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Error Analysis of Second Language Learners

x, morphology, vocabulary, idiom.

If error analysis analyzes the patterns of errors, error correction aims at rectifying what the arbitrator deems incorrect. Operationally, one cannot separate analysis from correction, if only because to test the hypotheses derived from analysis one must obtain the feedback of correction.

One other problem, clearly, is to determine the authority for language correctness: The teacher? The learner? The "Academy" (But there is none for English!) The usage? (American? English? Formal? Colloquial?).

One also wonders whether making errors significantly impedes communication. "It is dangerous to indulge in the illusion that ungrammatical speech and errors in the application of certain forms and constructions invariably jeopardizes communication. The fact is that they are frequently not even noticed"

Is error-making a sin . . . or a learning device?

Hendrickson remarked that the 1950s' audiolingual behaviorists considered errors as cardinal sins. Avoiding them was to be achieved through observation and practice of correct models through repetition; overcoming was achieved through shortening the time between incorrect response and subsequent presentation of the model. Students were not permitted to discover and correct their own errors. These commandments were of course not gratuitous. There is logic to avoiding the embedding of wrong information in the brain cells, inasmuch as once anchored such information is hard to remove.

Structural linguists proposed contrastive analysis as a diagnostic method on the assumption that it is the first language which causes errors in the second. All a teacher needed was a systematic knowledge of both languages--and thus of their differences--to use error-avoiding teaching/learning methods and techniques. The trouble was that a plethora of studies concluded that, even though interference might constitute a major source of phonological errors, suc...

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Error Analysis of Second Language Learners. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 07:56, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1689969.html