Theory of writing Theoretical Description

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B. Theoretical Framework

In order to answer the research problem number one, the errors made by tenth grade students of SMA GAMA Yogyakarta in writing descriptive text, the researcher conducts a document analysis. Students’ descriptive text writings are utilized as the document or the instrument of this study. The data, the students’ descriptive text writings are collected in two different occasions since each class ten of SMA GAMA Yogyakarta has different schedule in learning English. The data are collected after the English teacher of class ten of SMA GAMA Yogyakarta finishes teaching the class. Since there are 44 students of the tenth grade of SMA GAMA Yogyakarta, there will be 44 descriptive texts to analyze. To conduct the research and analyze the data, the researcher employs the theory of errors proposed by Dulay et al. 1982. After gaining the data in the form of the document of the students’ descriptive text writings, the researcher classifies the errors using the categorization of errors stated by Dulay et al. 1982. They are omission, addition, misordering, and misformation. Ellis 1997 claims that types of errors can help the researcher diagnose what errors the learners produce p. 18. Thus, those types of errors from Dulay et al. help the researcher know what type of errors made by the tenth grade students of SMA GAMA Yogyakarta. Having known the types of errors made by tenth grade students of SMA GAMA Yogyakarta in writing descriptive text, the researcher is 22 able to figure out the types of errors mostly made by tenth grade students in writing descriptive text. In order to answer the problem formulation number two, the causes of errors in tenth grade students’ descriptive text writings, the researcher employs interview as the instrument. The participants are selected based on the result of their descriptive text writings. Two students will be those who gain the high score and minimum errors, two other students will be those who produce the average errors, and the rest is those who produce more errors than the other participants. Through the interview questions delivered by the researcher, participants are expected to answer appropriately. Thus the researcher is able to know the causes of errors in participants’ descriptive text writings. The researcher employs Norrish’s theory 1983 to categorize the causes of errors based on the interview. The causes of errors proposed by Norrish 1983 are carelessness, first language interference, translation, overgeneralization, and error as a part of language creativity. Interviews conducted by researcher is expected to tell the researcher the cause of errors mostly made by the tenth graders of SMA GAMA Yogyakarta in writing descriptive texts.