A Study On The Application Of Error Analysis Theory In College English Vocabulary Teaching

Vocabulary is an indispensable part of language and it is of vital importance for second language learners. British linguist Wilkins(1972) points out,"Without grammar very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed". As one of the three major elements in language, vocabulary is widely acknowledged as a key component of foreign language proficiency, making it a logical target of studies into how language is acquired. The importance of vocabulary in English teaching and learning has already aroused attention of the experts at home and abroad. However, under the guidance of the college vocabulary learning strategies, the problems of students’ vocabulary input and output still exist, and many of which lead to the communicative obstacles. We can’t deny the fact that error analysis in vocabulary teaching helps both teachers and students find reasons for lexical errors and find ways to correct errors, making it possible to improve students’ability of using language to communicate, which is likely to get rid of students’communicative obstacles.Therefore, the present study is based on the error analysis theory and takes the non-English majors of independent institute as the subjects. As an important part of applied linguistics and second language acquisition, error analysis theory has a well-structured system and enriched content. In recent years, error analysis theory has been widely used in many aspects of English teaching, such as writing, reading and son on. At home and abroad, related researches and essays have come out in an inexhaustible variety, however, in most of the researches, English majors or non-English majors of common university are taken as the subject instead of the students of independent institute, who have always been neglected. Thus, the present study will connect the error analysis theory with the author’s six-year teaching experience in independent institute to discuss about the common lexical errors shared by this special group. The causes of errors will be explored, and corresponding solution will be proposed finally.This paper consists of seven chapters. In Chapter One, the significance and purpose of this research were introduced. Chapter Two reviewed the present research situation both home and abroad in the field of error analysis and vocabulary teaching. In Chapter Three and Chapter Four, the frameworks of Error Analysis Theory and college English vocabulary teaching have been reviewed respectively in these two chapters so as to pave the way to the empirical research. In Chapter Three, error, as the core of Error Analysis Theory, has been defined to distinguish from mistakes, then the classification of lexical errors and procedures of error analysis were illustrated, which is correspondent to the empirical research. The significance and features of college vocabulary teaching have been discussed in Chapter Four. With reference to the College English Curriculum Requirements, the vocabulary involved in this research is confined to it. Chapter Five demonstrated the application of error analysis theory in college English vocabulary teaching by empirical research on the lexical errors. Following the procedures of error analysis, the study was conducted in the sequence of identifying errors, describing errors and diagnosing errors. The test paper, questionnaire and interview have been employed to explore the causes of lexical errors made by the college English learners in order to find out solutions to reduce the lexical errors. By analyzing the collected data, it was discovered that negative transfer of mother tongue was the major cause of the students’ lexical errors. Apart from this major cause, negative intralingual transfer and inducement of teacher-talk, learners’ improper vocabulary learning strategy are the other three reasons. Thus, on the basis of the findings, the implications resulting from the exploration were discussed in Chapter six. The suggestions were proposed from the perspectives of teachers. It is advisable for the teachers to help students reduce the negative transfer of mother tongue and give guidance to develop the vocabulary learning strategies. In the last chapter, the overview of the research and the conclusion has been presented. In addition, the demerits of the research and potential future study have been pointed out at the end of the thesis.Though the researcher has tried to make this research as scientific as possible,there are some limitations. The size of the sample used in data analysis may be relatively small to draw a general conclusion; error identification and analysis may not be perfect; the proposals provided in this study may need further research and verification. However, the errors collected through the test paper are, to some extent, able to illustrate common problems in second language vocabulary acquisition. The researcher hopes that the implications drawn from this study can benefit vocabulary teaching.