高中生英语写作错误的调查与研究
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摘要
“写作”是语言输出的一种重要技能,也是外语学习过程中不可或缺的。但是,在英语学习中,写作一直都是一个令中国老师和学生感到棘手的问题,各种各样的因素使学生的写作错误层出不穷,而研究学生写作中的错误也就越来越有必要而且越来越重要。
错误分析是在结构主义对比分析遭受批判之后发展起来的。随着语言学习者的学习过程在外语学习和第二语言习得中的重要性日益受到关注,越来越多的学者和语言学家对学习者产生的错误表现出浓厚的兴趣。他们认为,这些错误体现了学习者中介语的内在体系,从而使我们了解学习者的学习过程,并进一步加强对外语及第二语言教学的理解和认识。从理论上讲,错误分析不但对英语教学活动具有举足轻重的作用和影响,而且还在探索外语学习过程的规律和改进外语教学中占有很重要的位置。它可以帮助教师正确地处理学生的错误。但在具体的教学实践中,许多外语教师并没有对此引起足够的重视。其原因是:许多教师对语言错误(language error)缺乏科学认识,而对错误做出种种不合理的处理。“有错必纠”与“对错误听其自然”,这种针锋相对的极端观点便是一个典型的例子。前者只管语言形式,不管语言内容,挫伤学生语言交际的积极性,后者只注意语言的流利性,忽略了语言的准确性,难以提高学生的语言水平。要使错误分析有效地为教学服务,教师必须科学地理解语言错误,在具体的教学活动中,采用适当的手段处理语言错误。
以往的写作研究,多着眼于如何在课堂上教授写作技巧,训练学生写作能力。对学生写作错误的研究,重点多放在对大学生的写作错误研究上,面对高中学生的研究仍显不足。而且以前的研究多为教师在一个较长阶段内收集的学生平时英语学习写作过程中的错误,本研究即着眼于学生在特定的时间特定的空间写作错误的分析。
本文以“对比分析”、“错误分析”及“中介语”的相关理论为理论依据,采用了“定性”与“定量”相结合的分析方法,对他们书面表达中的错误进行了分析归类,研究其产生的原因。作者以枣庄市2007年高一年级第一次月考中“书面表达”(写作)中的错误为研究内容,以枣庄三中的1109名考生为研究对象。最后抽取笔者所教的两个班级的154名学生作为本文的主要研究对象,学生的分数、成绩分布和性别都在考虑范围之内。
经研究发现,试卷中的错误以词汇错误和语法错误所占比例最大。在高分(大于等于20分)学生中,按比例讲,女生明显高于男生。同时基于研究的结果,作者就如何促进英语写作教学提出了一些建议。教师在平时的教学中要注意把扩大学生的词汇量和提醒学生注重语法规则的掌握作为主要的一项工作,适当比较母语和目的语的不同。为了提高写作,学生不可忽视语法和词汇错误。笔者还强调了创造性语言学习的重要性。对于学生,练习是提高英语写作的最佳途径,而朗读和背诵是语言输入的主要方式,也是扩大词汇,学习掌握正确的语法和句法,形成英语思维,开拓眼界丰富知识的重要途径。在写作练习中,小组合作完成、批改文章不失为一种省时省力的方法。写作中避免句法错误是又一个问题,特别是要正确使用关联词,避免重复、冗余和进行正确的省略。写作的提高与学生的文化知识和语用能力也有较为密切的关系,它们也是写作课中的一个组成部分。
本文通过对学生考试时在限定的时间和空间内写作中出现的语言错误进行调查研究,分析、研究、讨论出现这些错误的原因,根据相关数据资料的分析,探寻中学生英语写作中存在的主要问题,解析影响英语写作能力水平的主要因素,进而提出切实可行、行之有效的对策,以促进教师英语写作教学水平的提高和学生英语写作技能的培养。笔者相信,语言学习者所犯的错误可以提供研究者重要的证据以便研究他们在特定时期的使用的语言。通过展示不同的错误,笔者得出结论,初学者的错误主要是语言层面的问题。这个结论提示教师和学生重点进行语言层面的学习,努力提高语言运用能力。
由于条件的限制,本研究还有许多需要完善的地方,作者会在以后的研究中继续努力,不断完善,期望能对提高我国高中英语写作教学及学生的写作能力有所帮助。
Writing, as an important skill of output, is indispensable for EFL learning. However, both the Chinese senior school students and their English teachers find it very difficult and demanding. It is not surprising that various language errors appear frequently in students’compositions and they are caused by different factors. Thus, the studies focusing on the analysis of writing production errors become more and more important and necessary.
As error analysis (EA) developed after contrastive analysis (CA) being criticized, many researchers and linguists shared great interest in the errors of the learners. They believe that errors often indicate learners’inside system of interlanguage (IL), through which they may investigate the learning processes, and get further understanding and acknowledgements of foreign language teaching (FLT) and second language teaching (SLT). In theory, error analysis plays an important role not only in English teaching activities, but also in searching for laws of learning English and improving English learning. It offers help and guide for teachers so that they can deal with learner’s error appropriately. However, in practice, many foreign language teachers don’t lay enough emphasis on it. They either correct every error or ignore the error thoroughly. Both the attitudes to errors are imperfect. To take advantage of EA, the teachers should endeavor to perceive various language errors and manage language errors by right means in their teaching process.
Former researches on writing focused on how to teach writing skill in class and foster students’writing ability. It is true that many researches on error analysis pay more attention to college students’composition, while fewer researches on writing errors focus on senior school students; what’s more, in former researches, teachers would collect students’writing errors from different sources during a long period of the studying process. This thesis focuses on errors students make in limited time and place.
Based on the theories of Contrastive Analysis, Error Analysis and Interlanguage, using both quantitative and qualitative analysis, the present study has analyzed the sampled errors and explored the causes of errors. The study focuses on 1109 grade one students’writing section from the first month English exam in No.3 middle school, Zaozhuang city. All the examination papers are collected and evaluated by the seven English teachers in charge of Grade One. Then the author collected 154 compositions from two classes as the subjects of the study, the marks of the writing and its distribution were presented and analyzed, the causes of the errors were explored and discussed.
The result shows that errors on lexical (e.g. verb and article errors) and grammatical levels (e.g. collocation errors) have been found most prominent in terms of frequency and proportion. Girls are more likely to achieve higher scores than boys in percentage. Simultaneously based on the results of the study, some pedagogical suggestions are put forward. It is believed that English teachers should take the enlargement of vocabulary and mastery of English grammar rules as an essential task and the differences between L 1 and L2 should be paid attention to. Therefore, to improve writing, students should not ignore grammatical and lexical errors. The author also stresses the importance of productive language learning activities. For students, they can improve their writing by writing practice, enlarging their vocabulary and grasping the organization of English grammar. Reading and reciting as chief ways of language input are inherently related to writing which can certainly improve EFL learners’instinctive feeling for the language as well as enlighten the writers’train of thought. Besides, writing and checking in cooperative groups is a good method of improving writing and correcting errors. The avoidance of syntactic errors in writing is another problem that should be stressed, especially the use of conjunction, the avoidance of repetition, addition, and omission. Further, culture factors also affect students’writing, so cultural knowledge should be one composing part of the writing class. In brief, to improve skills in writing communication, students require a high level of linguistic competence as well as a corresponding level of pragmatic competence.
Through this research, the author tries to provide a better approach to correcting the errors and give teachers and students some help by classifying and explaining the collected errors students made in limited time and space. The author believes that the errors a learner makes can provide important evidence for us to draw out the system of the language that he is using (i.e. has learned) at a particular point in the course. By unfurling different errors, the author draws a conclusion that the errors senior high students made are mainly on language-level. This offers teachers and students important evidence that they should put a lot emphasis on language-level learning and try to improve the skills of using language.
The present research has been carried out in limited conditions, so it will remain to be perfected. However, it is sincerely hoped that the present study can shed light on English writing teaching and learning, and at the same time, it can pave the way to more penetrating and profound studies in the future.
错误分析是在结构主义对比分析遭受批判之后发展起来的。随着语言学习者的学习过程在外语学习和第二语言习得中的重要性日益受到关注,越来越多的学者和语言学家对学习者产生的错误表现出浓厚的兴趣。他们认为,这些错误体现了学习者中介语的内在体系,从而使我们了解学习者的学习过程,并进一步加强对外语及第二语言教学的理解和认识。从理论上讲,错误分析不但对英语教学活动具有举足轻重的作用和影响,而且还在探索外语学习过程的规律和改进外语教学中占有很重要的位置。它可以帮助教师正确地处理学生的错误。但在具体的教学实践中,许多外语教师并没有对此引起足够的重视。其原因是:许多教师对语言错误(language error)缺乏科学认识,而对错误做出种种不合理的处理。“有错必纠”与“对错误听其自然”,这种针锋相对的极端观点便是一个典型的例子。前者只管语言形式,不管语言内容,挫伤学生语言交际的积极性,后者只注意语言的流利性,忽略了语言的准确性,难以提高学生的语言水平。要使错误分析有效地为教学服务,教师必须科学地理解语言错误,在具体的教学活动中,采用适当的手段处理语言错误。
以往的写作研究,多着眼于如何在课堂上教授写作技巧,训练学生写作能力。对学生写作错误的研究,重点多放在对大学生的写作错误研究上,面对高中学生的研究仍显不足。而且以前的研究多为教师在一个较长阶段内收集的学生平时英语学习写作过程中的错误,本研究即着眼于学生在特定的时间特定的空间写作错误的分析。
本文以“对比分析”、“错误分析”及“中介语”的相关理论为理论依据,采用了“定性”与“定量”相结合的分析方法,对他们书面表达中的错误进行了分析归类,研究其产生的原因。作者以枣庄市2007年高一年级第一次月考中“书面表达”(写作)中的错误为研究内容,以枣庄三中的1109名考生为研究对象。最后抽取笔者所教的两个班级的154名学生作为本文的主要研究对象,学生的分数、成绩分布和性别都在考虑范围之内。
经研究发现,试卷中的错误以词汇错误和语法错误所占比例最大。在高分(大于等于20分)学生中,按比例讲,女生明显高于男生。同时基于研究的结果,作者就如何促进英语写作教学提出了一些建议。教师在平时的教学中要注意把扩大学生的词汇量和提醒学生注重语法规则的掌握作为主要的一项工作,适当比较母语和目的语的不同。为了提高写作,学生不可忽视语法和词汇错误。笔者还强调了创造性语言学习的重要性。对于学生,练习是提高英语写作的最佳途径,而朗读和背诵是语言输入的主要方式,也是扩大词汇,学习掌握正确的语法和句法,形成英语思维,开拓眼界丰富知识的重要途径。在写作练习中,小组合作完成、批改文章不失为一种省时省力的方法。写作中避免句法错误是又一个问题,特别是要正确使用关联词,避免重复、冗余和进行正确的省略。写作的提高与学生的文化知识和语用能力也有较为密切的关系,它们也是写作课中的一个组成部分。
本文通过对学生考试时在限定的时间和空间内写作中出现的语言错误进行调查研究,分析、研究、讨论出现这些错误的原因,根据相关数据资料的分析,探寻中学生英语写作中存在的主要问题,解析影响英语写作能力水平的主要因素,进而提出切实可行、行之有效的对策,以促进教师英语写作教学水平的提高和学生英语写作技能的培养。笔者相信,语言学习者所犯的错误可以提供研究者重要的证据以便研究他们在特定时期的使用的语言。通过展示不同的错误,笔者得出结论,初学者的错误主要是语言层面的问题。这个结论提示教师和学生重点进行语言层面的学习,努力提高语言运用能力。
由于条件的限制,本研究还有许多需要完善的地方,作者会在以后的研究中继续努力,不断完善,期望能对提高我国高中英语写作教学及学生的写作能力有所帮助。
Writing, as an important skill of output, is indispensable for EFL learning. However, both the Chinese senior school students and their English teachers find it very difficult and demanding. It is not surprising that various language errors appear frequently in students’compositions and they are caused by different factors. Thus, the studies focusing on the analysis of writing production errors become more and more important and necessary.
As error analysis (EA) developed after contrastive analysis (CA) being criticized, many researchers and linguists shared great interest in the errors of the learners. They believe that errors often indicate learners’inside system of interlanguage (IL), through which they may investigate the learning processes, and get further understanding and acknowledgements of foreign language teaching (FLT) and second language teaching (SLT). In theory, error analysis plays an important role not only in English teaching activities, but also in searching for laws of learning English and improving English learning. It offers help and guide for teachers so that they can deal with learner’s error appropriately. However, in practice, many foreign language teachers don’t lay enough emphasis on it. They either correct every error or ignore the error thoroughly. Both the attitudes to errors are imperfect. To take advantage of EA, the teachers should endeavor to perceive various language errors and manage language errors by right means in their teaching process.
Former researches on writing focused on how to teach writing skill in class and foster students’writing ability. It is true that many researches on error analysis pay more attention to college students’composition, while fewer researches on writing errors focus on senior school students; what’s more, in former researches, teachers would collect students’writing errors from different sources during a long period of the studying process. This thesis focuses on errors students make in limited time and place.
Based on the theories of Contrastive Analysis, Error Analysis and Interlanguage, using both quantitative and qualitative analysis, the present study has analyzed the sampled errors and explored the causes of errors. The study focuses on 1109 grade one students’writing section from the first month English exam in No.3 middle school, Zaozhuang city. All the examination papers are collected and evaluated by the seven English teachers in charge of Grade One. Then the author collected 154 compositions from two classes as the subjects of the study, the marks of the writing and its distribution were presented and analyzed, the causes of the errors were explored and discussed.
The result shows that errors on lexical (e.g. verb and article errors) and grammatical levels (e.g. collocation errors) have been found most prominent in terms of frequency and proportion. Girls are more likely to achieve higher scores than boys in percentage. Simultaneously based on the results of the study, some pedagogical suggestions are put forward. It is believed that English teachers should take the enlargement of vocabulary and mastery of English grammar rules as an essential task and the differences between L 1 and L2 should be paid attention to. Therefore, to improve writing, students should not ignore grammatical and lexical errors. The author also stresses the importance of productive language learning activities. For students, they can improve their writing by writing practice, enlarging their vocabulary and grasping the organization of English grammar. Reading and reciting as chief ways of language input are inherently related to writing which can certainly improve EFL learners’instinctive feeling for the language as well as enlighten the writers’train of thought. Besides, writing and checking in cooperative groups is a good method of improving writing and correcting errors. The avoidance of syntactic errors in writing is another problem that should be stressed, especially the use of conjunction, the avoidance of repetition, addition, and omission. Further, culture factors also affect students’writing, so cultural knowledge should be one composing part of the writing class. In brief, to improve skills in writing communication, students require a high level of linguistic competence as well as a corresponding level of pragmatic competence.
Through this research, the author tries to provide a better approach to correcting the errors and give teachers and students some help by classifying and explaining the collected errors students made in limited time and space. The author believes that the errors a learner makes can provide important evidence for us to draw out the system of the language that he is using (i.e. has learned) at a particular point in the course. By unfurling different errors, the author draws a conclusion that the errors senior high students made are mainly on language-level. This offers teachers and students important evidence that they should put a lot emphasis on language-level learning and try to improve the skills of using language.
The present research has been carried out in limited conditions, so it will remain to be perfected. However, it is sincerely hoped that the present study can shed light on English writing teaching and learning, and at the same time, it can pave the way to more penetrating and profound studies in the future.
引文
Brown, H. D. Principles of Language Learning and Language Teaching. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching &Research Press, 2001.
Cook, Vivian. Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching & Research Press, 2000.
Corder, S. P. The Significance of Learners’ Errors. International Review of Applied Linguistics 4: 161-9.---.1967. Error Analysis and Interlanguage. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981
Ellis, R. The Study of L2 Acquisition [M]. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press,1999.
Ellis, Rod. Understanding Second Language Acquisition [M]. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press, 1999.
Freeman, D. L. & Long M. H. An Introduction to Second Language Acquisition Research. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching & Research Press, 2000.
Gass, S. M.&L. Selinker. Second Language Acquisition. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc, 1994.
Harmer, Jeremy. How to Teach English. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching & Research Press, 2000.
He Ziran. A Survey of Pragmatics. Changsha: Hunan Education Press, 1988
Hu Zhuanglin (Ed.) Linguistics: A Course Book. Beijing: Beijing University Press, 1988.
James, Carl. Errors in Language Learning and Use: Exploring Error Analysis. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching & Research Press, 2001.
Johnson, Keith. An Introduction to Foreign Language Learning and Teaching. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching &Research Press, 2002.
Kramsch, Claire. Language and Culture. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press, 2000.
Lado, R. Linguistics across Cultures. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1957 Lennon, P. Error: Some Problems of Definition, Identification, and distinction[J].Applied Linguistics, 1991,(2)
Odlin, Terence. Language Transfer. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press, 2001.
Richards, J.C. et al.. Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching & applied Linguistics. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and research Press, 2000.
Richards, Jack C. The Context of Language Teaching. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching& Research Press, 2001.
Selinker, L. Interlanguage. International Review Applied Linguistics10:209-31, 1972.
Tang Lianjun. Error Analysis for Chinese Learners of English Dissertation. Shanghai: Shanghai Normal University, 1998.
程晓堂,郑敏编著.《英语学习策略》. 北京:外语教学与研究出版社, 2002
戴曼纯.《中介语可变性之争及其意义》. 《外语与外语教学》,1999,11
高远.《对比分析与错误分析》. 北京:北京航空航大大学出版社,2002
何善芬.《英汉语言对比研究》. 上海:上海外语教育出版社,2002
何自然.《语用学与英语学习》. 上海:上海外语教育出版社,1995
李瑞华主编.《英汉语言文化对比研究》.长沙:湖南教育出版社,1990
刘润清.《论大学英语教学》. 北京:外语教学与研究出版社,1999
马衰编著. 《标准英语写作—从中式英语到地道英语》.北京:北京大学出版社,2002
孙勉志.《汉语环境与英语学习》. 上海:上海外语教育出版社,2001
文秋芳.《英语学习的成功之路》.上海:上海外语教育出版社,2003
杨达复.《英语错误型式分析》. 山西人民出版社, 2000
Cook, Vivian. Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching & Research Press, 2000.
Corder, S. P. The Significance of Learners’ Errors. International Review of Applied Linguistics 4: 161-9.---.1967. Error Analysis and Interlanguage. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981
Ellis, R. The Study of L2 Acquisition [M]. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press,1999.
Ellis, Rod. Understanding Second Language Acquisition [M]. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press, 1999.
Freeman, D. L. & Long M. H. An Introduction to Second Language Acquisition Research. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching & Research Press, 2000.
Gass, S. M.&L. Selinker. Second Language Acquisition. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc, 1994.
Harmer, Jeremy. How to Teach English. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching & Research Press, 2000.
He Ziran. A Survey of Pragmatics. Changsha: Hunan Education Press, 1988
Hu Zhuanglin (Ed.) Linguistics: A Course Book. Beijing: Beijing University Press, 1988.
James, Carl. Errors in Language Learning and Use: Exploring Error Analysis. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching & Research Press, 2001.
Johnson, Keith. An Introduction to Foreign Language Learning and Teaching. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching &Research Press, 2002.
Kramsch, Claire. Language and Culture. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press, 2000.
Lado, R. Linguistics across Cultures. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1957 Lennon, P. Error: Some Problems of Definition, Identification, and distinction[J].Applied Linguistics, 1991,(2)
Odlin, Terence. Language Transfer. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press, 2001.
Richards, J.C. et al.. Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching & applied Linguistics. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and research Press, 2000.
Richards, Jack C. The Context of Language Teaching. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching& Research Press, 2001.
Selinker, L. Interlanguage. International Review Applied Linguistics10:209-31, 1972.
Tang Lianjun. Error Analysis for Chinese Learners of English Dissertation. Shanghai: Shanghai Normal University, 1998.
程晓堂,郑敏编著.《英语学习策略》. 北京:外语教学与研究出版社, 2002
戴曼纯.《中介语可变性之争及其意义》. 《外语与外语教学》,1999,11
高远.《对比分析与错误分析》. 北京:北京航空航大大学出版社,2002
何善芬.《英汉语言对比研究》. 上海:上海外语教育出版社,2002
何自然.《语用学与英语学习》. 上海:上海外语教育出版社,1995
李瑞华主编.《英汉语言文化对比研究》.长沙:湖南教育出版社,1990
刘润清.《论大学英语教学》. 北京:外语教学与研究出版社,1999
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