66 translate literally the verbs and particles to form new phrasal verbs which do not
exist in English and are not appropriate in context or situations.
b. Students’ Mastery of English Phrasal Verbs
The students’ mastery of the phrasal verbs was determined by the value of the mean. The mean here meant the average of total answers achieved by each
student. The mean of the test scores was 58.8 out of 100. In other words, the average of the final score achieved by each student was 58.8. Thus, it is obvious
that the score fell on the up border of sufficient category that is 56 or in other words it was slightly above the minimum standard of mastery, which is 56. This
result also indicates that students had mastered the phrasal verbs but they indeed still had problems in the separability feature of the phrasal verbs. It can be seen
from the results of the test in each part. In part I, there were only 7 14 students out of 50 who achieved 70-
100 correct answers. None of them obtained the lowest score. However, if it was counted, there were 43 students who achieved scores which were lower than
the minimum standard. It indeed shows that they still had problem with associating the verb with the correct particle and placing the particle in the correct
position. The result of the second part, however, is not the same as the first part.
Satisfactory achievement is found in the second part of the test. Most students could answer the test correctly. There was only one student whose score was
below the minimum standard of mastery. It shows that they have understood the separability feature of phrasal verbs. However, they indeed still had problems in
67 some items which consisted of the inseparable phrasal verbs. The students were
not familiar with the phrasal verbs which were inseparable, so they treated those phrasal verbs as the separable phrasal verbs.
Then, in the last part of the test, no more than 24 of the students reached 70-100 correct answers. Then, more than half of the students obtained low
scores or below 50. The test results, thus, show that in general the students still had problems in understanding the meaning of phrasal verbs, moreover those
which were with high idiomatic meaning. The results were also surely influenced by the familiarity of the students with the string of those two words. As stated
above that students were still not familiar with those phrasal verbs, so they treated those phrasal verbs as the separable phrasal verbs. Thus, when there were some
items which included the inseparable phrasal verbs and the students were asked to put them in sentences, they separated them. As a result, most of the errors which
appeared in this part were from the items which consisted of the inseparable phrasal verbs. However, the clear context of the items also determined the ease in
doing this part. Above all, the students could be said to have mastered the English phrasal
verbs since, as stated above, the average of the final score was above the minimum standard of mastery, which was 56 from the maximum score. The
score, however, was categorized as sufficient C. The small differences between the average score and the minimum standard of mastery shows that although the
students had mastered the English phrasal verbs, especially the separable and the
68 inseparable phrasal verbs, they still had problems in constructing sentences using
phrasal verbs, especially the inseparable phrasal verbs.
B. The Causes Underlying the Errors
1. Data Presentation
After figuring out the errors that the participant made in their test, it is important to know the causes of the errors they committed in the test and the
causes they had not really mastered the English phrasal verbs. Thus, to discover the causes why the students made errors in using the phrasal verbs, the researcher
conducted semi-structured interview. The researcher chose five students who had low scores in the test to be interviewed. Then, during the interview, the researcher
used Indonesian language in order to make the interviewees more convenient to express their opinion. The interviews were also recorded and transcribed in order
to make it easier to analyze the findings. The questions and the information obtained in the interviews are summarized in Table 4.11.
Table 4.11 The Summary of Interview Results
No. Questions Answers
1. a. Do you know
what phrasal verb is?
• Some students mentioned that phrasal verb is
the combination of two words. •
Some students defined phrasal verb as the combination between verb and preposition.
• Some students did not know exactly what it
is.
