대학교 영어 학습자의 컴퓨터 채팅에 나타난 오류 분석

An Error Analysis of Korean College Students’ English Used in Online Chat Tasks

  This study aims to determine the level of accuracy of Korean college students’ English in online chats by identifying types and frequencies of the errors shown in the chat scripts. The data were obtained from eight chat scripts produced by 16 college students, who participated in two chat tasks in their English Conversation class. The error analysis reveals that approximately 46% of the total C-units include at least one error and the average number of error per C-unit is 1.7. Such findings suggest that the students experienced significant difficulties in using English in a proper manner. Based on their surface structures, the errors were classified into four categories: omission (27.64%), addition (6.67%), misformation (62.54%), and misordering (3.15%). Further analysis adopting linguistic categories shows that 83.9% of the total errors occur in the areas of inappropriate expression, verbs and verb phrases, articles, incomplete sentences, spelling, singular/plural nouns, and prepositions. The findings suggest that online chats may provide the learners with an opportunity to engage in form-focused learning within the context of meaningful interaction.