SURVEY OF ERROR ANALYSIS

ELT 2 PROJECT
SURVEY OF ERROR ANALYSIS
SUBMITTED FOR
Smt. S.B. Gardi
Department of English
Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University
PREPARED BY:
RANJAN VELARI
URVI DAVE
GUIDANCE
PROF. DILIP BARAD

Index
 Introduction of Error Analysis
 Steps of defining the Errors
 Classification of Errors
 Types of Errors
 Define the Errors
 Subject Content
 Objective of the Project
 Reasons for error
 Responses from the Test
 Background of the Students
 Methodology
 Outcome/Findings
 Conclusion
 Experience
 Work Citation

Introduction
 Error analysis studies the types and causes of
language error.
Error analysis was established in the 1960s by
Stephen Pit Corder and colleagues.
A key finding of error analysis has been that
many learners errors are produced by learners
making faulty interferences about the rules of the
new language.

Errors are classified as to-
1. Modality: level of proficiency in LSRW
2. Linguistic levels: pronunciation,
grammar, vocabulary, style
3. Form: omission, insertion, substitution
4. Type: systematic errors/ errors in
competence Vs occasional errors
5. Cause: interference, interlanguage

TYPES OF ERROR
• While checking the papers of the students this result came
out.
Grammatical Errors

Define the Errors
• GRAMMATICAL ERROR:
Student’s ratio of grammatical
error shows that major
students did not write correct
sentences. In the papers many
a times they used ‘is’ instead of
‘was’ or ‘has’, and more use of
‘ing’ was found. Minor errors
were in the papers that they
sometimes make mistakes
while writing the paper. While
some other students make
simple error in grammar like
instead of using ‘should’ they
write ‘shall’, sometimes verb
also was not appropriate.

• SPELLING ERROR
Majority of the students
did spelling mistakes. In
single line we can find
two or three spelling
mistakes. Even simple
spelling like ‘literature’,
‘fire, ‘chess’, ‘west’, etc.
Others did mistakes but
it was simple means in
one page only two or
three spellings were
wrong.

• SENTENCE
STRUCTURE ERROR
Sentence structure of
the students was very
poor. They didn’t
follow the Pattern of
SVO (subject-verb-
object) and wrote in
the paper whatever
was there in their
mind.

Subject Content
High: it means appropriate words, logical
arguments, high quality thoughts, quotations and
suitable knowledge of the subject used by the
students.
Medium: simple language, easy sentence
structure and medium knowledge of the topic,
not so much use of quotations are used by the
students.
Low: Language is poor, sentence also doesn’t
make any sense, not appropriate beginning and
ending, little knowledge of the topic.

Objective
 To check the level of student’s in
writing skill
 To check the base of English language
of the students
 To check the ability of critical thinking
 To check the art of language of the
students

REASONS FOR ERROR
 To prove my point I made one Google form test
regarding error analysis. In this test, questions
for the students were like, they feel fear during
exam or not, their medium of school it means
Gujarati or English, place of school it means
school situated in rural area or urban area.
Through these types of questions I found many
answers which are positive. Sometimes it
happens that students are frightened of exams.

 If students feel fear for exam then what is/are reasons
behind it. For some extent some students loses their
confidence and reason behind it is they feel nervousness.
In test also many reasons came out like they have fear in
the mind that will I be able to write full paper or not and
will be I successful in presenting my ideas well or not
(Response from the test)
 In grammar mistakes, it happens that students have the
ideas but they can’t express it. They know the rules of the
grammar but can’t use it whenever needed.
 Some students are not present in the class mentally.
Physically they are in the class but mentally they are in
another world.

Absence of mind also has many reasons-
1) The topic may not be interesting.
2) Teachers can’t express their thoughts well.
3) Maybe the teacher is not creative in the class and so
the class becomes boring for the students.
4) Utilization of higher level of English by teacher.
5) Personal problems also troubles the student and so it
is difficult for him/her to concentrate in the class.
6) Some of the students don’t have interest in studies
rather they are interested in other activities like
Sports, Co-Curricular activities.

Responses from the Test:
 One of the questions was from grammar also. Most of the
students replied that because of the flaw the ideas they can’t
concentrate on grammar. Other reason for it is they know the
rules of the grammar but can’t apply it in proper way.
 For the spelling errors they replied that sometimes they do
not know spellings and many times it happens that they
unconsciously did the spelling errors.
 Same in the sentence error also that during exam different
ideas comes in student’s mind and because of this they
couldn’t concentrate on correct sentences.

Background of the Students
Many times its happens that from school
level, basic knowledge of grammar and
vocabulary is not given by the teachers.
In graduation also, students thinks that
atmosphere of college is very free and so
they don’t take studies seriously. Even some
professors are there who don’t take classes
and in this way studies are affected.

 Some of the students’ family background is not
so good and so students also don’t take much
interest in studies nor their family members do.
Direct shift from a Gujarati Medium school to
English Medium School at a higher level decreases
the self confidence of the child as they feel inferior
in comparison with the previous students of
English Medium School.
Due to the Grammar-translation method,
students do not develop a habit of speaking in
English and so they can’t communicate in English.

 Some students are there who have
the concept clear in their mind and they
present it very well but they are not
capable of writing correct sentences
and they do not give priority to spellings
also.
Some students are shy and so they
hesitate to ask questions in the class or
even they do not take part in the
student- teacher interaction.

Methodology
During this error analysis, we analyzed four
sets of paper of 30 students. Name of papers
are given below.
 Test of literature (Entrance Test)
 Paper of Literary Theory and Criticism
 Paper of Literary Theory and Criticism-2
 The Modern Literature

In which we checked their-
Linguistic model (i.e. grammar, vocabulary style)
Modality (level of proficiency in one of the four skills
i.e. writing)
Form (sentence structure)
Type (systematic error etc)
After checking the papers for more information we
prepared one questionnaire and it was the Google
Form Test. Through this we got to know about the
views of the students about exam and writing skill.

Outcome/Findings
 Half of the students had Grammatical error as their
basic concept is not clear in Grammar. This maybe
because they are not taught well by the teachers or
maybe they didn’t take grammar seriously.
On the other hand, one or two students are there, in
whose paper no grammatical errors were found. The
reason for this is from primary level, they are in
contact with advanced level of English language.

 Most of the students don’t know where to use
Articles, Tenses, Verbs, Adjectives, Nouns,
Pronouns etc.
Students don’t know when to capitalize the first
alphabet of the word. Some students don’t know
where and how to use punctuation marks. They
write long sentences which even doesn’t make
any sense.
 For example- ‘this both topic through said all
the people of England but we not direct but say
through hidden use of symboles’.

 Majority of the students had error in simple spellings.
This goof was made by them as most of the students
ignore spellings as they think they are not important in
writing skills.
 While they know that they make goofs in spellings,
even they don’t try to improve or maybe they don’t
know correct spellings.
 Reason for making these types of goofs is also that
students write what they pronounce and most of them
pronounce the words incorrectly.

One more reason for this is maybe the
students are not taught the dictations in
their earlier education.
 On the other hand, only one or two
students are there who didn’t have even a
single spelling mistake. Reason for this
maybe they are familiar with correct
spellings from their elementary education.

 More than half of the students are not
able to form correct sentences. This also is
connected with grammar as they don’t
concentrate on grammar and hence can’t
form appropriate sentences.
Some students know how to form correct
sentences, where to use Subject, Verb and
Object form but many a times, they do not
get proper words to form the meaningful
sentences.

“In this world every person learns new
things from their surrounding atmosphere
and without error one cannot escape.
Because of the errors, person learns how
to correct it and it is the way to reach at
the top level. So, error is one type of
ladder to reach the destination.”
CONCLUSION
 Here is my observation regarding this research paper,

Through this project, we got to
know the level of language of
students. There is a little
improvement in their Writing skill
from first semester to third
semester. Grammatical goofs are
made by majority of the students
and most of them had poor
sentence structure and answers
were also not well organized.

Experience
 In Error Analysis not only students play a
vital role but teacher also plays important
role. Confidence of the students, student-
teacher interaction, debate during class
communication, method of asking question
by teacher creates one type of healthy
atmosphere in the class and impact of it
comes out with student’s development.

 Through this project, I learnt many
things. First is collaborative work,
second is comparing others with
myself, third is that I came to learn
new spellings etc. Some papers
were so good that I got new things
to know like subject content,
philosophical ideas and so on.

Work Cited:
(Campbell, A., O. MaNamara and P. Gilory (2004) Practitioner Research and Professional
Development in Education. London: Pau Chapman. Chapter 6: Which research techniques to
use? )
(Cf. Bussmann, Hadumod (1996), Routledge Dictionary of Language and Linguistics, London:
Routledge, s.v. error analysis. A comprehensive bibliography was published by Bernd Spillner
(1991), Error Analysis, Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins)
(Corder, S. P. (1967). "The significance of learners' errors". International Review of Applied
Linguistics 5: 160–170. )
( Cherrington, Ruth. 2004. Error Analysis. In: Byram, Michael (ed.) Routledge Encyclopedia of
Language Teaching and Learning. London/New York: Routledge. 198-200.)
(Ellis, Rod (1994). The Study of Second Language Acquisition)
( James, Carl. 1998. Errors in Language Learning and Use – Exploring Error Analysis. Essex:
Pearson.)
( Johnson, Keith & Johnson, Helen (ed.) 1998. Encyclopedic Dictionary of Applied Linguistics –
A Handbook for Language Teaching. Oxford/Malden: Blackwell. 110-114)
(Newell, R.(1993) 'Questionnaire', 94-115(chapter 6) in Gilbert, N.(ed.), Researchig Social Life,
London, Sage)

SURVEY OF ERROR ANALYSIS

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