Hence, I have decided to conduct an error analysis after the first three weeks to describe and explain errors made by the elementary level students of Trieu son I high school.. Basis of
Trang 1PART A- INTRODUCTION
I The reason of selecting the topic
In the trend of globalization today, the importance of English cannot be denied and ignored because it is widely used everywhere in the world Along with the development of technology, medicine, engineering and education, English plays a very important role Therefore, learning English becomes
even more necessary than ever It can be said that committing errors when
learning a second or foreign language is unavoidable This is a natural part of learning process In the past, people considered errors as the result of ineffective teaching or a sign of failure However, there has been a positive change in the attitude towards errors recently According to Richards (1973: 1), the learners’ errors indicate both the state of learner’s knowledge and the way in which a second language is learned In other words, errors now are viewed as an important part of learning process because they can provide useful information about language learning Therefore, it is advisable for teachers to conduct Error Analysis at the beginning of the course before all the language items have been fully learnt and errors are fossilized so that the teachers can improve their teaching skills and the instructional process
It is the fact that English has long been a compulsory subject in any Vietnamese high school curriculum Trieu son I high school is also not an exception Students are supposed to complete the general English program After that, they change to study English for specific purposes such as English for communication and English for taking exams At the beginning of the term, the 10th form students have to take a placement test to identify their levels If the students cannot pass the test, they will take part in the General English course at Elementary level However, since most of the students of Trieu son I High school, their English proficiency is not very high Every year, it is about half of the 10th form students are classified to study in elementary-level English course As a teacher of English, I am aware of the fact that these students may commit a considerable number of errors during their learning process Hence, I have decided to conduct an error analysis after the first three weeks to describe and explain errors made by the elementary level students of Trieu son I high school This will beneficial for me to know some types and causes of errors that my students commit in order to determine the adequate sequence and emphasis of instruction as well as to implement necessary remedy
Trang 2The above reasons have inspired me to conduct my initiative with the
title " Some tips to help Students solve error identification exercises quickly,
effectively".
II Basis of practice:
The study aims at identifying, categorizing and describing common types
of errors in writing made by students at Trieu son I high school Furthermore,
it also covers the implications of findings for teaching
Since the study aims to identify common types of errors in writing faced
by 10th form students at Trieu son I high school after the first term of studying, the language items provided in the samples is limited in the units of the text book
Most of the students in class 10C4 and 10 C5 were chosen as the subjects
of the study Most of them have learned English in high schools However, for some reasons, they accumulate very little knowledge of English
English as an international language, is taught in most of schools;
kindergartens, elementary schools, junior high schools and also senior high schools In senior high school, students are expected to be able to perform their own error identification exercises skill highly Moreover, they are expected to be able to practice like an English native speaker English is also taught in Trieu son 1 High school, however, I realize that there is no motivation for students to solve error identification exercises in English here Based on interviewing with the teachers, many problems faced by the students The students are not confident to writing or doing exercises in English,tests, the teachers used monotonous method (giving material, listen, and giving exercises) then teacher is the main source of the teaching learning process The effects from these phenomenon students tend to be lazy to pay attention to the materials, feel sleepy, make conversation each other and the class cannot control the English writing ability of the students is categorized
as low ability This situation is revealed from the mark students got Therefore, the students cannot achieve the criteria Following is the convey
on the quality of English of 2 classes through do error identification exercise tests: 10C2, 10C5 at the beginning of the first term in school year 2017-2018
Class Number
of students
Mark
Trang 3From the problems above I conclude to increase students do sentences ability there are two factors, internal factor and external factor that should be improved Internal factors come from the students There are motivation, self confidence, and background knowledge While, external factors are teacher, method, and environment It is a totally different environment from the secondary school environment If they wish to be a good English speaker, they must put a lot of efforts and find opportunities to help them solve error idenfication exercises
PART B- DEVELOPMENT
I Theoretical background
1 Concept of error
In 1987, Norrish (cited in Hasyim, 2002) stated that “error is a systematic deviation, when a learner has not learnt something and consistently gets it wrong”
Cunningworth (cited in Hasyim, 2002) in 1987 gave another definition of
“errors” as “systematic deviations from the norms of the language being learned”
In brief, it is agreeable that error is a “systematic deviation” from the rules
of the target language system
It is also essential here to make a distinction between mistake and error In
1985, Richards et.al (cited in Hasyim, 2002) stated that “mistake is made by a learner when writing or speaking which is caused of lack of attention, fatigue, carelessness, or other aspects of performance” From these definitions, it can
be concluded that whereas errors are caused by lack of knowledge about the target language and not recognized by the learners, mistakes are caused by lack of attention, carelessness and self-correctable by the learners
2 Error Analysis (EA)
Error analysis is a type of linguistic analysis that focuses on the errors learners make
As to Brown (cited in Hasyim, 2002), error analysis is defined as “the process to observe, analyze, and classify the deviations of the rules of the second language and then to reveal the systems operated by learner.”
Choon (1993) mentioned some stages which are involved in Error
Analysis: identifying errors, classifying errors, analyzing causes of errors
and remeditating for errors
Trang 4According to her, the errors are classified according to categories or
sub-categories such as semantic errors (wrong word, wrong form, poor choice of word, slang or colloquialism), and syntactic errors (tense, preposition, article,
spelling, word order, subject-verb agreement However, she emphasized that the system of classifying errors should be flexible and one should let the error determine the category
3 Transfer errors and Developmental errors
Basically, errors are classified into 2 types: transfer errors (mother tongue inference) and developmental errors
a Transfer errors (mother tongue inference)
According to Corder (1971) transfer errors occur when “the learner’s L1 habits (patterns, systems or rules) interfere or prevent him/her, to some extent, from acquiring the patterns and rules of the second language” This is understood as negative transfer from the first language to the target language Students who commit transfer errors often reply on the first language as the strategy of communication They merely use literal translation to overcome their difficulties in expressing ideas
b Developmental errors.
This type of errors is independent of the first language As to Richards (1974) errors are not only caused by the interference from the mother tongue, but also what he calls overgeneralization, false concepts hypothesized, incomplete application of rules, cross association, and fossilization
Overgeneralization: According to Jakobovits overgeneralization relates to
“the use of previously available strategies in new situations”
Ignorance of rule restrictions: These errors occur when ESL learners
“ignore the limitations of the existing structures and apply these structures in
contexts where this is impossible.”
Incomplete application of rules: These errors reflect the degree of rule
acquisition and the ability correct utterances to be produced
False concepts hypothesized: Brown (1987) pointed out that “Fossilization
referred to as a phenomenon that takes place as a learner internalizes an incorrect form.”
II Analyzing some common types of errors in writing made by students at Trieu son I High School
Trang 5All the errors in the sample mainly belong to 2 sources of errors: transfer
errors (mother tongue inference) and developmental errors.
These errors are also classified into these following categories and sub-categories:
1 Grammatical errors (verbs, prepositions, articles, singular & plural,
adjectives & adverbs, possessive case )
2 Syntactic errors (coordination, word order , fragments)
3 Semantic errors
4 Spelling errors
1 Transfer Errors (Mother Tongue Inference) (table 1 in the appendix)
a Grammatical errors
One of the typical features of Vietnamese learners at elementary level, especially those who just start to learn English is that they only try to memorize the individual words without caring of phrases and grammar rules They merely combine individual English words into a sentence with Vietnamese grammar rules
+ Verbs
In English, “verb” is considered as an indispensable component of a sentence A verb can change in various forms to indicate tense, or to show its agreement with the subject However, this is on the contrary in Vietnamese There is no difference between the form of verb in the third person singular and the form of verb in the third person plural When necessary, Vietnamese grammar can express time adequately by means of placing one of several aspect-marking particles in front of the main verb, notably “đã” (for past),
“đang” (for present), and “sẽ” (for future) Therefore, Vietnamese students often fail to make sentence with correct verb
E.g My family have 6 members (wrong sentence)
The student who writes the above sentence violates the rule of subject-verb agreement
1 Another common error is the way students omit auxiliary verb when they want to make negative sentences
E.g Lan not like learning English (wrong sentence)
Students tend to refer “not” as “không” in Vietnamese and they think that
“not” is enough to make negative sentences: “Lan không thích học tiếng anh.”
Trang 62 Students also have a tendency to ignore the grammar rule “like + V-ing”
E.g I like drink milk (wrong sentence)
This error can be explained by the fact that in Vietnamese two verbs can
stand side by side without changing the form of the latter verb: “Tôi thích
uống sữa.”
+ Prepositions
Prepositions pose a great difficulty for an ESL learner since there are various prepositions in English that have the same function As a result, when students are not sure which preposition to use in a certain sentence, they often compare that sentence with its Vietnamese equivalence, giving a literal translation of that Vietnamese preposition in English However, prepositions seldom have a one to one correspondence between English and Vietnamese
A Vietnamese preposition may be translated by several English prepositions and vice versa
Wrong Sentences Correct Sentences
3 I want to talk with him I want to talk to him.
4 Go into the gate Go through the gate.
5 John is married with Susan John is married to Susan.
+ Articles
Articles in English can be viewed as one of the most difficult areas for Vietnamese learners There are two types of English articles: indefinite article (a/an), definite article (the) English speakers sometimes use indefinite article, sometimes definite article and sometimes no article at all Because there is no
exact counterpart of a, an, the in Vietnamese, Vietnamese learners of English
frequently confuse to decide which one should be used This uncertainty causes them to write such flawed English sentences as:
Correct sentences: She’s a cook
We like going to the sea on holiday.
She works in a restaurant
+ Singular & Plural
Trang 7While Vietnamese do not differentiate the form of plural nouns and
singular nouns, English plural nouns are always attached by suffix “-s” Hence, a lot of students at high school level forget to add “-s” after the English plural nouns
E.g My brother and my sister is student (wrong sentence)
Correct sentence: My brother and my sister are students
+ Adjectives & Adverbs
Most of the students can not make a distinction between the function of English adjectives and English adverbs Thus, this leads to the wrong use of adjectives and adverbs
Wrong Sentences Correct Sentences
I very love my mother and my father I love my mother and my father very much.
My family lives very happy My family lives happily
b Syntactic errors
+ Coordination
In English, items in a series are separated by commas, and the coordinate conjunction 'and' is used just before the last word On the other hand, in Vietnamese, sometimes people omit conjunction 'and' before the last word
E.g There are 4 members in my family: my mother, my father, my sister, I.
Correct sentence: There are 4 members in my family: my mother,
my father, my sister, and I.
+ Word order
The word order in Vietnamese sentence is sometimes very different from this in English sentences That is the reason why when students use translation from Vietnamese into English, it will result in some very amusing sentences
Wrong Sentences Correct Sentences
My number phone is 0954321968 My phone number is 0954321968.
My sister is a teacher good My sister is a good teacher
He is handsome more than me He is more handsome than me
Trang 8c Fragments
A fragment is a sentence that is missing a subject or a verb Students tend to commit this error when they would like to express more complicated ideas They will translate word by word from Vietnamese into English as the strategy to overcome their difficulties in expression
Wrong Sentences Correct Sentences
and
family and she thinks happy she thinks it is happy.
d Semantic errors
“Semantic error” is the result of the overuse of literal translation which causes the confusion and misunderstanding from the readers
Wrong Sentences Correct Sentences
My son is 6 age My son is 6.
My father name is Nam and a driver My father’s name is Nam and he is a driver
My father and mother work farmer My father and my mother are farmers.
2 Developmental Errors (table 2 the appendix)
a Grammatical errors
+ Verbs
1 be + infinitive for infinitive: (overgeneralization)
Wrong Correct
Mary and Sara are want candy Mary and Sara want candy.
2. infinitive + ing for infinitive (rote learning)
Wrong Correct
I often going for a walk with my friends I often go for a walk with my friends.
infinitive + s for infinitive: (overgeneralization)
Wrong Correct
They goes to London They go to London
3 wrong tense: (incorrect understanding of rules)
Wrong Correct
Trang 9He’s watching TV everyday He watches TV everyday.
4 be + not + infinitive for auxiliary verb + not + infinitive:
(overgeneralization)
Wrong Correct
Nam isn’t like mending cars Nam doesn’t like mending cars.
1 wrong form after auxiliary : (overgeneralization)
Wrong Correct
Nams doesn’t likes mending cars Nam doesn’t like mending cars.
2. be + infinitive for be + Ving: (incomplete application of rules)
Wrong Correct
I am learn with them I am learning with them
3. subject-verb agreement: (overgeneralization)
Wrong Correct
My brother and my sister is student My brother and my sister are students.
+ Prepositions (incomplete understanding of rules)
Wrong Correct
I’m from toTrieu son I’m from Trieu son
Please ask to help if you want Please ask for help if you want.
He isn’t good in French He isn’t good at French
+ Articles (ignorance of rule restriction)
Wrong Correct
It is an red apple It is a red apple.
The first sister is a accountant The first sister is an accountant.
+ Singular & Plural (overgeneralization)
Wrong Correct
She teachs English in high school She teaches English in a high school.
They have 2 childs They have 2 children
The boy ’s 5 year old The boy ’s 5 years old.
+ Possessive case (incomplete understanding of rules)
Wrong Correct
My father name is John My father’s name is John.
Trang 10What is He address? What is his address?
b Syntactic errors
Fragment (ignorance of rule restriction)
Wrong Correct
I proud of them I am proud of them
My mother a teacher My mother is a teacher Teacher very good My teacher is very good
c Semantic errors (incomplete understanding of rules)
Wrong Correct
I’m 20 old I’m 20 years old.
d Spelling errors
Wrong Correct
My mother is a docter My mother is a doctor.
(Overgeneralization)
3 Implication
According to the study, students at Trieu son I high school are facing
two main types of errors: transfer errors (mother tongue inference) and
developmental errors From the findings, teachers can also determine some
suitable teaching methods to help students overcome these difficulties
First, it would be very useful to encourage students to read more reading texts and learn some interesting expressions and phrases rather than only trying to memorize the individual words
Secondly, teachers should create more group work activities in the class as well as group work assignments at home so that students can exchange their experience in learning and helping each other
In addition, teachers can assign some common topics for students to write
in class and at home These writing tasks can be assigned for group works so that students in the same group can check errors for each other After that, some samples of their writings need to be transcribed and distributed to them for correction and analysis so that they can learn from their mistakes