Based on the explanation earlier, the steps in conducting error analysis begins with collecting the sample, identifying the errors, describing the errors, explaining
the errors, and then evaluating the errors based on some criterion.
6. The Significance of Error Analysis
Error analysis has two pedagogical implications, they are: a.
Implications for Foreign Language Teachers According to Dulay, Burt and Krashen, “Error analysis provides data from
which interferences about the nature of the language learning process can be made. It indicates to teachers and curriculum developers which part of
the target language students have most difficulty producing correctly and which error ty
pes detract most from learner’s ability to communicate effectively.
”
14
Supporting the statement above, Erdogan states, “By following the
students’ progress, the teachers are able to carry on their studies in accordance with what the learners needs to know and what part of the
teaching strategy to chance or reconstruct. ”
15
b. Implications for Syllabus Designers
Erdogan states that “Error are significant data for syllabus designers as they show what items are important to be included or which items need to
be recycled in the syllabus. Analysis of second language learners’ errors can help indentify learners’ linguistic difficulties and needs at a particular
stage of learning. It is essential for a syllabus to provide with the needs for learning appropriately and errors are important evidence for that.
”
16
14
Dulay, Burt, Krashen, op. cit., p. 138.
15
Vacide Erdogan, Contribution of Error Analysis to Foreign Language Teaching, Mersin University Journal of Faculty of Education. Vol. I, Issue 2, December 2005, p. 267.
16
Ibid.
The writer concludes that error analysis gives benefits to English teachers as it provides information of what errors the learners made most so the teachers can
give best teaching strategy, and to syllabus designer as errors proved what learners’ needs in learning second language.
B. Grammar
1. The Understanding of Grammar
Grammar is the discipline that studies the structure of sentences in human language. According to LeTourneau grammar has three meanings:
In widest sense, grammar refers to entire system of a language: its sounds, syllables, patterns of stress and intonation, rules for pronunciation and word
formation, word and sentence meanings, as well as its syntax. In narrower sense, grammar refers to syntax and morphology, or the study of the study
of the structure of words. In narrowest sense, grammar refers to the study of phrase, clause, and sentence structure.
17
Cowan stated that grammar is the set of rules that describes how words and groups can be arranged to form sentences in a particular language.
18
Ur defines grammar as “the way words are put together to make correct
sentence. A specific instance of grammar is usually called a ‘structure’, and not all languages have the same structures.
”
19
Based on the statements above, it can be inferred that grammar is a set of rules that has to be applied to make phrase, clause, and sentence are well-
structured.
2. Sentences
It is stated in The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language that, “A sentence is
defined in such terms as the complex expression of a single thought. However, modern studies avoid this emphasis, because of the difficulties involved in saying
17
LeTourneau, op. cit., pp. 2-3.
18
Cowan, op. cit., p. 3.
19
Penny Ur, A Course in Language Teaching, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991, p. 75.
what thoughts are. Some traditional grammars proposes that a sentence has a
subject = the topic and a predicate = what is being said about the topic. ”
20
According to Hornby “A sentence is a set of words expressing a statement, a
question or a command. ”
21
In written language a sentence defined by referring to the punctuation. As
Nelson described, a sentence is any sequence of words which begins with a capital letter and ends with a full stop period, a question mark or an exclamation
mark.
22
Based on the explanation above, it can be inferred that a sentence is a group of words consists of a subject and a predicate that express a statement, a question or
a command.
3. Types of sentence
Nelson states that there are four major types of sentence, they are: a.
Declarative sentence A declarative sentence is typicaly used to convey information or to make a
statement. For example: The capital city of Indonesia is Jakarta.
The colors of Indonesian national flag are red and white. b.
Imperative sentence An imperative sentence is used to issue orders or instructions. For
example: Drive carefully
Clean this room
20
David Crystal, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010, p. 98.
21
A.S. Hornby, Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English Fifth Edition,
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995, p. 1071.
22
Gerald Nelson, English: An Essential Grammar, London: Routledge, 2001, p. 9.
