Error Analysis and Teaching Composition

• Main Authors: Shiao-ling Huang, 黃小玲
• Other Authors: Yu-hsi Wu
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2001
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/44904303841136532075

碩士 === 國立清華大學 === 外國語文學系 === 89 === ABSTRACT This study aimed to investigate the nature and distribution of different kinds of grammatical errors made in English compositions written by students of Foreign Languages and Literature Department in National Tsing-Hua University, Taiwan. Its purposes were to find specific errors made more or less by a certain grade of students, to discover common errors made by students by calculating frequencies of error types, and to find out possible explanations for students’ grammatical errors, and provide teachers implications of how to reduce learners’ errors in English composition teaching. 15 freshmen, 15 sophomores, and 16 juniors participated in this study. Each of them wrote two compositions─the first one written in the first semester, and the second in the second semester. Numbers and frequencies of written errors were identified, calculated, and compared in terms of error types and the error types of each grade. A total 1700 written errors was found and categorized into 3 classes, and the subcategorized 13 error types. The hierarchy of difficulty of error types, in descending order, is listed as follows: (1) Verb, (2) Noun, (3) Spelling, (4) Article, (5) Preposition, (6) Word choice, (7) Pronoun, (8) Redundancy, (9) Adjective, (10) Conjunction, (11) Adverb, (12) Word order, and (13) Unclear. The average of errors made per 100 words is 4.62%. Freshmen committed errors most, and juniors were second higher than sophomores. By comparing the first semester to the second semester of each grade, it showed that all three levels made progress in the view of their error percentages. Besides, there were six major causes of errors made by students. The causes identified in this study, in descending order, were (1) overgeneralization, (2) ignorance of rule restrictions, (3) simplification, (4) incomplete application of rules, (5) L1 transfer, and (6) carelessness. The author found that interference from Chinese is not the major factor in the way students construct sentences and use the language. Rather, overgeneralization, ignorance of rule restrictions, and simplification comprised the largest part of error causes. This study suggests that composition teachers make use of the hierarchy of difficulty of error types to help them decide what should be taught and learned with more emphasis. Besides, the causes of errors can be identified as the aids to help teachers design the remedial work.