Reviewing Error Analysis: the significance of EFL learners' errors and hints for ELT practice

Introduction In Applied Linguistics error analysis studies the types and causes of language errors by analyzing patterns of errors. According to Carl James (1998), “Error Analysis developed out of the belief that errors indicate the learner's stage of language learning and acquisition. The learner is seen as an active participant in the development of hypotheses regarding the rules of the target language just as is a young child learning the first language. Errors are considered to be evidence of the learner's strategy as he or she builds competence in the target language”. In ELT (English Language Teaching), errors help us realize how learners process the foreign language and develop underlying systems of rules. The speech that EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learners produce is a direct reflection of the rules which they have internalized, that is, of their underlying ‘competence’ in the foreign language. This assumption, though, is not always justified, since learners may also make errors which don’t result from any underlying system but from superficial influences. The purpose of this paper is to review error analysis matters by discussing briefly first the main influences which cause EFL errors and by pinpointing the most significant EFL error types focusing on internal learning processes, while, at the same time, we attempt to explore the relevant error hints for ELT.