24 “students often make errors because of a misleading explanation from the teacher,
faulty presentation of a structure or a word in a textbook, or even because of a pattern that was rotely memorized in a drill but not properly contextualized.”
Therefore, it can be concluded that basically there are some kinds of causes of the students’ errors in learning the target language, in this case, English.
The first is from the students’ first language or mother tongue. The second is the nature of the target language. It seems that English is complicated. The third is
external factors which come from things outside students such as the classroom, the teacher and the textbook.
3. The Mastery of a Language
This part will elaborate the definition and the criteria of mastery since they serve as bases for conducting the research.
a. Definition of Mastery
In this research, the term mastery is understood as proposed by Charles Fries. Fries 1948 states that a person has learnt a foreign language when he has
thus, within limited vocabulary, mastered the sound system that is when he can understand production of it and has, secondly, made the structural devices that is
the basic arrangement of utterances matters of automatic habit. The researcher particularly pays attention to the second requirement of mastery that is the
mastery of ‘structural devices’. Since English phrasal verbs are part of the structural devices, thus, one is considered to have mastered these structural
devices if he or she:
25 a.
knows the forms and the rules underlying them, b.
knows the meaning of those forms, c.
knows how to use those constructions correctly and appropriately. Furthermore, Hagboldt 1935: 2 states that “we have a mastery of a
language when our comprehension by ear is spontaneous; our reading is effortless and fluent; our use of words, idioms, and sentences in spoken and written forms is
habitual and skillful.” In this research, the researcher in some way focuses also on the using of words and idioms since phrasal verbs are still categorized into the use
of words, especially verbs and particles. Besides, those words have idiomatic meanings. From Hagboldt’s definition, it can be concluded that a person who
masters phrasal verbs is someone who is able to use phrasal verbs properly both in spoken and written forms. However, this research only focuses on the ability to
use phrasal verbs in written form. In addition, according to Lado 1977: 142, “the way the native speakers
of a language master the language is different from the non-native speaker who is learning the language.” The native speakers, according to Lado 1977: 142, have
mastered the basic structure of their language, that is, the basic underlying patterns on which they build sentences and sequences of sentences. “Thus, when
they study the grammar they usually become involved, not in the basic framework, which they “know”, but in problems of variant usage” Lado, 1977:
142. On the other hand, the non-native speakers who are learning the language do not know its structure. They need to acquire the basic framework in order to
master the production and comprehension of the typical sentences of the language.
26 Yet, Lado 1977: 142 mentions also that the non-native speakers and those who
teach them often forget this fact and proceed with the teaching and learning of the foreign language as if they were the native language speakers; they take up
matters of variant usage, lose sight of the central structure of the language, and ignore its importance and its difficulties.
By reason of Lado’s explanation 1977 about the students’ mastery of the language structure, the researcher is going to find out whether the context of
learning, as stated by Brown 1994: 215 above, is one of the many factors that influence the mastery of the students of ELESP on the English phrasal verbs. This
problem will be solved by interviewing some students who are later found having low scores in the test on English phrasal verbs.
b. The Criteria of Mastery
