LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Analysis and Categorization of the Most Prevalent Errors of
Intermediate and Elementary Iranian EFL Learners in Writing in Iran

Gholam Reza Zarei, Ph.D. (Applied Linguistics)
Sara Mansoori, M.A. in TEFL

Abstract

Nowadays English is used as a lingua franca for international relationships. Committing errors in using it may become a hindrance to effective communication. Therefore, knowing about the kinds of errors which are commonly committed by the language users, specially the non-native users of this language, seems essential.

This paper presents an analysis and categorization of the most dominant errors of intermediate and elementary Iranian EFL learners in writing.

The specific research areas of interest are: (1) to which category the most dominant errors are attributable; (2) whether the level of language proficiency makes any differentiation in the category to which the most dominant errors are attributable; and (3) to what extent the adopted model (Keshavarz, 1999) is suitable for the categorization and analysis of the errors.

An Oxford placement test was administered to107 female subjects, majoring in TOEFL in the fifth term of Najafabad Azad University to detect the participants' proficiency level. Then, 30 elementary and 30 intermediate (based on Oxford scale) subjects were selected randomly from among them. Next, they were asked to write an essay in 200 to 250 words. After that, the essays were analyzed and the errors were determined and categorized based on the adopted model.

The results indicate that:

1. The most dominant errors belong to the syntactico-morphological category.
2. The level of the proficiency makes no difference in the category to which the most common errors belong. 3. The adopted model (Keshavarz, 1999), revised a little at the end, is approximately applicable for analyzing and categorizing the errors.

Keywords: error analysis, error categorization, proficiency, intermediate and elementary groups, writing.

Introduction

The views toward errors of language learners were once greatly affected by the ideas of structuralism and behaviorism. They considered errors as signs of not having adequately acquired a linguistic system. These views asked that language teachers take greater care to help learners avoid errors in their language production. They suggested contrastive analysis to make distinctions between the learners' first and second language to predict errors and help the teacher and students avoid them.

A Turning Point

Pit Corder, an important researcher in the field of Error Analysis, changed the views toward error analysis and provided it with new directions. He disagreed with the views of structuralists and behaviorists considering the errors as blemishes that needed to be eliminated. He asserted that errors are important in and of themselves (Corder, 1967). He claimed that, for learners themselves, errors are unavoidable and mandatory because making errors can be regarded as a device the learner uses to learn. He defined error analysis as a type of linguistic analysis concentrating on the errors learners make in the process of language learning and comparing the errors made in the Target Language (TL) with that TL itself. Corder (1974) believed that systematically analyzing errors made by language learners makes it possible to determine areas that need reinforcement in teaching.

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