They are a conspicuous feature of learner language
It is useful for teachers to know
what errors learners make
It is possible that making errors
may actually ‘help learners’ Identifying Errors
To identify errors we have to compare the sentences
learners produce with what seem to be the normal one.
A man and a little boy was watching him.
The correct one should be:
A man and a little boy were watching him.
Sometimes, learners produce sentences that are possible target-language sentences but not preferred ones.
… went in the traffic.
A native speaker would probably prefer to say:
… went into the traffic.
It is difficult to reconstruct the correct sentence because we are not sure what the learner meant to say.
The big of them contained a snake
It might be:
The bigger of them contained a snake.
The distinction between errors and mistakes.:
Errors reflects gaps in a learner’s knowledge; they
occur because the leaner does not know what is correct.
Mistakes reflect occasional lapses in performance;
they occur because, in a particular instance, the learner is unable to perform what he or she knows. Describing Errors
There are several ways of making classification of
errors into types:
Classifying errors into grammatical
categories
Trying to identify in general ways the
errors Explaining Errors
Three main explanation of errors:
Errors are, to a large extent, systematic and, to a certain extent, predictable.
Errors are not only systematic; many of them are also universal
not all errors are universal
Error Evaluation
1. Some errors can be considered more serious than
others.
2. Some errors, known as global errors, violate the
overall structure of a sentence B. Development Patterns
All learners, no matter whether they are learning
naturalistically or in a classroom, and irrespective of their first language (L1), make omissions, overgeneralization, and transfer errors The Early Stages of L2 Acquisition
When learners do begin to speak in the L2 their
speech is likely to manifest two particular characteristics. They are:
1st The kind of formulaic chunks, and
2nd Proportional Implication
The Order of Acquisition
To investigate the order of acquisition, researchers
choose a number of grammatical structures to study (for example, progressive –ing, auxiliary be, and plural –s). They then collect samples of learner language and identify how accurately each features is used by different learners. Sequence of Acquisition
The example of how L2 learners acquire irregular past tense forms.
Stage Description Example
1 Learners fail to mark the verb for past time. ‘eat’
2 Learners begin to produce irregular past tense forms. ‘ate’
3 Learners over generalize the regular past tense form. ‘eated’
4 Sometimes learners produce hybrid forms. ‘ated’
5 Learners produce correct irregular past tense forms. ‘ate’
Some Implications
The work on developmental patterns is important for
another reason. It suggests that some linguistic features are inherently easier to learn than others. This has implications for both SLA theory and for language teaching. C. Variability in learner language
Language is systematic since it is possible that
variability is also systematic. That is, we may be able to explain, and even predict, when learners use one form and when another. THANKS FOR YOUR ATTENTION