An Exploration of Efllearners' Attitudes Towards Their Oral Errors: Gatama Secondary School Grade Nine in Focus
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2009-06
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Oral errors in second/ foreign language learning are more frequ ent in that it is inevitable for the
learners to commit erro rs as they experiment with the target language as is indi cated by Beebe
( 1983) and Ellis (1994) . Accordingl y, the purpose of the study was to explore grade nine
learners' attitudes towards their oral errors in EFL elassroom . Thus, the spccifi c obj ectives of
the study were (a) to fin d out the learners' att itudes to the ir oral errors, (b) to examine some of
the factors attributed to the learners' attitudes to their oral errors, and (c) to cxplore the effects
of the learners' attitudes to their oral errors on their learning to speak EFL. To this end, sixty
five systematically sampled grade nine students and their respecti ve Engli sh tcachers from
Gatama Secondary School in East Wall aga were in foc us. To obtain the data, questionnai re
(attitude scales) to the students and interview wi th the teache rs to investigate the st udents'
att itudes towards their own oral errors were employed. T'hen the data were analyzed both
quantitat ively and qua litati vely: data obtained from the students' responses were ana lyzed using
frequency count and percentage, whereas the data elicited from the teachers using interview was
analyzed by summari zing, organi zin g and grouping the key ideas un der the ma in themes.
Accordingly, the study has obtained some findings. Firstly, it was found that at least about half
of the learners tend to hold more realistic attitudes because they do not worry about making oral
erro rs, do not demand perfect acc urac y, and feel they learn from their oral errors whi le about
half of them seem to hold erroneous attitudes towards their own oral errors because they afraid
of mak ing oral errors, demand perfect acc uracy, and fe el their own oral errors are ind icators of
their weakness and impede their learning to speak Engli sh. Secondl y, the study reveals a lso that
some fac tors favorably influenced some of the learners' attitudes whil e still some other factors
have wrongly affected the rest of the learners' attitudes. Fina lly, it indicates that a significant
number of the learners are concerned with accuracy than fl uency, are anxious, fcar of taking
risks of making erro rs, lacked opportuni ties whi ch cncourage thcir learning of speakin g Engli sh,
and had decreased communicative competence in spoken Engli sh becausc o f their unreali stic
attitudes to their own oral errors though they are ready to partic ipate in communicat ive
acti viti es.
As a result, in the study it was fina lly attempted to propose some practical suggestions to
promote learners' learning of speaking English tak ing ri sks of making errors. In order to remove
inhi bi tion and reticence, the learners should cxpose themsel ves to the practice and usc of spoken
~l1glisb 'JhQl!! fea r of making errors. S im i larIy~lwo ul d be advisable if both teachers and
learners with erroneous attitudes are given adviscs and informat ion by senior teachers,
counselors and learning speciali sts, or in the teacher's book and student's book that errors are
natural phenomenon, cruc ial and can bc improved thro ugh practice, and should be treated
properly. Besides, tcachers al so have to offer consc iousness-raising activities and advi se to
enable the learners aware that errors are made by everyone every time, that they have to
emphasize fl uency over accuracy, and that improvements can happen over tim e. Lastly, to
identi fy the factors att ributed to some inconsistencies in the learners ' responses and a bit
disparity between the teachers' responses and the learners' responses on the variables
considered in the study, it seems desirable if further study is conducted .
Description
Keywords
Exploration of Efllearners, Attitudes Towards Their