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VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES

LÊ THU HƯƠNG
AN INVESTIGATION INTO ORAL ERRORS IN ENGLISH
SPEAKING CLASSES OF 10TH - FORM NON-ENGLISH
MAJORS AT PHAN BOI CHAU SPECIALIZING HIGH
SCHOOL, NGHE AN
(Nghiên cứu lỗi nói của học sinh lớp 10 không chuyên ở trường
THPT chuyên Phan Bội Châu, Nghệ An)
MA MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 601410

Hanoi - 2010


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VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES

LÊ THU HƯƠNG
AN INVESTIGATION INTO ORAL ERRORS IN ENGLISH
SPEAKING CLASSES OF 10TH - FORM NON-ENGLISH
MAJORS AT PHAN BOI CHAU SPECIALIZING HIGH
SCHOOL, NGHE AN

(Nghiên cứu lỗi nói của học sinh lớp 10 không chuyên ở trường
THPT chuyên Phan Bội Châu, Nghệ An)
MA MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 601410
Supervisor: Phạm Minh Hiền, MA

Hanoi - 2010


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LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: The reason for learning English
Table 2: Students’ attitude toward English speaking skills
Table 3: Students’ ability of speaking English in classrooms.
Table 4: Frequency of students’ oral errors in English speaking classes
Table 5: Types of students’ oral errors in English speaking classes
Table 6: The omission of the inflectional suffixes in English speaking classes
Table 7: The errors of mispronouncing the voiceless /s/
Table 8: The errors of adding “s” or other sounds to a certain number of words
Table 9: The error of mispronouncing /s/ for /∫/
Table 10: The error of mispronouncing the fricative sound /ð/
Table 11: The error of mispronouncing vowel sounds
Table 12: Teachers’ attitude toward students’ oral errors and oral error correction
Table 13: Types of students’ oral error correction
Table 14: Teachers’ techniques used to correct students’ oral errors

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
DECLARATION………………………………………………………………………………i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS......................................................................................................ii
ABSTRACT..............................................................................................................................iii
LIST OF TABLES....................................................................................................................iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS …………………………………………………………………….v
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS……………………………………………………………...viii
PART A: INTRODUCTION....................................................................................................1
1. Rationales of the study...........................................................................................................1
2. Aims of the study....................................................................................................................2
3. Scope of the study...................................................................................................................2
4. Research questions.................................................................................................................2
5. Methods of the study..............................................................................................................2
6. Significance of the study........................................................................................................3
7. Design of the study.................................................................................................................3
PART B: DEVELOPMENT.....................................................................................................4
CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW.................................................................................4
I. Overview..................................................................................................................................4
I.1. Definition of speaking...................................................................................................4
I.2. The characteristics of speaking......................................................................................4
I.3. The importance of speaking..........................................................................................5
I.4. Learners’ errors............................................................................................................. 6
I.4.1. Definition of error.................................................................................................. 6
I.4.2. Oral error............................................................................................................... 6
I.5. Errors and Mistakes.......................................................................................................6
I.6. Causes of Errors.............................................................................................................7
I.6.1. Mother-Tongue Interference....................................................................................7
I.6.2. Overgeneralization...................................................................................................9

I.6.3. Interlanguage.........................................................................................................11
I.6.4. Simplification........................................................................................................12


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I.6.5. Teaching materials and methodology.......................................................................12
I.7. Techniques used to correct learners’ oral errors..............................................................13
I.7.1. Self- correction......................................................................................................... 13
I.7.2. Peer- correction..........................................................................................................13
I.7.3. Teacher Correction....................................................................................................14
CHAPTER II: METHODS OF THE STUDY.......................................................................15
II.1. Background of the study.................................................................................................15
II.1.1. Description of the teachers of English at PBC Specializing High School................. 15
II.1.2. The students at Phan Boi Chau Specializing High School. ........................................15
II.1.3. The current situation of English teaching and learning at PBC Specializing High
School....................................................................................................................................... 16
II.1.3.1. The materials of teaching and learning................................................................16
II.1.3.2. The teaching and learning English speaking skills..............................................16
II. 2. Data collection................................................................................................................ 16
II.2.1. The instruments for collecting data...........................................................................16
II.2.2. Procedures and method of the study..........................................................................17
CHAPTER III: THE STUDY.................................................................................................18
III.3. Data analysis, findings and discussion.........................................................................18
III.3.1. The reality of Students’ English speaking at PBC Specializing High School.... .....18
III.3.1.1. The reason for learning English........................................................................18
III.3.1.2. Students’ attitude toward English speaking skills........................................... 19
III.3.1.3. Students’ ability of speaking English in classrooms.........................................19
III.3.1.4. Frequency of students’ oral errors in English speaking classes.......................20
III.3.1.5. Types of students’ oral errors in English speaking classes...............................21
III.3.1.6. Factors causing students’oral errors in their English speaking.........................26

III.3.2. Strategies for correcting students’ oral errors at PBC Specializing High School..... 29
III.3.2.1. Teachers’ attitude toward students’ oral errors and oral error correction........ 29
III.3.2.2. Teachers’ decisions on what to correct.............................................................30
III.3.2.3. Teachers’ techniques used to correct students’ oral errors...............................31
III.4. Some suggested solutions to correct students’ oral errors effectively.......................33


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III.5. Summary.........................................................................................................................35
PART C: CONCLUSIONS …………………………............................................................36
I. Conclusions...........................................................................................................................36
II. Implications.........................................................................................................................36
III. Limitations of the study....................................................................................................37
IV. Suggestion for further study............................................................................................38
REFERENCES.........................................................................................................................39
APPENDICES
APPENDIX A: TEACHER SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE.................................................. I
APPENDIX B: STUDENT SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE...................................................II
APPENDIX C: CLASSROOM OBSERVATIONS..............................................................VI


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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
L1: First language
L2: Second language
CLT: Communicative Language Teaching


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PART A: INTRODUCTION

1. Rationales of the study
English has been playing an important role in the world’s social life. In
Vietnam, English is widely used by not only foreigners but also Vietnamese
people as a language of work and business. There have been an increasing
number of people desiring to know English with the hope of keeping up with the
latest modern technology in the world. English has now been taught not only at
all universities and colleges, but also at almost every senior high school and it is
considered as a compulsory subject at secondary school.
Therefore, teaching and learning English is now considered as a necessity
in the society with the aim of mastering an international language. Being aware
of the importance of teaching and learning English, methodology for teaching
learning English as a foreign language has been considerably changing in order
to enhance the abilities of English language learners, especially speaking English
to meet the needs required by their work.
At Phan Boi Chau Specializing High School, English is a compulsory
subject in the curriculum and it is considered as a major subject for the high
school examination. It is taught with the purpose that students have some basic
knowledge of English in order to communicate and to use it as a key to science
and technology. However, there still exist many difficulties facing English
language teachers in Vietnam in general and English language teachers at Phan
Boi Chau Specializing High School in particular in teaching speaking skills to
students.
In the teaching situations, the students usually keep quiet in speaking
lessons; they mind speaking English. There are many students who have good
knowledge of grammar, can do reading and writing exercises wonderfully but


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they cannot express themselves in English and find it hard to response
spontaneously and naturally.

One of the reasons for this is that students often make oral errors in
speaking. As we know, it is inevitable for learners to make errors in their
learning process. At Phan Boi Chau Specializing High School I have found that
most of the non-English majors who specialize in natural subjects such as:
Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and Biology… or social subjects such as:
Literature, History and Geography often make oral errors in their speaking. For
most students, they find speaking especially important yet most challenging one
although they are given more chances to practise speaking English during all
English lessons. They are always passive and not familiar with, even afraid of
taking part in pair-work or group-work activities in classrooms. In addition,
many students feel shy and ashamed when making errors in speaking. As a
result, there are various kinds of oral errors appearing in students’ English
speaking.
Those are the reasons that inspire me with the desire to conduct An
investigation into oral errors in English speaking classes of 10 th - form NonEnglish Majors at Phan Boi Chau Specializing High School, Nghe An..
2. Aims of the study
This research is designed to investigate Students’ oral errors and the
strategies of oral correction at Phan Boi Chau Specializing High School, Nghe
An. It has 4 purposes:
* to clarify the reality of students’ English speaking in classrooms.
* to find out kinds of oral errors that students make when they speak
English in classrooms.


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* to gain an insight into the teachers’ attitude toward students’ oral errors
and oral error correction.
* to help teachers develop their possible strategies for oral error
corrections.
3. Scope of the study.

The study concentrates only on investigating students’ oral errors in their
English speaking classes and teachers’ strategies of oral error correction at Phan
Boi Chau Specializing High School, Nghe An. The study mainly focuses on the
learners in the tenth form at Phan Boi Chau Specializing High School, Nghe An.
4. Research questions.
4.1. What is the reality of students’ English speaking at Phan Boi Chau
Specializing High School, Nghe An?
4.2. What are teachers’ attitude toward students’ oral errors and oral error
correction?
4.3. What are the types of oral errors often made by students at Phan Boi Chau
Specializing High School, Nghe An? What are the causes of these oral errors?
4.4. What are the possible strategies used to correct students’ oral errors
effectively?
5. Methods of the study.
In the process of carrying out the study, the instruments for collecting data
in this research are classroom observations. In addition, questionnaires are used
to collect data for the study.


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6. Significance of the study
I want to conduct the research on this issue because 10th - form NonEnglish Majors at Phan Boi Chau Specializing High School, Nghe An make too
many errors in their English speaking classes. Therefore, the results of the study
can be of a great significance for both teachers and students in the field of
correcting students’ oral errors effectively in English language teaching and
learning in general and in English speaking classes in particular.
7. Design of the study.
This paper is divided into three main parts:
Part A is the INTRODUCTION. In this part, the rationales of the study, the
aims, research questions, the scope of the study, methods of the study and also

its design are presented.
Part B is the DEVELOPMENT which includes 3 chapters. Chapter I deals
with some theoretical background that is relevant to the purpose of the study:
students’ oral errors, common factors causing students’ errors, the techniques for
correcting students’ oral errors in classrooms. Chapter II describes the situation
where the study was conducted and the informants involved in the study. It
includes the teachers of English, the students, the textbook, the current teaching
and learning situation. The method of data collection and its procedures are also
presented in this chapter.
Chapter III presents the results stastistically to find out about the teachers and
students’ attitudes toward errors and error correction as well as some correction
techniques. This chapter is by far the most dominant one in which some
suggestions for correcting students’ oral errors effectively in English speaking
classes.


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Part C is the CONCLUSION which includes the obtained results, implications
of the study and suggestions for further research.
APPENDICES and REFERENCES are presented in the last pages of the study.
PART B: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW
I. Overview.
This chapter presents some issues related to oral errors and oral error
correction in language teaching and learning. It provides definitions of the
concepts used in the study.
I.1. Definition of speaking
Bygate defines “Oral expression involves not only the use of the right
sounds in the patterns of rhythm and intonation, but also the choice of words and
inflections in the right order to convey the right meaning.” (cited in Mackey

1965: 266)
According to Brown and Yules’s (1983) spoken language consists of
short, fragmentary utterances, in a range of pronunciation. There is often a great
deal of repetition and overlap between one speaker and another, and speakers
usually use non-specific references. They also point out that in speaking the
loosely-organized syntax, and non-specific words and phrases are used, spoken
language is, therefore, made to feel less conceptually dense than written
language.
More importantly, speaking, a productive skill, is known to have two main
types of conversation namely, dialogue and monologue, which are rather
different. In monologue, you give uninterrupted oral presentation while in


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dialogue you interact with one or more other speakers for transactional and
international purposes.
It is noticeable from the two productive language skills that speaking is
different from writing in both processing conditions and reciprocity conditions.
“First, spoken language is affected by the time limitations, and the associated
problems of planning, memory, and production under pressure. Second, it is
reciprocal activity, which has a crucial effect on the kinds of decisions to be
made.” (Bygate. 1987: 11-12)
I.2. The characteristics of speaking
According to Bygate, M (1985), in almost speaking, the person to whom
we are speaking is in front of us and able to put us right if we make mistakes. He
or she can generally show agreement and understanding or incomprehension and
disagreement as well. Unlike readers or writers, speakers may need patience and
imagination, too. While talking, speakers need to take notice of the other and
allow listeners chance to speak. It means that we often take turns to speak.
To be more specific, Bygate (1987) assumes that conversation can be

analyzed in terms of routines, which are conventional ways of presenting
information.
In Bygate’s opinion, there are two kinds of routines. They are information
routines and interactional ones.
Information routines may be described to involve two sub-routines:
expository and evaluation. The former includes description, narration,
comparison and instruction. The latter consists of explanation, prediction,
justification, preference and decision.


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Interaction routines are routines based not so much on sequences of kinds
of term occurring intypical kinds of interactions. These routines, thus, can be
characterized in broad terms including the kinds of turns typically occurring in
given situations and the order in which the components are likely to occur. So,
telephone

conversation,

interview

conversations

casual

encounters,

conversations at parties, lessons, radio or television interviews, all tend to be
organized in characteristic ways.
To sum up, in learning speaking skills, the learners can be much more

confident with clear understanding and governing these skills. Moreover, the oral
skill depends much on knowledge of language they can learn such as grammar,
pronunciation and vocabulary.
In addition, learners rely on common conventional expression of
communicating specific meanings, particularly on the language environment. It
is clear that practice in classroom might not be similar to oral communication
outside classroom. In a foreign language classroom, practice is rather simple and
far from real life.
And it is undeniable that speaking is a key to communication. By
considering what good speakers do, what speaking tasks can be used in class,
and what specific needs learners report, teachers can help learners improve their
speaking and overall oral competence.
I.3. The importance of speaking
Speaking plays an utmost important role among the four language skills
since it helps to identify who knows or does not know a language. Pattison
(1992) points out that when people mention knowing or learning a language,
they mean being able to speak the language. In a social context, social role are


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likely to be taken by those who learn and know how to speak, but not by those
who do not have this skill. It cannot be denied that speaking deserves as much
attention as or even more attention than written skill. In order to carry out many
of the most basic transactions, it is necessary for learners to speak with
confidence.
I.4. Learners’ errors
I.4.1. Definitions of error
I.4. Error.
Error is the use of a linguistic item (e.g. a word, a grammatical item, etc)
in a way which a fluent or native speaker of the language regards as showing

faulty or incomplete learning. Errors are sometimes classified according to
vocabulary (lexical error), pronunciation (phonological error), grammar
(syntactic error), misunderstanding of a speaker’s intention or meaning
(interpretive error), production of the wrong communicative effect. If a student
cannot self-correct a mistake in his or her own English, but the teacher thinks
that the class is familiar with the correct form, we shall call that sort of mistake
an error.
I.4.2. Oral error
In our educational system, English is viewed as a foreign language for
teaching and learning at all school levels. When students use English for
communication in classrooms, they will certainly make errors in their speaking.
Therefore, oral error can be defined as an error that students often commit when
they speak English.


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In the light of error analysis, a clear-cut definition of language error in
spoken English is that oral error is the use of a linguistic item in a way, which
indicate faulty or incomplete learning. According to Liski and Duntanen (cited in
Lennon, 1991, p72) “oral error occurs where the speaking fails to follow the
pattern or manner of speech of educated people in English speaking countries”.
I.5. Errors and Mistakes
It is quite difficult to differentiate mistakes and errors. A distinction is
sometimes made between an error, which results from incomplete knowledge,
and a mistake made by a learner when writing or speaking and which is caused
by lack of attention, fatigue, carelessness, or some other aspect of performance.
In a simple way, we can have this distinction: A mistake is a slip of the tongue or
the pen; the learner knows the correct form but has temporarily forgotten it. A
learner can probably correct his/her own mistakes. An error, on the other hand,
occurs because the learner doesn’t know the correct form and so cannot produce

it at this stage of learning.
I.6. Causes of Errors
There have been many causes of learners’ errors or mistakes when they
learn English. The following are generally among the major ones:
I.6.1. Mother-Tongue Interference
Wilkin (1972:190) claims that we should be able to identify the mothertongue of a group of pupils basing solely on the reocurring mistakes that we had
noticed. By this it is meant that these mistakes of different individuals share
some characteristics which can be traced back to an external source the mother-


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tongue. Especially for Vietnamese learners, it looks as though the mother tongue
is the main cause of errors since many significant differences between English
and Vietnamese can be found: the nouns in Vietmamese are not inflected for
number, the verbs are not inflected for tense or person, the word order does not
always fit into the English language system. It is on this basis that contrastive
analysis appeared. Under the light of this hypothesis, it is widely accepted that “a
learner of a second language transfers into his performance in the second
language the habits of his mother tongue” (Corder 1974:130), and that the
similarity between the two contact languages would facilitate an individual to
learn the L2, and the differences would hinder the L2 learning process. In the
former case, where parallel features of the two languages correspond exactly,
positive transfer from the L1 to L2 is concerned, and in the later case it is said
that “negative transfer” or interference involves and causes errors to occur or
even reoccur.
While it is easily accepted that the first language does interfere the second
language learning, there is also a disagreement among researchers on the nature
of interference process. In other words, there is considerable controversy over
the definition of interference. For Dulay and Burt (1976:71), interference is
defined as “the automatic transfer, due to habit, of the surface structure of the

first language onto the surface of the target language”. Moreover, there are many
ways in which mother tongue can be directly transferred onto the target language
and the foreign language learner tends to transfer not only forms, but also
meanings and cultural aspects of the native language to the target language.
(Lado 1957:21)
George, on the other hand, expresses doubt on the idea of direct
interference from the mother- tongue and attributes errors to the redundant


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features of the language as a direct source. By this one may imply that the
highest level of difficulty occurs and causes errors when there is an absence of a
language item from either language, or when both languages possess similar but
unidentical features. (1972:45)
Corder (1974:130) does not emphasize on the differences of the languages
in contact. On the other hand, he explains the similarity of many errors to the
forms of the mother tongue in terms of strategy that the learner uses when
learning a foreign language. A foreign language learner, when processing the
data and inducing rules which he is constantly testing for their validity, is
hypothesizing that language two is like language one until he discovers the
correct rule by making errors and having it corrected.
One of the reasons why learner tends to transfer into his performance in
the foreign language the habits of his mother tongue is given by Corder: “If one
does not know some rule of the second language then one either keeps silent or
uses the most similar available rule, i.e. of one’s mother-tongue”. In other words,
he tends to use words and structures from his own language and try to make
them fit into the foreign language (Edge 1989:7)
For Dulay et al, this kind of L1 interference is due to the performance
pressure. Besides, the limited L2 environment is to blame, especially in
Vietnamese classroom settings where English is learnt as a foreign language.

Another source of L1 interference is the manner of eliciting verbal performance.
A teacher may give students a task, a translation exercise for instance, where
they are required to think in both the mother tongue and the target language;
hence increasing their reliance on the structures of the mother tongue. Finally,
the monitor use is taken account. This is reflected in the learner’s use of
vocabulary of the target language to fill the native language structures, the result


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of which is erroneous utterances similar to word-for-word translation.
(1982:108-110).
Although there seem to be no disagreements on the sources of mother
tongue interference, it is not surprising that error analysis projects have yielded
widely contradictory results. Undoubledly, this is partly due to differences of
definition. It is presented in Lott (1983:258) that while Dulay and Burt state a
percentage of fewer than 5 percent of errors classified as interference, some other
researchers attribute as many as 80% of errors to interference. Lott himself votes
for about 50% of errors as owing to intereference.
The advantages of the mother tongue in the foreign language learning are
admitted. “It is economical and productive for L2 learners to transfer their
previous knowledge of language to the new task” since the first language
provides “a rather rich and specific set of hypotheses” which learners can use.
Obviously, they donot have to discover everything from zero. (Littlewood 1998:
25, 26). This is why it is worth looking at the mother tongue as one of the main
sources where we can find the explanation for some of the second language
errors.
I.6.2. Overgeneralization
Littlewood (1998:23) claims that generaliztion is a fundamental learning
strategy in all domains including language. “In order to make sense of our world,
we allocate items to categories; on the basis of these categories, we construct

“rules” which predict how the different items will behave”. He also states that
our predictions may sometimes be wrong for one of the following two main
reasons: (1) The rule we construct does not apply to this particular item, though


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we have allocated the item to the appropriate category. (2) The item actually
belongs to quite a different category and we must have allocated it wrongly.
In both cases the overgeneralization will cause the wrong prediction which
will lead to learners’ errors. In terms of foreign language learning, Littlewood
(1998:23) suggests that the learner is employing similar strategies to those used
by first language learners. One of the strategies is certainly overgeneralization
which enables the learner to make errors similar to those produced by the child
in the mother tongue. This is why we can find a set of errors such as “She cans
sing” “He singed” and “many mans” occurring regardless of whatever the
mother tongue of the learner is. Thus, transfer and overgeneralization are not
distinct processes. They represent aspects of the same underlying learning
strategy. Both results from the fact that the learner uses what he already knows
about the language, in order to make sense of new experience. In the case of
transfer, the learner uses his previous mother tongue experience as a means of
organizing the target language data. In the case of overgeneralization, it is his
previous knowledge of the second language that the learner uses.
Overgeneralization errors are largerly due to learner limited exposure to
the target language. Mc Keating (1981:231) claims that the learner tries to reduce
the learning load by searching for patterns and regularity in the target language
and formulating rules. But he may over-generalize his rules and fail to take
exceptions into account because his exposure to the language is limited and he
has insufficient data from which he can derive more complex rules. It is well
supported by Hubbard et al (1983:141) who states that the learner processes new
language data in his mind, and based on evidence, produces rules for its

production. When the data are inadaquate or the evidence is only partial, he may
well produce errors. Followings are the two typical examples of this type of


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errors. A learner of English who has learnt a rule for forming plurals may predict
that a noun can be made plural by adding “-s”. He then says “two mouses”
without knowing that “mouse” is one of the exceptions to the rule which he has
overgeneralized. Similarly, he may produce “comed” and “goed” until he learns
that “come” and “go” require irregular past tense forms.
Overgeneralization is associated with redundancy reduction. A learner
may reduce many items which are redundant to conveying the intended meaning.
This phenomenon may especially occur with items which are contrasted in the
grammar of the language but which do not carry significant and obvious contrast
for the learner. The “-ed” marker, for example, often appears to carry no
meaning for the learner since pastness is usually lexically indicated. So the
learner tends to reduce the learning load by simplifying the linguistic structures,
which leads to the production of a wide range of sentences such as “Yesterday I
go to university and I meet my new professor”. (Richards 1974:175)
Overgeneralization is also closely related to other sources of errors
proposed by Richards (1974), notably ignorance of rule restrictions, false
concept hypothesized and incomplete application of rules.
According to Richards, some of the learner deviant structures indicate that
the learner has failed to observe the restrictions of existing rules, i.e. he has
applied the rules to contexts where they do not apply. Abbott, in support of this
view, affirms that ignorance of rule restriction is another reason for overgeneralization. The rule that the learner has found appears to work so well that
he tends to ignore counter-examples to the rule which will only complicate
matters. It means that the learner will keep applying his overgeneralized rules
provided he can get his intended meaning across.

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The interest in communication may give a reason for learner incomplete
application of rules. When trying to produce acceptable utterances, the learner
uses structures whose deviancy represents the degree of development of the
required rules. He is said to have motivation to achieve communication which
may exceed motivation to produce grammatically correct sentences (Richards
1974:177). Typical examples of this kind of developmental errors are the errors
in making questions and responding to questions, as in “Where you went?” or
“Do you read much?” –Yes, I read very much”.
There is also a group of developmental errors deriving from false concepts
hypothesized. These errors result from “faulty comprehension of distinctions in
the target language”. Richards (1974) shows how the misunderstanding of
differences between language items leads to learner errors. He has found many
deviant structures in his learners’ output which show their failure to correctly
distinguish between the present simple and present continuous tense, and
between the usage of some confusable words such as so/too/very; do/make; and
teach/learn. For him, most errors of this class can be traced back to contrastivebased teaching which will be discussed in more details in subsequent section.
I.6.3. Interlanguage
In some circumstances, the concept of “interlanguage” is useful in
classroom language teaching and learning. Interlanguage, in Allwright &
Balley’s words (1991), stresses the systematic nature of the learners’ linguistic
development between two languages. Larsen-Freeman & Long (1991) remark
that interlanguage might better be understood if it is thought of as a continuum
between the L1 and L2 along which all the learners traverse. At any point along
continuum, the learners’ language is systematic, i.g. rule-governed, and common


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to all learners, any difference being explicable by differences in their learning

experience. Selinker (1972) uses the term “interlanguage” to describe a language
system that clearly differs from the mother tongue and the foreign language,
which the learners are studying. In his words, interlanguage refers to the
seperateness of a foreign language learner’s system that has a structurally
intermediate status between the native and target languages. He also views
interlanguage as a dynamic system, and a product of psychological structural
language process that interfere in two languages. Additionally, Nemser (1971)
expresses the same general phenomenon in language learning but stresses the
successive approximation to the target language in his term “approximate
system”.
With the name “idiosyncratic dialect”, Corder (1971) demonstrates that
each learner has his own individual characteristics in language learning that the
others do not have. The learner basing on the system of his mother tongue and
the language he is learning forms a new language system. This is neither the
system of the native language nor the system of the target language, but instead
falls between the two; it is a system based on the best attempt of learners to
provide orders and structures to the linguistic stimuli surrounding them. Thus,
errors the learner commits are not predictable and called “developmental errors”.
I.6.4. Simplification
In addition to interlanguage, simplication can be seen as another factor
that causes learners’ errors. According to Widdowson (1984), simplication is
considered as a communication strategy and he divides it into 2 types. The
learners will form the first type of simplifications when they want to express
something in a new way. The second type is due more to the limitation of


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learners’ ability in language learning than to the construction of the rules. They
often reduce some essential elements of a sentence or sentences as when
speaking. Larsen-Freeman and Long (1991, p58) view simplification as

“redundancy reduction by omitting elements such as “plural marker omitted
from a noun preceded by a cardinal number larger than one. In their example “I
studied English for 2 year”, they indicate that the omission of the plural marker
following the noun year could be termed redundancy reduction, as no
information is lost, i.e. the cardinal number already signals plurality.
I.6.5. Teaching materials and methodology
Besides the above-mentioned factors that interfere the process of language
learning, the teaching materials and methodology is one of the most important
causes.
The teaching process itself may affect the English language learning. If we
are to achieve a perfect teaching method, the errors or mistakes will never be
committed in the first place, and therefore the occurrence of errors is merely a
sign of the present inadequacy of our teaching techniques (Corder, 1981).
Moreover, according to those who support the behaviourist theory, errors have
no positive contribution to the learning of any skill including language. To them,
an error is the evidence of failure, of ineffective teaching or the lack of control. If
materials are well chosen, graded and presented with meticulous care, there will
never be any errors. (Hubbard, 1984)
I.7. Techniques used to correct learners’ oral errors.
Gower and Walters (1983, p167) suggest the three common ways for the
teachers to correct learners’ oral errors in classrooms.


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I.7.1. Self- correction
Nguyen Bang and Nguyen Ba Ngoc (2001: 20) stated that: “Selfcorrection means giving students the chance to correct themselves. If they are
going to become more accurate they must learn to monitor themselves. They
may have just made a slip and will welcome the opportunity to put it right.
Sometimes they need some assistance from teacher in knowing where the

mistake is and what kind of mistake it is, before they can self-correct”.
Self-correction is very important because it gives the students a chance for
self-correction when it is thought that a mistake is what we called slip. In
addition, self-correction helps the students to remember easier.
I.7.2. Peer- correction
If the student still cannot get it right, it is probably because she doesn’t
know how to. So with a gesture, hold his/her attention and get another student to
help out. This has the advantages of:
* involving all the students in the correction process.
* making the learning more co-operative generally.
* reducing student dependence on the teacher.
* increasing the amount the students listen to each other.
* giving the better students something to do.
However, there exist two more problems with peer-correction. Therefore,
peer- correction must be done carefully. Firstly, when the teacher asks for peercorrection from the whole class, it might be that the same two or three people
always want to answer. If this is the case, teachers need to call on other students
who do not volunteer, or to give more help with the correction themselves. It is