The first approach considering errors is behaviourism.

It was developed on the turn of

1950s and 1960s and practised by such specialists as B.F. Skinner, Edward Thorndike or
John B. Watson. In their opinion, the process of language learning was a habit formation
based on mimicry, repetition and stimulus-response-reward relation. People could learn
new languages through observing other individuals’ behaviour and listening to their
utterances, which were treated as a model input, reaction patterns, and then imitating the
received material repetitively to gain proficiency. (Medwell, Wray, Moore and Griffiths,
2014) Learners practiced certain actions or expressions as long as a new stimulus
became embedded permanently in their own behaviour. Additionally, the process of the
internalisation of new patterns was hastened thanks to either a positive or negative
reinforcement. To be more precise and take the classroom environment into
consideration, those learners’ reactions which were highly desirable to a teacher earned
verbal or nonverbal rewards so, in consequence, it was likely that such a type of
behaviour would occur more often in the future. (Brown, 1987) By contrast, each error
was seen as unwanted, negative and detrimental for second language learners. The
presence of linguistic deviations meant that the process of teaching and any progress
had not taken place. (Ellis, 1994) According to behaviourists, all such incorrect
linguistics forms should be eradicated as soon as it was possible at all costs. Otherwise,
they could lead to bad habits regardless of learners’ age and stages of learning. B.F.
Skinner in his Verbal Behaviour explains that if a learner fails to give an accurate
reaction to a particular stimulus, his unwanted behaviour should immediately be
confronted with a “negative audience”. Such an audience punishes errors, for instance,
by corrections or simply lack of praising so that the erroneous responses will disappear.
(1957) In this case, the main role of a teacher, apart from introducing drills, was a
perpetual penalising learners for giving wrong answers treated as a didactic tool. The
next aspect strictly connected with the behaviouristic understanding of an error was the
concept of the Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis. The linguist who was peculiarly
interested in that theme was Robert Lado. He states in the preface of his book
Linguistics across cultures that there is “ […] the assumption that we can predict and
describe the patterns that will cause difficulty in learning, and those that will not cause
difficulty, by comparing systematically the language and the culture to be learned with
the native language and culture of the student” (1957, vii). Thus errors were thought to
be the side effect of the faulty transfer of L1 habits. In other words, it was possible to
foresee either some potential areas of difficulties (a weak version) within a language
learning process or errors of a given group of students (a strong version) on the basis of
the juxtaposition of one’s mother tongue and target language. The whole mechanism
consisted of four basic stages: (1) focusing on general characteristics, descriptions of
both languages, (2) choosing concrete features in a mother tongue and target language
which will be compared, (3) making a comparison, finding correspondence or
distinction between L1 and L2 and finally (4) predicting sources, types of errors. (Ellis,
1994) The procedure of determining prospective errors itself and the fact that scholars
bother themselves so overly to prevent learners’ linguistic failures is the additional proof
of specialists’ reluctance to linguistic deviations in that times.

Next approach which opposes behaviourism in terms of an error analysis is the

mentalist theory of language learning. The most popular and influential representative
of this approach was Noam Chomsky. First of all, mentalists claimed that the process of
second language acquisition was similar to the way how people acquire L1. The
influence of the surrounding environment was very significant. Secondly, the root of the
learning process was not the habit formation but a meaningful learning based on
“relating and anchoring new material to relevant established entities in cognitive
structure” thus understanding of new input, its meaning is the core. (Brown, 1987) What
is more, in their opinion learners had inborn cognitive predispositions, possessed
metalinguistic awareness known as Language Acquisition Device which enabled them
to understand abstract assumptions, principles. One’s mind and knowledge played the
most important role in learning. (Ellis, 1994) (Medwell, Wray, Moore and Griffiths,
2014) Additionally, mentalists believed that there was one and the same framework for
all possible languages called the Universal or Core Grammar. (Ellis, 1994) If a learner
acquired it, he or she could cope with all possible languages. In this case, firstly, an
errors was not a failure but an evidence of learning and secondly, it did not show the
lack of competence but the level of advancement. The golden rules of mentalist were
“learning through doing” or “try and error”. In other words, each second language
learner tested and experimented with linguistic forms to check whether they fitted in a
particular context or not. If not, he could modify them accordingly. They did not focus
only on the competence but also performance. (Salim, 2007) In their opinion, errors
were intralingual, not the result of a negative transfer of one’s mother tongue. In
contrast to behaviourism, for mentalists an error was a positive sign of self-development
and depiction of current second language learners’ understanding of the rules of target
language. Moreover, mentalists were the ones who introduced and spread the distinction
between “an error ” and “a mistake”. According to Corder (1967), the former occurred
when a learner did not have knowledge, the foundation in a language learning process.
One did not know rules ergo he or she had difficulties with producing correct
utterances. On the other hand, the latter happened when a learner had a cognisance
(competence) and could relate to it. He or she used target language incorrectly because
the physical realisation of knowledge needed its entrenchment.

Another crucial difference is the fact that mentalists did not tried to predict errors but
explain and evaluate them. At the beginning, scholars collected samples of language, for
instance, recordings or pieces of writing, then looked for errors and analysed them.
Subsequently they scrutinised findings and at the same time assigned categories to
particular non-target language forms. Next step was to give psychological explanation
to errors and finally evaluate how grave they were. The essence and main goal of that
procedure was not to eradicate linguistic deviations but, thanks to them, to understand
how learners process L2.

The third and last perspective I would like to focus on is the communicative approach in
second language learning, which was in its heyday on the turn 1970s and 1980s but
seems to be still practised in contemporary schools, classrooms. Such scholars as Henry
Widdowson, D.A. Wilkins or Christopher Candlin are thought to belong to the group of
the most prominent representatives of this approach. In this case, the most important
aspect of second language learning is interaction and, in turn, conveying a message
instead of one’s accuracy. The context, functions of given utterances but above all their
meaning are the essence of a successful communication because language users need to
understand the received input and produced output. It is worth mentioning about the
significance of the surrounding environment and interlocutors. Second language
learners thanks to such classroom activities as role-plays, games, pair works etc., which
give them a chance to actively cooperation with peers, can shape their communicative
competence and experiment with already known or new linguistic forms in varied
contexts. Similarly to mentalism, students have right to make errors because, again,
errors are the side effects of the technique “trial and error”. Taking into consideration
the communicative approach, non-target language expressions carry social component.
What is more, the main role of a teacher is not to punish wrong utterances or impose
rules, which student seem not to even understand, as in behaviourism but to create
appropriate conditions for interaction, observe and give advice. (Richards and Rodgers,
1986) According to H. Ludolph Botha’s article (1987), teachers’ error treatment is not
always beneficial. It is very often a distraction for students or an obstacle to successfully
share some information and maintain conversations. Despite good intentions of
teachers, such a perpetual correction can lead to learners’ fossilization and decrease in
their motivation or willingness to express themselves. That is why errors should be
corrected only when they interrupt or destroy the transfer of information and preclude
one of the interlocutors from understanding message.

To sum up, all three previously described approaches, which are: behaviourism,
mentalism, and communicative approach, constitute an evidence that errors are a very
complex issue. Their role in second language learning and especially teachers’
understanding of them have changed significantly from 1950s up till 1980s or even
today. Thanks to so many and so different theories it is possible to notice that non-target
expressions, linguistic forms which native speakers of a given language would not
normally produce, can be interpreted both, as something negative and positive. To be
more precise, in 1950s as a failure in the process of learning and teaching but, by
contrast, in 1960s or 70s as a sign of progress or the effective way to mould own
perception of “correctness”.