An Error Analysis On English Writings Of Tibetan Students

Since the beginning of the open-up and reform policy30years ago, the English teaching in China has achieved remarkable success with the students’overall English level tremendously advanced. However, because of the inadequate policy support, economic development and teaching resources, the English teaching level and students’ English proficiency in Tibet fall behind that of the inner cities and areas. Therefore, it is our top priority to improve the quality of English teaching in Tibet. From March to July in2010, the author, as a volunteer English teacher at the Lhasa Normal School, had a precious opportunity to get to know the practice of English teaching in Tibet. As a summary for the practical English teaching, error analysis for Tibetan students’English writings is carried out in this thesis, in which English compositions by144junior English majors (106females and38males) from four classes of Grade2008are selected as the research data. Furthermore, through the questionnaires and interviews with Tibetan students, the author gained an in-depth understanding of Tibetan students’English learning process as well as the roots and causes of the errors.The error analysis is carried out at micro level as well as macro level to explore the causes. At micro level, which involves the research on morphology and syntax, the errors are classified and quantitative research is carried out to clarify the distribution of those errors. At the same time, the author tries to explain the causes of various errors in the students’English writings. At macro level, the errors are categorized into two major types: the interlingual and the intralingual errors. In the present research, the analysis of intralingual errors focuses on the interference from students’native language (Tibetan language) and their second language (Chinese). The author summarizes the phenomenon of language transfer from both languages during their English learning. The analysis of interlingual errors involves three types of errors, namely, overgeneralization, the ignorance of concept restrictions and false concept hypothesized.The research result indicates that the percentage of interlingual and intralingual errors in Tibetan students’English writings is close to each other,50.6%and49.4%respectively. As Tibetan students have always learned English through the medium of Chinese, the interference from their second language Chinese has caused more errors than that of their native language,55.3%and8.6%respectively. Besides, both Chinese and Tibetan languages have great impact on Tibetan students’English learning because there exists much similarity between those two languages. In the process of Tibetan students’English learning, the percentage of errors caused by the co-interference of Chinese and Tibetan languages is36.1%. Among three types of intralingual errors which are existent in Tibetan students’English writings, the errors caused by the ignorance of concept restrictions and false concept hypothesized take the largest percentage,42.5%and52.2%respectively. While the errors caused by overgeneralization has a rather low percentage of5.3%.Through the error analysis, a research on the errors in Tibetan students’English writings is carried out. The regularity for these errors is explored and causes are investigated. Phenomena of language transfer are paid close attention by the author. Hopefully, the present research will offer valuable references to English teachers in Tibet, scholars of English education as well as compilers of English text books, thus contributing to the improvement of English teaching and learning in Tibet.