The nature of common language errors for learners of second languages is explored, and it is found that the errors cannot adequately be explained in terms of the theory of language interference. A new rationale for these errors can come from an investigation of the perceptual strategies common to error analysis, and thus it is postulated that…

Argues that a major cause of the inconsistent use of the past tense even by very advanced learners of English as a second language is an inadequate understanding of its actual meaning and discourse function. Suggestions are offered for teaching and practicing this tense in context. (SED)

Presents the results of a study of the errors made on essays by Moroccan students of English as a second language. The average number of grammatical errors was 10.62 per paper and the most frequent errors were related to tense, prepositions, articles, form, and concord. (SED)

Lists and discusses certain recurrent errors made by adult Arab students of English literature at the university level. The errors were produced spontaneously in free writing and not through mechanical drills or isolated occurrences of sentences, so they reflect the learner's competence in English. (SED)

This study examined the interlanguage syntax of Arabic speaking learners of English in the area of the noun phrase, focusing on the closed system elements that can occur before or after the noun head, the noun head and pronouns in line with Quirk and Greenbaum's (1977) treatment of the noun phrase. Participants were 25 Arabic speaking English…

This study examined learners' productive competence in collocations and idioms by means of their performance on two interdependent tasks. Participants were two groups of English as a Foreign Language undergraduate and graduate students from the English department at Jordan's Yarmouk University. The two tasks included the following: a multiple…

This investigation encompassed a full-scale experiment for both Japanese and Korean university students and looked at the following: the role of grammaticality-judgment tasks (GJT) in second-language acquisition; the learners' behaviors when they were asked to do GJT; and the reasons why the learners made the wrong grammatical judgments.…

Examines the nature of interlanguage as it affects second-language learning and teaching, focusing on the language transfer phenomenon, fossilization, how error analysis and error correction can be improved through understanding of interlanguage, native speaker norms, international varieties of English, and the contribution of interlanguage to…

Follows the approach developed in Dendrinos (1992) for English-as-a-foreign-language textbook analysis and presents a content analysis of 11 Indian "Common Errors in English" (CEIE) guidebooks to illustrate how access to English is institutionally withheld from large parts of the Indian population. (Author/VWL)

Compares spelling of adult second-language English users with native children and adult first-language users, using data from 1993 NFER survey of L1 children, from a UK university English-as-a-Foreign Language test for overseas students and work by overseas students in England. Comparison showed similar error rates and distribution of errors…

Spelling errors of 215 Grade 6 English-as-a-Second-Language learners were examined with a view to gaining an understanding of how these children construe and misconstrue the structure of their second language. It was found that unstressed grammatical function words proved particularly difficult for the learners to render in writing. They had…

Purpose: This study was conducted to examine whether the expressive language characteristics of typically developing (TD) children learning English as a second language (ESL) have similarities to the characteristics of the English that is spoken by monolingual children with specific language impairment (SLI), and whether this could result in the…

A certain group of English verbs, the ergatives, is consistently mis-passivized in Chinese-speakers' interlanguage. Comparison of the ergative construction in Chinese and English shows that they share similar properties. However, this does not seem to facilitate learning of the target English construction. Furthermore, the passive ergatives are…

A study investigated patterns of usage of French connectors (e.g., "alors,""mais,""puisque") among Chinese university students of French as a foreign language. The study arose from concern that the lack of connector usage contributed to a lack of coherence in the students' oral and written language. Subjects were 45…

An analysis of errors found in writing samples by elementary school Mexican-Americans is presented. This study focused on errors that may be caused by speech patterns and language usage. Results are discussed. (Author/DF)