Abstract
The study analyzed the errors made by students across three different levels of proficiency (Advanced, Intermediate and Elementary) in their writing pieces. Three students were selected purposively to represent their respective level. So, nine pieces of writing altogether were to be investigated in this study. The errors committed by the purposive samples were first grouped into fifteen linguistic classifications such as verb form, preposition, mechanics and so forth, then subsumed under two broader categories: negative interlingual and intralingual transfer. The investigation revealed that the learners made more errors of intralingual transfer than those of negative interlingual one. However, in terms of errors based on the linguistic classifications, this study showed surprising findings. Advanced learners, though committing the least errors, performed worst by making errors in the most linguistic classifications (seven altogether): plural-singular form, omission of constituent, verb form, article, vocabulary, pronoun and comparative. Intermediate learners came next by committing errors in less number of linguistic areas (five), namely mechanics, preposition, derivative, auxiliary verb and clause formation. Elementary learners came last by giving poor performances on the least number of just three linguistic areas: tense, word order and genetives. Across levels, however, three areas (consecutively mechanics, plural/singular form and omission of constituent) appeared to be where errors were most commonly committed. With findings as such, the study is expected to impart theoretical contributions to SLA, especially to studies on error analysis. The findings hopefully can also inspire teachers to teach students of these three proficiency levels in ways that meet their needs more. Keywords: purposive samples, linguistic classifications, negative interlingual tranfer, intralingual transfer, SLA.
Highlights
Developmental stages of learning a foreign language, especially the early ones, are commonly characterized BY error-making
4.1 Research Question 1: What are the types of errors in terms of linguistic classifications made by Indonesian EFL learners from three levels of proficiency (Elementary, Intermediate and Advanced)? As shown in Table 1, there are fifteen linguistic areas in which the participants of this research committed errors
This total number of linguistic areas as revealed in this current research is within the common range reported by other studies
Summary
Developmental stages of learning a foreign language, especially the early ones, are commonly characterized BY error-making. Errors occur due to learners’ deficient competene in the language to date. For this reason, an error is considered as an error of competence, different from a mistake, which is an error of performance since it is immediately realized and corrected when it occurs by the performer (de Bot et al, 2005). Taking the meaning of error into account, error analysis is an analysis on learners’ linguistic errors which result from their insufficient competence in the system/grammar of the language at a particular time in the developmental stage of learning it
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