Analysis Of Students' Oral English Errors And Teachers' Error-correcting Strategies In Junior Middle Schools

Error analysis and error treatment have been study subjects in the fields of second language acquisition and cognitive linguistics since the late 1990s. It is true that errors are unavoidable and natural in English learning, however error analysis provides us with an important method and breakthrough in the study of Second Language Acquisition (SLA). By shifting linguistic study from an emphasis on the external environment of language learning to the learners themselves, language researchers amass dynamic and systematic means of studying learners' errors. The most significant contribution of EA lies in its success in elevating the status of learners' errors. Errors are no longer seen as undesired form.On the basis of the theory of Contrastive Analysis, Error Analysis and the theory of Interlanguage, this thesis is dedicated to the discovery of some common characteristics of students' oral English errors in Junior Middle Schools. The focus is on the description and discussion of the students' errors and teachers' error-correcting strategies.The thesis explores how to classify the oral errors and explain why they exist during the courses of Junior Middle School English learning. The author collected some errors during the teaching classes based on the textbooks for junior students named Go For It published by People's Education Press .The errors made by the students are classified into four types: the phonetic errors, lexical errors, grammar errors and pragmatic errors which are caused by over-generalization, ignorance of rule restrictions, incomplete application of rules, false concepts hypothesized, teaching-induced errors, and transfer errors caused by the mother tongue. As to error correction, the paper deals with several intriguing aspects.In this paper, associated with teachers' experiences as well as the research of 209 students and 34 teachers, the author studies students' errors and teacher's error-correcting strategies in junior middle schools for the purpose of informing the English teachers and learners.The result of our study indicates that teacher's error-correcting strategies influence students' self-confidence. Thus teachers should keep a balance between accuracy and free fluency when using error-correcting strategies to correct students' oral errors. The teachers' error-correcting strategies may be effective in building students' self-confidence and assisting students in learning more from their errors instead of preventing errors. It also indicates indirect error-correcting strategies are in general more desired by the students than direct error-correcting strategies. In short, simultaneous Praising and Correcting strategy as well as Suggesting strategy demonstrates high correlations with positive learner feedback and profound students' self-confidence. Peer correcting strategy is neutral to learners' outcome. Whereas Tolerating strategy or Criticizing and Correcting strategy are not welcomed by most learners and have negative influences on confidence building. This thesis makes a suggestion that the use of error-correcting strategies should seriously consider students' affected elements. This paper consists of six chapters:Chapter One expounds the literature review of the thesis.Chapter Two elaborates students' errors and the causes of errors. Students' oral errors are complicated, so they are classified into different types by different researchers. The author studies four kinds of typical errors made by junior students and analyzes the causes of errors.Chapter Three is about teacher's error-correcting strategies.Chapter Four deals with the research. The first part of the research is conducted concerning the types of error-correcting strategies of middle-school English teachers; the second part of the research aims at surveying the influences of error-correcting strategies on junior students' self-confidence. Chapter Five copes with the research results.Chapter Six is about the implication for teaching and the limitation of the study.The conclusion of this thesis reveals the significance of studying students' oral errors and provides some suggestions for teachers on how to do error-correcting strategies effectively.