Error Analysis In The Students' Spoken English Training In Senior High School

The paper is a longitudinal study of the students' errors in their spoken English training in senior Grade One, Two and Three. Short though it is, the thesis may show us what difficulties the students have when they output the language in spoken form at three stages, and what learning strategies they are employing when they have trouble acquiring the target language. What the study attempts to do is to discover some common characteristics in the students' making errors in the spoken English and tried to enrich our understanding of EA. Moreover, it is hoped that the students' speaking skill can be improved by effective error correction. As to error correction, the paper deals with several aspects like whether to correct errors and how to do correction in an effective way.It has long been recognized that the learners' native language has an effect on the target language. Language transfer appeared because of the perception of the native language and the perceived distance between L1 and L2.Based on the model provided by Corder, the subjects' errors are identified, described, explained, evaluated and finally some effective ways of correcting are suggested in the study. The errors committed by the students are categorized into three types which include errors caused by the students' ignorance of English parts of speech; errors due to L1 transfer and errors attributable to L2 transfer within English. These findings suggest that the students are mostly driven by native language semantic-schema at the outset of spoken English. And later on when the students learn more and more rules of English, they are likely to over-generalize the rules previously acquired in a new situation, which certainly results in errors.From long time English teaching, the research and experiments during these years, the findings of this study are:(1) The learners' committing errors and the perceptions of knowing how to correct errors are influenced by their L2 proficiency.(2) The error analysis in spoken English training is highly conelated with the students' ability to correct in proofreading and writing.(3) The error analysis in spoken English training can develop the students' imagination and creativity in making stories within some range.The study was carried out in senior Grade One, Two and Three, No.1Middle School of Longxi county from September 2005 to September, 2007. The subjects are from Class 3 and Class 5. The concrete steps of the study are as follows: Each time before the English class, there must be someone doing five-minute free talk. How to be "free"? The participants can choose any topics they like to talk about almost immediately after they have the topics from the researcher. They can also prepare with their classmates ahead of time. The contents and styles are not limited, so they can do free talk under no stress. What's more, they always feel relaxed because they needn't worry about the blame for committing errors. The researcher would help to correct errors with great patienceThe research was divided into three periods: during the first period, the participants could write their speech papers, they could also translate others' works, but copy was refused. In the second period: the participants made as many papers as they could. While in the third period: the participants were asked to create their own stories out of imagination. So in almost every English class, there must be errors to be corrected.It is true that errors are unavoidable and natural in learning English. However, it does not imply that we may let it be. So long as teachers are prudent to follow some effective methods or techniques for error correction without embarrassing the students, correction will work.