ERROR ANALYSIS

1. ERROR ANALYSIS

2. Error Analysis VS Contrastive Analysis • Contrastive Analysis • Error analysis • Approaches

3. Error Analysis VS Contrastive Analysis • In the 1960s EA was acknowledged as an alternative to the behaviourist CA • The Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis (CAH) was widely accepted in the 1950s and 1960s USA and its original purpose was purely pedagogical. The teaching method which used the CAH as its theory of learning was the audiolingual method.

4. contrastive analysis • The main idea of contrastive analysis, as propounded by Robert Lado in his book Linguistics Across Cultures (1957), was that • It is possible to identify the areas of difficulty a particular foreign language will present for native speakers of another language by systematically comparing the two languages and cultures. Where the two languages and cultures are similar, learning difficulties will not be expected, where they are different, then learning difficulties are to be expected, and the greater the difference, the greater the degree of expected difficulty. (Lado 1957)

5. On the basis of such analysis, it was believed, teaching materials could be tailored to the needs of learners of a specific first language. Lado himself was an English and Spanish bilingual, who was born in America of Spanish parents, grew up in Spain and then went to college in the USA. • He was all too aware of the importance of cultural difference in mastering a foreign language. However, his appeal to compare cultures was not taken up, and in practice contrastive analysis focussed on a surface comparison of languages, starting with the sounds, then the grammar and finally - and only selectively - the vocabulary

6. Error analysis • For a long time there was no principled approach to language teaching based on error, but in the late 1950’s and 1960’s this started to change. • It was the British applied linguist, Pit Corder, who re-focussed attention on error from the perspective of language processing and language acquisition. In his seminal (1967) paper “The significance of learners’ errors” he stressed the learner’s positive cognitive contribution to learning

7. Carl James defines Error Analysis as “the process of determining the incidence, nature, causes and consequences of unsuccessful language learning” (James 1998) It is rather “a methodology for dealing with data" (Cook 1993).

8. DAVID CRYSTAL (1997) • ERROR is a term used in Psycholinguistics -referring to mistakes in spontaneous speaking or writing, -being attributable to a malfunctioning of the neuro-muscular from the brain. -also called ‘slips of the tongue’ or ‘slip of the brain’.

9. B. Richards, Jack (1999) • E A is an activity to reveal errors found in writing and speaking. EA is considered as an aid in teaching or in the preparation of teaching materials

10. E A is the study of errors made by the SL/FL learners. E A is carried out in order to find out: • (a) how well a person knows a language (SL/FL/), • (b) how a person learns a language (SL/FL/), and • (c) how a person obtain information on common difficulties in LL

11. BROWN (2005): • Error analysis is the process to • (1) observe, • (2) analyze, • (3) classify the deviations of the rules of the SL/FL/TL and to • (4) reveal the systems operated by the learner

12. APPROACHES to ERRORS :  • II. APPROACHES to ERRORS As Jean D’Souza (1977) : • * in the 50’s - 60’s errors were looked upon as evils which had to be eradicated. * if the teacher taught well and drilled the patterns of the new language (TL) efficiently, there was no reason for the learners to make any errors at all.

13. Approaches of Errors Whenever a language is learnt or acquired, one is faced with the problem of errors. Errors are an inevitable feature of learning. They are not problems to be overcome or evils to be eradicated. They are part of learning and reveal the strategies which learners use to learn a language. They provide valuable insight into the LL process

14. Errors is considered as specific indications of the learning process. The emphasis of EA changed from the ‘product’ to the ‘process’. In the early 60s the main concentration was on the errors themselves. Later the emphasis shifted to the process or systems behind the errors.

15. Corder suggests that Error Analysis can be distinguished from ‘performance analysis’ in that sense that “performance analysis is the study of the whole performance data from individual learners, whereas the term EA is reserved for the study of erroneous utterances produced by groups of learners”(Corder 1975)

16. James (1998: 12) gives Corder's five crucial points, originally published in Corder’s seminar paper titled ‘The significance of learners’ errors’: 1. L1 acquisition and L2 learning are parallel processes, they are ruled by the same mechanisms, procedures and strategies. Learning a L2 is probably facilitated by the knowledge of the L1. 2. Errors reflect the learners’ inbuilt syllabus or what they have taken in, but not what the teachers have put into them. So there is a difference between ‘input’ and ‘intake’..

17. 3. Errors show that both learners of L1 and L2 develop an independent language system - a ‘transitional competence’. 4. The terms ‘error’ and ‘mistake’ shouldn't be used interchangeably. 5. Errors are important because they (a) tell the teacher what he or she should teach, (b) are a source of information for the researcher about how the learning proceeds, and (c) allow the learners to test their L2 hypotheses

18. Stages of EA:  • Stages of EA. EA is carried out in 3 successive stages (Pit Corder, 1975): • (1) Recognition of Errors • (2) Description of Errors, and • (3) Explanation of Errors

19. I. RECOGNITION of ERROR: • Stages of EA ………. I. RECOGNITION of ERROR Corder uses the term “erroneous” to mean the utterances which are both superficially deviant and in-appropriate in terms of the SL/FL/FL Grammar. He distinguishes between mistakes and errors

20. In fact, error analysis has turned out to be more problematic than one might expect for various reasons. • There are problems of identification. Apart from native-speaker intuitions, error is difficult to define and can by no means always be unambiguously identified in production (Hughes / Lascaratou 1982).

21. Errors are systematic, governed by rules, and appear because of learner’s knowledge of the rules of the target language is incomplete • Indicative of the learner’s linguistic system at a given stage of language learning ,i.e., his/her transitional competence or interlanguage development • Occur repeatedly and not recognized by the learner, in the sense that only teachers and researchers can locate them

22. In contrast, mistakes are: • random deviations, unrelated to any system, and instead representing the same types of performance mistakes that might occur in the speech or writing of native speakers, such as • 1- slips of the tongue or Freudian slips ,as in “You have hissed all my mystery lectures” instead of “You have missed all my history lectures”. • 2- slips of the ear ,as in “great ape” instead of “gray tape” • 3- false starts, lack of subject-verb agreement in a long complicated sentences ,

23. The distinction between learner’s errors and mistakes has always been problematic for both teachers and researchers , but to Ellis (1994) frequency of occurrence is regarded the distinctive point; • errors which have a rather low frequency are considered mistakes or performance errors • and those with high frequency as systematic errors

24. Error is overt or covert • Overt error is easy to identify e.g I runned all the way. • A covert error occurs in utterences that are superficially well formed • It was stopped (from Corder 1971 a) • Until we come to know that it refers to wind.

25. Description of Errors • Involves the learner’s idiosyncratic utterances with a reconstruction of those utterances in the target language . • Dulay, Burt and Krashan (1982) argues the need for descriptive taxonomies of errors that focus only on observable , surface features of errors, as a basis of subsequent explanation. • The simple type of classification is linguistic involves(clause structure, the auxiliary system, passive sentences, …)

26. An alternation to linguistic classification of errors is to use a surface strategy taxonomy. • It involves the alternation of surface structures by means of such operations as omission, addition and regularization.

27. A surface strategy taxonomy of errors (Dulay, Burt, and Krashan 1982)

28. Corder (1974) Framework for the description of errors is interesting. Three types of errors according their systematicity • Presystematic : when a learner is unaware of the particular rules in the language. • Systematic : when the learner discover the rules but it is a wrong one • Post systematic: When the learner knows the correct target language rule but uses it inconsistently

29. SOURCES OF ERRORS: They can be categorized in two domains: 1. Interlingual transfer 2.Intralingual transfer Interlingual Transfer is a significant source for language learners. Dictionary of language Teaching and applied Linguistics (1992) defines: Interlingual errors are the result of language transfer which is caused by the learners’ first language. It occurs at different levels such as transfer of phonological, morphological, grammatical, and lexica-semantic elements of the native language (L1) into the Target Language.

30. IntralingualTranfer:  • They may be caused by the influence of one target language item upon another. The learners attempt to use two tense marker at the same time in one sentence since they have not mastered the language yet. e.g. • “He is comes here now”. • “He made me to smile”. • “I want learning English”. • “I don’t know why did he go”

31. Richard (1971) distinguishes three types of competence errors • Interference errors • Intralingual errors • Developmental errors(due to limited knowledge)

32. Evaluating Errors • Errors evaluation studies address three main questions • Are some errors judged to be more problematic than others? • Are there differences made by Native Speakers and Non native speakers? • What criteria do judges use in evaluating learners’ errors?

33. Pedagogical Implications • Teachers, pedagogists ,and researchers can benefit from the findings of error analysis indifferent ways • Implications for EFL/ESL teachers, especially in error prevention ,error feedback , and error correction • Implications pedagogists, especially in test developing, ‘learners syllabus’, ‘teachers syllabus’, positive and negative evidence. • Implications for researchers, especially in assessing the process of learning in general and the degree of match between the learners’ syllabus and the required goals.