Compilted by:
Uli Fauziyah Miatin (2201410015)
Errors and Errors analysis
There are four steps in analysing learner errors:
Identifying errors
2. Describing errors
3. Explaining errors
4. Error evaluation
1.
Identyfing Errors
 We have to compare the sentences learners produce with
what seem to be the normal or ‘correct’ sentences in the
target language which correspond with them.
Example:
-A man and a little boy was watching him.
It should be:
-A man and a little boy were watching him.
It is an error in subject-verb agreement.
 Sometimes, learners produce sentences in that are possible
target-language sentences but not preferred ones.
Example:
… went in the traffic.
It should be:
… went into the traffic.
It is an error in the use of comparative adjective.
 Sometimes errors occurs because the learner does not
know what is correct while mistakes occur because the
learner is unable to perform what he/she knows.
Describing Errors
Two ways of describing errors:
1. Classify errors into grammatical categories
2. Try to identify general ways in which the learners’
utterances differ from the reconstructed target
language utterances, including ‘omission’ (i.e.
leaving out an item that is required for an utterance
to be reconstructed, ‘misinformation’ (i.e. using
grammatical form in place of another grammatical
form, and ‘misordering’ (i.e. putting the words in an
utterance in the wrong order.
Explaining Errors
 Errors are predictable
 Errors are not only systematic; many of them also
universal
 Not all errors are universal. Some errors are common
only to learners who share the same mother tongue or
whose mother tongues manifest the same linguistic
property
 Errors can have different sources
 Learners commit errors of omission and
overgeneralization. They are common in the speech of
all learners, irrespective of their L1
 Other errors reflect learners’ attempts to make use of
their L1 knowledge (known as transfer errors)
Error Evaluation
 Some errors known as global errors, violate the overall
structure of a sentence and for this reason may make it
difficult to process.
Example: The policemen was in the corner of whistle…
 Other errors known as local errors, affect only a single
constituent in the sentence and less likely to create any
processing problems.
Example: The verb that used by L2 learners in the wrong
order.
Developmental Patterns
We can explore the universality of L2 acquisition by
examining the developmental pattern learners follow:
• The early stages of L2 acquisition
• The order of acquisition
• Sequence of acquisition
• Some implication
The Early Stages of L2 Acquisition
 Some learners, particularly if they are children,
undergo a silent period. They make no attempt to say
anything and learning language through listening or
reading.
 When learners do begin to speak in the L2 their
speech is likely manifest two particular characteristics:
1. the kind of formulaic chinks like ‘How do you do?’
2. propositional implication like ‘Me no blue’, meaning
‘I don’t have a blue crayon’.
The Order of Acquisition
 To investigate this, the researchers choose a number of
grammatical structure to study.
 This choose enable them to arrive an accuracy order
that must be the same as the order of acquisition on
the grounds that the more likely they are to have
acquired feature early.
 There is a definite accuracy order and that this remains
more or less the same irrespective of the learners’
mother tongues, ages, and whether or not they have
received formal language instruction.
Sequence of Acquisition
Stage
Description
Example
1
Learners fail to make the verb for past time.
‘eat’
2
Learners begin to produce irregular past tense
forms.
‘are’
3
Learners overgeneralized the regular past
tense form.
‘eated’
4
Sometimes learners produce hybrid forms.
‘ated’
5
Learners produce correct irregular past tense
forms.
‘ate’
Table: Stages in the acquisition of the past tense of ‘eat’
 The acquisition of grammatical structure must be seen
as a process involving transitional construction.
 Acquisition follows a U-shaped course of
development; learners may display a high level of
accuracy only to apparently regress later before finally
once again performing in accordance with targetlanguage norms.
 The kind of reorganization which is believed to be
prevalent in L2 acquisition is referred to as
restructuring.
Some Implications
 L2 acquisition is systematic and universal reflecting
ways in which internal cognitive mechanisms control
acquisition, irrespective of the personal background of
learners or the setting in which they are learn.
 Some linguistic features (particularly grammatical
one) are inherently easier to learn than others.
 Learners naturally learn one feature before another
they must necessarily do so.
Variability in Learner Language
 There is systematic variability in learner language.
 Learners vary in their use of the L2 according to
linguistic context.
 Learners vary the linguistic forms they used in
accordance with the situational context.
 Learners have the opportunity to plan their production
(psycholinguistic context).
 Learners manifest considerable variability in their
production of SLA.
 The particular form-function mappings which learners
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make do not always conform to those found in the target
language.
Variability in learner language is clearly not just random.
At least, some variability is ‘free’ and the free variables
constitutes an essential stage in the acquisition of
grammatical structures.
The general sequence of acquisition applies to specific
grammatical features.
Learners may succeed in reaching target-language norms
in some types of language use but not in others.
Souce:
• Rod Ellis, 1997, Second Language Acquisition, Oxford:
Oxford University Press, chapter 1, pp. 3-14.