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A Survey of Error Analysis

COMMON ERRORS
in
LANGUAGE LEARNING
Insight from English
-H.V. George-

What Is an Error ?
Error is an unwanted forms (a form which a
particular course designeror teacher does not
want)
Even in those parts of the world where a regional
standard is the mother tongue, some teacher
themselves frequently use forms would be
classed as an unwanted forms

Error and Standard


In order to be a standard language, a language
need to be qualified in two conditions
1. There must be a large number of native
speakers of the variety
2. The variety must be used and respected by the
educated among them

Error and Standard


For nonnative speakers, irrespective of the
number of speakers of the local variety of
English or of the local variety. For example,
Dutch English
In other word, for the learners there exist a
double standard.

Error and Standard


Double Standard is the standard relevant to
the kind of English his own English tends to
become and the standard represent by rhe model
Example :
Because Dutch and English are closely
associated languages, the double standard is
apparent chiefly on the phonological level.
In Malaysian English, the double standard
apparent at every level.

A Model of Error Production


We may assume that unwanted forms is the
result of process or processes
There are two processes of learner :
A learner is exposed to experience of English
from his teacher & course book (input to the
learner)
The learners produces spoker or written English
(output from the learner)

A Model of Error Production


Simplified diagram represents a useful model for the study of error
IN

OUT
BLACKBOX

Figure 1 (can be developed)

Black box :
Storage / information / memory (features are selected for storage)

A Model of Error Production


Figure 2
COURSE DESIGNER/ TEACHER (blackbox 1)
(blackbox2)

The
English
Language

Selection
organization

the
course

LEARNER

Selection
organization
storage

the
learners
English

A Model of Error Production


Figure 3 (further additions of figure 2 )
Black box 2

Black box 3

Blackbox 2 : the learners


Blackbox 3 : person reacting to the output of blackbox2

A Model of Error Production


Figure 4
The
English

Black box
1

the
course

Black box
2

the
learners
English

Communication
Warren Weavers classical diagram of
communication process :
Encoding
Information
source

Message

Decoding

Transmitter

Noise
source

Receiver

Information
destination

Message

The aim of
Straightforward Communication

The difference between :


Communication for adults
Communication for children

There is redundancy at three places :

Many features of English as a


communication system are
redundant.

The difference between the


progress of the child learning
English as a mother tongue and
the child learning English as a
foreign language.

Two issues that emerge as critical :

How far English as use by native


speaker is marked by redundancy ?
How the learner comes to judge this
susceptibility ?

The difficulty of teachers of English


to Asian children.

Redundancy and Contrast


Many linguists see linguistic distinctions in
terms of contrast. Redundancy is one of the
consideration, when it comes to contrast.
Redundancy differs between two contrasted
items which have a same meaning, e.g. he and
she as third singular person pronoun in
English eventhough in Bahasa Indonesia dia is
the only word to define a third singular person
pronoun.

Prediction
Only a certain amount of school time can be
given to English. It is reasonable to not expect
more learning with the quantity and complexity
of the material and the time given to learn it.

System and Prediction


Linguists say that language is a system. A system
is predictable. If there is a system, a prediction
may be made.
The teacher who gives a phonological and
grammatical rule believes that it will make
prediction possible.
One of the task of the course designer and
teacher is to make the experience of the learner
more regular to achieve greatest amount of
successful prediction.

Estimating Regularity
There are three ways to be able making an
estimate of the degree of economy and regularity
shown by the English language itself.
Taking any system or area of the language work
and make a list (inventories)
Using inventory and statistical survey
Making direct checks

Inventories
There are two patterns in this method
a) Sentence Pattern
We get a large number of patterns with a
relatively small number of sentence constituent
items.
b) Verb centered pattern
The verb is the central feature of the sentence in
English, and, to a large extent, the grammatical
form of the sentence has to be fitted to its verb.

Inventories with Statistical Information


a) A survey of inventory of verb forms according
to frequency of its occurence.
simple past narrative is the highest frequency of
occurence
past progressive at that moment is the lowest
frequency of occurence.
b) A survey of using noun groups to encourage and
support the use of stem-form English in daily
life.

Native Speakers Choice


Noun groups in English are characterizied by a
complicated formal system for communicating
information which in many learners mother
tongue is incidental or contextual.
(-s) inflection indicates :
Plural x Singular ( a and the)
Possessive x Nonpossessive

a and the are used to plural and singular.


Example :

A toucan has a long beak


The toucan has a long beak
Toucans have long beaks
The toucans have long beaks

Five forms :
Singular noun alone
a + singular noun
the + singular noun
Indefinite plural noun
the + plural noun

Optinal usage can be assessed experimentally :


Retype and duplicate a text
Retype the piece of writing and offer

A Reasonable Expectation: A
Reasonable Attitude
It hard to derive patterns of regularity or rules.
When a teacher realizes that his learners
productive use of the language depends on
prediction from given infomation, and the basis for
prediction is the perception of regularity and
order. His expectation from the learner may be
more realistic, and his attitude to errors more
understanding

The Teachers Knowledge: The


Learners Prediction

There is a substitution table made by the teacher :


1

Hope

do it

Expect

go there

We

Intend
want

to

meet them

tomorrow

Write to him

The learner is expected to recognize and become familiar


with the construction verb + to + stem. But, the learner
cannot use the substitution table without becoming aware
not only of the horizontal relationship, but of the
vertical relationship

Probability and Prediction


There are two aspects of Predictability :
1. Basically that of regularity and have seen that
only partial regularity
2. This is the use of previous knowledge of
probabilities to messages while they are being
transmitted, or on occasion, after they have
been transmitted.

Twelve signs of the message : gt a gd jb & mo pa


For example : get, got, gut, goat, garret, garnet,
gout, gust, great, and so on.
Twenty one signs of standard English: get a good
job and mo pa

Application of previous knowledge of probabilities


has to happen at the same time as the reception of
the message.
For example :
1. Prediction of Letter
// - /i/ - /s/
2. Stressed Syllable of word
This is a green book

Functional Sentence Perspective (FSP)


and Communicative Dynamism (CD)
FSP is a concept of the disribution of information
(known information and new information)
Communicative Dynamism is the constituent parts
of FSP that have varying degrees to present the
informations.
Low CD
Known Information
High CD
New Information

(1)Defined or described in this general manner,


learning is clearly one of the many manifestations
of physiologal homeostasis.
(2)Physiologically, it is a neuromuscular
homeostatic condition ensuring the survival of the
organism in a changing and often unfavorable
external physical environment.
.

(3)To an observer of behavior, learning is a


homeostatic mechanism the aim of which is to
maintain the life, substance, and energy of the
living creature.
(4)And like any homeostatic mechanism, it must
be controlled and actuated by some form of
negative feedback of information about the degree
of its effectiveness

Let us consider two sentences:


1. Susan is knitting a pullover for John.
2. She is doing something for him.

the distribution of the and a.


The, being from its meaning anaphoric, precedes a
previously mentioned noun and tends to occur in
low CD sentence positions
a frequently precedes a not previously mentioned
noun and tends to occur in high CD sentence
positions.

Word and sentence constituent order, a basic


element a FSP, can be varied only to limited
extents in English
context is necessarily an element of FSP.
Because of its contextual importance, a word
in a normally low CD sentence position may
have high CD

Actually a very interesting and revealing


technique may be used, that of the cloze test,
or exercise as it becomes. In this type of
exercise every sixth word (for instance) is
omitted from a text and has to be restored
(guessed) by the learner.

It is possible
(a) to omit words at regular intervals, which means
random omission as far as the prediction of
code or FSP is concerned,
(b) to omit selected words, e.g., one in each line of
text, so that the tester or teacher can control
whether the omission requires inference about
the code or inference from semantic context.

solving a crossword puzzle involves inference


at the level of the word. Apart, from semantic
clues, the puzzle solver uses the clues of word
length and letter sequence probabilities.

The first thing to recognize is that classroom


attention is frequently directed to low CD
features, the so-called structure words, and the
morphological features
The second point to be made is that when the
whole of an utterance is entirely familiar and
evenly spoken, not only the listeners but
probably the speakers own response to the CD
of the sentence parts may have been reduced.

Summary

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