Analysis Of Errors In English Writing In Junior Middle School

Writing has always been occupying an important position in junior middle school English learning,but it turns out that there are always various errors in students’ compositions.How to systematize the various errors made by students and turn them into valuable resources for students to learn in the future is a problem that scholars and English teachers have been paying attention to,which makes sorting,categorizing,and analyzing errors in writing crucial.With the progress of the times and the emergence of high technology,combining the theory of error analysis with the electronic information system is an inevitable trend of the development of the times,which not only improves the efficiency of teaching,but also improves the writing level of students.Based on comparative analysis theory,error analysis theory and interlanguage theory,the thesis takes quantitative analysis method,comparative research method and questionnaire survey method and uses the corpus retrieval software-AntConc3.5.7 to collect compositions in the mid-term examination papers of students from eight classes,two grades of Zhi Yuan middle school in Si Yang County,Su Qian City,sorting,categorizing and counting students’ writing errors in self-built small corpus.A total of 524 essays are collected,of which 474 are effective ones.In addition,249 questionnaires are distributed,and 231 valid questionnaires are used to know students’ writing attitudes,writing difficulties,writing habits,and the most satisfactory teacher evaluation methods.The thesis first investigates the overall situation of formal errors in the English composition of the first and second grade students of Zhi Yuan middle school and the distribution of students’ writing errors in different grades in different dimensions.Secondly,a comparative analysis of the differences between the high-grade and low-grade English compositions in the same grade in different dimensions and the differences in writing errors among students of different grades is made.Finally,the thesis analyzes the correlation between the quantity of mistakes in the English compositions of Zhi Yuan middle school students and the scores of them,and explores effective strategies to improve the English writing ability of junior middle school students.In the thesis,by applying the error annotation method of CLEC(Chinese Learner English Corpus),the students’ writing errors are marked one by one,which are divided into 11 dimensions,such as word form-fm,vocabulary-wd,syntax-sn,verb phrase-vp,noun phrase-np,collocation-cc,pronoun-pr,preposition-pp,adjective-aj,adverb-ad,conjunction-cj.What’s more,the following conclusions combined with the data statistically analyzed by SPSS19.0 software are drawn:Firstly,the vocabulary errors of the two grades are the most in number,the number of errors of the word form ranks second,and the errors of the syntax rank third.Then the order of the errors is arranged according to the number of errors from more to less: noun phrase,verb phrase,pronoun,preposition,conjunction,adverb,collocation and adjective.Secondly,the number of errors from low-grade students is more than the number of errors from high-grade students among the first-year students in the dimensions of word form,vocabulary,syntax,verb phrase,noun phrase,collocation,pronoun,preposition,adjective and adverb.In addition,the error quantity of low-grade students is significantly different from the error quantity of high-grade students in seven dimensions of word form,vocabulary,syntax,verb phrase,noun phrase,collocation and pronoun.Thirdly,the number of errors from low-grade students is more than the number of errors from high-grade students among the second-year students in the dimensions of word form,vocabulary,syntax,verb phrase,noun phrase,collocation,pronoun,preposition and adverb.However,the number of errors from high-grade students among the second-year students is more in adjective and conjunction.Moreover,the error quantity of low-grade students is significantly different from the error quantity of high-grade students among the second-year students in eight dimensions of word form,vocabulary,syntax,verb phrase,noun phrase,pronoun,preposition and conjunction.Then,the number of errors among the first-year students is less than the number of errors among the second-year students in the dimensions of word form,vocabulary,syntax,verb phrase,pronoun,preposition,adverb and conjunction.However,the number of errors among the first-year students is more in three dimensions of noun phrase,collocation and adjective.Finally,there is a very high negative correlation between the amount of errors in the English compositions of students and the scores of their compositions.That is to say,the more errors the students have,the lower the scores of the compositions are.The thesis investigates the overall and specific situations of students’ writing errors in different grades and their views on writing,and analyzes the causes of students’ writing errors,such as inter-lingual transfer and intra-lingual transfer and so on,and reveals the relationship between writing errors and writing achievements,which can help to improve the quality of junior high school English writing teaching and the writing level of junior middle school students.In addition,the thesis proposes the following suggestions for junior middle school students to improve their English writing ability,such as develop good writing habits.The thesis suggests teachers adopt different teaching methods according to different error categories and suggests students make sure the writing is neat,pay attention to the written norms and more English thinking training.It also encourages to do extensive reading,to strengthen writing training,and to use Internet site-www.pigai.org to correct compositions.Although this research has obtained certain research results,there are also many deficiencies,for example,the amount of research samples and target schools is not enough.Therefore,the error analysis of writing needs to be further explored.