AN ERROR ANALYSIS OF TAIWA

NESE EFL LEARNERS USE OF T

ENSE AND ASPECTS
:
NA2C0011

BACKGROUND AND MOTIVATION

+ Half of the population in the world, about p

opulation of 3 billion, communicates in Eng

lish in the decade, and English will become
the real global language (Graddol, 1997).
+ Singapore, Malaysia use English as a secon
d language. As the widest spoken language
in the world, knowing how to speak and rea
d in English has a lot of advantages.(travel,
communicate, broaden horizons )

BACKGROUND AND MOTIVATION 2

+ Students fail to learn English. Tense morpholo

gical change and word order are the difficult

parts for Taiwanese students.
+ There is no grammatical tense in Chinese. In E
nglish, people use do did as present and past
in Chinese, people only add le ( ) to im
ply that an action has been completed.
+ Chinese does not have plural words.(s )
+ Lack of input, lack of meaningful oral practice.

BACKGROUND AND MOTIVATION 3

+ ESL learners can not only learn English in the cla

ssroom setting but also acquire English in an En

glish-speaking environment. English-learners ne
ed to immerse in an English-speaking environm
ent to build native-like concept so that they can
use the word or sentence structure more correc
tly.
+ Owing to the tough competition for entering bet
ter senior high schools, teachers put much mor
e emphasis on grammar, reading, and writing. T
hey ignore the most important skill -- speaking.

BACKGROUND AND MOTIVATION 4

+ The phenomenon of bimodal distribution(

)
+ Students give up learning English(cloze test accurat
e rate 30%)
+ Use translation test to detect tense errors then ana
lyze if the subjects can tell the tense and calling su
bjects attention to the tense can make a difference
.
+ The reasons are:1.broaden learners understanding
of the second language.2.Not only assure language
learners L1 knowledge but also improve their L2 c
ompetence .

PROBLEMS
+ Forget to add s(third and singular)
+ Misuse have, has
+ Verb+..ing, verb is always missing.
+ Forget to add ed
+ Present perfect(havent seen, havent saw)
+ Misuse between be verb and auxiliary in nega

tive sentences.(I am not walkI dont walk)

+ There may be more tense errors veiled and r
esearchers intended to find the answer.

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

+ To explore the causes of the misuse between be verb

and auxiliary, and examine whether calling students

attention to tense could make a difference in transla
ting Chinese into English.
+ Analyze 22 declaratives and 18 negatives errors mad
e by junior students to help teachers teaching tense.
+ To find out whether students know the tenses are bu
t fail to write the correct answer.
+ To dissect the tense errors in different proficiency st
udents.
+ To analyze the misuse between verb and auxiliary in
negative sentences.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS
+ What are the major type of tense errors committed by

junior high school students in Taiwan?

+ Is the inability to detect the tense one of the causes of
errors made by junior high school students in Taiwan?
+ Can calling subjects attention to the tense can make a
difference in different groups.
+ What are the major types of errors committed by juni
or high school students of different proficiency levels i
n Taiwan?
+ What are the students of different proficiency levels si
tuations of misuse of the be verb and auxiliary in neg
ative sentences?

LITERATURE REVIEW
+ Quirk et al.(1972, as cited in Hung, 2008)V forms
+ A.base form:talk swim come
+ 1. Present tense except 3rd person singular subj

ect: I/They talk.

+ 2. Imperative: Come here at once!
+ 3. Subjunctive: He demanded that she come
+ here at once.
+ 4. With modal auxiliary: He should come.
+ 5. In infinitives: He wanted me to come.

V FORMS 2
+ V-s (-s form):talks swims comes
+ 1. 3rd person singular present tense: He comes here every da

y.
+ V-ed (past form):talked swam came
+ 1. Past tense: He came here yesterday.
+ V-ing (Present participle) talking swimming coming
+ 1. Progressive aspect: He is coming here.
+ 2. Participle/Gerund constructions: talking to strangers.

+ V-en (past participle):talked swum come

+ 1. Perfect aspect: He has never talked to us.
+ 2. Passive voice: He is talked into buying a new card.

TENSE AND ASPECT SYSTEMS IN ENG

LISH AND CHINESE
+ Tense and aspects in English: tense refers to the abso

lute location of an event or action in time.Aspect refe

rs to how an event or action is to be view with respec
t to time rather than to its actual location in time.
+ *walk walked*fell in love on 18, has fallen in love,is f
alling in love
+ Tense and aspects in Chinese: Chinese verbs do not c
onjugate. Aspect is used to indicate an action. For ex
ample, conjugates as going, gone,went, whereas the
Chinese (go) is always the same no matter what th
e time frame is.Apect is used to indicate an action.

ERROR ANALYSIS
+ Errors are classified according to:
+ modality (i.e., level of proficiency in speaking, wri

ting, reading, listening)

+ linguistic levels (i.e., pronunciation, grammar, vo
cabulary, style)
+ form (e.g., omission, insertion, substitution)
+ type (systematic error/ errors in competence vs.
occasional errors /errors in performance)
+ cause (e.g. interference, interlanguage)
+ norm vs. system

ERROR ANALYSIS 2
+ Error analysis in SLA (second language acquisition) was esta

blished in the 1960s by Stephen Pit Corder and Colleagues.

+ Error analysis bases on two fundamental approaches (Norri
s, 1987). The first one emphasizes error categories which ar
e preconceived and set up. That is to say these error types
are already sorted out and predetermined at first. The seco
nd approach allows the errors themselves determine which
grammatical and semantic categories they belong to, that is
, all errors are classified and sorted out after they collected.
+ Believed that error analysis provides a key to study the seco
nd language acquisition and a useful tool to figure out the d
ifficulties language learners are encountering.

METHODOLOGY
+ Subjects:
+ one hundred and twenty-eight students of nin

th-grade junior high school students in Hsin S

heng Junior High School in Taitung County.
+ Four different classes,age 15. supposed to sta
rt to learn English from the third grade in ele
mentary school. So, they have learned English
at least seven years or more,were composed
of students of different English proficiency lev
els.

2
+ The four classes of the ninth-grade students

were chosen and categorized into two group

s (called GA and GB) which were based on th
e mean scores of the monthly English achiev
ement examinations.
+ GA and GB would engage in different tasks.
GA would do the Chinese-English Translation
Test Paper (see Appendix A). GB would check
what the tense was of each item before they
did the translation.

3
+ Appendix A so as to induce the subjects to di

splay their real knowledge about verb tenses

and aspects. Besides, the researcher added t
ense-checking to the Chinese-English translat
ion test (see Appendix B) in order to test whe
ther calling attention to tense can make a diff
erence in doing translation.
+ Adopted an elicitation procedure suggested b
y Corder,the requires direct translation from
the native language to the target language.

4
+ GA translated T1 but they did not need to

tell the tense. GB not only translated the

40 Chinese sentences but also needed to j
udge the tense of each Chinese sentence
at the same time.
+ There were six tenses which were distribu
ted randomly among the translation test.
(Be Verbs,Regular and Irregular Verbs)
+ Pilot Study.(reliable)

PROCEDURES
+ First of all, the researcher designed the translation test.
+ Before the tests, the subjects were told to take the tests s

eriously and were informed write down what they have le

arned and what they have known as much as possible. All
the subjects were asked to finish the test in 45 minutes.
+ The test papers were collected and scored.
+ The subjects were categorized into three groups accordin
g to their scores on the test.
+ The types of tense errors that the subjects made were ind
entified and classified respectively, the frequency, percen
tages, and distributions of error types by the subjects we
re calculated and recorded for analysis.

DATA ANALYSIS
+ No points were given in misuse of verb tenses.
+ One point was deducted in incomplete forms of verbs te

nses, more or less a word.

+ One point was deducted in misuse between be verb and
auxiliary of negative sentences.
+ Some items (Item 5 ) were combined by two sentences,
no point was deducted.
+ Some items (Item 39 and 6 ) had different writing forms
but had the same meanings, no point was deducted.
+ Apart from the v forms of correct tense emphasized, the
rest part of the sentences would not result in any point.

CLASSIFICATION OF ERRORS
+ I.Overgeneralization Errors
+ 1. Aux substitutions Susan * didnt (wasnt) fat at all before.
+ 2. Incorrect forms of tenses I * was sent (sent) a Christmas c

ard to her.
+ 3. Verb number errors
Mary * clean (cleans) her house
once a week.
+ 4. Redundant Aux
Mary * did walked (walked) to scho
ol yesterday.
+ 5. Morphology
I *havent eated (havent eaten) d
inner yet.
+ 6. Misuse of tenses
I * played (was playing) the piano at
8:30 yesterday.

CLASSIFICATION OF ERRORS
+ II. Transfer Errors:
+ 7. Aux omission Candy *not join (didnt join) the su

mmer camp last year.

+ 8. Word-order errors Jeff *last month every day afte
r school practiced playing basketball. (practiced play
ing basketball after school every day .
+ III. Translation Errors:
+ 9. Verb substitution: I *was washing my body. (was t
aking a bath)
+ 10. Spelling errors: The sun * roses (rises) in the east.

RESULTS
+ Differences of Scores of Samples with Different Bac

kgrounds in Declaratives, Negatives, Be Verb, and A

uxiliary,the mean of scores of female group is higher th
an that of the scores of male group, the results present t
hat the two groups do not reach significant differences.
+ Differences of the scores among different English e
xperience groupsAfter conducting post-comparison, it
shows that the scores of 6~7 ys group are significantly hi
gher than of above 10 ys(included) group and the scores
of 8~9 ys group are significantly higher than of above 10
ys(included). The differences are very
+ significant.

2
+ Differences of the scores in declaratives between

male group and female group, the mean of scores

of female group is higher than that of the scores of m
ale group, the results present that the two groups do
not reach significant differences.
+ Differences of the scores in declaratives among d
ifferent English learning experience groups, after
conducting post-comparison, it shows that the scores
+ of 6~7 ys group are significantly higher than of above
10 ys(included) group. The differences are significant.

3
+ Differences of the scores in negatives betwee

n male group and female group, the mean of s

cores of female group is higher than that of the s
cores of male group, the results present that the
two groups do not reach significant differences.
+ Differences of the scores in negatives among
different English learning experience group, i
t shows that the scores of 6~7 ys group are signifi
cantly higher than of above 10 ys(included) group
. The differences are very significant.

4
+ Differences of the scores in be verb between male

group and female group, the mean of scores of fema

le group is higher than that of the scores of male grou
p, the results present that the two groups do not reach
significant differences.
+ Differences of the scores in be verb among differe
nt English learning experience group, it shows that
the scores of 6~7 ys group are significantly higher than
of below 5 ys(included) group, and the scores of 6~7 ys
group are significantly higher than of above 10 ys(inclu
ded) group . The differences are very significant.

5
+ Differences of the scores in auxiliary betwee

n male group and female group, the mean of s

cores of female group is higher than that of the s
cores of male group, the results present that the
two groups do not reach significant differences.
+ Differences of the scores in auxiliary among
different English learning experience group, i
t shows that, and the scores of 8~9 ys group are s
ignificantly higher than of above 10 ys(included) g
roup. The differences are very significant.

6
+ Differences of Scores among Samples with Dif

ferent English Proficiency. we divide the sample

s into three groups and compare the differences a
mong the three groups in terms of declaratives, n
egatives, be verb, and auxiliary.
+ Descriptive statistics of scores among groups
with different English proficiency,it shows that
high-score group is higher than medium-score gro
up, and medium-score group is higher than low-s
core group. The 46 differences are very significant
.

7
+ Descriptive statistics of scores in declaratives am

ong groups with different English proficiency, it s

hows that high-score group is higher than medium-sc
ore group, and medium-score group is higher than lo
w-score group. The differences are very significant.
+ Descriptive statistics of scores in negatives amon
g groups with different English proficiency, it sho
ws that high-score group is higher than medium-scor
e group, and medium-score group is higher than lowscore group. The differences are very significant.

8
+ Descriptive statistics of scores in be verb amon

g groups with different English proficiency, it sh

ows that high-score group is higher than medium-sc
ore group, and medium-score group is higher than l
ow-score group. The differences are very significant.
+ Descriptive statistics of scores in auxiliary amo
ng groups with different English proficiency, it s
hows that high-score group is higher than mediumscore group, and medium-score group is higher tha
n low-score group. The differences are very significa
nt.

9
+ Differences of Scores between Tense-Hint Grou

p and No-Tense-Hint Group, the mean of scores

of tense-hint group is higher than that of the score
s of no-tense-hint group, the results present that th
e two groups do not reach significant differences.
+ Differences of the scores in declaratives negati
ves be v auxiliary between tense-hint group an
d no-tense-hint group, do not reach significant di
fferences.
+ We could conclude that the ability to detect tenses
is helpful for translating sentences.

RESULT AND CONCLUSION

+ Among the sample, the male (58.3%) are

more than the female (41.7%); the 6~7 ys

group (41.7%) surpasses all the other gro
ups, approximately doubling 8~9 ys group
(22.5%).
+ In addition, whether in sum, declaratives,
negatives, be verb, and auxiliary, the scor
es between male and female are not diffe
rentiated significantly.

RESULT AND CONCLUSION 2

+ In terms of English learning experience, a

pproximately, 6~7 ys group is superior to

below 5 ys group and above 10 ys(include
d) group. From the differences caused by
various learning experience year, we can f
ound that during 6 ~ 7 ys, golden languag
e learning period, students learn and abs
orb English, an exotic language, most effic
iently and fastest.

FREQUENCIES AND DISTRIBUTION O

F TENSE ERRORS:
+ Junior high school students made the most errors

in present perfect tense (58%), then past simple te

nse (44%).
+ Students need to choose an appropriate auxiliary,
has or have, in agreement to its subject. Then, the
y must memorize right past participle of the verb.
+ The correlation of scores between checks and tran
slation is high (.78), and the result reaches a very s
ignificant level. Thus, we conclude that the student
s checking the right tense will incline to write right
sentences with appropriate tenses.

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN TENSE-HINT

GROUP AND NO-TENSE-HINT GROUP
+ Whether in declaratives, negatives, be ver

b, and auxiliary, although tense-hint grou

p performs better than no-tense-hint gro
up, the differences are not significant.(gu
essing by chance,not really understand)
+ In the study, we do not ascertain if giving
hint about tense will facilitate students to
do better in the test.

FREQUENCIES AND DISTRIBUTION OF TENSE ERRO

RS OF STUDENTS WITH DIFFERENT PROFICIENCY:

+ Whether in low, medium and high-score group

, the percentages of errors in present perfect t

ense are superior to any other tense. It indicat
es that in the process of English learning, most
junior high school students tend to become co
nfused at present perfect tense.
+ Misuse between be verb and auxiliary in n
egatives: Percentages of misuse in auxiliary b
y junior high school students surpass of
+ misuse in be verb.

IMPLICATIONS
+ To teachers: From the results, most junior high

school students tend to make errors in presen

t perfect tense, suggest that teachers put more
emphasis on present perfect tense, practice m
ore frequently.
+ cooperative learning
+ To text publishers: Adjust the percentages of d
ifferent tenses in the textbook, especially pres
ent perfect tense and auxiliary.
+ Multi-media teaching material and tools.

TO FUTURE STUDIES
+ Can not overgeneralize the results to other situations a

nd subjects. Moreover, owing to limited time and resou

rces, we only conduct quantitative research. Also, we ca
n not list and examine all kinds of error types of individ
ual students response on the paper, and the depth of t
he study could be criticized.
+ Suggest that the following researchers discuss the resp
onses of the student with the student item by item and
conduct qualitative research so that they can gather mo
re abundant information in the process of interaction.
+ Whole Taiwan.