Error Analysis for Foreign Language Teaching

The view towards learner's errors and mistakes has changed. This paper intends to observe error analysis(EA) in several aspects and to discuss the meaning of the learner's errors in language classroom and the possible applications of the results of EA in the classroom. In the 1950s and 1960s under the influence of structuralism and the audiolingual method, learner's errors were the target for correction or avoidance. However, errors began to be regarded as the interlanguage of the learners which provides teachers with valuable information about learners' linguistic and cognitive processes. Contrastive analysis makes it possible to predict some of the learner's errors, but it cannot explain all of them. In order to understand error and its application, this paper tries to define errors and to specify their types and three sources. Their limitations are also discussed. Finally, the implications of EA for language teaching in a classroom are discussed with a few specific applications.