An Analysis of Grammatical Errors in Chinese EFL Learners' Oral English

Abstract

Compared with reading, writing, listening, Chinese English as Foreign Language (EFL) learners oral English ability is usually far weaker and ignored in classroom language teaching. In terms of oral English teaching and practicing, most of the emphasis is on pronunciation, vocabulary, intonation, while little attention has been given to the grammatical errors in the oral English. The present research focuses on analyzing grammatical errors in Chinese EFL learners oral English. In order to identify the most prevalent grammatical error types and determine the relationship between grammatical errors and oral English proficiency levels, the study collects recordings of subjects discussing a particular topic and transcribing them for error recognition, classification, frequency analysis, and correlation analysis. It is found that Chines EFL learners commit preposition and article errors most frequently; no obvious correlation between error numbers and English-speaking levels is shown, while two error types omission auxiliary be and noun for adjective have significant positive correlation with learners English-speaking scores as indicators of their oral English levels. Based on that, it is concluded that differences between the mother tongue and English, as well as the complexity of some grammatical rules are main causes for errors, and teachers should be aware that students are likely to commit some certain types of errors more as they make progress and try to use more complicated grammatical patterns.