The nature of learner language

1. The nature of learner language Ellis 2003 Chapter 2 pp. 15-30 By. ZumikaElvina 2201410057

2. Errors and error analysis • Good reasons for focusing in errors. • They are conspicuous feature of learner language. • It is useful for teacher . • It helps learner to learn when they self-correct the errors they make.

3. Identifying errors • To identify errors we have to compare the sentences learners produce with what seem to be the normal or ‘correct’ sentences in the target language with correspond with them. • Example: A man and a little boy was watching him. the correct sentence should be: A man and a little boy were watching him.

4. Identifying … • Reconstruct the correct sentence. • Example: The big of them contained a snake. one way of reconstructing the correct sentence is: The bigger of them contained a snake. another possibility The big one contained a snake.

5. Errors or Mistakes • Errors reflect gaps in a learner’s knowledge; they occur because the learner does not know what is correct. • Mistakes reflect occasional lapses in performance; they occur because, in a particular instance, the learner is unable to perform what he or she knows.

6. Describing errors • To classify errors into grammatical categories. • Try to identify general ways in which the learners’ utterances differ from the reconstructed target-language utterances. • Classifying errors: • to diagnose learners’ learning problems at any one stage of their development; • to plot how changes in error patterns occur overtime.

7. Explaining Errors • Errors are, to a large extent, systematic, and to a certain extent, predictable. • Many of errors are universal. • Some errors are common only to learners who share the same mother tongue or whose mother tongue manifest the same linguistic property.

8. Explaining … • Different sources of errors: • Omission error • Overgeneralization error • Transfer error

9. Error evaluation • Global errors  violate the overall structure of a sentence and for this reason may make it difficult to process. • Local errors  affect only a single constituent in the sentence.

10. Developmental patterns • The early stages of L2 acquisition  by investigating what learners do when exposed to the L2 in communicative settings. undergo a silent period, they may be learning a lot about the language just through listening to or reading it. learn the grammar of the L2 Acquisition order Sequence of acquisition

11. Developmental … • The order of acquisition to investigate  choose a number of grammatical structures to study. an accuracy order  they rank the features according to how accurately each feature is used by the learners.

12. Developmental … • Sequence of acquisition

13. Variability in learner language • Learner language is variable. At any given stage of development, learners sometimes employ one form and sometimes another. • Learner language is systematic since it is possible that variability is systematic. • In linguistics context, they use one form while in the other context they use alternate forms.

14. Variability … • In situational context, learners are no different from native speakers. • In psycholinguistic context, whether learners have the opportunity to plan their production. • Form-function mind mapping • Free variation

15. Summary • Researchers focused on: • Learners’ errors; • Developing procedures for identifying; • Describing; • Explaining; • Evaluating them. • Subsequently, researchers focused on exploring the regularities of L2 acquisition by searching for ‘orders’ and ‘sequences’ of acquisition.

16. Sum… • Research on variability has sought to so how that, although allowance should perhaps be made for some free variation, variability in learner language is systematic. • Variability plays an integrative part in the overall pattern of development, with learners moving through a series of stages that reflect different kinds of variability.

17. Thank You