Language Error: From a Language Teacher's Perspective
“Errors are not always bad; rather they are crucial parts and aspects in the process of learning a language.” This line from one of my readings simply explains the nature and the importance of language error analysis. Learning a not so familiar language is not an overnight endeavor; it is a gradual process, a process which should be taken in a more piecemeal approach, a step-by-step one if that is the case. Thus, from these crucial errors, we can picture ourselves improving from time to time, little by little.
As a language user, I had experienced a lot of adversities in learning a foreign language especially when I was still in my undergraduate studies. It was never my dream to become a language teacher. I can still remember my elementary days in which I always complain about my English subjects – complying requirements like essays and formal themes, reading short stories which, I thought, are too long for me to handle, analyzing poems which are full of highfalutin words and figurative expressions, answering questions like “What is the setting of the story? Who are the characters? What is the moral of the story?” over and over again. After all, my rants led me to the specialization which I never dreamed to take. When I entered college, all I wanted was to challenge myself. How long could I take this endeavor? That was my challenge question. And I almost, almost gave up.
As a language teacher, one of the most significant experiences I had with language error is, perhaps, teaching the fundamentals. While it’s true that the basics are the easiest lessons to teach, there are still learners who cannot master them specifically the most common one – their Subject-Verb Agreement. Learners inevitably make mistakes in the process of learning a foreign language. However, what is questioned by most language teachers is why students go on making the same mistakes even when such mistakes have been repeatedly pointed out to them? I mean, whenever I require my students to pass their themes, I always give them feedback and correction notes. One of my practices also is to let them pass their drafts first, check them, and give them back to the students for them to accomplish the final output. Thus, I expect them to incorporate all the corrections in editing just to make sure they’ll do it themselves and learn from the corrections. However, there are still minimal errors. This is the nature of language error analysis, I guess
Therefore, it is very important to point out the significance of learners' errors for they provide evidence of how language is learned and what strategies or procedures the teachers and learners are employing in the discovery of language. Learning a foreign language is never easy but there are helpful ways on how we can get there. First, we should understand the nature of the language. How is it, in a way, similar or different from our first language? Second, we should be more patient and determined to attain our desired goal which is to acquire a new language. Perhaps, we could watch movies with subtitles using the language, we could read books written in our desired language, or we could even talk with native speakers. Lastly, we should be open-minded and openhearted too, lol. We must be open to change because it is the only constant thing in the world or the universe rather. (winks)
Therefore, I can say that my experiences in learning, using, and teaching a second language molded me to become the person I am today. I may not be perfect enough in terms of using the language, at least I had proven myself that the once “challenge” for me became my greatest asset.