An Analysis Of The Common Errors In EFL Writings Of High School Students And Its Implications

In the course of English learning,the errors committed by the learners are very common and inevitable.Writing as an important output skill,the errors in it are more visible and intuitive.Many researches have been done on the errors in EFL learners' writings.But many of them are focused on the errors in the writings of English major or non-English major students,vocational and technical college students,or correspondence students.The studies of the errors committed by high school students are not sufficient.Many researches are cross-sectional in design but not longitudinal. Based on the Contrastive Analysis,Error Analysis,Interlanguage theory,language transfer and language fossilization,this thesis tries to explore the common linguistic errors in the Chinese high school students'English writings.This thesis analyzes the 150 English compositions written by 50 high school students(now they are in Grade Three)in a key high school in Jinhua(Each student's 3 compositions were respectively chosen from the English test in the mid-term examination when they were in Grade One,Grade Two and Grade Three).Altogether 1368 errors are identified and classified.The possible causes of these errors are analyzed and discussed.Through the analysis,the author finds that interlingual errors (mother-tongue influence)and intralingual errors(target language causes)are the main causes.Communication strategy-based errors and induced errors are also the important causes.Meanwhile,from the point of high school students' English learning development,longitudinal comparison and contrast are made among the errors identified respectively in the compositions written in Grade One,Grade Two and Grade Three by the 50 students so as to find out the similarities and differences. Through the comparison,the author finds the linguistic fossilization problems in the students' compositions and lists out the significant fossilizations at each language level,which occur the most frequently in the compositions.And the possible causes of fossilization are generally stated.Through the contrast,the author also finds out that at the three learning stages,the amount of the errors committed by the students at each level changes.The possible factors are learned according to the interviews to the students.Based on the overall and longitudinal analysis of the errors committed by the students in their compositions,the author acquires some implications for error itself, teachers and students.In addition,according to the current situation of English language teaching in high school,relevant error correction methods and some English pedagogical suggestions are put forward.The author proposes that both teachers and students should attach importance to the significance of errors in English learning. And the author also provides some suggestions on language teaching(lexical, grammar and culture teaching)and writing teaching(error correction and writing teaching approach).Hopefully,the study will be of help to both the English learners and English teachers in high schools.