THE IMPORTANCE OF ERROR ANALYSIS TEACHING ENGLISH

Table of contents Part A Introduction 1 Rationale for choosing the topic 2 Aims and objectives Scope of research Theoretical / Practical significance of the assignment Methodology Part B Development Chapter 1: Error analysis 1.1 Object in error analysis 1.2 Differences between mistakes, lapses and errors 1.3 Different types of errors Chapter 2: Implication for dealing with errors made by Vietnamese learners of English 2.1 The stages of error analysis 9 2.2 Steps and techniques used to deal with errors in using prepositions by Vietnamese learners of English 10 Part C Conclusion 13 Recapitulation 13 Concluding remarks 13 Suggestions for futher research 13 Part D References 15 Part A Introduction Rationale for choosing the topic Errors are unavoidable in the process of learning a language They are more frequent if the language is not mother tongue but a foreign one Dealing with errors of language learners is a must Thus, in recent years, applied linguistics, as a main concerner of any problems in language teaching, has paid more attention to this issue and developed a study on error analysis with a view to helping language teachers know how to handle errors made by their students Vietnamese learners of English are not an exception They make mistakes in any stage of their learning process Therefore, focusing on extensive study of error analysis plays an important role in languages education generally and in teaching English particularly Although error analysis is the subject of a number of studies and books, some teachers of English not have an adequate knowledge of it, resulting in the two following consequences The first one is that teachers cannot diferentiate types of errors and, therefore cannot analyse them correctly The second consequence is that without knowledge of error analysis, teachers cannot find out an appropriate way to treat their students’ errors The above consequences lead to poor quality of teaching English in Vietnam In fact, a large number of teachers of English in Vietnam not show enough confidence in dealing with errors made by their students Choosing error analysis the topic of the assignment the writer tries to investigate into this issue to help himself and other teachers in their career Aims and objectives 2.1 Aims The assignment is written to help teachers of English: - Understand the object in error analysis - Know differences between mistakes, lapses and errors - Know different types of errors - Know stages of error anlysis - Have some suggestions for dealing with errors in using prepositions by Vietnamese learners 2.2 Objectives - Presenting object of error analysis - Differentiating mistakes, lapses and errors - Presenting different types of errors - Presenting three stages of error analysis Scope of research - A view on object in error analysis - Mistakes, lapses and errors - Different types of errors Theoretical / Practical significance of the assignment 4.1 Theoretical significance: Providing the writer himself and other teachers of English a document specially on error analysis 4.2 Practical significance of the assignment: Implementing steps and techniques used to deal with the wrong use of English prepositions by Vietnamese learners Methodology - Analysing a view on error analysis - Analysing differences between mistakes, lapses and errors - Systematising different types of errors Part B Development Chapter 1: Error Analysis 1.1 Object in error analysis 1.1.1 General discussion on error analysis Delivering lectures on Applied Linguistics, Assoc Prof Dr Vo Dai Quang pointed out that error analysis is one of the central activities in the psycho-linguistic study of language learning If we knew what the natural course of the development of a speaker of language A in the learning of language B was, then we would have some information of cardinal importance for the devising of linguistic syllabuses for teaching language B to speakers of language A In [ 4, 92] he also discussed that “a learner of a language is progressively changing his language performance to brimg it more into line with that of the native speaker Instability in the characteristics of his language is thus both to be expected and desired If, however, we could say “stop” for a moment we could regard the learner’s language at that point as a perculiar “dialect” of the target language; differing in many crucial aspects from it and perhaps having some characteristics of his mother tongue.” As a language, it will be systematic and in principle describable, provided we have the means to interpret it, i e know the meaning of its sentences A learner’s sentences may be deviant, ill-formed, incorrect or erroneous only in the sense that they are not fully describable in the terms of the grammar of his mother tongue or the target language They are, however, presumably “ well-formed” in terms of the grammar of his own transitional idiolect at that point in time 1.1.2 Object in Error Analysis From the general discussion above we easily recognize that both native speakers and language learners frequently produce ill-formed utterances, thus putting out errors in the process of language acquisition What is the reason for this phenomenon? How to overcome it? What are the characteristics of such errors? These questions are concerns of error analysis So, it can be concluded that object in error analysis is to explain errors linguistically and psychologically in order to help learners to learn ( Vo Dai Quang, Error Analysis lecture, 2) 1.2 Differences between mistakes, lapses and errors It is necessary for a language teacher to distinguish between these terms 1.2.1.Mistakes Mistakes are misuse or breach of code ( use of wrong rules or misuse of right rules) due to ill performance Very often when a language learner knows well how to make a grammatically right sentence he or she still produces a wrong one due to careleness, forgetfullnes or something else Another instance, a Vietnamese learner of English knows consonant / p/ is billabial, but when he pronounces, it he doesn’t use his lips at all We call such wrong sentence and pronunciation mistakes 1.2.2 Lapses Lapses are native speakers’ slips of the toungue Native speakers’ slips of the tongue are a field of reseach at the present time since it is believed that they will yield important evidence about how utterances are planned and excuted This is part of the psycho-linguistic and neuro-linguistic research into language performance Since many of these lapses seem to increase in frequency under conditions of stress, indecision and fatigue, it is to be presumed that the second language learner will demonstrate similar lapse in performance, where all these conditions are likely to be more pronounced 1.2.3 Errors Errors are misuse or breach of code ( use of wrong rules or misuse of right rules) arising from an imperfect competence in the target language Errors are produced due to a complete ignorance of knowledge of grammar, vocabulary, phonetics, etc of the target language For instance, when a Vietnamese learner doesn’t know what peposition is used after verb apologise, he may use any preposition rather than to (somebody) for (something) We call such wrong use error It may not always be easy to distinguish between mistakes, lapses, slips and errors 1.3 Different types of error My lecturer, Assoc Prof Dr Vo Dai Quang, classifies errors as follows : - Receptive and expressive errors - Errors of groups and individuals - Errors at different liguistic levels ( syntax, vocabualry, pronunciation, ) - Referential, textual, social, register errors - Transfer errors and teaching-induced errors 1.3.1 Receptive vs expressive errors Expressive errors The errors we most readily notice are those in expressive activity, the utterances of learners in meaningful discourse, for example, answers to comprehension questions to a text The study of expressive performance offers the only direct source of information about the learner’s transitional competence Receptive errors Receptive errors are comprehension -related errors It is clear that errors of comprehension also occur along with expressive errors It is generally assumed that a learner’s receptive abilities always exceed his expressive abilities It is difficult to know whether this is necessarily always the case since errors in comprehension will frequently passed unobserved We can test comprehension in rather general terms, but it is very difficult to assign the cause of failures of comprehension to an inadequate knowledge, for example, of a particular syntactic fearture of the misunderstood utterance And errors of comprehension can obviously only be studied indirectly by inference from the learner’s linguistic and non-linguistic responses to utterances in the target language 1.3 The errors of groups vs individuals Errors of groups We teach groups but it is individuals who learn For practical purposes it is the errors of groups which are of interest, since syllabuses and, remedial procedures are designed for groups not individuals, and the nature of the errors made by the group are part of the data on which these are devised However, the study of group errors may only be meaningful if the group is homogeneous, i.e the members have the same mother toungue and are educationally, socially and intelectually matched Errors of individuals We study the errors of individuals for theoretical reasons : It resembles methodologically the study of the acquisition of the mother tongue It also provides us with a picture of the linguistic development of a learner and may give us indications as to the learning strategies 1.3.3 Referential, register, social and textual errors Refernetial and textual errors Referential and textual errors interfere most seriously with cognitive communication and require attention We also call these errors of appropriateness, where the speaker uses a term with the intension of referring to some fearture of the world to which it is conventionally inapplicable, i.e when he calls a hat a cap Textual errors occur when the speaker does not select the structusally correct form to show the intended relation between two sentences in a discourse, as, for example, in answer to the question : Who is the man over there? John is Social and register errors Social and register errors are connected with a different aspect of communication, e.g interpersonal relation Social errors arise when the speaker selects forms which are inappropriate to his social relations with his hearer, as when a pupil greets his teacher with : Well, how are we today, old man? Register errors exist where , for example, in a naval context, he refers to a naval ship as a boat 1.3.4 Transfer errors vs teaching -induced error Transfer errors In the absence of a generally accepted theory of how people learn second languages ( or first languages), explanation is still largely speculative Observation suggests that many errors bear a strong resemblance to characteristics of the mother tongue, indeed many erroneous utterances read like word-for-word translations Naturally, learners of a second language transfer into his performance in the second language the habits of his mother toungue If the systems of the first language resemble those of the second language, we speak of facilitation, and where they are differ, there is interference or, at least, a learning problem Teaching -induced errors They are errors arising from the methods or materials used in the teaching It is not easy to indentify such errors except with a close study of the materials and teaching techniques to which the learner has been exposed These kinds of errors are unavoidable or redundant and represent inefficiency in the learning-teaching process Chapter 2: Implications for dealing with error made by Vietnamese learners of English 2.1 The stages of error analysis There are three stages in error analysis : recognition, description and explanation These are logically dependent upon each other Most teacher reckon they can recognize an error when it is commited They may be wrong, since it is always possible that a well-formed and apparently appropriate utterance has been misinterpreted, i.e the learner has not meant to say what he appears to say 2.1.1 Recognition of errors Recognition of errors is thus crucially dependent upon correct interpretation of the learner’s intentions The recognition of error, then, depends crucially upon the analyst making a correct interpretation of the learner’s intended meaning in the context We can speak about the learner’s utterances as being overtly erroneous (i.e superficially deviant) of being covertly erroneous (superficially well-formed but not meaning what the learner intended to mean) The difficulty in identification of error is thus firmly put where it belongs, on interpretation, which involves authoritative and plausible Authoritative means asking the speaker what he means Plausible means infering the meaning intended by the learner from the surface structure of his text-sentence in conjunction with the information derived from its context 2.1.2 Descriptions of errors Description can only begin when recognition has taken place Description of error is largely a linguistic activity, essentially a comparative process, the data being the original erroneous utterance and the reconstructed utterance Construction of syllabuses and remedial programs and based on systematic errors Inconsistency is often apparently more characteristic of errors than systematicity This fact requires explanation 2.1.3 The expalnation of errors Expalnation is the field of psycholinguistics It is concerned with accounting for why and how errors come about Explanation of error can be regarded as : - a linguistic problem, i.e a statement of what rules have been broken, substituted or disregarded., and - a psycholinguistic problem, i.e, the reasons why the learner has broken, disregarded or ignored the rules of the target language 2.2 Steps and techniques used to deal with errors in using prepositions by Vietnamese learners of English Vietnamese learners of English show frequency in the misuse of such prepositions of movement and place as on, out, in, onto, up, down, into In the boundaries of assignment the writer tries to analyse these errors and suggest some solutions 2.2.1 Recognition of errors When a Vietnamese learner of English wants to translate the following sentences in Vietnamese: Anh ta nhảy xuống sông Bọn trộm trèo lên mái nhà Các tơi ngồi vườn Hơm trời đẹp Chim bay trời into the English ones, he produces such “equivalent” sentences: He jumped down the river The thieves climbed up the roof My children are out the garden It’s a lovely day Birds are flying on the sky We easily recognise that such errors belong to the wrong use of prepositions of movement and place 2.2.2 Description of errors The three first sentences are all lack of necessary prepositions in order to be fully expressed Sentence bears a wrong preposition In sentence (1), there must be into after down In (2) there must be onto after up Similarly in (3) , there must be in after out and in (4) on must be replaced by in in order for the sentence to be correct 10 2.2.3 Expalnation of errors These errors come about due to: - a linguistic problem : students have broken the rules by using not enough necessary prepositions and wrong use of preposition - a psycholinguistic problem : students have broken the rules because they translate word by word from Vietnamese into English, not paying attention to the perception/ cognition of the English about location and direction 2.2.4 Techniques to deal with such errors As such errors come about from both linguistic and psycholinguistic reasons, the suitable remedy should be both linguistic and psycholinguistic - In terms of liguistic, teacher should explain the meanings of the prepositions clearly + on : vào vị trí bao trùm, đụng chạm tạo nên phận bề mặt - trên, + out : cách xa khơng bên nơi - ngoài, ngoài, + in : điểm nằm diện tích thể tích - trong, bên + onto : di chuyển vào vị trí mặt - lên + up : tới vị trí cao tư thẳng đứng - lên + down : từ điểm cao cao xuống điểm thấp xuống + into : chuyển động vào điểm bên trong, khơng gian khối khép kín - vào bên - In terms of psycholinguistic, teacher should point out the differences between perception of English and Vietnamese to his students The very such differences bring about errors in using prepositions The English often compare between three points of locations while the Vietnamese often consider only two For example, He (from a certain point which is not mentioned) jumped down (2) into (3) the river The speaker and hearer have in their mind three distinctive points of location However, Vietnamese only need preposition down ( xuống), since they take into account only two points of location (1) from where he stood and (2) the river Similarly, sentences (2) and (3) are wrong due to the same reason 11 As for sentence (4), Vietnamese learners should know “in the sky” means “trên trời” as birds are in the boundaries of the so-called “sky” After teacher analysed the errors and gave enough remedy, students could produce correct sentences as follows : He jumped down into the river The thieves climbed up onto the roof My children are out in the garden It’s a lovely day Birds are flying in the sky 12 Part C Conclusion Recapitulation In the assignment, the writer tries to clarify the general discussion on error analysis and object in error analysis The assignment also points out differences between mistakes, lapses and errors, as well as presenting different types of errors and three stages in error analysis When mentioning those items, the writer gives examples and explanation for deeper and clearer understanding Concluding remarks 2.1 Error Analysis does play an important role in language teaching It is one of the central activities in the psycho-linguistic study of language learning Object in error analysis is explaining errors linguistically and psycholinguistically in order to help learner to learn Therefore, the study of error analysis cannot be ignored in language education, in teaching and learning languages 2.2 Mistakes, lapses and errors, which though sometimes are difficult to recognise or distinguish between, are completely different phenomena Differentiation between those concepts is necessary for any language teacher in his or her carrer 2.3 Errors are varied They can be classified into different groups in accordance with different criteria Recognition and understanding of different types of errors help not only language teachers but also syllabus designers and the very language leraners to perform better in their specialized fields Suggestions for further research 3.1 As it is mentioned in (1.3 page 7) there are errors at different levels ( syntax, vocabulary, pronunciation, ) However, due to the limitations in his knowledge and ability, the writer does not give definitions and examples for those concepts Therefore, it is hoped that in the future , the writer would spend some effort on this issue and pay enough attention to study Errors at different linguistic levels 13 3.2 It is clear that there exist different types of errors and each type of them should be given a sufficient remedy However, in the assignment, the writer, due to the lack of experience in the field, can supply only some modest suggestions to dealing with errors in using English prepositions by his Vietnamese students In order for the assignment to be fully appreciated, the writer should try to search for other remedies and treatments for other types of error mentioned in his assignment XÁC NHẬN CỦA THỦ TRƯỞNG ĐƠN VỊ Thanh Hóa,ngày tháng 05 năm 2018 Tơi xin cam đoan SKKN viết, khơng chép nội dung người khác Writer Nguyễn Thị Bích Thủy 14 Part D References Tiếng Việt Từ điển Anh-Việt (1996), Nhà xuất TP Hồ Chí Minh Tiếng Anh Dusko V3, L On Sources of error in foreign language teachung IRAL 1969 Richards; J and Sampson, G P> The study of learners’ English In J Richards (ed) Error Analysis: Perspectives on Second Language Acquisition London : Longmans ( forthcoming) Vo Dai Quang (2006), Issues in Applied Linguistics, Lectures 15 ... types of errors Theoretical / Practical significance of the assignment 4.1 Theoretical significance: Providing the writer himself and other teachers of English a document specially on error analysis. .. intelectually matched Errors of individuals We study the errors of individuals for theoretical reasons : It resembles methodologically the study of the acquisition of the mother tongue It also... Prof Dr Vo Dai Quang pointed out that error analysis is one of the central activities in the psycho-linguistic study of language learning If we knew what the natural course of the development of