论中学生英语口语错误的分析和纠正策略

论中学生英语口语错误的分析和纠正策略发布时间：2019-03-25 23:23:35

本科生毕业论文（设计）论中学生英语口语错误的分析和纠正策略


摘要：语言错误在英语学习的过程中是很正常的现象。在如何对待英语口语纠错方面,教师应该引导学生正确对待这些英语口语错误。错误分析的最终目的是对错误进行分类与解释,但教师的教学目的并不仅仅是解释学生的错误或对其分类,而是要把错误分析的结果应用于教学,帮助学生少犯错误,使其能说一口标准、流利的英语。因此如何利用错误分析理论帮助学生更快更准确地掌握英语是广大英语教师的责任与义务。在英语课堂上,教师有必要对学生进行口语纠错,恰当的时机和灵活的运用纠错策略有助于提高学生的英语水平。本文通过对学习者在英语口语中所犯错误的原因分析,提出了纠错建议。同时本文还针对课堂教学中的口语错误进行了分析,并为教师提出了一系列纠错策略,提高英语教学。

关键词:口语错误；错误分析；纠正策略

On Middle School Students’ Oral English Errors and Correcting Strategies

                       Undergraduate: Ruby
Supervisor:    Liao Juhong

Abstract: It is normal that there are some language errors in the process of English learning. When facing the problem of how to deal with oral English errors, teachers should guide students to treat oral English errors correctly. The aim of error analysis is to classify and explain errors. The target of teaching is not only to explain students’ errors, but to apply the results of error analysis to teaching and help students reduce errors and reach accuracy and fluency. Thus it is the responsibility and obligation of teachers to help students grasp English more quickly and accurately through error analysis. In English classes, it is necessary for teachers to use effective strategies flexibly in proper time to correct students’ oral English errors. This article has analyzed the reasons why Chinese students make oral errors, and gives error correction advice. At the same time, this article also has analyzed oral errors in classroom teaching, and puts forward a series of correction for teachers to promote the foreign language teaching.

Key Words: oral errors; error analysis; correction strategies

Contents

1. Introduction............................................................................................................... 1
2. Reasons of Error Analysis.......................................................................................... 1
3. Error Types and Causes.............................................................................................. 2
3.1 Error Types........................................................................................................... 2
3.1.1 Errors Caused by Mother Tongue Interference............................................ 2
3.1.2 Errors Caused by the Process of Language Learning.................................. 3
3.1.3 Errors Caused by Induced Factors.............................................................. 3
3.1.4 Errors Caused by Communication Strategies.............................................. 4
3.2 Causes of Errors................................................................................................... 4
3.2.1 The Influence of Mother Tongue................................................................. 4
3.2.2 Inappropriate Teaching Methods................................................................. 5
3.2.4 Overuse of Filling Language........................................................................ 6
3.2.5 Internal Factors of Students Themselves..................................................... 7
4. Factors Affecting Error Treatment............................................................................. 7
4.1 Accuracy and Fluency.......................................................................................... 7
4.2 Affective Concerns with Error Treatment............................................................ 8
5. Error Correction......................................................................................................... 9
5.1 Correction Time.................................................................................................... 9
5.2 Persons of Error Correction................................................................................. 9
5.3 The Strategy of Error Correction....................................................................... 10
5.3.1 Correction by Students Themselves with Teachers’ Help.......................... 10
5.3.2 Correction by Classmates........................................................................... 11
6. Conclusion................................................................................................................ 11
Bibliography................................................................................................................. 12
Acknowledgements..................................................................................................... 13

1. Introduction
In the twenty-first century, a new understanding of language errors becomes an important achievement in the field of foreign language acquisition. Learning a language has to undergo a long process. In this process, language learners are using a transitional language. This transitional language is not like our mother tongue but a language which is always changing. It may contain many language errors in it. These language errors are the sign to improve the process of language learning. It can provide teachers with a very useful feedback and help them to understand what stage their students are learning. That is to say language errors are the indispensable part of language learning. If students make these errors, it is not due to teachers nor textbooks nor themselves directly. It is just a natural and necessary phenomenon in the process of language learning.
Error is due to informal learning that is to say the students’ brain has stored some information of wrong language. Sometimes learners make oral errors because the wrong information in their brains. Errors in spoken language learning are ubiquitous and inevitable. If we know the deep understanding of these language errors, it will be useful for English learning. The first is that it can give teachers the information about their students’ English learning. The second is that it is available for researchers to master the language. The third is that it acts as the tool for learners to find target language rules. Thus shows that error analysis of spoken language is extremely important.
2. Reasons of Error Analysis
The adoption of error analysis is classified into three parts: to researchers, to language teachers, and to learners themselves. While analysis of learner’s errors provides insights into the nature of language, especially into the innate nature of the learner’s system, they provide even more insights into the process of language teaching and learning. As such, specific conclusion may usually be drawn from the results of the analysis regarding how a second or foreign language can be more effectively taught and learned, or how existing methods of teaching and learning can be improved.
In deciding what should be the linguistic input to language teaching materials, we should certainly examine and explore an explanation for the errors that are typically made by different groups of learners. From which we have seen it is clear that the explanation will prove to be partly contrastive and partly non-contrastive between first language and second language. The fact that error may be caused by contrastive differences and by the structure of the target language itself means that it is impossible to base the content of language teaching entirely on the results of contrast. Even if it were possible to make wholly accurate predictions of contrastive difficulties, we should not predict all the difficulties that a learner faces. The structure of the second language itself has to provide much of the content of language teaching. It can not be assumed that non-contrastive aspects of language will look after themselves. This probably accounts for the fact that any one who has taught English to students from differing language backgrounds has found that there are many aspects of the structure of English which are universally difficult for learners of English as a second language. Therefore, errors are also useful in asserting teaching method. The career-oriented motivation of the population of subjects being investigated is different from that of any other population of English majors on the other campuses. As such, better command of written English appears more important to them than to other English majors on the other college campuses who may or may not enter into the TEFL (teaching English as a foreign language) profession.
3. Error Types and Causes
In this section, this paper will analyze different types of errors. In all, students’ oral errors are caused by mother tongue interference, the process of language learning, communication strategies and induced factors. The reasons of students’ oral errors are classified into five aspects according to the types of errors: the influence of mother tongue, inappropriate teaching methods, overuse of filling language and students’ internal factors.
3.1 Error Types
Middle school students’ oral errors are divided into four types which are caused either by students’ internal personalities or by the induced surroundings. Their oral errors are unavoidable. While, after we have learned the types of errors, we can find appropriate strategies according to error types and help them correct those errors.
3.1.1 Errors Caused by Mother Tongue Interference
The first source of errors is mother tongue interference. It mainly refers to the learner’s first language errors produced by interference formation acquisition. Chinese students are influenced by their mother tongue when learning English. As far as mother tongue interference is concerned, there is a kind of mistakes that learners sometimes make when they use their previous mother tongue knowledge as a means of expressing their ideas. For Chinese learners of English, the typical instance transferred from our mother tongue are the use of “because...so...” Although it is correct to use these two conjunctives together in combining sentences in Chinese, it is wrong to do so in English. And this is similar with “although ...but...” Another example of mother tongue interference is that we often say “he” while we really mean “she”. The cause is this: the two Chinese characters are spelled differently while their pronunciations are the same. This may result in mistakes from which even some learners can not get away.
3.1.2 Errors Caused by the Process of Language Learning
On the contrary, the second source of errors is produced by the process when learners are learning the target language. Chinese students may have this kind of errors when learning English grammar rules or other aspects of English learning. In all, there are two specified types.
The first one is over-generalization. Over-generalization refers that English learners try to express new conception with the knowledge they have learned. That is to say, they have mastered the rules of the language, but in fact, they don not understand them. Here is an example: having learned a rule for forming plurals, a student may produce “I have more than twenty tooths”, in which the attempt “tooths” is one of the exceptions to the rule and should be spelled as ‘teeth’. Similar errors like “runed” and “taked” occur from time to time. There is another example, “He may dances”. Learners know “He smiles; He runs, etc”, so they put a “s” after “dance” without thinking about the usage of the verb “may”, thus they make errors of over-generalization.
The second one is ignorance of rule restriction. Ignorance of rule restriction refers that learners do not obey to the special restrictions of some language structure and make wrong sentences. For example: “I helped him to do it”. In this sentence, learners ignored the special usage of “help”, they put “to” after “help” and made a wrong sentence.
3.1.3 Errors Caused by Induced Factors
The third source of errors is induced factors, which is called induced errors. The   word “Induced errors” refers that more of learners’ language errors come from classroom teaching. This is because of teachers’ inappropriate ways of teaching the definition, analysis and examples of language, or inappropriate arrangement of teaching activities.
There are two types of induced errors that contribute to students’ oral errors. The first part of induced errors is form textbooks. In the sentence below, a girl is asking her mother for advice that what birthday present she should buy for her friend Ruby.
Mother: I suggest you buy her a lovely rabbit.
Daughter: Oh, that is a good idea mother! That’s what I’m going to give Ruby.
“I’m going to” expresses that he has already know what to buy before asking his mother, this does not accord with the meaning of the conversation. In the conversation, “rabbit” is chosen to be a present is a sudden decision, so we should use “will” instead of it.
The second part of induced errors is from teachers. In China, one of the most frequent ways for teachers to explain words is paraphrasing in English teaching class. For example: when teachers are explaining the word “marked” in phase “marked progress”, they may use “big, large, great” to explain to let students understand it easily. They seldom mention the correct words collocation, so we often hear “big burden, large harm, etc” in students’ oral English with idiomatic wrong collocation. Local learners tend to express like “heavy burden, great harm”.
The third part of induced error is teachers’ tongue slip. When teaching, teachers often make some sentences that do not obey to grammar rules because of their own language capacity constraints.
3.1.4 Errors Caused by Communication Strategies
The forth source of errors is communication strategies. When they are engaged in communication, junior learners of English might often have communicative intentions that they find difficult in expressing a meaning for which their competence contains no appropriate items or rules at all. If a learner is able to anticipate such a problem, he may be able to forestall it by avoiding communication or modifying what he intended to say. If the problem arises while the learner is already engaged in speaking, he must try to find an alternative way for passing the meaning across. In order to get the wanted meaning across, they are compelled to bridge the communi- cation by resoling to matching language items, which turns out to be inappropriate, or pragmatically unfit, to the immediate situation. Consequently, a communication breakdown is often the case. The learner has memorized certain phrases or sentences without learning the internalized knowledge of the components of the phrases. For example, “I don’t care you’’, “How often do you wash your clothes?”, ”Where is the post office?” and “I don’t speak Japanese.” age the sorts of prefabricated patterns that one sometimes learns at the beginning of a language learning experience when the structure of language is not known. Such phrases are memorized by rote to fit their appropriate context. But in the process of memorizing, one or two components may he memorized wrongly, which results in errors. For example, “How often do you wash your clothes?” may he memorized as “How often do you washes your clothes?” and” Could you tell me where the post office is?” as “Could you tell me where is the post office?” The errors are due largely to the rote nature of the items, but their rote is a factor of a lack of knowledge of the structural rules for forming the particular utterance.
3.2 Causes of Errors
As the types of errors above suggest that students’ oral errors were caused by the wrong conceptions in their brain. These wrong language conceptions are caused by the factors below.
3.2.1 The Influence of Mother Tongue
Many teachers believe that students’ oral errors were caused by their mother tongue. Mother tongue may interfere students’ acquisition of foreign language. There are two types of interference: speech interference and semantic interference. Besides, semantic interference is more obvious, such as Chinglish which is belong to this type of interference. For example:” Please open the window”. In this sentence, we may use “unlock” to express open, but there are many ways of expressing the word “open” in Chinese, such as open the fridge, unlock the lock, drive the taxi, have a meeting and so on. Chinese students tend to use one verb to express many conceptions when they are talking about the word “open” in English sentences.
3.2.2 Inappropriate Teaching Methods
Inappropriate ways of teaching or inappropriate choice of textbooks may cause induced errors. For example, if teachers didn’t explain the language phenomena clearly, which cause students got a fuzzy understanding of it. On the contrary, if the language phenomenon is over emphasized, students may consider it as a formulary and overuse it in improper situations.
Then teacher’s reactions to oral errors are explained in detail. First of all, the way that teachers react to a mistake is significant. Not only what teachers say, but also the way they look, or move, the tone of their voice are important. If students are criticized for trying, they will stop it. Teachers are divided into two major groups who due to the extent of their correction: the heavy corrector and the non-correctors.
Both sides of the correctors are excessive. On one hand, the heavy corrector creates a tense teacher-focused atmosphere which blocks the students’ creativity by paying more attention to accuracy rather than fluency, imagination, independent thinking. Students tend to be cautious all the time and learn to come up with fixed phrases. This results in their inability to make new interesting sentences.
Tension which is widespread in the classroom of the heavy corrector also impedes students from free thinking and efficient learning. The results of non-corrector are no mistakes and on progress when making learning steps . Moreover, students who are corrected all the time soon get bored with it, especially if they are trying to express themselves. Therefore, the heavy correcting teacher causes student problems. Up to mow, the internal struggle on the part of the teacher is often present as well: often teachers do not want to overcorrect, but they feel that is their responsibility. The most obvious point is that teachers end up correcting right to right, or even right to wrong. On the other hand, the non-corrector creates problems focused on teachers themselves. Firstly, such teachers may feel guilty as not doing what must be done. In addition to this, the non-correcting teachers may often receive a number of complaints from school authorities, parents, and students themselves. School authorities and parents are especially dissatisfied when the teacher is preparing the students for an examination, because examinations are generally accuracy-based. Students themselves want to know their mistakes and improve. Students rarely complain openly about being corrected too much. On the contrary, the majority of students want to be corrected as they consider it to be helpful as well as useful. Moreover, it is the traditional view of what a language teacher does. One more problem of a non-corrector is their deteriorating image as students tend to think of such teachers as lazy, irresponsible or incompetent. Finally, students “learn” mistakes from each other if they are not corrected and, consequently, do not make progress as they do not know what is right and what is wrong.
3.2.3 Cultural Difference
Chinese students may make communicative mistakes when communicating with local English speakers, because they don’t know the culture difference between English speaking countries and China. Because of the culture difference, some common things in one culture are regarded as rude behavior or taboo in the other culture. Students can speak one sentence which is totally correct both in grammatical structure and the usage of words, but it can not be appropriate in communicative situations. This often happens around us. For example, if you ask an English friend, “How old are you?, or where do you work?”, you will notice that he may feel negative or he is not willing to answer your questions. In his opinion, this way of asking is very impolite, because it is related to his privacy.
Here is one more example. Miss Huang asked an American woman named Lisa to take photos for her friends and her. After Miss Huang told Lisa how to use her iPhone, Lisa checked the iPhone and said, “Shall I just press this part?”. “Of course”, Miss Huang answered. Lisa got angry with her after that, but Miss Huang didn’t notice that. The example above is a pragmatic failure. With the ignorance of the context, Miss Huang’s answer, “Of course” shows the reproach of voice, which means that the Lisa is too stupid to ask such obvious question. That’s why Lisa got angry at that time.
3.2.4 Overuse of Filling Language
When Chinese students communicate with others in English, they will frequently use the filling language, such as, “OK, you know, I think, you see, right” in their oral English. Let’s take the word “OK” as an example. In the same context, Chinese students and local speakers tend to make different preference. Chinese students tend to use “OK”, while local speakers tend to use “well” or other filling language. For example:
A: What kind of clothes do you like best?
B: I guess, I don’t like suits.
A: Are you listening to my question? Which do you like?
B: Oh, my favorite clothes. OK, I like sports clothes. I feel free and comfortable when I am wearing sports clothes and I hate suits. Mm, it makes me.... OK, in all, I like sports.
In the context above, B used “OK” three times as filling language. While, most   local speakers will use “will” instead of “OK”. Because “well” has the function of delaying the answers. Chinese students tend to use “OK”. On one hand, which is probably that they don’t know the specific function of “well” or other filling language. On the other hand, it is indicated that “OK” has become a pet phrase among them, which is overused to express some meaning or function which the local language can’t.
3.2.5 Internal Factors of Students Themselves
When students are in a hurry, tiredness, thinking about something else when learning English, these may cause slips of the tongue. Apart from this, the addition of the factors are tiredness, forgetfulness, emotional state, imagination and creativity.
On the whole, it is important for a teacher to bear in mind these factors as errors are only the results of these. It helps to make a decision when and what to correct. If a student makes a complicated error while experimenting within the language or while hypothesis-forming, correction may not be appropriate. Otherwise, they may lose the positive attitude towards the language learning.
4. Factors Affecting Error Treatment
We have discussed the main types of oral errors and reasons of oral errors made by junior English learners. However, only knowing the errors is not enough, language teachers should treat these errors properly to facilitate students’ learning and help them progress toward the target language. In order to make full use of students’ errors, proper treatment is needed. While in treating students’ errors, factors that affect error treatment and techniques of treating them should be paid much attention to and teachers should take the following factors into consideration.
4.1 Accuracy and Fluency
Whether students’ errors should be corrected depends on the aim of teaching, accuracy or fluency. The solution to this problem lies in the way people regard the function of language. Methods traditionally used in foreign language instruction and teaching material emphasize manipulative skills of language. The formal elements of all utterance are heavily stressed at the cost of the information to be conveyed. Under this educational setting, learner’s errors are heavily supervised and corrected with the concept that only perfect learning can form correct learning habits. Thus conformity and accuracy of the utterance are the top priorities in English teaching and learning. Further it is overwhelmingly believed that the primary goal of language learning is conformity and accuracy of linguistic items. Thus teachers tend to correct all errors committed by the learners. The fact is, however, that if teachers and students pay much attention to correctness and accuracy of language, we do not seem to use a language at a11. Instead of focusing on the forms of language, teachers should not interrupt students’ communicative motivation as frequently as possible. Since students age actively exploring and experiencing with language. What is important in the communication activity is the well-conveyed idea and content, not the well-formed structures. As long as the comprehensibility of the language is not affected. Overt correction of students’ errors is not advisable for frequent intervention of students communication may undermine both students’ risk-taking adventure of language learning and further communicative intentions. Be aware of the fact that learning a language means more than learning lots of bits of linguistic forms, and the efficient way, and perhaps the only way to learn to communicate in a language is actually to communicate in that language.
However, it is necessary to make some points to eliminate misunderstanding related to the concept of accuracy and fluency. Firstly, emphasis on correct production of English and especially grammatical correctness is not incompatible with the encouragement of the spontaneous communication of ideas in English. Secondly, learning to speak correct English grammatical forms does not imply monotonous drills lacking meaningful communication. Thirdly, it is also important that successful communication depends on a certain level of accuracy, thus the advocacy of fluency and accuracy in communication is not contradictory in itself. Finally, in English teaching occupation, it is generally acknowledged that the teacher’s task is to help students progress through fluency toward accuracy.
4.2 Affective Concerns with Error Treatment
Many teachers feel it is important to maintain control over the learners’ behavior in class. Error correction in the classroom is used as a form of disciplinary action. Teachers seem to care little about students’ self-esteem, which is concerned with receptivity. Too prompt reaction and too severe error treatment will probably lead the students to make more errors (as a result of frustration and anxiety) or to a climate of stiff non-communication in the classroom. Good classroom management creates a learning environment in which effective teaching and learning occur while poor classroom management often damages the students’ desire for learning and spoils the teacher’s passion for teaching no matter how well he has prepared for the class. Classroom management certainly involves discipline, control and punishment to a great extent. Teacher’ s being over-critical of students’ errors is one of the major sources of anxieties that is capable of hindering learning and makes the learners reluctant to participate in classroom activities. Therefore, it is very important that teachers try to create a relaxing atmosphere in the classroom. There are a number of general basal rules for teachers to minimize disruptive behaviors：Firstly, set up a friendly relationship with the students. Secondly, cultivate and maintain a high self-esteem of the students. A student with high self-esteem tends to display positive traits such as expectation of achievement, boldness in attempting to communicate and all egos strong enough to overcome failure and setbacks. These peculiarity all contributes to successful EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learning. Thirdly, give prompt encouragement to the students. Fourthly, have access to every student in the class.
If language teachers are able to manage the classroom activities permanently by these general roles, they may find the teaching more effective and the teacher-student relation more satisfactory and pleasant.
5. Error Correction
When errors are committed, the most important decision regarding error treatment has to be made over and over again: when to correct errors or who to correct errors and how to correct them more effectively.
5.1 Correction Time
When is the best time to correct mistakes?
Firstly, if an error occurs during oral grammar or vocabulary practice during the lesson it is best to correct it immediately. On the spot, correction is necessary in order to avoid confusing the other students. Secondly, if mistakes occur during free- speaking, the teacher can either note errors on a sheet of paper for later correction during a feedback correction slot after the activity, or use silent correction techniques for immediate correction. It is suggested not to interrupt the speaker.
5.2 Persons of Error Correction
The most common source of feedback to language learners in classrooms is treatment provided by the teacher. If it is not the teacher who treats the error, then it could be either the learners who correct errors themselves or another members of the class. Teacher correction is more common than correction by students themselves and correction by classmates in China, of which culture may be the main reason. As a result, junior students tend to rely heavily on their teachers on almost every aspect of learning. Their learning is rather passive and they consider their teachers the only source of knowledge and error correction their teachers’ job. It is suggested that the “monitor”(a label for the internalized “editor” or collection of rules one has learned)can prevent or repair some errors under some conditions. These conditions include a focus on form, rather than on communication of meaning, and adequate time for the learner to process the output. So when possible, we would be pleased to see learners able to apply the rules they have learned to correct their own mistakes. And after a detailed description of the related rules by the teacher, the learners can correct their errors independently and can remember the rules more clearly.
Another possibility is that other learners in the classroom could help to provide corrective feedback. Some researchers found they treated each other’s errors very infrequently but when they did, they were five times more likely to be right than to not to correct. Each of the ways has their own advantages and disadvantages in language teaching and learning. However, students’ preference should not be neglected.
5.3 The Strategy of Error Correction
What kind of errors student will make in the class is unexpected. How to correct   their oral errors requires language teachers to response quickly and appropriately. Correcting every small error does not mean that students can learn more from it, while not correcting also does not indicate that it creates a relaxing and free atmosphere and stimulates active learning. Correction should be done appropriately to offer supports to students and not to interrupt language learning process. As far as the ways of correction are concerned, the strategies of error correction are distinguished into two parts: correction by students themselves with teachers’ help and correction by classmates, which should be encouraged in classroom teaching.
5.3.1 Correction by Students Themselves with Teachers’ Help
Correction which is made by students themselves is especially important as it gives a chance for the speaker who made a slip or a covert mistake to self-correct themselves. Teachers’ correction does not always work. Sometimes, students should be allowed to correct themselves. Self-correction helps to focus students’ attention on errors and to reduce reliance on teachers, thereby encouraging students’ autonomy. Students’ ability to notice errors without teachers’ help is a qualitative leap to conscious cognition. Some students are really not clear about what is right and what is wrong, but sometimes, they make errors merely because they forget it for the time being. What’s more, teachers should give a model and let students to correct themselves. But in the latter one, teachers should show the errors by their body language and guidance, such as facial expressions, gesture or saying or writing something to guide students to realize their errors and gives a chance to correct themselves. The ways of correction are classified in the following aspects:
Firstly, errors repeated by students themselves. Teachers can let students repeat what they have said simply with one word “again”, which suggests that what the students said is not satisfied and let them realize the errors they have made. Secondly, errors repeated by teachers. Teachers can repeat students’ errors with rising tongue, which suggests that what the students said are doubtful. For example, teacher says, “He runed to the playground?” By doing like this, it can let students concentrate on the errors. Thirdly, the guidance of teachers’ body language. Teachers can use their body language to indicate students’ errors, such as frowning, shaking their heads and so on. By doing like this, it is not only saves time and effort, and gave the students a reflection of their errors.
5.3.2 Correction by Classmates
Correction which is made by classmates is especially efficient when correcting errors. Some language experts think that one student can find out their errors themselves and correct them, they can learn more, especially in grammar drilling. Teachers should not correct students’ errors all the time, they should let students exchange their homework or dictation exercises and things like that, and share with what they have written with their fellow classmates. They check their classmates’ writing and comment on them, trying to give correction. The advantages of students doing the correction are obvious: Students are more involved into language activities, the more they are involved, the more they have to think about the language used in the classroom; teachers can collect a lot of information about the students’ comprehensive abilities and knowledge; it encourages cooperation among the students. It increases students’ communication time; students can develop learner autonomy and help each other during pair or group work.
In this two-way interaction, students can face their oral errors bravely and can learn freely and relaxingly. Some students can correct by themselves without worrying that they will be pointed out the errors and corrected in public, which make them lose faces. Some students can correct with the help of teachers and classmates in proper time, both teachers and students can benefit from this way of correction.
6. Conclusion
This article has analyzed the oral English errors of Chinese middle school students. According to the article, on one hand, the author firstly analyzed error types and the cause of oral errors which Chinese middle school students often make in their English study. On the other hand, when learning a second language, errors are inevitable. Teachers’ correction plays a very important role in the process of helping students improve their English expression. Concerned with students’ different personalities and their study enthusiasm, teachers need to pay much attention to the best correction time, master the rules of correction and make full use of the strategies of error correction, thus it can strengthen the confidence of students so that they are not afraid of making errors when speaking English, then their expression of oral English can be improved.

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Acknowledgements

At the point of finishing this paper, I’d like to express my profound thanks to those who have lent me hands in the course of my writing this paper. First of all, I’d like to take this opportunity to show my sincere gratitude to my supervisor, Miss Liao Juhong, who has given me the valuable suggestion on my writing. From the bottom of my heart, I appreciate that she teaches me the writing skills. Secondly, I’d like to express my gratitude to my classmates who offer me references and information on time. I’d like to thank those leaders, teachers and working staff in Mianyang Normal University and especially those in the School of Foreign Languages. Without their help, it would be much harder for me to finish my study and this paper.
                                                    Liao Meiting