AN ANALYSIS ON STUDENTS’ GRAMMATICAL ERRORS IN WRITING DESCRIPTIVE PARAGRAPH (A Case Study at the Second Grade of SMPN 3 Tangerang Selatan)

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By:

Santi Noviyanti

108014000077

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH EDUCATION

FACULTY OF TARBIYA AND TEACHERS TRAINING

STATE ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY SYARIF HIDAYATULLAH

JAKARTA

1434 H/2013 M


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of SMPN 3 Tangerang Selatan. Skripsi of English Education Department at Faculty of Tabiyah and Teacher’s Training of State Islamic University Syarif Hidayatullah Jakarta, 2013.

Keywords: Error Analysis, Types of Error.

This study was carried out to analyze and to classify the types and the sources of student’s grammatical errors in writing descriptive paragraph. The error collected was classified based on Corder’s theory. Besides, the purpose of this study was to find out their frequency of in writing descriptive paragraph.

The method used in this study was qualitative. The qualitative design applied in this study was a case study. Furthermore, the subject of this study was second year students of 8.8. The writer took 30 students as the sample. The data were collected through test.

The result of the error analysis process showed that students committed error into four types: omission, addition, selection, and ordering. From the frequency of each error types, selection was the error which most frequently produced by the students. It took 57.9% of the total errors. Moreover, 29.8% errors fell into error of omission and 7.6% errors fell into addition; whereas, for Misordering, it only took 4.7%. To sum up, it showed that the usage of the grammar in writing descriptiveparagraph is difficult for students.


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of SMPN 3 Tangerang Selatan. Skripsi of English Education Department at Faculty of Tabiyah and Teacher’s Training of State Islamic University Syarif Hidayatullah Jakarta. 2013.

Keywords: Error Analysis, Types of Error.

Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menganalisis dan mengelompokkan kesalahan-kesalahan yang dilakukan oleh siswa dalam menulis paragraf deskriptif. Kesalahan-kesalahan tersebut dikelompokkan berdasarkan teori Corder. Penelitian ini bertujuan juga untuk memperoleh persentasi dari setiap jenis kesalahan yang dilakukan oleh siswa dalam menulis paragraf deskriptif.

Metode yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah metodekualitatif, sedangkan pola umum atau rancangan penelitian yang digunakan oleh peneliti adalah studi kasus (case study). Selanjutnya, peneliti memilih siswakelas 8.8. Penulis mengambil 30 siswa sebagai subjek dalam penelitian ini. Data dalam penelitian ini diperoleh melalui tes.

Hasil dari penelitian error analysis menunjukan bahwa siswa melakukan empat jenis kesalahan yaitu omission, addition, selection, and misordering.

Dilihat dari presentase setiap jenis kesalahan, selection merupakan jenis kesalahan yang paling sering dilakukan dengan presentase sebesar 57.9%. Selanjutnya, kesalahan omission sebesar 29.8%, addition sebesar 7.6%, sedangkan jenis kesalahan ordering hanya sebesar 4.7% dari total kesalahan yang dilakukan oleh siswa. Sebagai kesimpulan, hal ini terlihat bahwa siswa memiliki kesulitan menggunakan grammar dalam penulisan paragraf deskriptif.


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finishing this research paper. Peace and blessing be upon our prophet Muhammad SAW, his family, companions, and all his followers.

Alhamdulillah by the grace of Allah the Highest, the writer could finish her research paper after long hard effort of writing. Thus, she would like to express her greatest gratitude to her beloved parents (Nunu Erwin Siswanto and

Enok Ernawati) who always pray, support, and motivate her in every part of her life especially in doing this study.

The writer would also like to address her gratitude to her advisors Dr. Fahriany, M. Pd and Neneng Sunegsih M. Pd for their patient guidance, kindness, valuable advice, and correction during the development of this research.

She would like to express her deep appreciation and gratitude to:

1. All lecturers of English Education Department who have taught her new knowledge and have given her gorgeous experiences in study.

2. Drs. Syauki, M.Pd. and Zaharil Anasy, M.Hum. The head and secretary of English Education Department.

3. Dra. Nurlena Rifa’i, Ph.D,the Dean of Faculty of Tarbiyah and Teachers

Training.

4. The principal and the English teacher of SMPN3 Tangerang Selatan for permitting and helping the writer to conduct the research.

5. Her beloved best friends who have always been in the researcher side in facing all the laughter and tears during her study, especially for Annis Novitsania, Setya Ningrum, Nurma Hudaya, Hani Nur Hanifah and Endah Mardiani, for their unforgetable memories.


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May Allah, the Almighty bless them all.Amin.

Finally, the writer realizes that this research paper still has some weakness and shortage. Thus, she would be grateful to accept any suggestions and corrections from anyone for better writing.

Jakarta, 20 August 2013 The Writer


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ABSTRAK ... ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ... iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS ... v

LIST OF TABLES ... viii

LIST OF APPENDICES ... ix

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION A.The Background of the Study... 1

B.The Identification of the Problem ... 3

C.The Limitation of the Problem... 4

D.The Formulation of the Problem... 4

E. The Significance of the Study... 4

F. The Organization of Writing... 4

CHAPTER II: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK A. Error and Error Analysis …. ... 5

1. The Definition of Error …………. ... 5

2. The Distinction Between Error and Mistake ... 5

3. The Types of Error... 6

B. The Error Analysis... 10

1. The Definition of Error Analysis... 13

2. The Procedure in Error Analysis... 14

3. Goal of Error Analysis... 14

C. Writing ... 14

1. The Definition of Writing ... 14

2. The Purpose of Writing ... 15

3. The Kinds of Writing ... 16


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E. The Previous Related to Study ... 24

CHAPTER III: REASERCH METHODOLOGY A. Research Design ... 26

B. Place and Time of the Study …………. ... 26

C. The Subject of the Study ... 27

D. Instrument of The Research ... 27

E. Techniques of Data Collecting ... 27

F. Techniques of Data Analysis ... 29

CHAPTER IV: RESEARCH FINDING A. The Data Description ... 31

1. The Result of Test ... ... 31

B. The Data Analysis ... ... 33

1. The Description of Error ... 33

2. The Explanation of Error ... 42

3. The Evaluation of Error ... 43

C. The Interpretation of the Data ... 44

CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION A. Conclusion ………. ... 45

B. Suggestion ……… .... 46

BIBLIOGRAPHY ... 47 APPENDIXES


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Table 2.2 Purposes for Descriptive ... 19

Table 3.1 Table of Specification of Test Instrument ... 28

Table 3.2 Table Description of Error ... 29

Table 4.1 The Recapitulation of Student Error ... 31

Table 4.2 The Description Error of Ommision, Addition, Selection andOrdering ... 34

Table 4.3 The Recapitulation of Error Types, Frequency and its Percentage ... 40


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1 A. Background of the Study

English as a foreign language in Indonesia has influenced many aspects of life. Language has an important role on the intelect, improvement and society. In Indonesian Schools, English is determined as a compulsory subject in the national curriculum. It is taught at the beginning from Elementary School up to the University. In English subject, there are four skill that are learnt by students. They are Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing. Beside four skills, the students have to learn linguistics competence. Based on the 2004 English Curiculum; “Students have to be equipped with the linguistics competence in order they master the four language skills.”1

it is also supported by Jack and Rodgers that “one of dimensions of communicative competence is grammatical competence refers to what Chomsky call linguistic competence.”2

From that statement, it is clear that the students have to learn linguistic competence to be proficient in English and one of the linguistic competences is grammar.

Grammar is one of the sub-skills which support in writing. But, the problem is, some of the students make an errors when they want to make a sentence until its sentences become a good paragraph. It is known that English grammar is different from Indonesian grammar. Consequently, it is difficult for students to develop their English proficiency. The difference between the grammar of native language and target language is one of the factors, which induces the students to make many errors. It can affect the content of their

1

Direktorat Pendidikan Lanjutan Pertama, Pedoman Khusus Pengembangan Silabus Mata Pelajaran Bahasa Inggris, (Jakarta: Departement Pendidikan Nasional, 2003), h.2.

2

Jack and Thedore S. Rodgers, Approach and Methods in Language Teaching, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992),p. 6


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writing, as the result, their messages do not convey successfully to the reader. For example; Grammar consists of tenses, word choice, spelling, etc. In tenses, for example, I buyed a book yesterday. Which is supposed to be I bought a book. And in word choice, like sentence she have black hair. It should be she has black hair. And the last is spelling, for example my father stop smoking, whereas the right sentence is my father stopped smoking.

Based on the explanation above, that grammar undoubtedly has important role in writing especially in descriptive text that the writer is going to analyze. Kind of writings which started to be taught at the beginning level as at first of junior high schools are description and procedure. The problem which is often found in writing descriptive text is the students forget about the generic structures of descriptive text. They are straight to describe the thing that they want to describe. But the crucial thing is in grammar. And there are still many other errors that occur in writing English paragraph. That is why the students are confused in writing grammatically and make some errors even though they have studied English for many years and have learned the grammar until the university level.

From the description above, the writer tries to classify the errors based on Corder’s theory, there are error of omission, error of addition, error of selection and error of missordering. Therefore, an error analysis has an important role to reveal what kinds of error that the students do most. Finally, the writer is interested in conducting an error analysis by proposing Skripsi under the title:

“An Analysis On Students’ Grammatical Errors in Writing Descriptive Paragraph by the Second Grade Students of Junior High School at SMPN 3 Tangerang Selatan”


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B. Identification of Problems

There are some problems faced by the students in writing descriptive paragraph such as: The students often forget about the generic structure of descriptive. However, the crucial problem is in grammar which consists of verb-tenses, word choice, spelling, etc. So that the writer tries to identify the problem related to the student’s errors in writing English paragraph based on Corder’s theory, there are error of omission, error of addition, error of selection and error of missordering.

C. Limitation of Problem

From the writer has explained above, there many problems faced by the students in writing English paragraph. So that, In this study, the writer focused on analyzing the second grade students’ grammatical errors on writing descriptive paragraph at SMPN 3 Tangerang Selatan. To be more focused, the problem is limited on analyzing the students’ grammatical errors on English writing through descriptive paragraph that are based on Corder’s theory.

D. Formulation of Problem

Based on the background of study, the writer would like to seek the answer by the following problem; what are the common grammatical errors that the students do in writing descriptive paragraph?

E. Objective of the study

The main goal of the study is to know the most frequent errors that the students make in writing descriptive paragraph.


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F. The Significance of Study

The result of the study will be benefit for English teachers to improve the teaching techniques and to encourage students to be more cautious in using every aspect of grammar in writing descriptive paragraph. For the students, this research may assist them in writing descriptive paragraph correctly. For the writer, this research becomes an input about the most typical grammatical errors that the students do and the last benefit is for the other researchers, the result may serve as guidelines for the future study related to the subject.

G. The Organization of Writing

To make this Skripsi is easy to read, the writer, proportionally, divides it into five chapters:

Chapter I is an introduction which consists of background of the study, identification of the study, limitation of the study, formulation of the study, objective of the study, significance of the study, and the organization of writing.

Chapter II is theoretical framework which consists of theoretical framework, study question, and relevant reference library.

Chapter III is research methodology which consists of place and time of the research, the subject of the study, research design, instrument of the research, techniques of data collecting, and techniques of data analysis.

Chapter IV is research finding which consists of data identification, data description, and data explanation.


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5 CHAPTER II

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

A. Error and Error Analysis 1. The Definitions of Error

To get clear understanding about the error, it is better for the writerto consider several opinions given by some linguists. According to Harmer as quoted by Brown, “Errors are part of the students’ interlingua that is the version of the language which a learner has at any one stage of development, and which is continually reshaped as he or she aims toward full mastery.1

While, according to Dullay, error is the flawed side of learner speech or writing, those are part of conversation or composition that deviates from some selected norm of nature language performance.2 Brown has different opinion. He gives more attention on the Interlingual competence of the speaker. He defines an error as noticeable deviation from the adult grammar of a native speaker reflecting the Interlingual competence of the learner.3

From all definitions above, the writer can summarize that error is flawed side of learner speech caused by the factor of competence. On the other hand, they do not understand well the use of linguistics’ system of the target language; it will lead the students to make errors consistently.

2. The Distinction between Error and Mistake

Error and mistake are not the same thing. But most the people still misunderstand about the definition of both. To be more clarified between

1

Jeremy Harmer, Principle of Language Learning and Teaching, (New York: Prentice Hall Regents, 1987), p. 170.

2

Heidi Dullay, et/al, Two (New York: Oxford University Press), p.139.

3

H. Douglas Brown, Principle of Language Learning and Teaching, 4th edition, (New


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error and mistake. Julian Edge suggests that mistake can be devided into two

broad categories: “slips (that is mistakes which students can correct themselves and which therefore need explanation), and attempts (that is when a student tries to say something but does not yet know the correct way to

saying it).”4

Hubbard et al, said “error caused by lack of knowledge about the target language (English) or by incorrect hypothesis about it, and mistakes caused by temporary lapses or memory, confusion, slips, of the

tongue and so on.”5

From explanation above, it can be concluded that error is systematic and the students cannot be self-corrected, because it reflects the

student’s competence in the target language. On the contrary, a mistake is an

error that students can be self-corrected,because it is only the result of the

students’ performance.

3. The Types of Error

Error may be viewed as being either global or local error.These errors are divided into two kinds of error:6

a. Global errors

Global errors are errors that affect overall sentence organization which possibly influence the flow of communication. For example the wrong order of major constituents, “English language use many people.”

The sentence should be, “Many people use English language.” b. Local errors

Local errors are errors that affect one element or constituent in a sentence which usually do not break the flow of communication. These errors include errors in noun and verb inflections, articles, and

auxiliaries. For example, “Why you like him?” The listeners of the utterance will still understand the speaker’s message although the

4

Jeremy Harmer, The Practice of English Language Teaching 3rd edition, (London: Longman,2001), p. 99.

5

Johanna Klassen, Using Student Error for Teaching, (English Teaching Forum, January 1991) Vol. 29, N. 1, p. 10.

6


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sentence does not contain auxiliary. In addition, in classifying the

student’s errors in writing descriptive paragraph the writer would like to use Corder theory. He stated five types error which will be explained below. The types of errors are error of omission, error of addition, error of selection, error of ordering.

a. Error of Ommision

Error of omission is the absence of an item that should appear.

“Errors of omission where some element is omitted which should be present.”7

The learner omits the item that should appear in the good

utterance. “Omission has two types of morphemes that are omitted more than others. They are content morphemes and grammatical morphemes.”8

Content morphemes are morphemes that have meaning like nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs. Grammatical morphemes are little words that have minor play in sentences like noun and verb inflections, articles, auxiliaries, and preposition.Example: Angelina is an actress. From the explanation and example above, the word Angelina and actress are content morphemes because Angelina and actress is noun and has a mayor meaning. The words is and an are grammatical morphemes because they are verb auxiliaries and article, and they are also play a minor meaning in that sentence.

“Omit grammatical morphemes are more frequently than content words.”9

It is caused by the grammatical morphemes are more complex, for example in using tenses, the learner should be aware of the addition of the ending of the verb (-ed,-ing,-s) correctly. Omit content morphemes are typically made by the learner in the early stage. It happens because the learner still has limitation of the vocabulary which is used in the sentences.

7

Ibid, p. 259.

8

Heidi Dulay, Marina Burt, and Stephen Krashen, Language Two, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), p. 150.

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b. Error of Addition

Addition is the opposite of omission. Addition isthe presence of an item that must not appear in well-formed utterences.10 In addition, the learners add the utterance which is not needed in a sentence, or the learners add some unnecessary element. For example: She didn’t studied

yesterday. From the example above, the learner want to tell that she

didn’t study yesterday. She knows that to tell the past event, she has to use the past verb, but she puts two items for the same features; didn’t and

studied.

c. Error of Selection

This error is made by the learner where the learner chooses the wrong items in the right place. Different from omission where the items are not supplied at all, in errors of selection, the learner supplies something even though that is incorrect. For example; I buyed a novel two days ago. A past tense marker is put by the learner, but it is incorrect.

d. Error of Ordering

Error of ordering is the error where the items presented are correct but wrongly sequences. For example, I have pen blue. From the example above, the items are correct, but the writer doesn’t put the items in the appropriate order.

B. Error Analysis

1. The Definition of Error Analysis

It is inevitable when students make an error inprocess of language learning. Fundamentaly, learning is a process that involves the making of mistakes, erors, misjudgment, etc. So, that is why students will make an error in their process of acquiring new language because students find many

10

Rod Ellis, The Study of Second Language Acquisition, 2nd Edition, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), p. 52.


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different characteristic of language which is different in their own mother tongue. However, it is important for the teacher to recognize the errors. Thus, for the students will not do the same errors.

The study of learner’s error is called by the linguist as Error Analysis. It is away of looking at errors made by the learners of the target language. Error analysis is an independent source of valid data. It provides information on

student’s error and also improves the effectiveness of their teaching.

Apparently, errors give the sign to the teacher and researcher how target

learning is successfully achieved. According to Corder as quoted by Brown: “ A learner’s error ... are significant in that they provide to the researcher and

the learner is employing in the discovery of the language.11The writer tries to conclude that error analysis is a way of looking at errors that made by the students because inevitably the students will make errors in the process of acquiring new language system.

Error analysis was born as a response of Contrastive Analysis theory which claimed that L1 is the source of errors made by students. Contrastive Analysis is based on theory of behaviorism which assumes that language is a set of habit formation. On the other hand, Error Analysis believes that

learner’s errors are not only caused by L1 but alsodeal with the learning process in the classroom. Therefore, making mistakes is unavoidable in learning process; it is natural. Errors indicate three important aspects of language learning: the first aspect is show what the learner has acquired and what remains to be learned, secondly, provide information on how language is learned and acquired, and what strategies and procedures a language learners is utilizing, the last aspect is serve as a guide to the language learners with aspect to hypothesis about the nature of the target language.

11

H. Douglas Brown, Principle of Language Learning and Teaching, Fifth Edition, (New York: Longman, 2007), p. 257.


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To be more detail, Error Analysis was first introduced by W.R. Lee in 1957, and it gained popularity in the 1970s.12 Even though, the field of error analysis in SLA (Second Language Acquisition) was established in the 1970 by Corder and collegues, error analysis was an alternative to contrastive analysis.13According to Crystal, “Error analysis in language teaching and learning is the study of the unacceptable forms produced by someone in learning a language, especially foreign language.”14

So the writer tries to conclude that the errors analysis is a way of looking at errors made by the learners of the target language, as a source of information to the teachers, which in turns helps them correct the students‟ errors, and improves the effectiveness of their teaching.

2. Procedures in ErrorAnalysis

In analyzing students’ errors, there are some steps to be followed. Many linguists have already discussed how to analyze students’ errors in their book.

One of them is Corder; he suggests five steps in analyzing students’ errors,

they are: collection of sample of learner language, identification of errors, description of errors, explanation of errors and evaluation of errors.15

a. Collection of Sample of Learner Language

The first step of analyzing errors which suggested by Corder is collection of sample. In this step, the researcher must decide a number of students which is being sample for the research. Then, they will be given regular examination in order to get data.

12

Nuril Huda, Language Learning and Teaching: Issues and Trends, (Malang : IKIP Malang Publisher, 1999), p. 5.

13

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/second language acquisition. 27 Agustus 2012. 14

David Crystal, An Encyclopedic Dictionary of Languages, (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992), p.125.

15


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b. Identification of errors

In this step the researcher must identify error from data collection. For identifying error, the researcher must compare the sentence that was produced by students to the correct sentence in the target language. For examples:

Sari watched TV, and Rudi sleeped in his room.

The correct form in target language is

Sari watched TV, and Rudi slept in his room.

By comparing two sentences it can be seen that the student produced an error in constructing simple past tense sentence where she used –ed after sleep instead of using irregular verb.

c. Description of Errros

After identifying errors, the next step is description of errors. In this step, all errors that have been identified, then they would be classified into the types of errors. In description of error James introduces a table to make it easy. This table can be seen as below.16

16

Carl James, Error in Language Learning and Use: Exploring Error Analysis, (New York: Wesley Longman Inc., 1998), p. 274.


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Table 2.1 Description of Errors

LEVEL

MODIFICA TION

SUBSTANCE TEXT

DISCOURSE

GRAMMAR LEXIS

Graphology

Spelling RANK:

Clause-Phrase-Word- Morpheme CLASS: Noun,Verb,Adjecti ve, Adverb,Preposition , Conjunction,etc. SENSE RELATION COLOCATI ON COHESION COHERENCE GENDER-FIDELITY FELICITY Ommision Addition Selection Ordering

The horizontal columns indicate the levels of errors: substance, text and discourse whereas the vertical columns show the types of errors which consist of omission, addition, Misformation/misselection, and misorder.

d. Explanation of Errors

This step will explain why errors occur. This explanation concerned on the sources of errors. From example above, the researcher may consider that the student above does an error in using –ed (regular verb) instead of using irregular verb whether because of interlingual transfer/overgeneralization, ignorance of the rule restriction, incomplete application of rules, or false concept hypothesis.


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e. Evaluation of Errors

In this step, the researcher must decide the criteria of errors which will be corrected because some errors can be considered more serious than other. The aim of evaluating errors is to distinct which errors will be corrected so the learner, which made an error, will not be stress of getting correction.

3. Goal of Error Analysis

According to Norrish, “Error analysis can give a picture of the type of difficulty that learners are experiencing. If carried out on a large scale such as

survey, it can be helpful in drawing up a curriculum.”17

Based on this opinion, error analysis can be helpful for syllabus designers because errors found in language learning can be data for them to determine which materials are important to be included and which ones need to be improved.

While Corder makes a distinction between the theoretical and applied goal of error analysis. They are:18

a. Applied goal aspect is, correcting and eradicating the learner's error at the expense of the more important and logically prior task of evolving an explanatory theory of learner's performance. In other word, the applied goal serves to enable the students to learn more efficiently by exploiting their knowledge.

b. Theoretical goal aspect is as worthy of study in and on itself as is that of child language acquisition and can, in turn, provide insights into the process of language acquisition in general.

17

John Norrish, Language Learners and their Errors, (London: The Macmillan Press Ltd., 1983), p.80

18

Pit Corder in Jacek Ficiak, Contrastive Linguistics and Language Teacher, (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1981), p. 225.


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C. Writing

Writing is the most difficult skill among other language skills, Richards

stated that “Learning to write in either the first or second language is one of

the most difficult tasks, a student encounters and one that few people can be said to fully master.19 Because of that, to make a good writing, the students need a hard thinking and they must have an extent knowledge to get correct writing.

1. Definition of Writing

There are several opinions about the definition of writing that have been given by the experts: Ur said that: “writing is a learned skill”.20 From this statement the writer tries to identify that writing is a skill which can be learned by anyone by practice intensively because writing is not an automatic skill. Writing is used as a tool for communication by the people who want to communicate with others. Remembering that writing is more than the language is used to express and communicate with others.

According to Hairstone “writing is a tool for discovery. Writing generates new ideas by helping us to make a connection and see relationships.21 This opinion is supported by Raymond on his book; Writing is an unnatural Act, stated:

Writing is more than a medium of communication. It is a way of remembering and a way of thinking as well ..., writing has a private importance as a tool for clear thinking, for sharpening our awareness of the realities around us, for solving problems and shaping arguments, for developing that short of knowledge – clear, specific, detailed – that makes human consciousness different from every other form of consciousness on earth. Writing also a way of learning. It is a way of finding out what we know and what we need to learn.22

19

Jack C Richards,Language Teaching Matrix, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990),p. 101

20

Penny Ur, A Course in Language Teaching, (United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 1996),p. 161

21

Maxine Hairston, Contemporary Composition, (Boston: HoughtonMiffin Company, 1986), p. 2

22

James C. Raymond, Writing Is an Unnatural Act, (New York: Harper &Row Publisher, Inc., 1980), p.2


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From the definition above, it can be concluded that writing is more than a language. Writing is a skill which can be learned by anyone who want to express their thought, ideas, feeling, etc. In addition, it is a tool of communication, so that writing is a hard skill becauseit is an unnatural act which is need a hard thinking and it is a way of remembering and a way of thinking as well.

2. Purpose of writing

In general, people write either because they are required to or because they choose to write for their own reasons. If we ask ourselves why we write at all, the first answer will be to get information to someone we cannot presently talk to. Thus writing allows us to transcend time. The second answer might be (especially when we needs of society as a whole. To solve the problem of volume, of having to store more than the human brain can remember. A less likely, but nevertheless important, the third reason for writing might be to filter and shape our experience.23 The purpose of writing is not only to teach someone to convey idea to the readers but also to reinforce all aspect of languages that have been learned by the students. There is some additional and very important reason why writing is needed in teaching English. According to Ur in her

book, “A Course in Language Teaching, she explained that the purpose of writing, in principle is the expression of ideas, the conveying of a message to the reader, so the ideas themselves should arguably be seen as the most aspect of the writing.”24

Furthermore, Miller, on his book; Motives for Writing explained the motives of writing. Purpose of writing is essentially the same as motive of

23

Arthur Brookes and Peter Grundy, Beginning to Write; Writing Activities for Elementary and Intermediate Learners, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p.3

24


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writing; both terms are used to describe what a writer hopes to accomplish. There are motives of writing such as:25

a. Writing to understand experiences. b. Writing to report information. c. Writing explain information. d. Writing to evaluate something. e. Writing to analyze images. f. Writing to analyze texts. g. Writing to persuade others. h. Writing to inspire others. i. Writing to amuse others.

j. Writing to experiment with form.

The writer tries to conclude that many reason when people want to write somehing because the purpose of writing is the essentially the same as the motive of writing. It depends on what the writer’s need. It can be to get the information, to explain information or to amuse others or etc like what the writer mentioned above.

3. Kinds of Writing

There are a number of types of writing task that most of us will be familiar with, both as teacher and from our own language learning experienced simplifying for the moment, they can be listed under three broad headings.26

a. Free writing

Free writing is writing without stopping. It means writing comes to the mind without worry that everything they write is correct or incorrect. The purpose is to free up the mind so that is can make association and connection.

25

Robert Keith Miller, Motives for Writing, (New York: Mc Graw-Hill Companies, Inc., 2006), pp.47-69

26

Jo. McDonough and Christopher Shaw, Materials and Methods in ELT: A Teacher’s


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Apparently, at the other end of the spectrum, a „free writing’task requires learners to „create’ an essay on a given topic,

often as part of a language examination. Sometimes students are simply invited to write on a personal topic, their hobbies, what they did on holiday, interesting experiences and the like. Other material provide a readingpassage as stimulus for a piece of writing on a pararel topic, usually with comprehention questions spread between the two activities.

b. Controlled writing

If the focus of a language programme is on accuracy, then

schemes for controlling learners’ writing output will obviously

predominate. The students will focus to practice on getting words down on they paper and they have to concentrate one one or two

problems all the time. Controlled writing focuses the student’s

attention on specific features of the written language. It is a good method of reinforcing grammar, vocabulary, and syntax. The range of activity types is considerable, and typical approaches include:

1) providing a model sentence and asking students to construct a pararel sentence with different lexical items.

2) inserting a missing grammatical form.

3) composing sentenses from tabular information, with a model provided.

4) joining sentences to make a short paragraph, inserting supplied conjuctions (but, and however, because, although).

c. Guided Writing

It is an extension of controlled writing; it is less controlled than controlled writing. In using this kind of writing to teach writing, students are given a first sentence, a last sentence, an outline to fil out, a series of question to respond to, or information to include in their piece of writing, students should be able to discuss, make notes, and share finding together before they begin to write. In guided writing,


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the students will not make a serious errors if they follow the instrution which are given by their teacher.

4. Descriptive Writing

a. Definition of Descriptive

Description reproduces the way things look, smell, taste, feel, or sound; it may also evoke moods such as happiness, lonelines, or fear. It is used to create visual image of people, place even units of

time-days, times of day, or a reason. It’s maybe used also to ilustrate more

than outward appearance of people. And this kind of writing may tell about the traits or character or personality.27A paragraph that describes is called a descriptive paragraph, in a descriptive paragraph, the writer describes.28 The purpose of writing is to give a picture or to describe about something.

Futhermore, Hogins on his book; Contemporary Exposition stated that description calls for specific details and accurate, fresh ways of characterizing a particular object, setting it apart from all others.29 However, Good descriptive writing can stimulate the

reader’s imagination to form sensory responses from all five senses.

Frequently, the reader has no choice: many people cannot read an article about taste of citrus fruits, for example, without having a physical response to the imagined taste. And a passage about specific food left out of the refrigerator too long will produce a shudder from readers as they imagine the resulting smell.

Based on the explanation above, the writer tries to conclude that description is the way things look, smell, taste, feel, or sound, it can

27

John E. Lincoln, Writing a Colledge Handbook, (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1986), p. 86

28

James A.W. Hefferman and John E. Lincoln, Writing A College Handbook(New York: W. W Norton A Company Inc, 1986), Second Edition, p. 83

29

James Burl Hogins, Contemporary Exposition, (New York: J.B Lippincott Company, 1978), p.116


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stimulate the reader’s imagination to form sensory responses from all

five senses.

b. Purpose of Descriptive Writing

Simon stated that description can serve several purposes as follow:

1) it can ilustrate the basis on which you are making inferences, that will allow readers to imagine the physical object involved in the writer experience.

2) it can provide visual images to make the essay lively and concrete 3) it can reflect criteria for comparing two subjects.30

Fink stated in her book that the purpose of description is to present the reader with a picture of a person, subject, or setting.31

Table 2.2

Purposes for Descriptive:32

30

Linda Simon, A Guide and Source Book for Writing Across The Curriculum, (New

York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998), pp. 21-23.

31

Lila Fink, et al., A Text for Writing and Reading, (Boston: Little, Brown Company, 1983), p. 3.

32

Barbara Fine Clouse, The Student Writer, (New York: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2000), p. 143

Purpose Description

To entertain An amusing description of a teenager’s

bedroom

To express feeling A description of your favorite outdoor

retreat so your reader understand why you enjoy it so much.

To relate experience A description of your childhood home

to convey a sense of the poverty you grew up in.

To inform (for a reader unfamiliar with the subject)

A description of a newborn calf for a reader who has never seen one.


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D. Paragraph

1. Definition of Paragraph

In written form, English is divided into paragraph to distinguish one

main idea. According to Brown “A paragraph is a group of sentences that

work together as a team to discuss a single main idea.33Cowad said paragraph is composed of a sentence or a chunk of sentences which the writer has grouped together for some definite reason.34 In addition Oshima and Houge said paragraph is a group of related statement that a writer develops about a subject. Each paragraph is separate unit marked by indenting the first word from the left-hand margin, or by living extra space above and below the paragraph.

The definition above can be cloncluded that a paragraph is a basic unit of organization in writing in which a group of related sentences develop one main idea. And it can be seen as a group of sentences that work together as team work.

2. Types of Paragraph a. Description

A description iswriting about the way persons, animal, or things appear.35In description, the writer takes a scene or an object captures it in language. That is, he or she organizes the details of the object or scene

33

Ann Cole Brown, et. Al., Grammar and Composition, (Boston: Houghton Miffin Company, 1984), p.276

34

Elizabet Cowan, Writing, (Glenview: Scott, Foreman and Company, 1983), p.119 To inform (to create a fresh

appreciation for the familiar)

A description of an apple to help the reader rediscover the joys of this simple fluit.

To persuade (to convince the reader that some music videos degrade women)

A description of a degrading music video.


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they wish to describe in the way that will most effectively convey the sensual image.36 Therefore, the important thing in descriptive writing is to combine three essential elements such as mood, dominant impression, and logical development in writing. Language features of descriptive writing are; it focuses on specific participants as I, you, animals, place, or people; it uses atributive and identifying processes, and it uses the simple present tense. Moreover, there are two schematic structures of description such as identification and description. This structural form is the guidance for the writer to write the description paragraphs.

Descriptions usually include the following grammatical features:37 a) verb in the present tense

b) adjectives to describe the features of the subject

c) topic sentences to begin paragraph and organize the various aspects of the description.

d) proper nouns (e.g. Hana, my dog). e) action verbs (e.g. dance , go)

Here is the model of the descriptive paragraph:

My apartment is a very small but comfortable. It has living room, a kitchen, a bedroom, and a bathroo. At the enterance, two doors lead into the bathromm and the bedroom. The bedroom is on the far left, and the bathroom is next to it.Directly in front of the entrance is the kitchen. Between the bedroom and the kitchen is a large storage closet. On the right side of the enterance is the living room. The living room is a quite large, for it also serves as a dining room. In the back wall of living room, a door leads to a narrow balcony. In nice weather, you can sit outside and enjoy the view. In summary, my apartment is a comfortable place to live.38

b. Narration

According to Oshima and Houge, Narration is story writing. When you write a narrative paragraph, you write about events in the

36

Robert Scholes and Nancy R. Comley, The Practice of Writing 2nd edition, (New York:

St. Martin’s Press), p. 11

37

Anderson, Mark and Kathy, Anderson. Text Type in English, (Melbourne: Macmillan Education Australia Ltd, 1998).

38

Alice Oshima and Ann Hogue, Introduction to Academic Writing, (New York: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc., 1988), p. 47


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order that they happen. Moreover, Mark and Kathy Anderson propose that narrative is a text that tells a story and, in doing so, entertains the audience. The purpose of narrative, other than providing entertainment, can be to make the audience think about an issue, teach them a lesson, or excite emotions.39

Narrative can be presented as written or spoken texts. Written narratives often take the form of novels. The story is usually told by narrator. If the narrator is one of the the characters in the story, the story is said to be told in the first person. If a person outside the story is the narrator, then the story is being told in the third person. Narrative text can be found in diaries journals, newspapers, biographies, and autobiographies. The examples of narrative text are; myths, fairytales, aboriginal dreaming stories, science fiction, historical fiction, and romance novels.40 Moreover, the schematic structures of narration are orientation, evaluation, complication, resolution and reorientation. These structures make the readers easier to read the text or the narrative writing. The language features are focusing on specific participant, it uses past tense, it uses temporal conjuctions and temporal circumtances, and also the material or action processes.41

c. Recount

A recount is a piece of text that retells past event, usually in the order in which they occured. Its purpose is to provide the audience with a description of what occured and when it occurred. A recount consits of the reconstruction of a past experience or event; usually one in which the author has been involved, although there are some

recounts that are imaginative and are not written within the author’s

experiences. The information in all recounts is arranged in a time

39

Anderson, loc. cit, p.3

40

Ibid., p.3 41

Rudi Hartono, Genres of Texts, (English Department, Faculty of Languange and Art, Semarang State University, 2005), pp. 6-7


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sequence with appropriate language usage to link the events and to show the passing of time. A recountmay involve the stating of observations and the inclusion of a personal comment.42

A recount text usually has three main sections. The first paragraph gives background information about who, what, and when (called an orientation). This is followed by a series of paragraps that retell the events in the order in which they happened (events). Some recounts have a concluding paragraph. However, this is not always necessary (re- orientation).

Recounts usually include the following grammatical features: a) proper nouns to identify those involved in the text.

b) descriptive words to give details about who, what, when, where, and how.

c) the use of past tense to retell the events.

d) words that show the order of events (for example, first, next, then). e) the elimination of irrelevant details so that only the important

aspects of the event are included.

f) the use of personal pronouns in recounts in which the author was a participant.

Below is the example of recount paragraph:43

Last Saturday I woke up early, but I didn’t get up because there was no

school. Suddenly, my telephone was rung. It was my friend Fanny, she asked me to go out at 10.00 o clock. She wanted to buy something in traditional market. Finally, we were out. In the street, I saw a piece of pink coupon. Interested with its colour, I took it, then Fanny and I read this out. We were fully shocked, it was a receipt of a four nights tour to Lombok !! The expired date was that day. To our surprised, the name was Fanny Fenita and the birth date was exactly the same like Fanny my friend, and it was also valid for two persons. My God!! We were thinking that maybe the coupon just fell from the sky and it was there for us. We were in hurried to the address of the tour agency that issued

42

Lesly Wing Jan., Write Ways: Modeling Writing Forms, (New York: Oxford University, Press, 1991), p.78

43

Artono Wardiman, Masduki W Jahur and Sukirman Djusman: English in Focus for grade VIII, Junior High School, (Jakarta, Depdiknas, 2008)p. 62


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the coupon. The tour agency took care of everything. We went home and still could not believe what was going on. Two days later we were on the Senggigi Beach, lied in the warmth sun. Moreover, we had long

public holiday, so we could enjoy the “gift” happily. We also bought

some presents for our family and friends.

(Adapted from: English in Focus for Grade VIII Junior High School)

E. Previous Related Study

There are some studies related with the grammatical errors in writing. Firstly, a research done by Emmaryana, Fajariani entitle “An Analysis on

Students Grammatical Errors in the Student’s writing (A Case study of the First Year Students of “SMA Negeri 1, Ciledug-Bogor)”, the writer used qualitative descriptive method with the purpose of the research wasto know the most grammatical errors made by the students in writing recount text, where the result was the highest grammatical errors was in tenses done by 19 students or 95% .

Another study researchwas a research done by Natalina Margawati, entitle “Error on Students’ descriptive Writing (Case Study at the first grade

of SMP PGRI 2 Ciputat)”, the writer used descriptive analysis in form qualitative. The purpose of the reseach was to know out the most type of common errors in descriptive writing. Where the causes of errors the students made in descriptive writing was because of the influence in the mother tongue with the highest error is in word-order is 28, 10%.

The last study research is a research done by Mawaddah Z. A, entitle

“An Analysis on Grammatical Errors in Student’s English Writing in

Argumentative text (A case study in the second year of XI of Madrasah Aliyah

Pembangunan UIN Jakarta)”. This study was carried out to identify what kinds of Grammatical errors were commonly made by the students. The method used in this study was descriptive analysis or quantitative method, classifying them into the grammatical errors based on Betty Azar. With the result is the most error made by the students of XI Science I of Madrasah Aliyah Pembangunan UIN is in verb tenses which caused by intralingual transfer.


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Based on the previous researchers above, it is known that grammatical factors in writing descriptive paragraph still become the most difficult material. Thus, in this research, the writer intends to analyze what cause and type of errors that made by the students in writing descriptive paragraph.

By understanding the source and types of students’ errors, the writer

expects that she could give beneficial suggestions to solve students’ problem.


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26 CHAPTER III

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

A. Research Design

The method uses in this researchis qualitative method. As Bogdan and Biklen state that qualitative is descriptive that data collected take the form of words or pictures rather than a numbers.1So that the writer presented the data collected in words rather than numbers. Furthermore, this research is designed in a case study and she only examine a single subject like Bogdan and Biklen state that a case study is a detailed examination of one setting or a single subject.2To get the data the writer uses test.The test is done twice to know whether it is a mistake or an error. Finally, the errors that have been collected were analyzed to determine the types of errors after by following Corder theory. In this term, error broken down into five categories: error of omission, error of addition error of selection, and error of ordering. While the analysis on error types are presented in tables by following James table. Futhermore, to know the frequency of occurency of each error type the writer used descriptive analysis technique (percentage).

B. Place and Time of The Research

The writer will conduct this research at SMPN 3 Tangerang Selatan

which is located on Jl. Ir. H. Juanda I No. 1 Ciputat, Tangerang Selatan, Banten.She is conducting the research at the school from 19th of June to 26thof July 2013.

1

Robert C. Bogdan and Sari Knopp Biklen, Qualitative Research for Education an Introduction to Theories and Methods, (Boston: Pearson, 2007), p. 5

2


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C. The Participant of The Research

The subject of the research is the eighth year students of SMPN 3 Tangsel which is devided into Eighth regular classes 8.1, 8.2, 8.3, 8.4, 8.5, 8.6, 8.7, 8.8. the writer uses purposive samplingto take the sample that is a class 8.8.The writer only took 30 students.

D. Instrument of The Research

The instrument of the research is test. The test is an essay writing test

about „Describing your idol’ which is guided by four question. So that the students need to make a paragraph based on the insruction given.

E. Techniques of Data Collecting

To measure the ability of students, the writer takes essay writing in the paper that is given as the test to the second grade student of SMPN 3 Tangerang Selatan.The writing test that students made indicates their understanding in using grammatical in descriptive text.Before the students do the test, the writer givesthe explanation and direction about what the students should do with the test.


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Table 3.1

Table of Specification of Test Instrument No Standard of

Competence

Basic Competence

Indicators Instrument

1. Writing

Expressing meaning in the simple short fuctional written text and essay in form of descriptive and recount related to students’ immediate environment Expressing meaning and step of rhetoric in simple short written text using kind of language accurately, fluently and related to environtment in written descriptive and recount form. The students are expected to be able to write an essay writing in the form of descriptive and recount Type of instrument Descriptive writing Instrument Write a descriptive text about your idol! Write the text in two paragraphs. Based on generic structure of descriptive text.


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F. Technique of data analysis

The data collected will be analyzed by using procedures in doing error analysis. The procedures consist of five steps based on Corder.It consists

collecting of the sample, identification of error, describing student’s errors

after that she explanation of the error.This step attempts to account for why the errors occur. It means to determine the sources (causes) of the errors based on Corder theory beside that the writer uses interview as supporting data. Thus, the James table can be seen as below.

Table 3.2 Description of Error

LEVEL

MODIFICATI -ON

SUBSTANCE TEXT

DISCOURSE

GRAMMAR LEXIS

Graphology

Spelling RANK:

Clause-Phrase-Word- Morpheme CLASS:

Noun,Verb,Adje ctive,

Adverb,Preposit ion,

Conjunction,etc.

Sense Relation Colocati-Ons

Cohesion Coherence Gender-Fidelity Felicity

Ommision Addition Selection Ordering


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Finally, the last procedure is evaluation of the error which means to distinct which errors will be corrected so the learner, which made an error, will not be stress of getting correction. To do the last step which is quantifying each percentage of error, the formula below is used:3

P =

Note:

P: Percentage;

f: Frequency of a type of error; n: Number of total errors occur.

3

Allan G. Bluman, Elementary Statistics: A Step by Step Approach, (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2004), p. 68.


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31 CHAPTER IV

RESEARCH FINDING AND INTERPRETATION A. The Data Description

1. The Result of Test

The writer has given an essay writing test. There were 38 students on the class, but the writer only took 30 students as a sample. Actually the total of the student was 46 and most of them did not attend the class. The test is an essay writing test about „Describing your idol’, which is guided by four question. So that the students need to make a paragraph based on the insruction given. After conducting the test, the writer analyzed the data from

the students’ test to find out the errors that students made in his/her answer by circling each erroneous item. The result of this identification can be seen as the following table.

Table 4.1

The Recapitulation of Student’s Error

No. STUDENTS’

NUMBER

Types of Error Error of

Omission

Error of Addition

Error of Selection

Error of Misordering

1 Student 1 2 - 2 -

2 Student 2 1 - 2 -

3 Student 3 2 - 1 -

4 Student 4 1 - 1 -

5 Student 5 5 1 1 -

6 Student 6 - - 1 -

7 Student 7 - 1 4 1

8 Student 8 3 - 1 1

9 Student 9 2 - 2 -

10 Student 10 1 2 4 1


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12 Student 12 1 - 3 -

13 Student 13 1 - 4 -

14 Student 14 3 - 2 -

15 Student 15 3 - 2 -

16 Student 16 2 - 6 1

17 Student 17 5 2 5 1

18 Student 18 2 - 7 -

19 Student 19 2 1 4 -

20 Student 20 - 1 5 1

21 Student 21 2 1 2 -

22 Student 22 1 - 4 1

23 Student 23 2 - 4 -

24 Student 24 1 - 4 -

25 Student 25 - 1 4 -

26 Student 26 1 - 4 -

27 Student 27 2 - 2 1

28 Student 28 1 - 1 -

29 Student 29 1 1 4 -

30 Student 30 1 - 8 -

TOTAL = 51 13 99 8

As the calculation above, the writer describes the examples and the causes why the errors occur as follow:

1. The Error of Omission =

29.8%

2. The Error of Addition =

3. The Error of Selection =

4. The Error of Misordering =


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B. Data Analysis

The procedure of error analysis has been explained clearly in the preceding chapter and some of those procedures have been done well such as collecting data and identifying students errors. Moreover, the other procedures would be described clearly as follows:

1. The Description of Error

After identifying the data, the writer analyzed the errors and classified them based on the Surface Taxonomy Categories to know whether these errors involve in omission, addition, selection, or

ordering. This is the following example is taken from the student’s

answer sheet. (Students number 17). a. Error of Ommision

*he have oval face. The correct sentence is he has an oval face.

Actually the student omit the article there must be exist before the adjective in that sentence that is an oval face.

b. Error of Addition

*he is was born in Medan. The correct sentence is he was born in Medan. The student add the verb „is’ which does not need it in that sentence.

c. Error of Selection

*he have black hair. The correct sentence is he has a black hair. In this form the student is select the wrong verb, it must be „has’ for third singular person „he’

d. Error of Ordering

*he is a idola cilik 2013 runner up. The correct form is he is a runner up in idola cilik 2013.

Besides the examples above, the writer recognises the other errors done by the students. This classification is presented in the table as the following below.


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Table 4.2

The Description of Error

(Numbers in bracket indicate students’ list number)

LEVEL

MODIFICATION

SUBSTANCE TEXT

DISCOURSE

GRAMMAR LEXIS

Graphology

Spelling RANK:

Clause-Phrase-Word- Morpheme CLASS: Noun,Verb,Adjective, Adverb,Preposition, Conjunction,etc. SENSE RELATION COLOCATIONS COHESION COHERENCE GENDER-FIDELITY FELICITY

Ommision *love/loved (student 1)

*Ɵ/a good voice *Ɵ/is (student 3) *Ɵ/me (student 4) *Ɵblack hair/ black hair

*her eyes is/her eyes are

*he taller/he is taller *Ɵ pointed nose/ a pointed nose

*Ɵbasket ball/a basket ball (student 5) *Ɵ/ black hair *Ɵ/and fat *I like/I like him (student 8) *Ɵ/ black hair *Ɵ/a good voice (student 9)

*Ɵ/ flat nose (student 10)


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*he smart/he is smart *he play/he plays *he smart/he is smart (student 11)

*Ɵ/ blue hair (student 12)

*Ɵ/his full name (student 13) *Ɵ/an

*he is old man/he is an old man

*flat Ɵ/flat nose (student 14) *Ɵ/an idol *Ɵ/an old man *flatƟ/flat nose (student 15) *Ɵ/a smart girl *Ɵ/her skin (student 16)

*Ɵ/his nick name *Ɵ/an oval face *Ɵ/are

*Ɵ/sharp-nose *Ɵ handsome/he is handsome (student 17) *Ɵ/in(2)

*Ɵ/his national team (student 18)

*he also singer/ he is also a singer

*Ɵ/his height (student 19)

*Ɵ/him


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*Ɵ/an (student 22,27) *Ɵ/ black hair

*Ɵ/is playing (student 23)

*Ɵ/a (student no 24,26,28,29,30) *she Ɵ elegant/is (student 27)

Addition *dad and mom

*doing/Ɵ (student 1) *he is like/he likes (student 5)

*he is have/he has (sudent 7)

*someone idol/an idol *he is have/he has (3) (student 10)

*a idol/an idol *because (student 11) *a black/ black *he is was bown/he was born (student 17) *his tall/his height (student 19) *the finally/finally (student 20)

*he is born on 24 years old/he is 24 years old. (student 21)

*his tall /his height (student 25) *the/Ɵ (student 29


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Selection *he’s/he is (student 7) *abelity/ability (student 10) *tin/thin body (student 13) *sourth/short (student 22) *hi/he (student 23) *tin/thin (student 24) *teen/thin (student 30)

*his born/ he was born (student 1)

*have/has (student 2) *because/and (student 4,6)

*play/playing (student 5)

*her beautiful/she is beautiful (student 9) *call me/called *a abelity/his ability (student 10)

*the second/and then *play football/playing football

*the fourth/and the last (student 11)

*he have/he has (student 12)

*he is sport playing/he plays football

*he have/he has (student 13)

*he is/ he has (student 14,15)

*she have/she has (4) *playing/plays *she like/likes *dance/dancing (student 16) *he is/ his

*he/his colour eyes *he is/he has *he like/he likes *play/playing (student 17)

*national/nationality *he has/his height

*vocal/voice (student 9)

*abelity/multitalent ed (student 10) *he smart in playing football/he is good in playing football (student 11)

*smart/good *he body/his height (student 18) *food/eating (student 23) *acting person/actor (student 26)

*his/ he (20) *this/him (student 1)

*his/her (student 2)

*she is/her height is (student 3) *a idol/an idol *he is name/his name

*he is/his (student 7)

*its/his (student 8) *he name/his name (student 11) *a/an idol (12,16) *he/his name (student 12) *a idol/an idol (student 13) *he hair/his hair (student 14,15) *her/she (student 16) *a/an idol *he/his name *my/his *his/he is *he club/his club (student 18) *the/a *a/an idol *he/his name *he nose/his nose (student 19) *a/an (student 21,22) *he/his


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(student 20) *is/his

*he is/he has (student 21)

*his/he is

*play/plays (student 22)

*he have/has(2) *he like dancing/he likes dancing (student 23)

*he/his

*have/has (student 24) *he have/has

*he play/he plays (student 25) *seriouusly

person/serious person *humor/humorous (student 26)

*have/has (student 27) *national/nationality *he has tall/his height (student 29) *has/I have *he expert/experts *play/playing *he like/likes *wear/wearing (student 30) *the/his (student 20)

*a/an (student 24) *a/an *he/his (student 25) *him/his (student 26) *her/she (student 27) *luis/louise (student 28) *a/an *he/his (student 29,30) Ordering *season ACmilan/ac milan season (student 20)

*I like album Justin Bieber/ I like Justin Bieber’s album (student 7) *body tall/tall


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After identifying the data, the writer analyzed the errors and classified them based on the Surface Taxonomy Categories to know whether these errors involve in omission, addition, selection, or ordering.

This calculation used the formula of descriptive analysis technique as can be seen as below:

P =

Note:

P: Percentage;

body (student 8) *hair long/long hair

*hair

brown/brown hair (student 10) *dance good/good dancer(student 16) *he is a short to me/he is shorter than me.

*he is a idola cilik 2013 runner up/he is a runner up in idola cilik 2013 (student 17) *his short body tall body 169 cm/his height is 169cm (student 22)

*she has name is beautuful/she has a beautiful name (student 27)


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f: Frequency of a type of error; n: Number of total errors occur.

Furthermore, to make it easier to read, she presents it in the following table below:

Table 4.3

The Recapitulation of Error Types, Frequency and its Percentage

No. Level /

Modification Substance

Text

Discourse Total Of Error

Grammar Lexis

1. Omission 51=29.8 51= 29.8

2. Addition 13=7.6 13= 7.6

3. Selection 7= 4.1 47=27.5 7= 4.1 38= 22.2 99= 57.9

4. Ordering 2= 1.2 6= 3.5 8= 4.7

TOTAL 171 = 100%

Based on the calculation above, it can be concluded that the total errors of

omission are 51 errors or 29,8% (error of omission in grammar text levelis 51 errors or 29,8%), the addition are 13 errors or 7,6% in grammar text level.the error of selection are 99 errors or 57.9% (error in substance level are 7 errors or 4.1%, in grammar text level are 47 errors or 27.5%, in lexis text level are 7 errors or 4,1%, and in discourse level is 38 errors or 22,2%), while the error of ordering

is 8 errors or 4,7% in substance level level are 2 errors or 1,2% and in discourse level are 6 errors or 3,5% . From the calculation of the data, error of selection is the most frequent errors done by the second grade students of SMP 3 Tangsel with the percentage 57,9%. Moreover, it is followed by error of omission with percentage 29,8%, and error in addition and ordering fewer than 8%.


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To be more clearly the writer explains each of the error below: 1) Ommision

The total error of ommision is 51 errors or 29,8%. Ommision error occurs when the learner ommitted a necessary element of word. Omission errors fell both in the substance and in the grammar level. Most students committed errors by omitting a letter which must exist within a morpheme. For examples:*he has black hair. While he is supposed to write, he has a black hair.*he taller than me.While he is supposed to write, he istaller than me.

From the example above it is clear that the students did not use an article and a verb. The reason they made this error is in Indonesian writing, they do not use the article and verb. The source of this error comes from interlingual transfer. The students did not use the rule of their target language well.

2) Addition

The total errors of addition is 13 or 7,6% in grammar text level. On

the writer’s opinion, these errors occurred because the students had not

clearly understood of the structure of the sentence. So the source of this error comes from the interlingual transfer. They add the unnecessary word that does not needed in their sentence. For example, *his parents is Scott dad and Lisa mom. The word „dad and mom’ there must be

ommited because it is not needed. As we know that without the word

dad’and „mom’ we know that Scott is his/her father and Lisa is his/her

mom. So that the right answer is supposed to be his parents are Scott and Lisa. Or another example is *his body tall. While the student is supposed to write his height. So that the word body it is not needed in that sentence.

3) Selection

The total error of selection that the writer found is 99 errors or 57.9% (the error in the substance level are 7 errors or 4.1%, in grammar


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text level are 47 errors or 27.5%, in lexis text level are 7 errors or 4,1%, and in discourse level is 38 errors or 22,2%). And this is the highest error that the students do. These errors happened because the students having lack of vocabulary and its use. The students were confused in choosing the appropriate class of words. In this case, the example: *I like Sule because he is have ability. While the answer is supposed to be

I like Sule because he is multitalented. From this sentence it can be seen that the student is wrong to choose vocabulary so they misselection about it.

4) Missordering

While the error of ordering that the writer found is 8 errors or 4,7% in substance level are 2 errors or 1,2% and in discourse level are 6 errors or 3,5%. This error is sometimes as the result from interlingual transfer. The students got the influence of the structure or order of their

native language which is Indonesian language. “I like album Justin Bieber.” The correct one is, “I like Justin Bieber album.

2. The Explanation Of Error

In this step, the writer would like to classify the errors based on their source of error. she wanted to analyze these errors based on the differences between Indonesian language system and English, and the target language system itself (intralingual). So that the writer would not use the sources of error base on context learning and communication strategies.

a. Interlingual Transfer

Interlingual transfer is an error which is caused by the students use their own native language as a source. It means what they do are translate

Bahasa Indonesia into English directly. In fact, both Indonesian and English have different structure. For exampe, *I have someone idol his

name “Entis Sutisna” the correct one is “I have an idol, his name is Entis

Sutisna. The other example is *I have a idol, he smart play foot ball. the correct one is I have an idol, he is smart in playing football. *I like him


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because handsome and elegant and he is a idola cilik 2013 runner up.

While he is supposed to write I like him because he is handsome and elegant and he is a runner up in Idola Cilik 2013. These errors are happen because the pattern of Both Bahasa – which is their mother tongue- and English are totally different. The students ommited the verb, -is, -ing. And the students misselection and ommited the article. As the writer compares to the result of interview, the students did not really understand about the rules which is mean the grammar and also they did not really understand of structure of the sentence. And the teacher did not explain it clearly. So that the source comes from interlingual transfer because they still influenced by their own mother tongue.

b. Intralingual Transfer

This errors occur because the students are overgeneralization the rules in wrong concepts. So that intralingual transfer is happen because of partial learning. For example, *he is was born in Medan. In this sentences the student only know to put the verb after the subject but he does not know the correct one. So he uses the verb –is and –was at the same time.

While he is supposed to write “He was born in Medan.”The source of this error is intralingual transfer because they overgenerates the rules in wrong concept.

3. The Evaluation of Error

If the purpose of the error analysis is to help students to study second language, it is important to evaluate the errors. Some errors can be considered more serious than others because they could hinder the message of the communication. In this research, the writer considered that the errors which are caused by partial learning, this error could hinder the message to be understood because partial learning tends to have an impact for the students such as they do not have deep understanding or misconception from he materials given.


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C. The Interpretation of The Data

The result of the error analysis process showed that students committed error into four types: omission, addition, selection, and ordering. From the frequency of each error types, selection was the error which most frequently produced by the students. It took 57.9% of the total errors. Moreover, 29.8% errors fell into omission and 7.6% errors fell into addition; whereas, for Misordering, it only took 4.7%. These errors were conducted because most of the students did not understand about the rules of target language as well, so that the students generalized the rule and applied it incompletely. Besides, errors occured because their mother tongue and their Indonesian logical thinking. To sum up, it showed that the usage of the grammar in writing descriptive paragraph is difficult for students. Therefore, They are still lack of understanding the English Grammar in term of tenses because in the Indonesian does not have the tense system that show the time of the event unlike English. Therefore, they tended to make errors in writing.

The most frequent errors that done by the second grade of SMPN 3 Tangerang Selatan is in error of selection. Like Brown said in his book, the early stage of language is characterized by a predominance of intra-lingual transfer, but once the learner has begun to acquire part of the new system, more and more interlingual generalization within the target language manifested, and his previous experience begin to include structure within the target language itself.1

For example, In this case, the students commonly made errors in selection when they choose the wrong item in the right place. For example; she have black hair while it is supposed to be she has black hair.

1

H. Douglas Brown, Principles of Language Learning and Teaching, fourth edition, (New York: Longman, 2000), p. 223-227.


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Based on the explanation in the previous chapters, This research was carried out to analyze and classify the types of students’ grammatical errors in writing descriptive. The error collected was classified based on

Corder’s theory. The writer concluded that the types of error that were made by the students of the second year of SMPN 3 Tangerang Selatan in their writing from the highest percentage to the lowest are error of selection, error of omission, addition and error of ordering. The result of the error analysis process showed that students committed error into four types: omission, addition, selection, and ordering. From the frequency of each error types, selection was the error which most frequently produced by the students. It took 57.9% of the total errors. Moreover, 29.8% errors fell into error of omission and 7.6% errors fell into addition; whereas, for Misordering, it only took 4.7%.

To sum up, it showed that the usage of the grammar in writing is difficult for the students. So that, the analysis of the students’ grammatical errors in writing is very important because the teachers can know the factual condition of the student’s ability in writing and what kinds of error that the students probably do in their writing for the next time. Theoretically, error is acceptable in learning process and it is as a part of learning itself. That is why some errors happened when the writer conducted the research. Her research found that the commonest error which most the students made is in errors of selection are 99 errors or 57.9%. Its include error in substance level are 7 errors or 4.1%, in

grammar text level are 47 errors or 27.5%, in lexis text level are 7 errors or 4,1%, and in discourse level is 38 errors or 22,2%).


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B. Suggestion

Error is something unavoidable in teaching and learning process of foreign language. Therefore, it can be improved by learn more about both enhance vocabularies and grammatical function. Here are some suggestions that hopefully can be applied in teaching and learning process. 1. The teachers have to give interesting topics which are familiar for

the students for they can enjoy and motivate them to keep writing. After that, the topic can be expanded to the difficult ones to give challenges in order to enhance the students’ vocabularies.

2. The teachers should give exercises regularly. It is started from the simple topic to the hard one. Because it can improve the students’ vocabularies and their skill in writing.

3. The teachers should explain more about the grammar for the students can write grammatically correct.

4. The teachers have to pay attention to the students’ errors and make them aware about their errors so they can make a correction by themselves and will not do the same error.


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Nama : ... Class : ...

The Test

Tell about your idol in a paragraph use the following questions as your guidance!

1. Do you have someone that you adore and he/she becomes your idol? 2. How do you tell others about your idol?

3. Can you tell others about his/her physical appearance? 4. Why do you like her/him?

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