Interlanguage Error and Its "Fossilization"

Interlanguage refers to the interim grammar, or the continuum of thesystematic knowledge of the target language, built by second language learners on their way to the target language. Interlanguage error is unavoidable in the course of learning a second language. It is in fact a strategy adopted by the learner. Its fossilization covers linguistic items, rules and subsystems which speakers of a particular native language will tend to keep in their interlanguage relative to a particular target language, no matter what the age of the learner or amount of explanation and instruction he receives in the target language. Second language teachers can take effective measures accordingly to avoid fossilization in interlanguage, based on studies on interlanguage errors.