A SHORT PAPER ON ADDRESING GLOBAL ERRORS AND SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNING By Basil E.

Bamuhiga It is widely accepted that in learning a second language, learners usually make errors unknowingly. Elis (1992) argues that errors are inevitable and are integral parts of the process of second language acquisition. Therefore errors seem to be a natural part of learning any language particularly second language learning. Errors made by second language learners can be categorised into two broad categories. These errors can either be global/ communicative errors or local/ grammatical errors (Burt and Kiparsky 1974). Global errors are errors that hinder communication and prevent the learner from comprehending some aspects of the language. On the other hand, local errors are errors that affect a single element of a sentence but do not prevent a message from being heard. Of the two categories, global errors seem to receive less attention by teachers, as pointed out by Elis, most teachers concentrate more on correction of local errors and less likely to correct global errors in tasks that call for real communication. In her studies using a communicative taxonomy, Burt (1975) identified four aspects of grammar: basic word order, sentence connectors, psychological predicate constructions, and sentential complements as some of global errors that affect the overall organization of the sentence and hinder successful communication. Given that language learning has been considered in terms of communication (when talking about English as a second language, it is learnt basically as the language of international communication),this paper will therefore propose that, for effective second language learning to occur among learners, teachers need also to address global errors with special attention. The major reason of paying attention to global errors is to enable learners be able to communicate in the second language and be understood. If these errors are taken for granted they, as Elis argues, will seriously interfere with communication and affect the overall comprehensibility of an utterance. Since the real goal of language teaching, as per communicative approach, is to enhance communicative competence as opposed to linguistic competence therefore teachers need to ensure that language teaching enables learners to use language appropriately in a variety of situations. As Spada and Lightbown (2006) argue teachers have a responsibility to help learners do their best and this includes the provision of explicit, focused instruction and feedback on errors. However the correction of these errors needs to take into consideration of various factors. Spada and Lightbown point out that the correction of errors should consider the individual characteristics of a learner, and the relationship between the learner and other

learners as well as between the learner and the teacher. This is necessary in order to avoid embarrassing learners or negatively motivating them to learn. Elis (1992) in quoting Johnson (1988) provides four criteria to be met by the teacher for effective error correction. These are; the learner must have a desire or need to eradicate the mistake, they must be able to form an internal representation of what the correct behaviour looks like, they must realise that their performance is flawed and they must have the opportunity to perform in real condition. It is the responsibility of the teacher therefore to make sure that these factors are at hand in the learning process. When these criteria are met, the teachers need to design a suitable approach of error correction among learners. The selected approach can be either teacher centred or student centred. However, Mishra (2005) points out that a teacher centred error correction is a traditional approach and thus it denies learners a chance to fully recognise their mistakes and actively involve in their collection. To him therefore a cooperative and collaborative approach is more suitable for teachers and students with more active role placed on learners. However, different researches propose various approaches of correcting global errors, depending on the situation; teachers can employ any of the approaches. As for this paper, two ways of correcting global errors are recommended. The first as suggested by Mishra (2005) is correction of errors by students with the aid of the teacher( collaborative approach).Here Correction is mainly done by the students, the teacher only provides guidelines and steer the course of discussion and satisfies himself that the correction they have made is correct. This can be done in two ways; through group correction and peer correction. In group correction each group is assigned to correct a selected number of errors. However, learners should constantly be regrouped to provide chance to students to work with everybody. On the other hand, in peer group correction, the teacher assigns the correction work to students. The assignments are later interchanged among fellow peers of students. They look at the errors, discuss errors and make necessary corrections. The advantage of this approach is that it enhances communication between the learners and the teacher as well as among learners themselves, hence meeting the goal of communicative approach to second language learning. The second way is a correction of errors by teachers themselves. Spada and Lightbown (2006) points out that teachers should respond to students errors by correctly rephrasing what they have said rather than by explicitly pointing out the error. The advantage of this recast technique is to avoid interrupting the flow of interaction among learners as well it is a roundabout and polite way of giving information needed by students without upsetting them. For instance, instead of directly correcting the learner, the teacher could rephrase as exemplified here under. Student: want other one book

Teacher: you mean you want THE OTHER BOOK. This technique of correcting learners errors implicitly, however, should be applied with care because sometimes learners may fail to recognise that the teacher is correcting their errors, and take the teachers rephrasing as part of the normal conversation. Elis (1992) in quoting Cohen (1990) offers various criteria that can help teachers and tutors to come to a decision when to correct oral errors and when to adjourn correction to a more appropriate time or occasion. He suggests that oral corrections will most likely have an impact when; the learner is developmentally ready for the correction being offered and has adequate knowledge about the structures involved, the learner has time to digest the corrections, the learner writes down the correction form in a notebook possibly in a special section for that kind of information, and the learner verifies the correct form with a native speaker (e.g., the teacher, tutor, helper or someone else) at a later time. Deciding whether to use any of the above suggested ways of addressing global errors will depend on the nature of the students, the learning environments and the motivation students have towards learning the second language. However it is very important and useful for teachers to employ both of them in classroom situation. In correcting learners global errors, teachers need to give priority to such errors that reoccur frequently. Lightbown and Spada (1999) assert that when errors are persistent, especially when they are shared by almost all students in class, it is useful to bring the problem to the learners attention. Teachers also need to address errors among learners particularly on lexicon, intonation and pronunciation as they are the areas that are likely to affect the comprehension of communicated message. Building on this point Vazquez (1987) points out that pragmatics and semantics play a more important role than morphosyntax in the comprehension of the message. So teachers should take this into account when deciding which type of global errors to correct first. Brown (2000) gives an example of one of the learners construction; the grammar is the basement of every language (p. 237). In this construction it is clear that the learner meant the basis rather than the basement. Brown thus suggests that this kind of construction need a corrective feedback from the teacher by explaining the differences between the two terms. If global errors are addressed, students learning a second language are likely to develop communicative competencies in using the second language as opposed to when these errors are ignored. Elis (1992) in quoting Ramirez and Stromquist (1979) points out that there is a positive correlation between the correction of global errors and general gains in the linguistic performance. Generally, as conversation interaction are very essential, in addressing global errors therefore, teachers should aim at educating learners about the issue of error correction so

as to enable them to deal more efficiently with their own errors, thus creating a better overall progress in developing second language proficiency. This is essential in building self correction among learners as self correction will enable them retain in mind the correct form as opposed to teacher correction which can easily be forgotten. LIST OF REFERENCES. Burt, M.K. and Kiparsky, C. The gooficon: A repair manual for English. Rowley, MA: Newbury House. 1972 Brown, H.D. Principles of language learning and teaching (4th edition).White Heath, NY: Addison Wesley Longman. 2000 Edge, J. Mistakes and Correction. Longman Keys to Language Teaching. Harlow: Longman.1989 Ellis, Rod. Instructed second language acquisition: learning in the classroom, USA, Blackwell Publishers, 1992 Ellis, Rod. The study of second language acquisition. New York, oxford university press, 1994. Lightbown, M.P and Spada, N. How Languages are Learned, 2nd ed, New York, Oxford University Press 1999. Lightbown, M.P and Spada, N. How Languages are Learned, 3rd Ed, New York, Oxford University Press 2006. Mishra, K.C. Correction of Errors in English: A Training Course for the Teachers of English as a Second Language. New Delhi, Sarup and Sons, 2005.