This document discusses errors and developmental patterns in learner language. It describes how learner errors can be analyzed by comparing their utterances to the target language forms, identifying types of errors, and looking at patterns over time. Errors may help learning as learners self-correct. There are systematic stages of second language acquisition, including a silent period when learners do not speak, followed by transitional rule systems as grammatical structures are acquired in a progression, not all at once. Learner language is both systematic in its errors and variable depending on context.

2.  Errors
and error analysis
 Developmental
 Variability
 summary
patterns
in learner language

3. 
The description may focus on kinds of
errors learners make and how these
errors change over time or it may identify
developmental patterns by describing
the stages in the acquisition of particular
grammatical features such as past tense
or it may examine the variability found in
learner language.

4. However, there are good reasons for focusing on errors. First, they are
conspicuous feature of learner language, raising the important question of
‘why do learners make errors?’. Second, it is useful for teachers to know what
errors learners make. Third, paradoxically it is possible that making errors may
actually help learners to learn when they self-correct the errors they make. 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
which correspond with them. Sometime his is straightforward. For example,
jean says:

A man and a little boy was watching them
It is not difficult to see that the correct sentence should be:

A man and a little boy were watching them

5. It is the first step to take to analysis
errors made by learners.
Example:
 Jean is an adult French learner, he
writes a paragraph of story ,
* A man and a little boy was watching
him.
- was is supposed to were.
*… went in the traffic.
- in is supposed to be into


6. We can distinguish errors and mistakes
made by learners by checking the
consistency of learners performance.
 But whenever learner can do self-correct
activity in producing the words then it
means that he posses the knowledge the
correct form but just slipping up the
mistake.


7. 
One is to classify errors into grammatical
categories. Another way might be to try
to identify general ways in which the
learners’ utterances differ from the
reconstructed
target-language
utterances.

8. 
Errors are, to a large extent, systematic,
and to a certain extent, predictable.
Errors are not only systematic, many of
them are also universal. Thus, the kind of
past tense error found in jean’s speech
has been attested in the speech of may
learners.

9.  Not
all errors are universal, some
errors are common only to
learners who share the same
mother tongue or whose mother
tongues manifest the same
linguist property.

10. Global errors
Local errors
Affect
only
a
single constituent
in the sentence
Violate the overall structure of a
sentence and for this reason may make
it difficult process, Jean , for example
says: The policeman was in the corner
whistle….
Which is difficult to understand because
the basic structure of the sentence is
wrong

11. 





The early stages of acquisition
SILENT PERIOD : children make no attempt to say
anything to begin with (the learners begin to speak in
the L2 speech is likely to manifest two particular
characteristics)
Acquisition order
Do learners acquire the grammatical structure of an
L2 in a definite order?
Sequence of acquisition
Do learners learn such structure in a single step or do
they proceed through a number of interim stages
before they master the target structure?

12. 
Acquisition order: investigating a number
of grammatical structures to study; i.e.
progressive –ing ,and plural-s

13.  There
must be seen a process
involving
transitional
constructions.
 The next sequence is U-shaped
course of development.

14. 
Learner language is systematic, that is, at a
particular stage of development, learners
consistently use the same grammatical form
although this is often different from that employed
by native speakers. Learner language is variable.
Linguistic
context
Situational
context

15. Linguistic
context
The crucial element in the
linguistic context involves
some other constituent of
the utterance. Example:
George playing football –
George played football all
the time.
In sentences referring past
tense which do not have
an adverb of frequency,
the learners are more likely
to use progressive marker.
Situational
context
Learners vary their use of
language
similarly. They
are more likely to use the
correct
target-language
forms in formal contexts
and non-target forms in
informal contexts. another
important that accounts
for the systematic nature of
variability
is
the
psycholinguistic
context.
Whether learners have the
opportunity to plan their
production.

17. 
Ellis, Rod. 1997. Second Language
Acquisition.