Background of the Study

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the Study

English is undoubtedly becoming increasingly important nowadays. As we all know that English language is an international language which is used by almost everyone in the world. Many countries use English language as a second language like in Malaysia and India. They use it as daily communication. Meanwhile, it has also been an important part of the schools curriculum in Indonesia. People realize how important it is to learn English and they hope that they can use it whenever it is needed as a basic of their further study at the university level as for life in the society. The government realizes how important English today for global development. Therefore, English is taught to students of junior and senior high schools hopefully that SMU graduates will be able used it at the university. Furthermore, National Education Department Depdiknas formulates competency standards for students of junior high school. There are three points of competency standard of English subject 1 , they are: First Grade : To communicate written and orally using variety appropriate languages, fluently and accurately in the instructional texts andor monolog that is narrative form, descriptive form, recount and anecdote. Second Grade : To communicate written and orally using variety appropriate languages, fluently and accurately in the instructional texts andor monolog that is narrative form, descriptive form and simple recount. Third Grade : To communicate written and orally using variety appropriate languages, fluently and accurately in the instructional texts 1 Kurikulum 2004 SMP Mata Pelajaran Bahasa Inggris Jakarta: Depdiknas, 2003, p. 11 andor monolog that is narrative form, descriptive form and recount, Procedure and simple report. In English subject, there are four skills that should be mastered by students to accomplish the basic language skills, they are; listening, speaking, reading and writing. Among the skills, writing is one of the difficult skills to be learnt, because it needs hard thinking and produce words, sentences, paragraph at the same time. Not many students can write English as well as to speak it. Therefore, the students must have extensive knowledge if they want to write anything. However, each of students has difficult reasons for writing according to their ability or stages in writing. Sometimes, they do it to get interesting ideas, knowledge, and information or just to practice writing. In writing the use of correct structure, spelling, diction and punctuation should be understood as well as possible. Writing English for a foreign language student is difficult even the college students still undergo many complications in writing. English is different from Indonesian language in its structure, phonology and lexical meaning. That is why, the students who learn English may produce many errors in their speaking and writing such as tense, some students were confused in using tenses in their writing. For example; “I’m going to Bandung, last week.”, it should be “I went to Bandung , last week.” They made mistakes because they did not understand well the grammar. Writing can be mastered only through learning activities and exercises because it is unnatural skill and needs serious attempt to acquire it. In order to know where the students make some errors in their writing, the teacher should give them the test. The main objective of test within a taught course is to provide feedback, without which neither teacher nor learner would be able to progress very far. 2 When the students do the test, they make error in their test. According to Dullay “errors are a flawed side of learner’s speech or writing”. 3 Errors are found in writing and speaking that can’t be avoided by students. But it is not only 2 Penny Ur, Grammar Practice Activities: A Practical Guide for Teachers, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988 p.7 3 Heidi Dullay,et al, Language Two New York:Oxford University Press, p. 138 in writing and speaking as language skill but also in grammar as language component. A student’s error provides evidence to us that the teacher must have strategies and do something to avoid them to make error again. The strategy that can present the student from making error is error analysis. Error analysis is the study of student’s error. It is very important because it can be a very useful device both at the beginning and during the various stages of a foreign-language teaching program. Undertaken at beginning, it can reveal to the teacher, the course designer, or the textbook writer. During the teaching itself, error analysis performed on a limited scale can reveal both “successes” and the “failures” of the program. Proper remedial measures can be devised and employed both to consolidate the successes and more importantly to eliminate the failures as the program progresses. Error analysis can thus provide strong support for remedial teaching. 4 By using error analysis, the students’ test has to identify, to describe and to explain the errors made by students in the test. It can help the teachers to minimize the students’ error in their learning. Why is the writer interested in discussing about error analysis? Firstly, it is because she finds out some examples of grammatical error made by the students of English language. Here is an example of error made by the students: “My name is Lia. I born in Tangerang, January 10 th 1994. I live at Ciputat. I have been live here since I child.” It should be: “My name is Lia. I was born in Tangerang, January 10 th 1994. I live at Ciputat. I have lived here since I was child.” .Secondly, an error analysis has an important role to reveal what kinds of errors the student do in writing and the causes of errors and how the students can learn from their mistakes in writing by themselves. Those are the reason why the writer is interested in analyzing the students’ writing. Based on the description above, the writer would like to take a research under the title: “ERROR ANALYSIS OF STUDENTS’ WRITING TEST 4 SK. Sharma, Error Analysis: Why and How, English Teaching Forum July 1981 vol.XIX N. 3 p. 21 FOCUSED ON TENSES” to the Third Year Students of Junior High School of Paramarta, Jombang. Why does the writer pick SMP PARAMARTA as a place for the research? Firstly, it is because the school is regarded as one of favorite schools. Secondly, the school has a good quality. As a new school, which was established in 2001, it has gotten good accreditation with “A”.

B. Statement of the Problem