College of Education- English Department

Third Lecture
Second Language Acquisition

October 20- 2022

Lecturer:
Saman Babakir
 The nature of Learner Language

1. Why do learners make errors?

2. Is it important for the teachers to know what errors learners make?

- A man and a little boy was watching him.

- Is it an error or mistake?
❖ Errors reflect gaps in a learner’s knowledge, they occur because the learner does not know
what is correct.

❖ Mistakes reflect occasional lapses in performance, the learner is unable to perform what he
knows.

❖ People make mistakes when they already have the knowledge but lack concern and attention
 Errors

Performance error Competence error

1. Performance errors are those errors made by learners when they are tired or hurried.

2. Competence errors seem to be more serious than performance errors since competence
errors reflect inadequate learning.
 Types of Errors in second language

Omission Overgeneralization Transfer

 1. Omission
Omission can be introduced as learners commit errors.

For example:
o Learners leave out the article of ‘a’ and ‘the.’
o They sometimes leave out the ‘s’ plural nouns.

2. Overgeneralization
o Learners usually commit errors in such kind of errors and this kind of error is common in the
speech of all second language learners.
For example:
Present ……………………………..past
eat…………………………………….ate
3. Transfer:
o Learners attempts to use of make their first language knowledge is known as transfer.

o A wonderful class……………………English

o ………………………..Kurdish
 Error Evaluation
o The purpose of the errors analysis is to help learners learn a second language.

o Some errors are considered to be more serious than others.

o Some errors are known as global errors.

o Global errors violate the overall structure of a sentence and for this reason may make it difficult to develop.

o For example: How are you today, Mr. Ameer?

o Grammatically correct and socially accepted.

o How are you today, old man?

o Grammatically correct and socially unacceptable.
o A man and a little boy was him watching.
2. Local Errors
o Local Errors are those affect single element in the sentence. These include errors in noun,
verb, article and auxiliaries.
o For example:
o we went at Johannesburg last weekend.
 Developmental patterns
1. The Early Stages of Second Language Acquisition
o Second language period undergo a silent period.
o They make no attempt to say anything to begin with and they may learning a lot about the language through
listening and reading.
o Later, some learner decide to talk to themselves or talk to others.

Example: Me no blue.
Means: I do not have a blue crayon

No look my car.
Do not look my car.