Error Analysis Of Noun Use In Single And Plural Forms From Junior High Students’ English Writing

As one of the four basic skills in English learning, writing has always been receiving great attention. However, it is generally agreed that English learners always inevitably commit errors and mistakes in their English writing which has always been a headache to teachers and students. In the1970s, with the rise of error analysis theory, people have shed new light on errors and mistakes by carrying out a series of correlation researches and making more and more achievements. Research finds that those pragmatics errors committed by leaners in their English writings mirror the study courses of leaners, and teachers all pace their teaching accordingly to improve their teaching efficiency.However, in the past, large number of researches on leaner’s errors in English writing was based on college students, while few studies were based on senior and middle school students. What’s more, researches on number errors occur in English writing are rarely few.Therefore, the present thesis tries to study the number errors that occur in middle school students’English writing, which is based on usual discoveries and related theories such as the theories of CA, EA, and Interlanguage.The present thesis proposes three research questions:(1) what kind of number errors is committed by students in their English writing?(2) Are the misuses committed by them errors or mistakes?(3) What are the major causes of those errors or mistakes committed by students?The present research is carried in No.8Middle School of Guilin because it is available. The students with average English proficiency level from a class in Grade8are randomly chosen as the subjects. They are60students and hereby40of them (20boys and20girls) are chosen randomly. Attempting to solve above three questions, the present author collects and analyzes160samples of English compositions written by the40students, which are chosen randomly. And then a grammar test as a complement to distinguish errors from mistakes is conducted. Finally, randomly-designed interviews with both teacher and students are taken for getting qualitative information. All these are conducted to explore the major causes of number errors committed by the students. The results of the research show that (1) the serious misuses committed by the students are of Type D, namely, the countable nouns are used with no-s most frequently;(2) according to the grammar test, errors of Type D committed by the students are rare, which indicates that the misuses of Type D might well be mistakes, not errors;(3) according to the interview, the major cause of those misuses is mother tongue interference.Then, the present author provides three pedagogical suggestions to junior high school English teachers accordingly for the purpose of helping their English teaching, which are (1) the misuses committed by students in class should be corrected timely wit strategy.(2) Comprehensible input and output of target language should be emphasized in teaching for the purpose of avoiding negative transfer of mother tongue, so that it can help junior high school students have a better understanding of the use of number of nouns.(3) Error Analysis can be conducted in junior high schools’ English teaching and learning, which can consciously help junior high school students clearly distinguish the relationship between form and meaning of English noun.(4) It is necessary to guide students how to think in target language.(5) Teachers should encourage students to promote their writing in English through more practice.(6) Both English and Chinese Cultures should be taken as the important elements in junior high school English teaching and learning.