An Empirical Study On English Writing Of Junior High School Students: A Perspective Of Error Analysis

English writing is one of the four main skills of English language learning and it is also a crucial part in English teaching in senior middle school according to the requirement the New Standard of Curriculum.However,the present situation of English writing is not optimistic,especially backward in rural areas.It is unavoidable for students to meet great challenges and make different kinds of errors in the process of writing.On the other hand,it makes the teachers frustrated that students make so many errors when they revise compositions or mark the writing in tests.Many middle school students stand in awe before English writing,even give up writing in exams.Traditional writing teaching methods seem to be invalid.Too much attention is paid to senior and college students.Therefore,it is quiet urgent to explore some efficient teaching strategies to improve students English writing.The author makes an empirical study of the errors from the perspective of error analysis to find out the following questions:1.what errors are most frequently make in students' writing? 2.what are the reasons for making such errors? 3.what strategies can the teachers and researchers use to reduce or avoid errors and improve students' writing?The error analysis proposed by Corder in 1970 s,still has a great instructive meaning in promoting students' writing.Under the guidance of the error analysis,the author of this thesis tries to collect the writing compositions of the students in class 15 from Tong Jiang No.3 middle school in the first and second monthly test in last term.The author combines two questionnaires and her own teaching practice,concluding that: 1.The number of text errors is the largest,substance rank in the second and discourse error is the smallest.2.The main reasons are interlingual transfer,intralingual transfer and other factors,including the writing habits,learning motivation and teaching strategies,and so on.3.Teachers should take relevant measures to stimulate the motivation,foster good writing habits,strengthen the basic knowledge.Also,teachers should teach themselves to master the latest teaching ideas,improve their teaching skills,and use the multimedia equipment and the internet reasonably.Based on the error analysis of students' writing and the author's teaching experience,some suggestions are given: the errors in students' writing are an important teaching resources and we should hold optimistic attitudes towards them;teachers should be strict with the students' handwriting,spelling and basic knowledge;teachers should arouse the interest and initiative of students;teachers should make full use of all the teaching resources available to improve their teaching and help students reduce errors and improve their writing ability.