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1. Introduction
Learning a Second Language (L2) is a lifelong process and it is often a challenging experience for L2
learners. English has become the L2 after it was introduced to Malaysia during colonization. Presently,
it is an international language and is used as the language in international relations, and in exchanging
knowledge and technology. It was only since a few decades ago that it was taught to almost all school
children. In general, local Malaysian students have been exposed to eleven years of learning English in
primary and secondary schools.
A Brief Historical Account of English in Malaysia
According to Solomon (1988), English has had a comparatively long history in Malaysia. Since
attaining independence in 1957, Malaysia has gone through vast changes in various fields. Not the least
of this is development of educational facilities from primary school up to tertiary level. Together with
the physical facilities major changes were also implemented in policies related to educational syllabus,
and the medium of instruction; that is, the languages used in imparting the knowledge. Education in
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484
4. Error Analysis
The field of EA in Second Language Acquisition (SLA) was established in the 1970s by Corder and
colleagues. A widely-available survey can be found in chapter eight of Brown (2000). A key finding of
EA has been that many learner errors were produced by learners misunderstanding the rules of the new
language. EA is a type of linguistic study that focuses on the errors learners make. It consists of a
comparison between the errors made in TL and within that TL itself. Corder is the father of EA (the
EA with the new look). It was in his article entitled The significance of learner errors (1967) that
EA took a new turn. Errors used to be flaws that needed to be eradicated. Corder (1967) presented a
completely different point of view. He contended that those errors are important in and of
themselves. In his opinion, systematically analyzing errors made by language learners makes it
possible to determine areas that need reinforcement in teaching.
EA emphasizes the significance of errors in learners interlanguages system (Brown 1994:
204). The term interlanguages introduced by Selinker (1972), refers to the systematic knowledge of an
L2 which is independent on both the learners L1 and the TL. Nemser (1974: 55) referred to it as the
Approximate System, and Corder (1967) as the Idiosyncratic Dialect or Transitional Competence.
According to Corder (1967), EA has two objects: one theoretical and another applied. The
theoretical object is to understand what and how a learner learns when he studies an L2. The applied
object is to enable the learner to learn more efficiently by using the knowledge of his dialect for
pedagogical purposes. At the same time, the investigation of errors can serve two purposes, diagnostic
(to in-point the problem) and prognostic (to make plans to solve a problem). Corder (1967) said that it
is diagnostic because it can tell us the learner's grasp of a language at any given point during the
learning process. It is also prognostic because it can tell the teacher to modify learning materials to
meet the learners' problems.
EA research has limitations of providing only a partial picture of learner language; and having a
substantive nature in that it does not take into account avoidance strategy in SLA, since EA only
investigates what learners do. Learners who avoided the sentence structures which they found difficult
due to the differences between their native language and TL may be viewed to have no difficulty. This
was pointed out by Brown (1994) and Ellis (1996).
Relevance of Error Analysis in Language Teaching
Learning a FL is a step-by-step process, during which errors or mistakes are to be expected during this
process of learning. Corder (1967) states that errors are visible proof that learning is taking place. He
has emphasized that errors, if studied systematically, can provide significant insights into how a
language is actually learned by a foreigner. He also agrees that studying students errors of usage has
immediate practical application for language teachers.
In his view, errors provide feedback; they tell the teachers something about the effectiveness of
his teaching. According to Ancker (2000), making mistakes or errors is a natural process of learning
and must be considered as part of cognition.
487
5. Methodology
Location
The location of the study was a secondary school in a housing area in Semenyih town which is
approximately 30 kilometers away from Seremban and 40 kilometers away from Kuala Lumpur. The
school runs in two teaching sessions, namely the morning and afternoon session. The distribution of
students of the school by Form and ethnic background are shown in Table 1.
Table 1:
Distribution of Students by Forms and Ethnic Background (Source: Registration Record for 2008)
Form
(Gender)
Remove class
Form 1
Form 2
Form 3
Form 4
Form 5
Total
Malays
M
F
0
0
176
197
189
189
157
186
131
146
185
199
798
867
Chinese
M
F
76
43
71
106
105
99
76
81
71
82
109
3
488
490
488
Indians
M
F
26
13
49
47
47
43
45
38
35
18
59
44
244
183
Others
M
F
0
0
8
0
5
10
5
8
4
2
8
6
302
26
Total
M
102
306
349
284
242
535
1583
F
56
351
344
314
280
372
1740
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6. Results
Table 2 shows the analysis of errors based on type of error, number of errors, percentage and mean
values of errors committed by the participants.
Table 2:
Item
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
Analysis of Errors
Type of Error
Singular/Plural Form
Verb Tense
Word Choice
Preposition
Subject/Verb Agreement
Word Order
Article
Missing Space
Word Form
Spelling
Verb Form
Capitalization
Wrong/Misused Word
Missing word
Redundancy
Total
No.of errors
412
346
325
288
217
215
211
178
170
150
145
129
124
102
78
3090
Percentage (%)
13.3
11.2
10.5
9.3
7.0
7.0
6.8
5.8
5.5
4.9
4.7
4.2
4.0
3.3
2.5
100.0
Mean
5.72
4.80
4.51
4.00
3.01
2.99
2.93
2.47
2.36
2.08
2.01
1.79
1.72
1.42
1.08
Taking the mean values of errors, the results show that six most common errors that the
participants made were in Singular/Plural Form (5.72), Verb Tense (4.80), followed by Word Choice
(4.51), Preposition (4.00), Subject-Verb Agreement (3.01) and Word Order (2.99). The six most
common errors and examples of errors from the corpus are shown in Table 3.
The next noticeable error was Article errors (2.93) while Missing Space and Word Form were
2.47 and 2.36 respectively. Next were Spelling (2.08) and Verb Form (2.01). Other errors that
amounted to less than 2.00 were Capitalization (1.79), Wrong/Misused Word (1.72), Missing Word
(1.42) and Redundancy (1.08).
490
Definition and
Error classification
1. Singular/Plural
A mistake with
number (singular and
plural)
2. Verb Tense
a) A mistake
with the verb
tense
Identification of errors
Verb Tense
b) Inappropriate
verb
construction
3. Word Choice
4. Preposition
5. Subject-Verb
Agreement
Wrong combination
of subject and verb
6. Word Order
Disordering/Inversion
of subject and verb
491
492
7. Conclusion
The results of the study show that errors that participants committed were basically grammatical. The
participants also had a relatively weak vocabulary and their sentences were sometimes
incomprehensible. They committed errors in applying sentence structure rules in the English language.
Hence, we can conclude that these participants have problems in acquiring normal grammatical rules in
English.
This study has shed light on the manner in which students internalize the rules of the TL. It
further shows that EA can help the teachers to identify in a systematic manner the specific and
common language problems students have, so that they can focus more attention on these types of
errors. Such an insight into language learning problems is useful to teachers because it provides
information on common trouble-spots in language learning which can be used in the preparation of
effective teaching materials. Also, by being able to predict errors to a certain extent, teachers can be
well-equipped to help students minimize or overcome their learning problems.
493
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