The course gives an introduction to contrastive analysis and error analysis focusing on English as a second or foreign language. Common errors made by language learners in the classroom will be discussed. The causes of these errors are to be classified into pedagogical, psychological and cultural factors. Implications for language teaching will be highlighted.
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The course aims to:
- Introduce a systematic comparison and contrast of two or more languages and to focus on their similarities and differences
- Emphasise the methods of examining linguistic errors (error analysis)
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Personal views on this course:
After taking Error and Contrastive Analysis for the whole semester, this course had made us realized that we should give our time to make some investigations before condemning someone for making grammatical errors or other kinds of errors in their speeches and writings. Condemning or reproving someone for making errors in their sentence structures may provide them awareness and exposure on the mistakes that they had done and they will try to note down the errors so that repetition of the same errors will not occur in their later writings/speeches. However, not everyone are able to accept the mistakes that they had done especially if they were being condemn publicly and this will bring negative effects to them psychologically. They will become upset and sometime feel demotivated to further their learning. Some learners also tend to ignore when they were being corrected thus, they will just repeatedly make the same mistakes.
After taking Error and Contrastive Analysis for the whole semester, this course had made us realized that we should give our time to make some investigations before condemning someone for making grammatical errors or other kinds of errors in their speeches and writings. Condemning or reproving someone for making errors in their sentence structures may provide them awareness and exposure on the mistakes that they had done and they will try to note down the errors so that repetition of the same errors will not occur in their later writings/speeches. However, not everyone are able to accept the mistakes that they had done especially if they were being condemn publicly and this will bring negative effects to them psychologically. They will become upset and sometime feel demotivated to further their learning. Some learners also tend to ignore when they were being corrected thus, they will just repeatedly make the same mistakes.
There may be a reason behind each mistakes that a learner does hence, this course had taught us on how to tackle the problems by further investigating whether one's L1 can interfere with the L2 during the process of language learning. Two terms that we learnt related to this interference which are; INTERLANGUAGE and CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS HYPOTHESIS. Besides that, we also learnt on the different writing styles that people will be developing, which are being classified into native speakers writing style and non-native speakers writing style. We also learnt on the different cultural aspects of different countries and whether these aspects can affect people's understanding towards the things that they say during a conversation or an act. Conventional or unconventional symbols/images are related to this matter.
All in all, we propose that Error and Contrastive Analysis is a suitable course for those who will be educators whether they will be teaching in the higher education or schools as the course primarily teach us on how to deal with different kinds of errors and also the ethics and strategies in correcting students errors. Thus, educators will be able to get to know their students well and help to correct the errors of the students with the right approach.
Notes on Error and Contrastive Analysis
Error Analysis
Contrastive Analysis
Cross Linguistic Influence and Learner Language
Inter-language
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