Unit 11

11.2 Key concepts

What are the main reasons why your learners make mistakes?

Mistakes are often categorised into errors and slips. Errors occur when learners try to
say something that is beyond their current level of knowledge or language processing
(working on the language unconsciously to try to understand and learn it). Usually,
because they are still processing or donʼt know this part of the language, learners
cannot correct errors themselves because they donʼt understand what is wrong.

Slips are the result of tiredness, worry or other temporary emotions or circumstances.
We make them because we are not concentrating on what we are saying or writing.
They are not a result of incomplete language processing or a lack of knowledge. They
happen simply because our attention is somewhere else at that moment. These kinds of
mistakes can be corrected by learners themselves, once they realise they have made
them.

There are two main reasons why second language learners make errors. The first
reason is influence from the learnerʼs first language (mother tongue / L1) on the
second language (L2). This is called interference or transfer. Learners may use sound
patterns, lexis or grammatical structures from their own language in English.

The second reason why learners make errors is because they are unconsciously
(without knowing or being aware) working out, organising and experimenting with
language they have learnt, but this process is not yet complete. This kind of error is
called a developmental error. These errors are common to all learners, whatever their
L1, and are often similar to those made by a young first language speaker as part of
their normal language development. Common developmental errors in English are using
the past tense for the present perfect tense, or making mistakes with past verb forms.
For example, very young first language speakers of English as well as English language
learners often say things like ʻI goedʼ instead of ʻI wentʼ. Errors such as this one, in
which learners wrongly apply a rule for one item of the language to another item, are the

from The TKT Course Modules 1, 2 and 3 Online by Mary Spratt, Alan Pulverness and Melanie Williams
© Cambridge University Press 2011
result of overgeneralisation, i.e. applying a rule too widely. Once children develop their
L1 language abilities, these errors disappear, and as a second language learnerʼs
language ability increases, these errors often disappear, too.

Errors play a necessary and important part in language learning. They are part of
learnersʼ interlanguage, i.e. the learnersʼ own version of the second language which
they speak as they learn. Learners unconsciously process, i.e. analyse and reorganise
their interlanguage. Interlanguage is not fixed. It develops and progresses as learners
learn more. Experts think that interlanguage is an essential and unavoidable stage in
language learning. In other words, interlanguage and errors are necessary to language
learning. L1 learners go through a stage similar to the interlanguage stage: when
children learn their mother tongue they seem to speak their own version of it for a while,
to make progress on some language items, then to go backwards, and to make
mistakes for a time before these mistakes finally disappear, usually without obvious
correction.

Errors are a natural part of learning. They usually show that learners are learning and
that their internal mental processes are working on and experimenting with language.
By making mistakes you realise that you donʼt know something and you try to put it
right. For example, if you fall off a bicycle through your own fault you realise that you did
something wrong, and you make sure you donʼt make the same mistake again.
Similarly, as we communicate with others and see that our communication isnʼt working,
we try again, using other words or aiming for greater accuracy. We go through stages
of learning new language, and each new piece of language we learn helps us learn
more fully other pieces of language that we already know – like pieces of a jigsaw
puzzle which only make full sense when they are all in place.

Developmental and interference errors can disappear by themselves, without correction,

as the learner learns more language. In fact, experts say that correction may only help
learners if they are ready for it, i.e. they are at the right stage in their individual learning
process, or interlanguage. There are three main ways of helping learners develop their
language. Firstly, learners need exposure to lots of interesting language at the right
level; secondly, they need to use language to interact; and thirdly, they need to focus
their attention on language forms.

from The TKT Course Modules 1, 2 and 3 Online by Mary Spratt, Alan Pulverness and Melanie Williams
© Cambridge University Press 2011
Sometimes errors do not disappear, but get fossilised. Fossilised errors are errors
which a learner does not stop making and which last for a long time, even for ever, in
his/her foreign language use. Fossilisation of errors often happens when learners,
particularly adults, are able to communicate as much as they need to in the foreign
language and so have no communicative reason to improve their language. These
fossilised errors may be the result of lack of exposure to the L2, the result of a learnerʼs
conscious (knowing/aware) or unconscious lack of motivation to improve their level of
accuracy, or the fact that they cause no problem in communication.

from The TKT Course Modules 1, 2 and 3 Online by Mary Spratt, Alan Pulverness and Melanie Williams
© Cambridge University Press 2011