A Study Of English Errors In Senior High School Students Writing

Writing is one of the four skills in language learning and it plays an importantrole in many kinds of tests or examinations both in China and abroad, such as seniorhigh school entrance examination, college entrance examination, IELTS, TOEFL andso on. Thus, writing should not be overlooked by teachers or students. However, inthe process of writing, Senior High School students are always inevitably makingmany kinds of errors. In order to change the current situation and find out the typesof students’ errors and causes of errors, the thesis is based on Error Analysis andInterlanguage Theory, and the author used63compositions of mid-examinations,students’ questionnaire and one teacher’s interview from Chengdu No.12SeniorHigh School as research instrument, which classify the errors and analyze the causesof errors.The analysis indicates that based on James’ classification of errors, the authorclassified errors into substance errors, lexical errors, grammar errors and discourseerrors. After analyzing the errors, the author found out inter-lingual and intra-lingualerror are the two main sources of errors.Following the analysis and discussion above, the thesis put forwardaccordingly some countermeasures to improve Senior High School students’ writing,such as enhancing students’ basic knowledge about the target language, strengthening students’ language input, developing students’ good writing habits,modifying feedback approach and making contrast analysis to minimize the negativetransfer.The author hopes the study will benefit the students’ English writing andteachers’ teaching in senior high school.