MEIDIANA INSANIA AMANAH2201410062
ROMBEL 403-404
CHAPTER 2 : THE NATURE OF LEARNER
LANGUAGE
ERRORS AND ERROR ANALYSIS
IDENTIFYING ERRORS
Compare the sentences learners produce with what seem to be the normal or ‘correct’ sentences in the target language which correspond with them.
The difference between errors and mistakes :1. Errors reflect gaps in a learner’s knowledge
They occur because the learner does not know what is correct.
2. Mistakes reflect occasional lapses in performance They occur because, in a particular instance, the learner is unable to perform what he or she knows.
How can we distinguish errors and mistakes?
1. Check the consistency of learners’ performance.
2. Ask learners to try to correct their own deviant utterances. Where they are unable to the deviations = ERRORS Where they are succesful = MISTAKES
DESCRIBING ERRORS
There are several ways of describing errors :a. Classify errors into grammatical
categories.b. Try to identify general ways in which the
learners’ utterances differ from the reconstructed target-language utterances.
EXPLAINING ERRORS
1) Errors are, to a large extent, systemic and, to a certain extent, predictable.
2) Errors are not only systemic; many of them are also universal.
3) Some errors are common only to learners who share the same mother tongue or whose mother tongues manifest the same linguistic property
Omission errorse.g : they leave out the articles ‘a’ and
‘the’ and leave the –s off plural nouns. Overgeneralization errors
e.g : the use of ‘eated’ in place of ‘ate’. Transfer errors
learners’ attempts to make use of their L1 knowledge.
ERROR EVALUATION1. Global errors
Violate the overall structure of a sentence and for this reason may make it difficult to process.
2. Local errorsAffect only a single constituent in the sentence (for example, the verb) and are, perhaps, less likely to create any processing problems.
DEVELOPMENTAL PATTERNS
THE EARLY STAGES OF L2 ACQUISITION
Characteristics :1. The kind of formulaic chunks which we saw
in the case studies.e.g : Fixed expression like ‘How do you do?’, ‘I don’t know’, ‘My name is ___ ‘ figure very prominently in early L2 learning.
2. Propotional simplificatione.g : J wanted the teacher to give him a blue crayon but said only : ‘Me no blue’
THE ORDER OF ACQUISITION Even the simplest structure is subject
to a process of gradual development, manifesting clear stages.
To investigate this we need to consider the sequence of acquisition.
SEQUENCE OF ACQUISITION Transitional constructions : The
acquisition of a particular grammatical structure.e.g : how L2 learners acquire irregular past tense forms.
U-shaped course of development : learners may display a high level of accuracy only to apparently regress later before finally once again performing in accordance with target-language norms.
SOME IMPLICATIONS
L2 acquisition is systematic and, to a large extent, universal, reflecting ways in which internal cognitive mechanisms control acquisition, irrespective of the personal background of learnersor the
setting in which they learn.
VARIABILITY IN LEARNER LANGUAGE
LINGUISTICS CONTEXT
Learners sometimes use full ‘be’ (e.g : ‘is’), sometimes contracted ‘be’ (e.g : ‘s’), and sometimes omit ‘be’ entirely.
SITUATIONAL CONTEXT
Learners are no different from native speaker. When native speakers of English are talking to friends, for example, they tend to speak informally, using colloquial expressions :
“My kid’s real pain these days.”
PSYCHOLINGUISTIC CONTEXT
Learners have the opportunity to plan their production.
Learners do build variable systems by trying to map particular forms on to particular functions.
FORM-FUNCTION MAPPINGS
Learners make do not always conform to those found in the target language.
Learners try to make their available linguistic resources work to maximum effect by mapping one meaning on to one form.
FREE VARIATION
J produced these two negative utterances in close proximity to each other, in the same context, while addressing the same person and with similiar amounts of planning time.
FOSSILIZATION Many learners stop developing while
still short of target-language competence.
Learners may succeed in reaching target-language norms in some types of languageuse (e.g : planned discourse) but not in others (e.g : unplanned discourse).
THANK YOU