It is to S.P. Corder that Error Analysis owes its place as a scientific
method in linguistics. As Rod Ellis cites , "it was not until the
1970s that EA became a recognized part of applied linguistics, a development
that owed much to the work of Corder". Before Corder, linguists observed
learners' errors, divided them into categories, tried to see which ones were
common and which were not, but not much attention was drawn to their role in
second language acquisition. It was Corder who showed to whom information about
errors would be helpful (teachers, researchers, and students) and how.
There are many major concepts introduced by S. P. Corder in his article
"The significance of learners' errors", among which we encounter the
following:
1) It is the learner who determines what the input is. The teacher can present
a linguistic form, but this is not necessarily the input, but simply what is
available to be learned.
2) Keeping the above point in mind, learners' needs should be considered when
teachers/linguists plan their syllabuses. Before Corder's work, syllabuses were
based on theories and not so much on learners’ needs.
3) Mager (1962) points out that the learners' built-in syllabus is more
efficient than the teacher's syllabus. Corder adds that if such a built-in
syllabus exists, then learners’ errors would confirm its existence and would be
systematic.
4) Corder introduced the distinction between systematic and non-systematic
errors. Unsystematic errors occur in one’s native language; Corder calls these
"mistakes" and states that they are not significant to the
process of language learning. He keeps the term "errors" for
the systematic ones, which occur in a second language.
5) Errors are significant in three ways:
- to the teacher: they show a student’s progress
- to the researcher: they show how a language is acquired, what strategies the
learner uses.
- to the learner: he can learn from these errors.
6) When a learner has made an error, the most efficient way to teach him the
correct form is not by simply giving it to him, but by letting him discover it
and test different hypotheses. (This is derived from Carroll's proposal
(Carroll 1955, cited in Corder), who suggested that the learner should find the
correct linguistic form by searching for it.
7) Many errors are due to that the learner uses structures from his native
language. Corder claims that possession of one’s native language is
facilitative. Errors in this case are not inhibitory, but rather evidence of
one’s learning strategies.
Adapted from :
http://www.proz.com/translation-articles/articles/633/
