An Analytical Study of Patterns of Spelling Errors of Freshmen Ethiopian Students at AUA Main Campus
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Date
1989-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Th e main objective of this study is to examine
some of the causes and occurrences of the spelli ng errors
of the freshmen Ethiollian students and thereby accoun' for
these errors.
According to Error Analysis (EA) theories and interlanguage
(IL) studies, the learners' errors are developmental
and systematic by nature. The systematicity in
the error data indicates a more or less natural progression
(development ) in the learners' acquisiti on of English
language showing adherence to "learner- ge nerated' or 'builtin
' syllabus" (see Corder 1981) i.e , the stages of develop ment
in learning English.
To verify the claims of EA and IL studies with regard
t o the occurrences of the learners' spelling .. a total of
140 freshmen Ethiorian students with differing mother-tongue
(~T) and backgrounds were given two tests i,e, dict ation and
oomposition writing. The same composition t ests were also
gi ven to 24 multilingual. grour of ohildren at the English
Community School (ECS).
The spelling errors obtained from each test written by
the Ethiopian group were superficially cl a ssified into
categories induced by the err or types. Th ese errors were
then furth er classified into the clea rest error patterns
that emerged and were given psycholinguist i c exp l an ations .These patterns we r e cross- ch ec ked with the nature o f
the s pe llin g e rrors obt a ined from the ECS Vr o up of children.
Mor eo ve r , spelling e rror patt erns ~ f th e Ethi op ian g rou p
were comp a r ed t o the s t afes in the de ve l opme nt al spelling
errors of the native (En g li sh) children th a t Marr,n Wood
has e st a ~lish e d .
The r es ult of this study, th e r e f ore , revealed that
the sp e llin g e rrors of th e fres hmen Ethi opian students
could be ac count od f o r by three f actors namely: (a) those
errors directly r e l a t ed to Ll interference upo n TL (En glish)
(b) those e rrors cf intra lin gual confusions (c) those
errors caused by Ll int e rfe r e nc e but a lso r e inforced by
intralin ~ ual confusi on .
Moreover, the soe llin? Grrors of the fre s hmen group
match ed s i ~ nific a ntl y, with th e phonetic a nd transitional
stages of deve l opme nt a l spellin ~ e rrors estab li shed by Wood.
The majority of the err o r patterns we r e also found out t o
be similar to the nature of th e ECS group of children. In
additi o n , it was found that stud ents are like l y to make
less sp e lling errors in composition th a n in dictation
writin~ tests wh en th e e rror perc e nta ge s are computed
a~ainst words co rrectly spe lt in these tests.
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Keywords
Spelling Errors of Freshmen, Ethiopian Students at AUA