Error Analysis and Interlanguage, Research Paper Example

Abstract

The Theory of Error Analysis derived from analyzing the errors learners make during their process of learning, and the Interlanguage Theory founded on analyzing the learner language features, are of crucial implications and importance to both teaching and learning. Based on the study regarding learner language, this study’s research question is what attitude teachers take towards the errors of the learner. The design that will be used is the descriptive research design. This is because the study will be a description of facts, as they exist. Interview questionnaires will be used for collection of data in the study. After fieldwork, the collected data will be examined, coded, edited, and analyzed by the use of MS excel and MS word. The expected findings will include the provision of access to the data that is observable. This will serve to assist the teacher in gaining insight into the learning process of the learner. It will also give more facilitative conditions and promote the learning process.

Introduction

This study’s purpose is finding out the attitude taken by teachers towards the errors of the learner. Errors of learners were of no meaning at all during the pre-scientific period when teachers of languages focused their efforts on teaching the right form of target language by learners. It did not benefit in bothering much about errors because the general belief among linguists and teachers during that period was that if learners made errors, it was the teaching method that was supposed to be improved.

It was considered that what probably resulted in learners’ errors was bad teaching, and if the method of teaching was improved to excellence, errors would be evaded and those learning would be able to learn that accurate and pure type of the target language. The other outlook towards the errors of learners was that making errors was simply unavoidable in the learning process and what mattered most was to come up with some ways of handling such errors. The study’s main focus will be teachers’ attitude towards the errors of learners.

Consequently, identification of the errors or the likelihood of giving the errors of learners their individual rights as a system would not be needed. During the period when contrastive analysis reigned in the applied linguistics’ field, errors of learners were identified as intrusion of the learner’s mother tongue by the target language being learned by them. Errors of learners and student learning problems will act as the main variables used in the study. The study’s only boundary is that it will not deal with the probable reasons causing these errors.

Resource Review

According to the hypothesis of Contrastive Analysis, errors possibly come up where great differences exist between the mother tongue of the learner or any language previously acquired and the language they are trying to learn. The mistakes themselves are intrusion of interference of the mother language and the progressive learning of the learner has to overcome this until they are gotten rid of completely. Such pessimistic attitudes towards the errors of learners are consistent with the behavioristic view. The behavioristic concept of learning of the language is that of forming habits that are correct from the fortification of the certain probable stimulus response, in consideration of the errors that were predicted to be the effect of the perseverance of mother tongue habits that existed in the fresh language (Rustipa 10). Such persevering habits cause harm to the very process of learning, namely, the formation process habit, and should be immediately gotten rid of to prevent them from forming in the fresh language. The propensity for correcting errors immediately is strong in the practice of teaching of audiolingualism.

People started to get a new look into the students errors within the late 1960s. Strong proof from psycholinguistic research has indicated that the errors of learners have a regular pattern, and they are rule-governed. Studying the errors of learners could shed some light on how language input is processed by learners because mistakes themselves could be representing the intake of the learners to some extent, namely, how much has been learnt by the learners and how much the learners are yet to learn. The reason for analyzing errors could be formulated for two orientations. The first is pedagogical justification, which gives the opportunity for a means of methodical eradication. The second is theoretical justification, which involves part of the orderly study of the learners’ language (Corder 70).

As per Corder, the errors of learners are important in three ways. Firstly, for teachers, the errors of learners could indicate to them how far the learner has progressed towards the goal and, thus, what is remaining for the learner to learn. Secondly, for those researching, the errors provide proof of the process of learning language or acquiring language and procedures or strategies employed by learners in their language discovery. Lastly, for learners, commission of errors is the learner’s way of testing his hypotheses concerning the nature of the language being learned (Ning 23).

In the learning and teaching of modern language, focus has been shifted to the identification of communicative needs in learning of language of the learners, from being preoccupied with teaching, especially teaching of explicit grammar. The learner-centeredness concept is gaining its momentum in the overall learning and teaching of language. In view of the fresh tendency, sufficient understanding of the processes, which the learners involve themselves in for the learning task of a foreign or second language, can be attributed to the very execution of that learners’ task of learning. They are of crucial importance to making decisions regarding development of materials of teaching as input and giving facilitative conditions of the learning (Corder 81).

In the Chomoskyan concept of acquisition of language, learners of a second language go through the same formulation of hypotheses process concerning the target language being learned by them. Learners’ errors in production of the language are that the fundamental knowledge of the language that is newly acquired is revealed by the learner. Nevertheless, while what is happening in the psyche of the learner as she or he attempts to come up with sentences based on his or her individual grammar is difficult to see, his or her production of language or even performance, could give data, which is observable for enlightening that natural capability in the person learning. If teachers recognize that errors of learners are orderly and that the language of the learner is free from either the target language or the mother tongue, then one will be justified to state that errors’ study is of great importance to language learning understanding and language itself (Norris and Ortega 35).

Methods

The design that will be utilized is the descriptive research design. This is because the study will be a description of existing facts. Generally, raw data will be taken and summarized to a form, which is useable. The nature of descriptive design can also be qualitative if the size of the sample is small and if data is gotten from questionnaires of interview, which is the case in this particular study. Interview questionnaires will be utilized by this study for data collection bearing in mind that if there is a lack of reading skills by the respondent in answering a questionnaire, a person can read and interpret the questions to them, as they are useful in the process of untangling topics that are complex (Rustipa 13). The person carrying out the interview can further investigate a response by the people interviewed, and carrying out interviews produce a higher rate of response. After fieldwork, the collected data will undergo examination, coding and analyzing. This will be attained through relating data collected to the objectives of the study. MS Excel and MS word software will be used in sorting through collected data via questionnaires to make an identification of patterns and establish relationships.

Prediction

As the language of the learner is describable and systematic, and analysis of error and study of interlanguage will give access to data that is observable from which conclusions can be made concerning teachers’ attitude towards the errors of learners, and the underlying knowledge of the learner about their language. It will help the teacher gain insight into the learner’s process of learning and give conditions that are more facilitative and can support the process. Mere correction of an error, especially correcting the error immediately in class, may lead to the distortion of the hypothesis formulation of the learner and lead to the delay in the process of learning (Ning 23).

Qualitative data by structured questionnaires of interview will be collected by the study and it will have considerable open comments. This is because it is involved with the description of meaning, as opposed to drawing statistical conclusions. What is lost by qualitative methods on reliability is gained in validity terms. They offer a richer and in depth description. The process to be used in answering the questions of the study will be focusing narrowly on the question through asking, “how”, “what” or “why” concerning the study, the questions being answered fully for the research.

Potential

The possible impact of this study’s results is that many errors committed by students inevitably confront teachers, and only through attempting to know the attitude the teachers take towards the errors of learners, they will be at a position of seeking their error’s causes. In addition, this will have worked out countermeasures to make them correct and assist their students to acquire the target language, English. This is because learners do not know their errors and therefore they are not able to correct themselves. Further, if the teachers’ attitude towards the errors of the learner is positive, they will be at a position of helping learners in becoming aware of errors they have committed, and the way they can be avoided in the future. The probable constraint of this particular study is that it may not deal with the possible reasons causing these errors (Schackne 21).

Personal Interest

My motivation and personal interest for wanting to carry out this project is that I am of the view that it is important and necessary to have a better understanding and knowledge on interlanguage, which has always been variable, dynamic and systematic, in order to know a second language. Ever since I came to USA, my academic aim of majoring in teaching of a second language has not been shifted, and I usually ask myself the type of teacher I would like to become in class and how second languages are learnt by people. At the first time, I underwent through a difficult time in learning English hence I am ready to be of help mentally and academically. Most of all, when there is a conversation between native English speakers and learners of second language, interlanguages tend to be produced because of the learners’ first language. For that reason, in order to understand second language learners better, this is a great chance of researching on interlanguage and supporting teaching methodologies and theories.

Works cited

Corder, Stephen. Error Analysis and Interlanguage. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1981. Print.

Ning, Mi. Implications of Interlanguage Error Analysis and Research on English Language. Testing and Teaching. Higher Education of Social Science. Vol. 2, No. 2. 2012. Print.

Norris, John & Ortega, Lourdes. Defining and measuring SLA. In Doughty, Catherine, & Long, Michael. (Eds), The Handbook of Second Language Acquisition. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. 2003.

Rustipa, Katharina. Contrastive Analysis, Error Analysis, Interlanguage and the Implication to Language Teaching. Ragam Jurnal Pengembangan Humaniora. Vol. 11 No. 1. 2011. Print.

Schackne, Steven. Language Teaching Research. Journal of Language and Linguistics. Vol.1 No. 2. 2002. Print.