Analysis Of Errors In English Composition By Senior High School Students

Among the four basic skills of English study "Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing",writing is the best way to measure one’s English ability, and it’s also of great importance in English teaching. There are concrete requirements in The English National Curriculum for Senior High School (2003) and The NMET (The National Matriculation English).In recent years, more and more researchers started to do research on the errors of Senior High School students’English writing; however, it is still a weak point in the English teaching practice in senior high schools. Besides, the research about the differences among students of different grades and writing levels are very limited. In order to find out the main errors in senior high school students’English writing and to see if there is great difference in the writing written by those students with different writing levels,the thesis was carried out by applying the theories of Contrastive Analysis,Error Analysis and Interlanguage.The research materials were obtained from four different senior high schools in Yanji City, Jilin Province.650compositions of students from Senior1to Senior3were collected and240compositions were selected randomly as research samples firstly. Then all the errors were identified and categorized statistically into three kinds based on the previous research:the substance errors, the lexical errors, and the grammar errors.The findings are that substance errors take the highest proportion with lexical errors and grammar errors following behind, the result shows that the errors on lexical (especially in preposition)and grammar levels (especially in verb)have been found most prominent in terms of frequency and proportion. Meanwhile, the author also found that lexical and grammar errors are growing gradually with the growing of grades from Senior One to Senior Three; there is evident distinction for students with different writing levels, fewer errors and mistakes could be found in the writings by students with high level, and more in those with low writing level, and there is evident negative transfer in their writings.Learners’errors are mainly due to language interference, which is both interlingual and intralingual. But in some cases, some errors are made due to the student’s carelessness. All these errors reflected the nature of the students’interlanguage.In one word, the thesis made some basic research on writing errors of senior high school students, the author sincerely wish that it will be useful for the future teaching and studying, and she will pay much more attention to such problems in the future teaching.