An Error Analysis of Taiwanese EFL Learns Use of Tense and Aspects

An Error Analysis of Taiwanese EFL Learners Use of Tense and Aspects : NA2C0011

Background AND motivationHalf of the population in the world, about population of 3 billion, communicates in English in the decade, and English will become the real global language (Graddol, 1997).Singapore, Malaysia use English as a second language. As the widest spoken language in the world, knowing how to speak and read in English has a lot of advantages.(travel, communicate, broaden horizons )

Background and Motivation 2Students fail to learn English. Tense morphological change and word order are the difficult parts for Taiwanese students.There is no grammatical tense in Chinese. In English, people use do did as present and pastin Chinese, people only add le () to imply that an action has been completed.Chinese does not have plural words.(s )Lack of input, lack of meaningful oral practice.

Background and Motivation 3ESL learners can not only learn English in the classroom setting but also acquire English in an English-speaking environment. English-learners need to immerse in an English-speaking environment to build native-like concept so that they can use the word or sentence structure more correctly.Owing to the tough competition for entering better senior high schools, teachers put much more emphasis on grammar, reading, and writing. They ignore the most important skill -- speaking.

Background and Motivation 4The phenomenon of bimodal distribution()Students give up learning English(cloze test accurate rate 30%)Use translation test to detect tense errors then analyze if the subjects can tell the tense and calling subjects attention to the tense can make a difference.The reasons are:1.broaden learners understanding of the second language.2.Not only assure language learners L1 knowledge but also improve their L2 competence .

problemsForget to add s(third and singular)Misuse have, hasVerb+..ing, verb is always missing.Forget to add edPresent perfect(havent seen, havent saw)Misuse between be verb and auxiliary in negative sentences.(I am not walkI dont walk)There may be more tense errors veiled and researchers intended to find the answer.

Purpose of the studyTo explore the causes of the misuse between be verb and auxiliary, and examine whether calling students attention to tense could make a difference in translating Chinese into English.Analyze 22 declaratives and 18 negatives errors made by junior students to help teachers teaching tense.To find out whether students know the tenses are but fail to write the correct answer.To dissect the tense errors in different proficiency students. To analyze the misuse between verb and auxiliary in negative sentences.

Research QuestionsWhat are the major type of tense errors committed by junior high school students in Taiwan?Is the inability to detect the tense one of the causes of errors made by junior high school students in Taiwan?Can calling subjects attention to the tense can make a difference in different groups.What are the major types of errors committed by junior high school students of different proficiency levels in Taiwan?What are the students of different proficiency levels situations of misuse of the be verb and auxiliary in negative sentences?

Literature ReviewQuirk et al.(1972, as cited in Hung, 2008)V formsA.base form:talk swim come1. Present tense except 3rd person singular subject: I/They talk.2. Imperative: Come here at once!3. Subjunctive: He demanded that she comehere at once.4. With modal auxiliary: He should come.5. In infinitives: He wanted me to come.

V Forms 2V-s (-s form):talks swims comes1. 3rd person singular present tense: He comes here every day.V-ed (past form):talked swam came1. Past tense: He came here yesterday.V-ing (Present participle) talking swimming coming1. Progressive aspect: He is coming here. 2. Participle/Gerund constructions: talking to strangers. V-en (past participle):talked swum come1. Perfect aspect: He has never talked to us.2. Passive voice: He is talked into buying a new card.

Tense and Aspect Systems in English and ChineseTense and aspects in English: tense refers to the absolute location of an event or action in time.Aspect refers to how an event or action is to be view with respect to time rather than to its actual location in time.*walk walked*fell in love on 18, has fallen in love,is falling in love Tense and aspects in Chinese: Chinese verbs do not conjugate. Aspect is used to indicate an action. For example, conjugates as going, gone,went, whereas the Chinese (go) is always the same no matter what the time frame is.Apect is used to indicate an action.

Error AnalysisErrors are classified according to:modality (i.e., level of proficiency in speaking, writing, reading, listening) linguistic levels (i.e., pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, style) form (e.g., omission, insertion, substitution) type (systematic error/ errors in competence vs. occasional errors /errors in performance) cause (e.g. interference, interlanguage) norm vs. system

Error Analysis 2Error analysis in SLA (second language acquisition) was established in the 1960s by Stephen Pit Corder and Colleagues.Error analysis bases on two fundamental approaches (Norris, 1987). The first one emphasizes error categories which are preconceived and set up. That is to say these error types are already sorted out and predetermined at first. The second approach allows the errors themselves determine which grammatical and semantic categories they belong to, that is, all errors are classified and sorted out after they collected.Believed that error analysis provides a key to study the second language acquisition and a useful tool to figure out the difficulties language learners are encountering.

MethodologySubjects:one hundred and twenty-eight students of ninth-grade junior high school students in Hsin Sheng Junior High School in Taitung County.Four different classes,age 15. supposed to start to learn English from the third grade in elementary school. So, they have learned English at least seven years or more,were composed of students of different English proficiency levels.

2The four classes of the ninth-grade students were chosen and categorized into two groups (called GA and GB) which were based on the mean scores of the monthly English achievement examinations.GA and GB would engage in different tasks. GA would do the Chinese-English Translation Test Paper (see Appendix A). GB would check what the tense was of each item before they did the translation.

3Appendix A so as to induce the subjects to display their real knowledge about verb tenses and aspects. Besides, the researcher added tense-checking to the Chinese-English translation test (see Appendix B) in order to test whether calling attention to tense can make a difference in doing translation.Adopted an elicitation procedure suggested by Corder,the requires direct translation from the native language to the target language.

4GA translated T1 but they did not need to tell the tense. GB not only translated the 40 Chinese sentences but also needed to judge the tense of each Chinese sentence at the same time.There were six tenses which were distributed randomly among the translation test.(Be Verbs,Regular and Irregular Verbs)Pilot Study.(reliable)

ProceduresFirst of all, the researcher designed the translation test.Before the tests, the subjects were told to take the tests seriously and were informed write down what they have learned and what they have known as much as possible. All the subjects were asked to finish the test in 45 minutes.The test papers were collected and scored.The subjects were categorized into three groups according to their scores on the test.The types of tense errors that the subjects made were indentified and classified respectively, the frequency, percentages, and distributions of error types by the subjects were calculated and recorded for analysis.

Data AnalysisNo points were given in misuse of verb tenses.One point was deducted in incomplete forms of verbs tenses, more or less a word.One point was deducted in misuse between be verb and auxiliary of negative sentences.Some items (Item 5 ) were combined by two sentences, no point was deducted.Some items (Item 39 and 6 ) had different writing forms but had the same meanings, no point was deducted.Apart from the v forms of correct tense emphasized, the rest part of the sentences would not result in any point.

Classification of ErrorsI.Overgeneralization Errors 1. Aux substitutions Susan *didnt (wasnt) fat at all before.2. Incorrect forms of tenses I *was sent (sent) a Christmas card to her.3. Verb number errors Mary *clean (cleans) her house once a week.4. Redundant Aux Mary *did walked (walked) to school yesterday. 5. Morphology I *havent eated (havent eaten) dinner yet. 6. Misuse of tenses I *played (was playing) the piano at 8:30 yesterday.

Classification of ErrorsII. Transfer Errors: 7. Aux omission Candy *not join (didnt join) the summer camp last year. 8. Word-order errors Jeff *last month every day after school practiced playing basketball. (practiced playing basketball after school every day .III. Translation Errors:9. Verb substitution: I *was washing my body. (was taking a bath)10. Spelling errors: The sun *roses (rises) in the east.

rESULTsDifferences of Scores of Samples with Different Backgrounds in Declaratives, Negatives, Be Verb, and Auxiliary,the mean of scores of female group is higher than that of the scores of male group, the results present that the two groups do not reach significant differences.Differences of the scores among different English experience groupsAfter conducting post-comparison, it shows that the scores of 6~7 ys group are significantly higher than of above 10 ys(included) group and the scores of 8~9 ys group are significantly higher than of above 10 ys(included). The differences are verysignificant.

2Differences of the scores in declaratives between male group and female group, the mean of scores of female group is higher than that of the scores of male group, the results present that the two groups do not reach significant differences.Differences of the scores in declaratives among different English learning experience groups, after conducting post-comparison, it shows that the scoresof 6~7 ys group are significantly higher than of above 10 ys(included) group. The differences are significant.

3Differences of the scores in negatives between male group and female group, the mean of scores of female group is higher than that of the scores of male group, the results present that the two groups do not reach significant differences.Differences of the scores in negatives among different English learning experience group, it shows that the scores of 6~7 ys group are significantly higher than of above 10 ys(included) group. The differences are very significant.

4Differences of the scores in be verb between male group and female group, the mean of scores of female group is higher than that of the scores of male group, the results present that the two groups do not reach significant differences.Differences of the scores in be verb among different English learning experience group, it shows that the scores of 6~7 ys group are significantly higher than of below 5 ys(included) group, and the scores of 6~7 ys group are significantly higher than of above 10 ys(included) group . The differences are very significant.

5Differences of the scores in auxiliary between male group and female group, the mean of scores of female group is higher than that of the scores of male group, the results present that the two groups do not reach significant differences.Differences of the scores in auxiliary among different English learning experience group, it shows that, and the scores of 8~9 ys group are significantly higher than of above 10 ys(included) group. The differences are very significant.

6Differences of Scores among Samples with Different English Proficiency. we divide the samples into three groups and compare the differences among the three groups in terms of declaratives, negatives, be verb, and auxiliary.Descriptive statistics of scores among groups with different English proficiency,it shows that high-score group is higher than medium-score group, and medium-score group is higher than low-score group. The 46 differences are very significant.

7Descriptive statistics of scores in declaratives among groups with different English proficiency, it shows that high-score group is higher than medium-score group, and medium-score group is higher than low-score group. The differences are very significant.Descriptive statistics of scores in negatives among groups with different English proficiency, it shows that high-score group is higher than medium-score group, and medium-score group is higher than low-score group. The differences are very significant.

8Descriptive statistics of scores in be verb among groups with different English proficiency, it shows that high-score group is higher than medium-score group, and medium-score group is higher than low-score group. The differences are very significant.Descriptive statistics of scores in auxiliary among groups with different English proficiency, it shows that high-score group is higher than medium-score group, and medium-score group is higher than low-score group. The differences are very significant.

9Differences of Scores between Tense-Hint Group and No-Tense-Hint Group, the mean of scores of tense-hint group is higher than that of the scores of no-tense-hint group, the results present that the two groups do not reach significant differences.Differences of the scores in declaratives negatives be v auxiliary between tense-hint group and no-tense-hint group, do not reach significant differences.We could conclude that the ability to detect tenses is helpful for translating sentences.

Result and Conclusion Among the sample, the male (58.3%) are more than the female (41.7%); the 6~7 ys group (41.7%) surpasses all the other groups, approximately doubling 8~9 ys group (22.5%).In addition, whether in sum, declaratives, negatives, be verb, and auxiliary, the scores between male and female are not differentiated significantly.

Result and Conclusion 2In terms of English learning experience, approximately, 6~7 ys group is superior to below 5 ys group and above 10 ys(included) group. From the differences caused by various learning experience year, we can found that during 6 ~ 7 ys, golden language learning period, students learn and absorb English, an exotic language, most efficiently and fastest.

Frequencies and distribution of tense errors:Junior high school students made the most errors in present perfect tense (58%), then past simple tense (44%).Students need to choose an appropriate auxiliary, has or have, in agreement to its subject. Then, they must memorize right past participle of the verb.The correlation of scores between checks and translation is high (.78), and the result reaches a very significant level. Thus, we conclude that the students checking the right tense will incline to write right sentences with appropriate tenses.

Differences between tense-hint group and no-tense-hint groupWhether in declaratives, negatives, be verb, and auxiliary, although tense-hint group performs better than no-tense-hint group, the differences are not significant.(guessing by chance,not really understand)In the study, we do not ascertain if giving hint about tense will facilitate students to do better in the test.

Frequencies and distribution of tense errors of students with different proficiency:Whether in low, medium and high-score group, the percentages of errors in present perfect tense are superior to any other tense. It indicates that in the process of English learning, most junior high school students tend to become confused at present perfect tense.Misuse between be verb and auxiliary in negatives: Percentages of misuse in auxiliary by junior high school students surpass ofmisuse in be verb.

ImplicationsTo teachers: From the results, most junior high school students tend to make errors in present perfect tense, suggest that teachers put more emphasis on present perfect tense, practice more frequently.cooperative learningTo text publishers: Adjust the percentages of different tenses in the textbook, especially present perfect tense and auxiliary.Multi-media teaching material and tools.

To future studiesCan not overgeneralize the results to other situations and subjects. Moreover, owing to limited time and resources, we only conduct quantitative research. Also, we can not list and examine all kinds of error types of individual students response on the paper, and the depth of the study could be criticized.Suggest that the following researchers discuss the responses of the student with the student item by item and conduct qualitative research so that they can gather more abundant information in the process of interaction.Whole Taiwan.