An Analysis Of Senior Two Students’ English Writing Errors

Language learning is a process of recreation. In the process, learners make different kinds of errors, especially in writing. Based on the theory of error analysis, the author analyzes errors and causes of these errors in senior two students’ compositions, in order to improve the level of students’ writing and English teaching in senior high school.For these purposes, in the last two months of her internship, the author of the thesis investigated the errors made by66students of high school in their66compositions in Tianjin. These errors are divided into three levels, namely substance errors, text errors and discourse errors. An analysis of the errors in the students’ compositions shows that errors occur at different levels. For instance, at the level of substance errors, the students will make spelling and punctuation errors; at the level of text errors, the students will use wrong words and collocations; at the level of discourse errors, the students will make incoherent sentences. After analyzing errors in the students’compositions, the author also analyzes the sources of errors, including interlingual transfer, intralingual transfer and other sources. To learn further about why the students make these errors, the author designed and conducted a questionnaire among the students as an important part of the research to learn about the students’attitudes towards error correcting and writing.The study suggests that students develop attitude towards writing. Only when students write carefully, can they reduce such simple errors as wrong spellings. Besides, they need to work harder on grammar, such as subject-verb agreement. As for the teacher, he/she should realize the deficiencies in their writing. In the process of teaching, teachers should stress the students’ learning inadequacy. Thus, students will naturally pay attention to them.