Abstract

As is known to all, writing is one of the four basic language skills. However, English writing, to some extent, has been a weak point in junior middle schools’ English learning and teaching. Students always make lots of errors in their compositions, but both teachers and students don’t attach enough importance to those errors and can’t deal with them properly. 

Nowadays, there are many studies of Error Analysis on English writing of second language learners, yet studies on writing errors in junior middle school are still limited. Therefore, this study attempts to make an analysis on errors in ninth-grade students’ English writing by adopting the five steps of Error Analysis. This thesis takes the junior three students from Linping No.3 Middle School as the research subjects, a writing task and a questionnaire as the main instruments. The author chooses 44 students form Class 7, Grade 9 and conduct the research on them. Based on the analysis of the errors in the students’ writing samples, the author classifies those typical and frequent errors into different types, namely: the incorrect use of singular & plural forms of nouns, incorrect use of verbs, incorrect use of articles, incorrect use of prepositions, Chinglish and other errors. In addition, the main causes of the errors mainly include the intralingual errors influenced by the target language and the interlingual errors interfered by the native language. Finally, together with the analysis on the results of the questionnaire, the author further puts forward some pedagogical suggestions, hoping to help teachers improve the teaching of English writing in junior middle school. 

Key words: junior students; English writing; Error Analysis; English teaching  

Contents

Abstract

摘  要

Chapter One Introduction-1

1.1 Background of the Study-1

1.2 Purpose and Significance of the Study-2

1.3 An Outline of the Paper-2

Chapter Two Literature Review-3

2.1 Definition of Errors-3

2.2 Classification of Errors-3

2.3 A Literature Review on Error Analysis-4

2.3.1 Theoretical Foundation of Error Analysis-4

2.3.2 Error Analysis and the L2 Learner’s Interlanguage-5

2.4 Related Studies on Error Analysis of Writing-6

2.4.1 Related Studies abroad-6

2.4.2 Related Studies at Home-7

Chapter Three Research Methodology-9

3.1 Research Questions-9

3.2 Participants-9

3.3 Instruments-9

3.3.1 Writing Task-9

3.3.2 Questionnaire-9

3.4 Research Procedures-9

3.4.1 Data Collection-10

3.4.2 Error Identification-10

3.4.3 Error Description-10

3.4.4 Error Explanation-10

3.4.5 Error Evaluation-10

Chapter Four Data Analysis and Academic Discussion-11

4.1 Analysis on the Errors from the Writing Samples-11

4.1.1 Classification of Errors-11

4.1.2 Explanation of Errors-15

4.2 Analysis on the Data from the Questionnaire-16

Chapter Five Conclusion-18

5.1 Major Findings-18

5.2 Pedagogical Implications-18

5.2.1 Strategies of Error Correction-18

5.2.2 Strategies for the Teaching of Writing-18

5.3 Limitations of the Present Study-19

References-21

Appendices-23

Appendix I Writing material-23

Appendix II Questionnaire-24