Research Into Qingdao University First-year Students' Interlanguage On The Basis Of Error Analysis Of Their English Writing

How people learn to communicate in a second or foreign language has been an intriguing question for centuries. The output of such learners is usually called interlanguage (IL). Language learners are always somewhere along the interlanguage continuum--an in-between and inherently variable system between their native language (NL) or first language (L1) and the target language (TL). With the improvement of study, IL gradually approaches and eventually reaches TL. However, because of the differences between their native language and the target language, errors are inevitable. Therefore, the process of foreign language learning is a process of creating IL, developing IL and inherently correcting errors. Error analysis (EA) requires language teachers to analyze learners' IL errors and regard them not as an unfavorable phenomenon but the guide on the road to the target language.Literature reviews of the previous studies on IL and EA have been illustrated in the second chapter. And then a data-based analysis of IL has been made. All the data came from compositions written by first-year (Grade 2005) students of Qingdao University (QDU) in their English writing test taking place in December, 2005. By the conduction of qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis, IL errors from the perspectives of language knowledge, linguistic categories, and error sources have been studied to find the distribution and frequency of IL errors in order to gain some insights into English education so as to help language teachers adopt appropriate teaching strategies and methods to promote their profession of teaching.