To *be exist or not to *be exist ? That is the Question
Résumé
يتمحور هدا البحث حول الاستعمال الخاطئ للفعل يكون من طرف طلبة اللغة الانجليزية من التعليم العالي بجامعة أدرار. يتكون الجزء الأساسي للبحث من أكثر من ألفين ورقة امتحان للسداسي الأول و الثاني لعشر مواسم جامعية. أساس فرضية البحث هو أن الاستعمال الخاطئ للفعل يكون لا ينجم عن الطلبة بل هو ناتج عن للتدريس الخاطئ لكيفية استعماله في مدارس الطور المتوسط و الثانوي.
This corpus study analyses the wrong use of the verb to exist as *to be exist under various forms and tenses such as *is exists, *are existed, *does not exist, and *existness. The corpus consists of more than two thousand exam copies for the academic years 2003 through 2013 held at the university of Adrar, Department of English. Error Analysis considers a fault as mistake or error depending on its frequency of repetition and on its over or under-generalisation to the learners. The research contends that this mistake/error is not the learners’ deed, but is taught to them under that erroneous form in intermediate or secondary schools. To substantiate this argument, the survey shows that the wrong verb to *be exist is used by students from different levels (Classical and LMD systems) with different educational and geographical backgrounds.
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This point is well commented on by Widdowson (1994) who says: "the native speaker teachers are generally equipped with knowledge only in a privileged intuitive sense, and with pedagogic competence only to a rudimentary degree… the nonnative speaker teachers know the “subject”, English, in an explicit rather than intuitive sense, by virtue of having themselves learnt it as a foreign language."
And, starting from 1996, the minister of education at that time decides to promote English at the expense of French.”
According to Gardner and Lambert (1959) there are two types of motivations, Integrative and Instrumental. Integrative motivation characterizes the foreign language learner who shows a real interest in the culture of the target language, and who would like to be part of it. The instrumental, on the other hand, is a feature of those who learn foreign languages for utilitarian aims, such as getting a job, communicating with foreigners or chatting, etc.
Vecide Erdoğan, Mersin University Journal of the Faculty of Education, Vol. 1, Issue 2, December 2005, pp. 261-270. He says that: “Error analysis enables teachers to find out the sources of errors and take pedagogical precautions towards them. Thus, the analysis of learner language has become an essential need to overcome some questions and propose solutions regarding different aspects.” (p. 263)
For Ellis (1997: 51) a ‘transfer’ is 'the influence that the learner’s L1 exerts over the acquisition of an L2'.