A Tentative Study Of Error Analysis In English Compositions By Junior Middle School Students

Along with the rising requirements of English level on junior students, the issue of how to teach English effectively and efficiently has caught more people’s attention. Accordingly, teachers should learn to make good use of various teaching resources and reflect constantly to improve their teaching.Based on the theories of Contrastive Analysis (CA) and Error Analysis(EA),in terms of definition and significance of errors, an error analysis of five compositions by students were carried out. In the empirical study part, a careful survey is made to describe, classify and analyze the sources of the errors committed by Grade Nine students from the author’s school. The study indicates that the incorrect use of tense, disagreement and Chinglish are the three leading errors found from the students’ compositions. The analysis also shows that interlingual error is the major cause.Pedagogical implications for teachers, learners, researchers and the school, as well as the error correction strategies, are also suggested in the thesis. According to the analysis, the best error correction strategies are to increase the input of the target language and make full use of context to make students exposed to positive language materials as much as possible.