Abstract

English, as the global language in the world, is of vital importance to everyone. With the fast development of globalization, English has become one of the indispensable skills for us, and the great influence of spoken English cannot be neglected as well.Nowadays, the high schools are putting more and more emphasis on fostering students’ ability of speaking. However, oral errors are unavoidable in the English class, so how to deal with these errors is the topic of this thesis.On the basis of EA(Error Analysis)and Inter-language theory in SLA(Second Language Acquisition), I adopted the method of classroom observation and questionnaire and conducted my survey in senior one class in a foreign language school.This thesis mainly focuses on the following three questions: Firstly, what kind of oral errors there are in oral practice of high school students; Secondly, as a teacher, how to deal with the oral errors made by students; Thirdly what differences there are between the attitude toward error correction of teachers and that of students .The research indicates that the frequency of high school students making oral errors are high, including various errors like pronunciation,vocabulary and grammar etc. For some obvious errors, students are able to correct it themselves immediately; for errors that aren’t realized by students, teachers would take different strategies to deal with them accordingly, and basically they can take advantage of the errors to promote English teaching.

Key words: Spoken English teaching; Error Analysis; Inter-language theory; Senior one students

Contents

Abstract

摘要

1  Introduction-1

1.1 Research Background-1

1.2 Research Purpose-2

1.3 Significance of the Research-2

1.4 Structure of the Paper-2

2  Literature Review-4

2.1 The definition of error-4

2.2 The classification of error-6

2.3 Theories related to error studies-8

3  Methodology-11

3.1 Research Question-11

3.2 Participants-11

3.3 Research methods-12

4  Findings and Discussions-13

4.1 Types of Errors Occurred in Oral Practice-13

4.2 Teacher’s Strategy of Dealing with Errors-14

4.3 Different Attitudes toward Error Correction between Teachers and Students-15

5  Conclusion-20

5.1 Implications of the Research-20

5.2 Limitations of the Research-20

Appendix-22

Appendix Ⅰ Questionnaire for teachers-22

Appendix Ⅱ Questionnaire for students-23

Bibliography-26

Acknowledgements-27