Explain the errors

1. Jiulin and AnnaLi seem to make a similar number of errors in these two clips. However, they seem to make different types of errors. The error analysis shows that Jiulin’s errors are on modal verbs, adjectives, use of subject and comparative structures, while the majority of AnnaLi’s tends to be on aspect markers and past tense negation.

2.

Both learners make errors that may be caused by NL transfer, for example, “有一点中文 (a bit Chinese)”. In English, a bit/little can modify nouns, adjectives and adverbs. The Chinese equivalent has two forms given in the learners’ textbook (Integrated Chinese, published by Cheng & Tsui): learners are told “有一点 (a bit)” is an adverb while “一点 (a bit)”  is an adjective. In Line 4, Jiulin is supposed to use the latter one, “一点 (a bit)” to modify “中文 (Chinese)”, which is a noun. He uses “有一点 (a bit)”  instead. This could be because he uses just one form in English; This would be an overgeneralization, because using just one form is easier than using two. Other errors cannot be caused by transfer from English but appear to be systematic. For example, AnnaLi tends to use  “了(LE)” incorrectly when it is used in negation and her performance seems consistent.


3. Number of errors is not always a good measure of proficiency. Sometimes there are few errors not because the learner is correctly producing a particular grammatical structure, but because the learner is successfully avoiding that structure altogether. A learner who attempts harder constructions may produce more errors than one who completely avoids these constructions. For example, in these two clips, AnnaLi tries to use past tense negation and produces errors; Jiulin does not make these errors because he never tries to use past tense negation (in the clip). As a teacher, you may want to look at the types of errors they have made in addition to the number of errors.