Error Analysis Of English Composition In Junior Middle School

Writing takes an important position in Middle School students’ exams. It is not only aprocess of creation, but a criteria of a learner’s language competence in communication. Thebasic idea of the new curriculum reform requires students to describe the nature and theactions of a subject, to illustrate concepts, to write simple letters or notes and to expound hisor her own idea by using some keywords on the pictures. So writing must meet the languagerules which include a high quality of structure, vocabulary, and grammar where learnersalways go the wrong way. That is why errors must be corrected and that is why we need erroranalysis theory.Error analysis refers to the study and analysis of the errors made by second or foreignlanguage learners. It’s a comparison between learners’ interlanguage and the target language.Error analysis theory is the further study of interlanguage theory. It is based on Mentalistviewpoint and takes cognitive psychology as its psychological foundation. It was not until the1970s that error analysis became a recognized part of applied linguistics. Remarkableachievements have been made. Since error analysis theory was introduced into the field offoreign language teaching, remarkable achievements have been reached. Error analysis theoryoffers feedbacks to foreign language teaching, so that teachers will make improvements totheir teaching methods based on each student’s individual situation.The importance of writing, significance and purpose of this study, students’ writingsituation, definition and classification of errors, interlanguage theory and error analysis theorywere discussed in the theoretical part. The author did an experiment in Lushan No.21JuniorMiddle School when she once taught there. The data was collected and analysed based on thesubjects’ compositions in two classes of Grade Nine. Firstly, the author conducted a questionnaire survey for knowing their attitude towards writings. Then, an experiment wasalone with pre-and post-test. The data of the two tests were subjected to SPSS. The resultsshow that the teaching method combined with error analysis theory did work out. Finally, theauthor concluded the causes of making errors based on the frequency of errors. They wereintralingual transfer and interlingual transfer. Besides, errors also came from theircarelessness and teacher’s inducement.According to the above research, the author also gave some strategies and class samplefor cultivating students’ motivation. Basic knowledge input is also very important forimproving their writing ability.