5.85 The Description and Analysis of Grammatical Errors
the past verb which is divided into regular and irregular verb is confusing enough for the students because it is not available in
Indonesian language. Sometimes it happened when students have learnt a rule of grammar and they apply it the rule for all other rules
and this source of error called intralingual transfer. 4
Add a Word The students made 81 add a word error or 9.68. The example
of the error is “my friends and I went camping.” which it should be “my friends and I went to camping.” See appendix table 4.20, p.36.
The other example of this error is “We walked down got on the bus.” which the correct sentence is “We walked down and got on the bus.”
See appendix table 4.21, p.37. The writer predicts that the error is caused by interlingual transfer and communication strategy. The
students can be influenced by their mother tongue language and also it can be that the students create an easy strategy to write their story but
instead the strategy is not appropriate and it becomes error. 5
Spelling Spelling has 71 errors or 8.48. The example of error is “he
and I first meat kidergarten
…” which the correct is “he and I first
met in kindergarten
….” See appendix table 4.10, p.19. This error can be caused by context of learning and communication strategy.
English is a language which has different in spoken and written, when the student listen or talk in English they don’t think of the spelling but
when they have to write a paragraph they approximate the spelling and unfortunately their strategy to approximate sometimes can be an error.
The error that caused by context of learning can be happened from the students themselves or the teacher. Probably the teacher ever gave a
wrong spelling or the students don’t look carefully the English word they learn, so the write incorrect spelling.
6 Run-On Sentence
Run-On sentence has 49 or 5.85 errors. The example of this
error is “we were go at half past six my father drove The car and my mother sat in front seat mean while I and my sister sat at the back
sedt. ” which the correct sentence is “We went at half past six. My
father drove the car and my mother sat in front seat, meanwhile my sister and I sat at the back seat.
” See appendix table 4.9, p.17. The writer assumes that the major of this error is context of learning. The
students didn’t pay attention to the coherence of sentence they wrote.
Therefore they ignore how to connect one sentence to the other sentences correctly and it produced run-on sentence error.
7 Word Order
The writer believes that the source of word order error is interlingual transfer. It can be proved in this sentence “Next we took
some pictur beautiful .” That it must be “Next we took some
beautiful pictures
.” See appendix table 4.27, p.49. The error caused the students used Indonesian language to transfer their sentence into
English and it doesn’t appropriate with English rule therefore it becomes error. The students made 45 or 5.38 word order errors.
8 Punctuation
The students made 45 or 5.38 punctuation error. The writer assumes that this error can be caused by communication strategy. Most
of them didn’t pay attention to use the correct punctuation because perhaps the students didn’t realize yet the importance punctuation in
writing. Therefore, they sometimes missed and misused punctuation or
even ignored to use it. The example is “though I was tired it was fun
” “Though I was tired, it was fun.” See appendix table 4.26, p 47
9 Omit a Word
Omit a word has 38 or 4.54 errors. The example of this error
is “after that we went to for a walk.” That it should be “After that we went for
a walk.”See appendix table 4.25, p.45. The writer assumes that intralingual transfer is the source of omit a word error. The
students wrot e the word that didn’t need in the sentence. It happened
because the students had over-generalization and it turned to be error. 10
Word Form There is 34 or 4.06 word form error. The writer thinks that
the caused is intralingual transfer because the students generalized the rule that it’s not correct to apply to other word class. It occurred
because the students haven’t mastered the rule yet. For example of this
error is
“…with my family finished bathing and taking picture.” That it should be “…with my family after finished taking a bath and
taking picture.”See appendix table 4.24, p.43.
11 Article
Article has 22 or 2.63 errors. This kind of error can be caused by interlingual transfer and intralingual transfer. Interlingual transfer
source of error happened when student didn’t use article in the word
that should use article because in Indonesian language the rule of using article is not available. Intralingual transfer occurred when the students
used article for all of the words which do not need to use article. The
example of this error is “I and my family went to the cibodas.” which it should be “my family and I went to Cibodas.” See appendix table
4.32, p.56. 12
Singular-Plural The students made 21 or 2.51 singular-plural error. It is
caused by interlingual transfer which in Indonesian language is not available singular-plural noun. It differs from English which the
singular and plural nouns are different divided into uncountable and countable plural noun, and regular and irregular plural noun. This is
the example of singular-
plural error “Suddenly, I have cramps in my
foot.
” That it should be “Suddenly, I had cramp in my foot.” See
appendix table 4.14, p.32. 13
Meaning Not Clear In this type of error the students made 13 or 1.55 errors. The
writer predicts that this error caused by interlingual transfer. The students used inappropriate word to express their feeling. Therefore the
meaning becomes not clear. The example is “my family and five brother go to animal garden, with climb onto something a car.
” That probably the intended sentence is “My family and five brothers
went to the zoo by a car.” See appendix table 4.3, p.1.
14 Incomplete Sentence
The lowest rank error that made by the students is incomplete sentence. It has 3 or 0.36 errors. This error is caused by
communication strategy. The students didn’t know how to write the proper words to interpret their intention and then they tried to write
everything on their mind based on their version and this strategy becomes error. For example is “The scenery was very interesting along
winding road. After we felt satisfied.
” That it could be “The scenery
was very interesting along winding road. We were satisfied.
” See appendix table 4.28, p.51.