The Error Analysis In English Writings Of Non-english Majors Within The Vocational College

In the process of English teaching and learning,the English teachers usually treat English writing as a difficult point in the process of language teaching.While for the vocational students whose English proficiency is comparatively weak,English writing is also a big puzzle during their learning.Based on the error analysis theory,this thesis is mainly analyzed and classified the errors and found out the causes in the English writings of non-English majors within the vocational college.It is hoped to help the English writing teaching in the vocational schools.Subjects in this experiment include 200 sophomores of non-English majors from Hunan College of Information.According to Corder(1967),there are five steps to carry out error analysis:collecting data,identifying errors,classifying and describing errors,explaining errors,evaluating and correcting errors.Based on the English writing tests respectively conducted for different majors,a total of 200 writings were collected.And two alternative topics which were selected from the CET-3,Level A were given for students to choose.Then the author corrected the compositions,1674 errors were recorded and classified.For further exploring the reasons why students made errors,the author interviewed 30 students.Conducted with the methods of collecting students' writing errors,this experiment mainly studied from the following three aspects:1)Which types of errors occur in the writings of non-English major students within the vocational college?2)How is the frequency of the error type distributed?3)What are the causes that lead to errors in non-English major students'writings?Based on data of this experiment,and analysis on Excel software,this experiment produced the following results:1)In the English writings of non-English majors within the vocational college.there were mainly four types of errors including the substance errors,lexical errors,grammar errors and discourse errors.2)The sequent frequencies of various types of errors were as follows:grammar errors accounted for 30.8%,lexical errors accounted for 27.1%,discourse errors accounted for 21.3%and substance errors accounted for 20.8%.3)And through the interviews with students,it could be concluded that the errors were mainly resulted from interlingual transfer and intralingual transfer.Besides,it was found that lack of vocabulary and English writing practice also were important causes for producing errors.Three suggestions are given by the author on English writing teaching.Firstly,by comparing the differences in English and Chinese,students' attention should be aroused on such differences and the negative transfer of Chinese should be reduced.Secondly,students should be encouraged to accumulate vocabulary through a large amount of extracurricular English reading and stimulate their interest in English learning.And students should strengthen the learning of basic knowledge such as learning English grammar.Thirdly,students should be encouraged to increase the English writing practice and develop good English writing habits.