The Nature of Learner Language

sources: Rod Ellis

Second Language Aquisition

Alimatun Nikmah2201410020

Errors and Errors Analysis

There are good reasons for focusing on errors:

• They are a conspicuous feature of learner language, raising the important question of ‘why do learners make errors?’

• It is useful for teachers to know what errors learners make.

• Paradoxically, it is possible that making errors may actually help learners to learn when they self-correct the errors the make.

Identifying Errors

• The first step in analysing learner errors is to identify them.

• To identify 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.

We need to distinguish errors and mistakes.

• Errors reflect gaps in learner’s knowledge; they occur because the learner does not know what is correct.

• Mistakes reflect occasional lapses in performance; they occur because in particular instance, the learner is unable to perform what he or she knows.

How can we distinguish errors and mistakes?

Check the consistently of learner’s performance.

• If they consistently substitute ‘contain’ for ‘contained’ this would indicate a lack of knowledge (an error).

• But, if they sometimes say ‘contain’ and sometimes ‘contained’ that would indicate they are just slipping up (a mistake).

• Ask the learners to try to correct their own deviant utterences. Where they are unable to, the deviation are errors; where they are successful, they are mistakes.

• But, actually, a clear distinction between an error and a mistake may not be possible.

Describing Errors

There are several ways of describing errors:

• Classify errors into grammatical ways.

• Try to identify general ways in which learners’ utterances differ from the reconstructed target-language utterances.

• We could gather all the errors relating to verb and identify the different kinds of verb errors. For example error in past tense.

Such ways include; • ommision (leaving out an item that is

required for an utterance to be grammatical)

• Misinformation (using one grammatical form in place of another grammatical form)

• Misordering (putting the words in an utterance in the wrong order)

Explaining Errors

• Errors are, to a large extent, systematic and to a certain extent, predictable. Errors are not only universal but also common errors.

• Learners commit errors of ommision (they leave the article ‘a’, ‘the’ and ‘-s/es’), overgeneralization (they use ‘eated’ not ‘ate’) and all of them are transfer errors (reflect learners’ attempts to make use their L1 knowledge).

Error Evaluation

• Global errors, violate the overall structure of a sentence and for this reason may make difficult to process

• Local errors, affect only a single constituent in the sentence and are perhaps less likely to create any processing problems.

The early stages of L2 Acquision

What learners do when exposed to the L2 in communicative settings:

• Some L2 learners particularly if they are children, undergo a silent period.

• Some learners talk to themselves in the L2 even when they decline to talk.

• When they begin to talk L2, their speech is likely to manifest two particular characteristic.

• Some learners find difficult to speak in full sentences so they frequently leave words out.

Developmental Patterns

We can explore the universality of L2 acquisition by examining the developmental pattern learners below:

• The early stages of L2 Acquision• The order of aquisition• Sequence of aquisition• Some implications

The Order of Acquisition

To investigate, the researchers choose a number of grammatical structures to study (auxiliary be and plural -s). Collect samples and identify the accurancy. This enables them to arrive at an accuracy order.

SEQUENCE OF ACQUISITION• The acquisition of a particular

grammatical structure, therefore, must be seen as a process involving transitional construction.

• Acquisition follows a A-shaped course of development; that is, initially learners may display a high level of accuracy only to apparently regress later before finally once again performing in accordance with target-language norms.

Learners are likely to pass trough the different stages (how L2 learners acquire irreglar past tense forms) :

Stage

Description

Example

1. Learners fail to mark the verb of past tense eat

2. Learners begin to produce irregular past tense forms ate

3. Learners overgeneralize the regular past tense form. eated

4. Sometimes learners produce hybrid forms. ated

5. Learners produce correct irregular past tense form. ate

SOME IMPLICATION

The discovery of common patterns in the way in which learner language changes over time provides further support for the conclusion reached from the study of learner errors, namely that L2 acquisition is systematic, and to a large extent, universal, reflecting ways in which internal cognitive mechanism control acquisition, irrespective of the personal background of learners or the setting in which they learn.

VARIABILITY IN LEARNER LANGUAGE

The important factor that account for the systematic variable are:

• The Linguistic context• The situational context• The psycholinguistic context

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