"went". At this stage they don't
often make errors. They can correct them themselves even if the errors
appear. Teachers don't need to point out the
errors and their task is to provide the students with more opportunities
to practice.
Interlingual errors arise due to L1
influence whereas Intralingual
errors occur within the target language due to incomplete
knowledge of rules, or ignorance of exceptions. In case of
Global errors the meaning is not clear at all whereas in Local errors the meaning is clear, but
still it is an incorrect expression.
CAUSES OF ERRORS
1.
Mother tongue interference
It's very
important for English teachers to know the various sources of errors. The
traditional idea about the sources of errors is that a great number of errors
are caused by mother tongue interference.
According
to Corder (1967) when people are learning a second language, they already have
a first language. The first language has rules that the learners have learnt
and understood and they therefore tend to use the rules of the first language
on the second language and end up creating errors.
2.
Over-generalization
Overgeneralization covers instances where the learner creates a
deviant structure on the basis of his experience of the other structures in the
foreign language. For example, from: (A) Jane advised me to give up drinking. The students
may infer: (B) Jane
asked me to give up drinking. But due to overgeneralization of language
rules, it will be misleading, as in: (C) Jane suggested me to give up drinking.
Clearly the learners are guided here not by the grammar of their
native language, but by what they already know of English, and by their
intuitions.
3.
Induced errors / Faulty teaching method
Very often we find that some errors come from the state of learning
itself, that is, from the way in which an
item is explained, the order of presentation, the lack of context or the failure of distinguishing different
varieties. For example: ‘I
want to do some recordings’. might come
from teaching "do" without clear distinguishing with the use of
"make".
Poorly trained and incompetent teachers are bound to cause many harms
in this respect. If much emphasis is laid on one tense, the learners may
over-use it. Much drilling of “I am…ing” structure
is quite likely to produce the sentence ‘I am go to school every day’.
4.
Performance errors
Take the indefinite article deletion for example. When a learner
says, ‘Behind the lens is
little screen’. He omits the indefinite article. What does this
error really rep-resent? One possibility is that he doesn't know when to use
the indefinite article. The other is that the speaker realized the error as he
said it but forgot to correct it; that he would have corrected it if he had had
more time to think about it.
So the error
is related not only to competence, but to
performance. Performance errors are quite normal aspects of language
use. Teachers should not correct every performance error, or it will interrupt
the students' language performance and dispel the students' interest of
learning English.
What should be the teacher’s attitude towards Errors?
Since the errors of performance are known to be
unsystematic, but the errors of competence systematic, the teachers of English
should be aware of the system of errors. It is not sufficient merely to study
learners’ errors and to classify them in different groups. Only when the
teachers of English know why an error has been produced they can set about correcting
in a systematic way. It is one of the most important tasks of the teacher in
the language classroom to decide when correction is necessary.
Benefits of Error Analysis
In his article ‘The Significance of
Learners' Errors’, Corder emphasizes the importance of studying errors made
by second language learners:
The study of error is part of the investigation of the process of
language learning. It provides us with a picture of the linguistic development
of a learner and may give us indications as to the learning process.
Error analysis is not only beneficial to
teachers, syllabus designers and textbook writers by showing them a student’s
progress, but it is also significant to researchers and to the learners. It can
show researchers what strategies learners use to learn a second language and
also indicate the type of errors learners make and why. Error analysis is conducted not only in order to understand errors but
also in order to use what is learned from error analysis and apply it to
improve language competence.
In conclusion, error analysis helps
linguists realize that although errors sometimes obstruct communication, they
can often facilitate second language learning, and they play a significant role
in training teachers and helping them identify and classify learners' errors,
as well as helping them construct correction techniques.
Recommendations
- All
second language teachers should receive training in the structure of
English.
- Subject
advisors should conduct capacity empowerment workshops for teachers who
have not been exposed to the structure of English.
- After
the learners’ writing, teachers should identify and record errors and
discuss them with learners.
- Teachers
should pay more attention to writing to help learners to develop skills in
producing standard language.
- Teachers
should use English as a medium of instruction instead of code switching.
- Teachers
should expose learners to English through newspapers, magazines, and
school radio programs.
- Teachers
should upgrade their qualifications in English.
- Teachers
should introduce competitions in both writing and reading among different
grades so as to improve writing and reading skills.
- Learners
should use most of their spare time in reading English books and
newspapers.
- Learners
should make sure that they use English as a medium of communication, especially
in the classroom as well as inside the school/college premises.
- Learners
should listen to English news both in the radio and television.
- Learners should participate in debates and symposia.
