Research Question Limitation of the Problem and Research Question

language. ‖ 3 It actually helps the teacher to know how far towards the goal the learner has progressed and what remains for him to learn of a second language. By knowing some errors which are made by students, the teacher will know whether his teaching is success or not. In addition, Erdogen also said that ―Errors are the use of linguistic item in a way that a fluent or native speaker of the language regards it as showing faulty or incomplete learning. ‖ 4 It occurs because the learner doesn’t know what is correct, and thus it cannot be self-corrected. Error can show what the learner has learnt whether they understand material that teacher gives or not. Meanwhile, Dulay also stated that ―errors are the flawed side of learner speech or writing. They are those parts of conversation or composition that deviate from some selected norm of mature language performance. ‖ 5 In this case, they learn English as foreign language, and it is natural phenomenon if they commit error. Based on behaviorist thinking, language is a new set of habit formation, so they still bring L1 In learning new language. Besides that, there is a negative transfer that causes error. Learners bring or apply language rule in L1 to L2 meanwhile they have different language rule. It becomes problem in their language learning process because L1 still influences them in using some rules in L2. Actually, Errors can be useful for the teacher and syllabus designer. According to Corder that ― the next step would be to determine whether the students-generated sequence, it is called built- in syllabus.‖ 6 Errors tell the teacher how far towards the goal the learner has progressed and what remains for him to learn. Errors also are significant data as they show what items are important to be included or which items needs to be recycled in the syllabus. From the explanations above, errors cannot be avoided in language learning because it is natural when students learn a new language because learning is process where they make errors first to improve their ability. Although errors are bad, errors can bring some benefits for some aspects. For 3 Ibid, p. 6. 4 Vacide Erdogan, Contribution of Error Analysis to Foreign Language Teaching, Journal of the faculty of Education 1st New York:2005, pp. 261 —270. 5 Heidi Dulay, et all., Language two, New York:Oxford University Press,1982, p. 138. 6 Corder, op.cit, p. 9. example errors can useful for students, teacher and syllabus designer to make a good education in the future.

2. Errors versus Mistakes

At this point, Corder introduces an important distinction between ―errors‖ and ―mistakes‖. Mistakes are deviations due to performance factors such as memory limitations eg mistakes in the sequence of tenses and agreement in long sentences, spelling pronunciation, fatigue, emotional strain, etc. On the other hand, Errors are systematic, consistent deviances characteristics of the learner’s linguistic system at a given stage of learning. 7 According to James that ―if the students is inlined and able to correct a fault in his or her output, it is assumed that the form he or she selected was not the one intended, and it shall say that the fault is a mistake. On the other hand, if the students is unable or in any way disinclined to make the correction, it assume the form the students used was the one intended, and that it is an error.‖ 8 From explanation above, it is clear that error and mistake are exactly different. When students make error, they do not know what is correct and occurs repeatedly. Meanwhile, mistake can occur because of slips of the tongue, and students can correct by themselves because they know what is correct. For examples of the errors, My brother is more smarter than My sister, My brother is more smart than My sister, exectera. It is called error because it occurs repeatedly when the students do exercises. However, the teacher has taught the students. The students still do incorrect in their exercise. In other side, for examples of the mistakes, My brother is smarter My sister, My brother is smarter than My sister. It is called mistake because the students only do incorrect sentence in the first statement. But in the next statement, the students have known to make correct sentence. 7 Jacek Fisiak. Contrastive Linguistics and Language Teacher, New York:Oxford Pergamon Press,1981, p. 224. 8 Carl James, Errors in Language Learning and Use, New York:Wesley Longman,1998, pp. 77 —78.