Error And Error Analysis In Language Study

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23 Telangkai Bahasa dan Sastra, Januari 2015, 23-27

ERROR AND ERROR ANALYSIS IN LANGUAGE STUDY

Teuku Azhari Zakaria, S.Pd. I., M.Ed. Universitas Malikussaleh

azhari.teuku@gmail.com

Abstract

Students make mistakes during their language learning course; orally, written, listening or reading comprehension. Making mistakes is inevitable and considered natural in ones’ inter-lingual process. Believed to be part of the learning process, making error and mistake are not bad thing; as everybody would experience the same. Both students and teacher will benefit from the event as both will learn what has been done well and what needs to be reviewed and rehearsed. Understanding error and the ability to analyze it will definitely help and booster one’s learning process, in all subjects. Learners as well as educator will understand the learning process happening on one’s mind. Treating error is actually more important that the error itself. How teacher, especially, treat students’ error will influence the learning. Treating it well will help boost the learning. Treating it poorly, otherwise, will ruin the learning. Understanding type of errors that students make and how teachers can do about it is very essential. Teachers will be able to help students perform better and guarantee to improve teacher students relationship.

BACKGROUND OF STUDY

Treating errors in English language learning is crutial to the learning itself. Both teachers and students can learn from errors students make. Teachers, on one side, will use the information to identify area of improvement and chance to help their students more. Students, on the other side, will get help and therefore will perform better in the future.

Among the four English skills, writing is believed to be the most difficult one, and therefore home for more errors. Nunan (1989: 35) points out, “It has been argued that that learning to write fluently and expressively is the most difficult of the macro skills for all language users regardless of whether the language in question is first, second, or foreign language.” Heaton (1989: 138) added. He explained that the writing skills are complex and sometimes difficult to teach, requires mastery not only of grammatical and rhetorical devices but also of conceptual and judgment elements. Because writing is more complex, it takes more to do well on it. Also, learners often make mistakes and errors in writing, sentence formation, and paragraph making.

Taking all these causes into account, we are confirmed that making Errors are natural and unavoidable part of leaning a language, including English, both orally and in writing. However, as part of learning process, errors need specific treatment. Making errors is part of language learning and therefore should be treated as learning, in stead of punishing those who err or make mistakes. Brown (1987: 170) Said that ”Second language learning is a process that is clearly not unlike first language learning in its trial

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and errors nature”. Language learners, therefore, will definitely make mistakes, and it is

normal. Treating the errors in a positive manner, thus, will help the development of language learning.

Even often unwanted, errors are useful to identify what students have learnt and what they have not. Dubin F. and Olshtain E. (1986: 74) reported: … today, errors are viewed as an integral part of the language-learning process from which we can gain very significant insight.” It tells that errors are important to study in order to understand the process of learning. A study of learners‟ errors describes what problems the learners are having now and help the teacher to plan remedial work. In addition, the teacher should not see negatively as a sign of failure but see them positively as an indication of what the teacher still needs to teach. So, if teachers prevent students from making any mistakes or errors, teachers will never finds out what students do not know. Therefore, there is a need to study more about positive elements of error and error analysis.

Error analysis is regarded as an important key to obtaining a better understanding of the process of SLA. “People cannot learn language without first systematically

committing errors” (Dulay, Burt, Krashen, 1982: 138). Learning is a dual interaction and

a two way processes. It requires both students‟ and teacher‟s contribution. Students‟ only contribution will never lead to a desired academic goal. Teachers‟ attitude, comments, remarks, approach, and personal relationship with students play big role in ones‟ academic success. Unfortunately, still some teachers gave poor remarks on students‟ errors, including in our region, Aceh. Even up to now, teachers still gave poor remarks on students‟ errors. Errors are identified as sign of inability and poor performances.

Sadly, even well-trained and veteran teachers are not immune to this disease. Teachers can easily give poor remarks like “You should read before you ask question”, “stupid”, “they do not study” to students. Few teachers, even, have a propensity to be defensive towards themselves and offensive to students. They see negatively on students‟ errors and shunt away from their own. These result in poor teacher-students relation and poor classroom interaction.

DISCUSSION

Learning second and foreign language requires a lot of trial error efforts. Students err and make mistakes in their language learning process. They miss words and sentences they heard, makes oral and written errors and else. All language learners, unfortunately, experience the same issues when learning a target language. They cannot help but commit the same „sins‟ their predecessors have done.

All language learners, with no exception, face inter-lingual phase. It is the phase when language learner is not a master or native-like of a target language yet. They are still in the process of learning and forming their language capacities. During this phase; and the phase before this, students make mistakes when using target language. They might misuse the vocabulary, sentence order, sentence formation, sense of the language, understanding and grasping ideas, conveying meaning, and else. No one is immune from this „disease‟. Students; with different degree and intensity, will repeatedly formulate undesirable target sentences.

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procedures used in language study. Third is strategy of second language learning, or

errors due to learners‟ own approach to the material to be learned. Fourth is strategy of

second language communication, or errors occur when attempting to communicate and pass the message. Last is overgeneralization of target language rules. This may happen due to over generalizing target language rules.

Strategies of second language communication on one hand are useful. They help someone to break communication barriers. A person using these strategies is likely to be more understandable than those who do. Before we go further, let‟s see what does this term refers to. As I have mentioned earlier, it talks about strategies used when trying to pass supposedly hard, non-recognized target language words to others. Dealing with issue, one would use several strategies to get his/ her message across; they, among others, are: approximation, or using words closest to the desired meaning. Word coinage or learner makes up word to describe desired concept or meaning. Literal translation or

literally translate the situation from one‟s L1 to L2. Mime or using nonverbal gesture to

explain the meaning. And topic avoidance is when one is avoiding the topic which the vocabularies he/she is not familiar with (Alice C. Omaggio).

Luckily; incongruous to some people might see it, these „sinful‟ behaviors are not detrimental in nature. They are, in fact, precipitated by the learning process inside one‟s brain. In accordance to these, Vigil and Oller (1976) said, “Learners will most likely continue to improve their grammar if they are getting negative reaction and or corrective feedback from speakers of target language. However, when the feedback becomes predominantly positive, their level of proficiency will tend to fossilize.” It is so clear that, based of Vigil and Coller‟s argument, students errors do not necessarily means negative towards their language learning mastery.

One thing should be considered, however, is dealing with students errors. Teachers should understand how to correct errors. Teachers will be requested to be considerate in dealing with this sophisticated and fragile issue. Generally speaking, students are susceptible to mental breakdown. Negative remarks on their performance may put them down. They are easily provoked and mentally discouraged by discouraging statements. To help teachers deal with such dilemma, Alice C. Omaggio argued, “…errors should not be left uncorrected on the assumption that in time they will self-correct “naturally.” Neither should they be corrected in ways that put the learners on the defensive.” Aligned with this, teachers are suggested to wait five to ten second before correcting or helping students in the class. Students should be given some space to think, react, and produce. In fact, Holley and King (1974) found significant improvement in students‟ performance once given more times. It might also save their face, sends a message of trust, courage, and reliability, and provides them with room of expression.

Correcting errors may put teachers on tight spot. Considering the delicateness of the issue, teachers might, on one side, think that he may ruin students‟ confidence as they are corrected. On the other hand, if it is not corrected/ treated, students will never learn to perform better. Though, taking Vigil‟s and Oller‟s theory into account, teachers should really consider to correct students‟ errors. The question is then not whether or not to do that, but how to work it out. Later, we will see ways teachers can correct students‟ error.

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these phenomena occur to non-formal language learners. They mainly learn language, like English and Arabic, for daily communication and work.

To avoid from fossilizing, students should be encouraged to practice and get used to using the target language or L2. They need not feel discouraged and unenthusiastic for fear of making mistakes. Students who are afraid of making mistakes or so called risk-avoidance behavior get their language development thwarted. In line with this matter, Alice C. Omaggio pointed out that, “If Students are never allowed to operate beyond their self-assessed or teacher-assessed capacities, they will never broaden their knowledge.” Students may then become static and dormant. They will not utilize and work with new and sophisticated words and structure for fear of making mistakes. This situation is, indeed, detrimental to students‟ language development. Unless freed from their horror, students might reach stabilization; a condition we all afraid off.

Quoting from Omaggio, below I will list some ideas for error correction. Broadly speaking, error correction is classified into three: self-correction with teacher helping, peer correction, and teacher correction.

Self correction with teacher helping is highly regarded. There are many ways to do this. They are: one, pinpointing, or teacher localizes the error without providing the correct form. Two, rephrasing the question. Knowing students‟ inability to grab their point, teachers paraphrase the question. Three, cuing. Teachers provide clues for missing or incorrect elements. Four, explaining the key words. Teacher explains or writes a difficult words to help students. Five, questioning. Teachers ask further question to lead students to the desired answer. Six, providing your own answer. Teacher uses students‟ own words and lead them to the answer. Seven, repetition of the answer with correction.

Teacher repeats students‟ answer and adds the correct form. Eight, rephrasing the

question. Teacher rephrase his/ her question because students miss the points and give an undesired answer.

In addition the above methods, peer correction may also become another option. Peer correction allows student-student interaction and collaboration. Students can either do that in group, games, or through mentoring. Last method to offer is teacher correction. Here, teacher acts as knowledge transferor. He/she lets students know the correct form or answers to the questions directly.

Correcting written work may differ from that of oral. In this sense, teachers provide correction for students to improve their writing skills. Clearly identifying all students‟ writing works‟ errors maybe time consuming to most teachers and less mind triggering to students. Students constantly need to be challenged. They are challenged to give their true effort. This is also true in writing. Luckily, there is a way to solve the case. It will, in one way, saves teacher‟s time and elicits students‟ constructive thinking.

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CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION

By writing this small paper, the author intends to provide some ideas on error treatment. Writer proposes that teachers see students‟ errors as sign of learning process and understand how to deal with them. Teachers need to take the next step of teaching, which does not only occur on the class. Students need to be guided to take their learning out of the class and therefore will learn even more. In addition, he also hopes that this might lead to a better treatment and students-teacher interaction in the future.

REFERENCES

Abbasi, Mehdi., Karimnia, Amin. (2011). An Analysis of Grammatical Errors among Iranian Translation Students. Europen Journal of Social Science. 25(4). P.525-536.

Darus, Saadiah., Subramaniam, Kaladevi. (2009). Error Analysis of Writen English Essay of Secondary School Students in Malaysia: A Case Study. Europen Journal of Social Science. 8 (3).

Diaz-Negrillo, Ana., Fernandez-Domingues, Jesus., (2006). Error Tagging System for Learner Corpora. RESLA. P.83-112.

Fauziati, Endang. (2011). Interlanguage and Fossilization: A Study Indonesian Student Learning English as a Foreign Language. Indonesian Journal of Applied Linguistics. 01(01).

He, Dan. Error Analysis of English Major’s Writing from the Perspective of Interlangual Theory. Foreign Language Department of Huizhou University, Huizhou, Guangdong, 516007.

Sarfraz, Sumaira. (2011) Error Analysis of Writen English Essay of Pakistani Students: A Case Study. Asian Transaction on Basic and Applied Sciences. 01 (03).