An Analysis Of Errors In Timed And Untimed Writing By Junior College Non-English Majors

English writing is the most difficult skill for EFL students to acquire during language learning,but it is the best reflection of learners' authentic English proficiency.In English teaching,teachers easily find various errors committed by students in their writing.Although there are many researches on EFL learners' writing errors,researches on junior college students' English writing errors are still insufficient.Meanwhile,most of the studies are conducted without considering the influences of writing task conditions,for example,the length of writing time.This thesis is based on Error Analysis Theory,trying to analyze errors made by junior college non-English majors in timed and untimed writing.The author classified these errors and investigated the numbers and distributions of errors in these two writing conditions.It is proved that the numbers and distributions of errors in these two writing conditions have differences.To find out the causes of these differences,students' psychological states and writing processes were also analyzed.In this study,84 freshmen of non-English majors from two parallel classes were chosen as research subjects.Class A with 43 students conducted timed writing and Class B with 41 students conducted untimed writing.Timed and untimed English writing samples and the questionnaires were separately collected from these two classes and the data were analyzed by SPSS 19.0 Software.Major findings are as follows:(1)Errors in timed and untimed writing can be divided into four types: substance errors,text errors,discourse errors and Chinglish expressions;(2)The total number of errors in timed writing is larger than that in untimed writing.In these two writing conditions,text errors account for the largest proportion and the distributions of substance errors and Chinglish expressions vary;(3)Students' different psychological states and writing processes trigger different numbers and distributions of errors.Firstly,students encounter more anxiety and have less self-confidence in timed writing,which result in more errors.Secondly,students prefer adopting Chinese thinking mode in untimed writing,so Chinglish expressions frequently occur.Thirdly,students prefer looking up a dictionary and revising their compositions after untimed writing,which leads in fewer substance errors.Based on these findings,some practical pedagogical implications for junior college English writing teaching and learning are provided.The specific suggestions are: As for teachers,they can design more untimed writing activities to arouse students' writing interests.As for students,they should enhance grammar and lexis knowledge during English writing learning.Hopefully,this thesis will be helpful for junior college English teachers and learners.