Erroranalysis An Itsapplication In Oral English Teaching In Senior Middle Schools

The study of language is a gradual process and the speaking ability of language is cultivated after great amount of oral practice. In this process, making mistakes is an inevitable step. The analysis of errors can help us to have a better understanding of students'learning process and to find the causes for the errors so that in future study learners can have enough knowledge to avoid or reduce these errors. In this way, the purpose of intercultural communication can be realized. Error analysis plays an important role in English teaching. However, in present English class in China, error analysis is not given enough attention.At the same time, error correcting strategies based on the error analysis is also of great importance. It has direct influence on whether students can have the right understanding of errors and whether students can master the related knowledge. But the right application of these strategies is often ignored by English teachers in China and this is an important reason that so many students feel difficult to speak English and even the students dare to speak up, their utterance is full of mistakes.Aiming at finding out the practical effect error analysis and error correcting strategies play in English teaching, the author adopts three instruments, class observation, questionnaire and interview to do a lot of research. The three instruments are frequently used by former researchers. Class observation offers the author a chance to collect data of the real performance of students in class. Classroom is a site in which students have many chances to practice their oral English and is also a place with the frequent appearance of oral errors, so the data collected from this situation is rather persuasive. As for questionnaire, the author hands out sixty questionnaires to the students to know their opinions to some questions that the author can not know from their performance in class. There are altogether ten questions which are about the errors teachers often correct in class, and the error correcting strategies teachers often adopt in class. Through students'answers to these questions, students'attitudes towards teachers'way of correcting errors can be made clear easily. The last instrument in the thesis is interview. From the class observation, data about teachers'attitudes towards errors and students'performance in class can be collected. From the questionnaire handed out to students, the author can get data about students'attitudes towards teachers'error correcting strategies. But as nine questions on the questionnaire are multiple choice questions, students do not have the chance to express themselves in details. So in the interview, the author chooses eighteen students to talk about their detailed opinions about some questions. They should not only give simple answers but also the reason why they get these answers, so that their real thought can be known by the readers. What's more, in the process of the interview, the author also takes notes in order to help readers get a clear understanding of what the students'thought is.With the data collected by the three instruments, the author tries to find the answers to the following three questions, 1) What kind of errors is frequently corrected by teachers in class? 2) What kind of error correcting strategies is most frequently used by teachers? 3) What kind of error correcting strategies teachers adopt can gain preference from students?The three questions have different focuses. The first step of error analysis is the collection of errors, so the first question helps to finish this process. After the errors being collected, how to deal with the errors would come as the second question. And error correcting strategies are the main ways for teachers to use to correct errors. So from the second question, we know what strategies teachers often use. Whether students accept teachers'error correcting strategies is another question we should make clear. Students are the main part of study, so if the strategies teacher use can not be proper to students, these strategies would not be helpful for students'language study. From finding the answers for the third question, students'feedback towards teachers'error correcting strategies can be got. In a word, through answering these three questions, the acceptability and effect of various error correcting strategies are discovered so as to help to improve oral English study for high school students.