Fita Ariyana Rombel 7 (Thursday 9 am)

Chapter 2 The Nature of Learner Language Second Language Acquisition Rod Ellis (2003) page

Errors and Error Analysis  raising question of “Why do learners make errors?”  knowing what errors learners make  helping the learners to learn when making self- correct the errors Why focusing on errors?

 by comparing the sentences learners produce with the correct sentences in the target language The Problems:  not the preferred TL in producing sentences  difficult to reconstruct the correct sentences  need to distinguish errors and mistakes Identifying Errors

 helping to diagnose learners’ problems and to plot how changes in error patterns The ways:  classifying errors into grammatical categories  identifying general ways of learners’ utterances Describing Errors

 errors are:  to a large extent, systematic, and predictable for certain universal  to learners of the same mother tongue  Having different sources : omission, overgeneralization, and transfer errors Explaining Errors

 Global errors => disturb the overall structure of sentence  Local errors => affect only a single constituent in sentence Error Evaluation

Developmental Patterns  belong to silent period The characteristics:  formulaic chunks  proportional simplification The early stages of L2 acquisition

 is the same as accuracy order? => two opinions 1.‘agree’ 2. ‘disagree’ - sometimes learners begin using a structure accurately early on only to start making errors with it later. - the order does vary somewhat according to their first language The Order of Acquisition

 as a process involving transitional constructions The stages of L2 learners acquire the native speaker rule, as the example ‘irregular past tense’ : 1.Learners fail to mark the verb for past time, e.g. ‘eat’ 2.They begin to produce irregular past tense forms, e.g. ‘ate’ Sequence of Acquisition

3. They over generalize the regular past tense form, e.g. ‘eated’ 4. Sometimes learners produce hybrid forms, e.g. ‘ated’ 5. They produce correct irregular past tense forms, e.g. ‘ate’ Sequence of Acquisition

L2 Acquisition is: systematic a large extent universal, reflecting the internal cognitive mechanisms control acquisition irrespective of the personal background of learners Some Implications

suggest some linguistic features (particularly grammatical) are inherently easier to learn than others, e.g. ≈The master learners of plural –s before third person –s suggest it is easy. The important reason of developmental patterns?

Variability in Learner Language The Systemic Nature of Variability:  Linguistic context => using verb depend on event, activity, or state  Situational context => know what the language should be used in any situation  Psycholinguistic context => whether learners have opportunity to plan their production

Natural language form-function mappings (=> to build variable system) not always according to target language not random using one or two forms in free variation Variability in Learner Language

choice of linguistic forms is determined by: - linguistic context - situational context - availability of planning time. at different stages of development: - acquiring a single form - using a single form for a variety of functions Variability in Learner Language

- acquiring other verb forms - starting to use the forms systematically - eliminating non-target form - using target language form not all speakers complete stage for every grammatical structure => fossilization Variability in Learner Language