An Error Analysis On The Art-majors’ English Writing And Its Pedagogical Implication

Writing, in English learning, is a continuously keen issue which draws the attention of a great number of teachers and researchers. A variety of factors cause frequent production of errors in learners’writing. It is quite common and unavoidable for learners to make errors in learning a second language. Studies on errors facilitate a better understanding of learners’development phase of language acquisition. Assisted with the detected errors, the teacher can ameliorate the teaching approach. For this reason, making error analysis is essential to assist students in developing their writing capability.For different reasons, compared with the other majors, the art-majors have less interests in learning English and lower fundamental abilities in the use of English, but they have more opportunities in the English improvement. Therefore, it is quite essential to make error analysis on the art-majors’English writing. Since the1980s, the Error Analysis began to be prevalent, numerous scholars have made error analysis on various learning output of different English learners from nearly all majors. However, scarce studies with this theory have been made on the interlanguage spoken or written by the Chinese art-majors. On ground of surveys, the learning statement and experiences of these students can obviously reflect the flaw existing in the English educational process. This dissertation will make an error analysis on the writing samples after three steps of intensive writing training, accompany with two sets of questionnaires and interviews, then try to verify the manifold reasons of these errors, to make some suggestion on the improvement of the art-majors’English learning statement.In the section of Literature Review, the necessary and significant theories of Error Analysis are illustrated. The definition of error is introduced at first; then, the distinction between the defined error and mistake is provided; next, the vital evolution of the Error Analysis is supplied; finally, the significance of this theory is afforded. This study was carried out among80sophomores of art students in Northeast Agricultural University. Attached with relative questionnaires and supporting interviews, two sequential writing exams and an intensive writing training class were conducted. After each writing exam,80compositions were collected,160samples and questionnaires in all. And then, three basic linguistic units are taken as the levels of analysis, namely "vocabulary, sentence and text", to detect these art-majors’primary abilities in writing without any training, and the aspects that students are inclined to make errors; to verify the accuracy with which the teacher has judged the errors; to ascertain, after the writing training class, the sectors in which how much the students have made improvement and the proficiency of making error analysis. The foremost is, after the series of experiment and various detections as well as error analysis, whether the teacher has adopted teaching approaches in high, low or valid efficiency and their ways of betterment.Ultimately, with the final results of analysis, questionnaires and interviews, from the specific perspective of teaching high-frequent vocabulary, grammar and writing, make some suggestion on the improvement of the art-majors’ English writing ability and the relevant English teaching, even of the other majors’.