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in the past. The future tense indicates that something will take place in the future.
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Moreover, some students were confused in using tenses in their writings. For example, “Where did you went last week?” this
mistake is caused by their lack of grammar understanding.
b. Diction
When you are writing, therefore, you are choosing from lists of similar words constantly. Stott and
Avery stated in their book, “The more conscious you are about this process and the longer the lists are from
which you choose, the more interesting, effective and varied your writing style can become.”
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The selecting of these similar words called diction. Diction or word choice is choosing the right word in a sentence.
Sometimes one word has the same meaning but has different usage in the sentence. For example, the words pale and pail look the same in spelling
but they are different. Pale is an adjective and pail is a noun, they are used in different way.
In L2 there are two types of English word, they are Standard English and non Standard English. Standard English is acceptable for
most educated writers and speakers in other hand for the students. And nonstandard English is unacceptable for formal writing and speaking,
because nonstandard English includes illiteracies, ungrammatical constructions, slang, jargon, and obsolete words.
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Some students made mistakes in diction part because of their lack of knowledge about this problem. They also generalized the meaning of
words. For example, the using of where instead of when in the sentence “Where I was a child.” It should be “When I was a child.” The over
generalized the meaning of word “Where and when” used in a wrong
place and context. The students can know the right usage of diction only from learning by reading and exercising in writing.
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Linda Stanley, Ways to Writ ing : Purpose, Task, and Proces…, p. 427
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Rebecca Stott and Simon Avery, Writing with Style, London: Longman, 2001, p. 32
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Leo Liberman and Jeffrey Spielberger, SAT II Writing, New York: Arco, 1993, p. 53
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To make it clear, see these two tables below common homonyms and homonym problem.
Table 2.1
Common Homonyms
Possessive Pronoun Shows ownership
Contraction Other
Its Our
Their Theirs
Whose Your
It’s It is They are
There is Who’s Who is
You’re You are Hour time
There location
Other problem words that sound the same or almost the same but different meanings are listed in this table below.
Table 2.2
Homonym Problems Accept to agree
Allowed accepted Here at this location
Knew past of know: had knowledge
Know to know knowledge
Quiet not noisy Whether if
Except not allow Aloud loudly
Sight the ability to see New never see before
No Negative Quite very mess
Weather clouds, sunshine
Site location Quit to stop
c. Usage
