AN ANALYSIS OF GRAMMATICAL ERRORS IN WRITING DESCRIPTIVE PARAGRAPH MADE BY THE SECOND YEAR STUDENTS OF SMP MUHAMMADIYAH 06 DAU MALANG

AN ANALYSIS OF GRAMMATICAL ERRORS IN WRITING

DESCRIPTIVE PARAGRAPH MADE BY THE SECOND

YEAR STUDENTS OF SMP MUHAMMADIYAH

06 DAU MALANG

THESIS

By:

FENTI UTIA DEWI

(06360172)

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT

FACULTY OF TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION

UNIVERSITY OF MUHAMMADIYAH MALANG

AN ANALYSIS OF GRAMMATICAL ERRORS IN WRITING

DESCRIPTIVE PARAGRAPH MADE BY THE SECOND

YEAR STUDENTS OF SMP MUHAMMADIYAH

06 DAU MALANG

THESIS

This thesis is submitted to meet one of requirements to achieve

Sarjana Degree in English Education

By:

FENTI UTIA DEWI

(06360172)

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT

FACULTY OF TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION

UNIVERSITY OF MUHAMMADIYAH MALANG

This thesis writing by Fenti Utia Dewi was approved on January 15, 2011

By:

Advisor I, Advisor II,

Riza Elfana., S.Pd., M.A Ahmad Thohir Yoga., M.Pd., M.Ed

This thesis was defended in front of the examiners of the Faculty of Teacher Training and Education of University of Muhammadiyah Malang

and accepted as one of requirements to achieve Sarjana Degree in English Education

on Januari 27, 2011

Approved by:

Faculty of Teacher Training and Education University of Muhammadiyah Malang

Dean,

Drs. H. Fauzan, M.Pd

Examiners: Signatures:

1. Dra. Thatit Manon Andini., M.Hum 2. Drs. Djarum

3. Riza Elfana., S.pd., M.A

4. Ahmad Thohir Yoga., M.Pd., M.Ed

1. ... 2. ... 3. ... 4. ...

MOTTO AND DEDICATION

Ingatlah, sesungguhnya pertolongan Allah itu dekat.

(Al-Baqarah: 214)

Jangan bimbang menghadapi macam-macam penderitaan,

karena makin dekat cita-cita kita tercapai, makin berat

penderitaan yang kita alami.

(Panglima Besar Jendral Soedirman)

I dedicated this thesis to:

My beloved Father and Mother

My two beloved sisters, Lia and Dian

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Alhamdulillahi Robbal Alamin, all praise to be Allah SWT, the merciful and charitable. Because of his guidance, blessing, and affection, I can finish this thesis.

I would like to express my great appreciation and thanks to Mrs. Riza Elfana., S.Pd., M.A, my first advisor and Mr. Ahmad Thohir Yoga., M.Pd., M.Ed, my second advisor, for their invaluable guidance , suggestions, and advice during the consultation period, and also their comments and corrections during the completion of this thesis.

Second, I dedicated my sincere appreciation to all of the lectures of English department who given supply of knowledge during my study at University of Muhammadiyah Malang. My sincere gratitude is also expected to the teacher of SMP Muhammadiyah 06 Dau Malang, Mr. Alfan who had given me the opportunity to conduct the research.

Next, my deepest thanks and appreciation should go to my beloved father and mother, who always pray and support me morally and financially so that I am able to finish my study, I also thanks, to my two lovely sisters (Dwi Aprilia and Dian Fitriani) who teach me what the meaning of life actually so that I can be strong, be patient, be brave, believe, and always positive thinking.

My special thanks to my special one, Sugiyanto, for your help, your time, and your affection. I am sure that my thesis will not finish on time without your sincere help.

Last but not least, I would like to give my thankful to my friends, Grindilf

(Gita, Riva, Dina, Iroh, Nita, Lisa), Linda Elisabet, Lely, Rima, 39’ crews (Lilik,

Anik, Sari, Jyum, Dizta, Izzah, Dilla, etc.) and all of my friends that I cannot mentioned here for their beautiful moment, supports and motivations.

Finally, I hope that thesis will be useful for the readers. May Allah bless them. Amin.

Malang, Januari 2011

AN ANALYSIS OF GRAMMATICAL ERRORS IN WRITING DESCRIPTIVE PARAGRAPH MADE BY THE SECOND YEAR

STUDENTS OF SMP MUHAMMADIYAH 06 DAU MALANG ABSTRACK

Some linguistic practitioners said that among four basic skills in English, writing is the most complicated one. Furthermore, the students will make such

kind of errors not only in vocabulary and spelling but also in grammar. Students’

errors are common and natural since it is impossible for foreign language learners to avoid erronouse in learning language skills. The researcher analysis the

students’ grammatical errors in writing descriptive paragraph because most of

second year students of SMP Muhammadiyah 06 Dau Malang still had difficulties in constructing a good sentence in the paragraph.

This study used descriptive quantitative research because the aim of this study was to determine the frequency of occurrence of each type of errors in

students’ writing descriptive paragraph. The population of this study was writing paragraph of second year students of SMP Muhammadiyah Dau and 30 students’ writing paragraph from VIII B Class as the sample of this study. This study used documents to collect the data. The documents of this study were students’ compositions. The writer took some steps to analyze the data namely identifying and classifying, and determining the frequency of occurrence the errors.

From the data analysis, the students made 230 errors from 30 students’ composition. The types of errors were 86 errors (37,39%) of omission, 23 errors (10%) of addition, 89 errors (38,70%) of misformation, and 32 errors (13,91%) of misordering.

Based on the total percentage of each type of errors, it was concluded that the dominant errors in descriptive paragraph made by the second year students of SMP Muhammadiyah 06 Dau Malang was misformation error. This error was caused by overgeneralization in which the students made the deviate structure based on their experience in the first language into the target language, ignorance of the restriction, and incomplete application of rules.

Key words: errors, writing, descriptive paragraph

Malang, January 2011 The Advisor I, The Writer,

Riza Elfana., S.Pd., M.A Fenti Utia Dewi

TABLE OF CONTENTS

APPROVAL

... i

LEGALIZATION

... ii

MOTTO

... iii

DEDICATION

... iii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

... iv

ABSTRACT

... vi

TABLE OF CONTENT

... vii

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION

1.1

Background of the Study ... 1

1.2

Statement of the Problems ... 4

1.3

Purpose of the Study ... 4

1.4

Significance of the Study ... 4

1.5

Scope and Limitation ... 5

1.6

Definition of the Key Terms ... 5

CHAPTER II: REVIEW OF RELEAD LITERATURE

2.1

Writing

... 7

2.2

Types of Writing

... 7

2.2.1

Narrative ... 8

2.2.3 Report

... 8

2.2.4 Recount

... 9

2.2.5 Descriptive

... 9

2.3

Grammar

... 9

2.4

Error

... 10

2.4.1

Types of Error ... 12

2.4.1.1 Error Type Based on Linguistic

Category

... 12

2.4.1.2 Error Type Based on Surface Strategy

Taxonomy ... 13

2.4.1.3 Error Type Based on Comparative

Taxonomy ... 15

2.4.1.4 Error Type Based on Communicative

Effect Taxonomy ... 16

2.5

Sources of Error

... 18

2.6

Error Analysis

... 19

2.7

Previous Studies

... 20

CHAPTER III: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3.1

Research Design

... 22

3.2

Population and Sample ... 23

3.3

Data Collection

... 24

3.3.1

Research Instrument ... 24

3.3.2

Procedures of Data Collection ... 25

3.4

Data Analysis

... 25

CHAPTER IV: RESEARCH FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

4.1

Findings

... 27

4.1.1

Types of Errors ... 27

4.1.1.1

Errors of Omission ... 27

4.1.1.2

Errors of Addition ... 28

4.1.1.3

Errors of Misformation ... 29

4.1.1.4

Errors of Misordering ... 30

4.1.2

Frequency of the Occurrence of Errors

Made by the Students ... 30

4.2

Discussion

... 32

CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS

5.1

Conclusions

... 34

5.2

Suggestions

... 35

5.2.1 For English Teachers ... 35

5.2.2 For the Students ... 35

5.2.3 For the Next Researcher ... 36

REFERENCES

APPENDIXES

REFERENCES

Ary, Donald, Jacobs, Lucy Cheser, Razavieh, Asghar. 2002. Introduction to Research

in Education: Fourth Edition. USA: Wadsworth Thomson Learning, Inc. Azar, Schrampfer Betty. 1989. Understanding and Using English Grammar. Second

Edition. USA. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc.

Byrne, Donn. 1984. Teaching Writing Skills: Fifth edition. Essex: Longman Group Ltd.

Brown, H. D. 1980. Principles of Learning and Teaching. First Edition. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc.

Brown, H. D. 2000. Principles of Learning and Teaching. Fourth Edition. Addition Wesley Longman, Inc.

Brown, H. D. 2001. Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy. Second Edition. New York: Addison Wesley Longman.

Cahyono, Bambang Yudi.1997. Pengajar Bahasa Inggris; Teknik, Strategi, dan Hasil penelitian. Malang: IKIP Malang Press.

Dulay, Heidi, Burt, Marina & Krashen Stephen. 1982. Language Two. New York: Oxford University Press.

Hall, Eugene J. 1993. GrammarFor Use. A realistic Approach to Grammar Studyfor Intermediate and Practical Application. Jakarta. Indonesia.

Indriatiningsih. 2002. An analysis of Spelling and Grammatical Errors Made By Students of English Department at UMM. Unpublished S1 Thesis. Malang: University of Muhammadiyah Malang.

Maulidiyah, H. 2008. Grammatical Errors in the First Year Students’ Writing Task of SMP Negeri 6 Malang. Unpublished S1 Thesis. Malang: State University of Malang.

Mufarocha, S. 2009. An Analysis on The Subject-Verb Agreement Errors in Writing Paragraph Made by Fourth Semester Students of English Departrment at University of Muhammadiyah Malang. Unpublished S1 Thesis. Malang: University of Muhammadiayah Malang.

Crimmon, Mc and James M. 1984. Writing With A purpose. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company

Narsumi. 2000. Grammatical Problems in Writing a short Paragraph Based on The Pictured Series of The Third Year Students of SLTP Negeri 2 Srengat. Unpublished S1 Thesis. Malang: State University of Malang.

Oshima, Alice & Hogue, Ann. 1999. Writing English Academy: Third Edition. New York: Longman.

Raimes, Ann. 1983. Techniques in Teaching Writing. New York: Oxford University Press.

Sridhar, S. N. 1980. Contrastive Analysis, Errors Analysis and Interlanguage, in Croft Kenneth (ed), Reading on English as a Second Language. Cambridge, Winthrop Publisher, Inc.

Sudijono, Anas. 2008. Pengantar Statistik Pendidikan. Jakarta: PT. Raja Grafindo Persada.

Veit, Richard. 1986. Discovering English Grammar. USA. Dallas. Geneva, Illionis. Lawrenceville, New Jersey. Palo Alto. Houghton Mifflin Company.

1

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

This chapter presents the background of the study, the statement of the problem, the purpose of the study, the significance of the study, scope and limitation, and the definitions of the key terms. Each section is presented as follows.

1.1 Background of the Study

As an international language which is used for communicate by people around the world, English has an important role in many fields. One of those is education. English is one of the main subjects which is taught in the school. There are four skills that must be mastered by students through the process of learning. They are speaking, reading, listening and writing.

Between those four skills, writing is considered as difficult skill in its acquisition. As stated by Byrne, writing is translating thought into language that requires some components like grammar, vocabulary, mechanic and rhetoric. The combination of these components makes the skill of writing a complex one (1984). Students find it difficult to express and combine their opinion in written in a good arrangement and good structure, particularly in term of organization and language use (grammar). Commonly, in term of organization, the students could not organize their idea well. The language use (grammar) is considered a primary problem in students‟ writing. As we know that without a good grammar, meanings and ideas may not deliver properly and misunderstanding might exist. Also, one of the problems that often appear is the choice of words. There are many students

2

who do not know how to use the correct words to make a good sentence, or in other words they still have a lack of vocabulary.

It is inevitable for students who learn foreign language to make errors in their learning process. Dulay (1982: 138) defined that “Errors are the flawed side of learner speech or writing”. All students surely ever make some errors as a part of their learning process. Errors may appear when students do not acquire the foreign language rules. As there might be some rules which have not been acquired yet, the errors may be made by the students. Otherwise, committing of errors is evidence that the students are acquiring and learning the language. Furthermore, understanding students‟ errors are useful for students themselves because they can understand the problem they find such as in some components of English like vocabulary, spelling, pronunciation and grammar.

One of the English components which is recognized difficult to learn by students is grammar. Nevertheless, grammar mastery needs to be mastered by students in terms of delivering English language correctly. According to Veit (1986: 1), “Your grammar is what enables you to understand the very words you are now reading as well as to speak and write words and sentences of your own”. While Hall (1993) has stated that studying a grammar helped one to learn about a language. Moreover, understanding grammar will help students in constructing their writing paragraph well and correctly because English and Indonesian language have different rules. If students are able to write properly, they can express and deliver meanings and ideas more comprehensively.

There are many reasons why students often make grammatical errors in their writing. It is supported by Maulidiyah (2008) who studied about grammatical

3

errors in students‟ writing task. She found that the existence of differences between grammar rules in English and those in Bahasa Indonesia. For example, English has concept of tense for verb and subject agreement, while grammar in Indonesia does not have any. Then, in English the formation of regular plural nouns and irregular ones is different but not in Bahasa Indonesia. Besides, Bahasa Indonesia does not have gender pronouns and its pronouns are not as various as English in which pronouns depend on their position in the sentence.

According to Dulay et al (1982: 138) studying students‟ errors serves two major purposes: (1) providing data from which inferences about the nature of the language learning process can be made; and (2) indicating, to teachers and curriculum developers, which part of the target language students have most difficulty producing correctly and which error types detract most from a learners‟ ability to communicate effectively. For students, realizing their own errors is significant to their language learning activity. They can learn to make improvement from their errors.

Based on the reasons explained above, the writer would like to conduct a research on grammatical errors in writing descriptive paragraph made by the second year students of SMP Muhammadiyah 06 Dau Malang in academic year 2010/2011.

4

1.2 Statements of the Problem

1. What types of grammatical errors are found in writing descriptive paragraph of second year students of SMP Muhammadiyah 06 Dau Malang?

2. What is the frequency of occurrence of each type of grammatical errors in writing descriptive paragraph of second year students of SMP Muhammadiyah 06 Dau Malang?

1.3Purpose of the Study

Based on the statement of the problems above, the purposes of the study are: 1. To classify the types of grammatical errors which are found in writing

descriptive paragraph of second year students of SMP Muhammadiyah 06 Dau Malang.

2. To know the frequency of occurrence of each type of grammatical errors in writing descriptive paragraph of second year students of SMP Muhammadiyah 06 Dau Malang.

1.4 Significance of the study

It is hoped that the result of this study will be useful for the teachers and the students. For the English teachers, it will give them information and understanding about the students‟ errors on the use of grammar in composing writing paragraph. Besides, by knowing the types of errors the teachers can evaluate their material, develop appropriate teaching techniques and give more attention to the students in making good and correct in their writing paragraph on

5

the use of grammatical errors, so that the students‟ weakness in errors can be minimized.

For the students, the result of the study will help them to know and realize their errors in using grammar in their writing. By realizing their errors, they will be more aware on the use of grammar in composing their paragraph. Furthermore, it will help students to improve their ability in understanding grammar patterns and writing descriptive paragraph more effectively.

1.5 Scope and Limitation

The scope of this study is focused on the grammatical errors in writing descriptive paragraph and the limitation of this study is second year students of SMP Muhammdiyah 06 Dau Malang in academic year 2010/2011.

1.6Definition of the Key Terms

To avoid misinterpretation of the key terms used in this study, it is essential to give definitions as follow:

1. Grammar: a person‟s subconscious language knowledge. Whenever we speak or write English or we understand someone else speech or writing, we use our English grammar (Veit, 1986). Grammar in this study is grammar consist of principle or rules which is taught to the students in junior high school.

2. Error: a noticeable deviation from the adult grammar of a native speaker reflects the competence of the learner. Errors are systematic, consistent deviance characteristics of the learner linguistic system at a given stage of learning (Brown, 2000: 217).

6

3. Descriptive writing: kind of writing to convey our dominant impression at a person, a place or even to a reader in order that they are able to use their sense about something (Martin, 1980). Descriptive writing is a strategy for presenting a verbal portrait of a person, place or thing. It can be used as a technique to enrich other form of writing or as a dominant strategy for developing a picture “how it looks like”. (McCrimmon, 1984: 163)

4. Writing: a process of putting ideas down on paper to transform thought into words, to sharp main ideas, and to give structure and coherent organization into writing. (Brown: 2001)

5. Paragraph: a basic unit of organization in writing in which a group of related sentences develops one main idea. (Oshima & Hogue, 1999: 16)

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

This chapter presents the background of the study, the statement of the problem, the purpose of the study, the significance of the study, scope and limitation, and the definitions of the key terms. Each section is presented as follows.

1.1 Background of the Study

As an international language which is used for communicate by people around the world, English has an important role in many fields. One of those is education. English is one of the main subjects which is taught in the school. There are four skills that must be mastered by students through the process of learning. They are speaking, reading, listening and writing.

Between those four skills, writing is considered as difficult skill in its acquisition. As stated by Byrne, writing is translating thought into language that requires some components like grammar, vocabulary, mechanic and rhetoric. The combination of these components makes the skill of writing a complex one (1984). Students find it difficult to express and combine their opinion in written in a good arrangement and good structure, particularly in term of organization and language use (grammar). Commonly, in term of organization, the students could not organize their idea well. The language use (grammar) is considered a primary problem in students‟ writing. As we know that without a good grammar, meanings and ideas may not deliver properly and misunderstanding might exist. Also, one of the problems that often appear is the choice of words. There are many students

who do not know how to use the correct words to make a good sentence, or in other words they still have a lack of vocabulary.

It is inevitable for students who learn foreign language to make errors in their learning process. Dulay (1982: 138) defined that “Errors are the flawed side of learner speech or writing”. All students surely ever make some errors as a part of their learning process. Errors may appear when students do not acquire the foreign language rules. As there might be some rules which have not been acquired yet, the errors may be made by the students. Otherwise, committing of errors is evidence that the students are acquiring and learning the language. Furthermore, understanding students‟ errors are useful for students themselves because they can understand the problem they find such as in some components of English like vocabulary, spelling, pronunciation and grammar.

One of the English components which is recognized difficult to learn by students is grammar. Nevertheless, grammar mastery needs to be mastered by students in terms of delivering English language correctly. According to Veit (1986: 1), “Your grammar is what enables you to understand the very words you are now reading as well as to speak and write words and sentences of your own”. While Hall (1993) has stated that studying a grammar helped one to learn about a language. Moreover, understanding grammar will help students in constructing their writing paragraph well and correctly because English and Indonesian language have different rules. If students are able to write properly, they can express and deliver meanings and ideas more comprehensively.

There are many reasons why students often make grammatical errors in their writing. It is supported by Maulidiyah (2008) who studied about grammatical

errors in students‟ writing task. She found that the existence of differences between grammar rules in English and those in Bahasa Indonesia. For example, English has concept of tense for verb and subject agreement, while grammar in Indonesia does not have any. Then, in English the formation of regular plural nouns and irregular ones is different but not in Bahasa Indonesia. Besides, Bahasa Indonesia does not have gender pronouns and its pronouns are not as various as English in which pronouns depend on their position in the sentence.

According to Dulay et al (1982: 138) studying students‟ errors serves two major purposes: (1) providing data from which inferences about the nature of the language learning process can be made; and (2) indicating, to teachers and curriculum developers, which part of the target language students have most difficulty producing correctly and which error types detract most from a learners‟ ability to communicate effectively. For students, realizing their own errors is significant to their language learning activity. They can learn to make improvement from their errors.

Based on the reasons explained above, the writer would like to conduct a research on grammatical errors in writing descriptive paragraph made by the second year students of SMP Muhammadiyah 06 Dau Malang in academic year 2010/2011.

1.2 Statements of the Problem

1. What types of grammatical errors are found in writing descriptive paragraph of second year students of SMP Muhammadiyah 06 Dau Malang?

2. What is the frequency of occurrence of each type of grammatical errors in writing descriptive paragraph of second year students of SMP Muhammadiyah 06 Dau Malang?

1.3Purpose of the Study

Based on the statement of the problems above, the purposes of the study are: 1. To classify the types of grammatical errors which are found in writing

descriptive paragraph of second year students of SMP Muhammadiyah 06 Dau Malang.

2. To know the frequency of occurrence of each type of grammatical errors in writing descriptive paragraph of second year students of SMP Muhammadiyah 06 Dau Malang.

1.4 Significance of the study

It is hoped that the result of this study will be useful for the teachers and the students. For the English teachers, it will give them information and understanding about the students‟ errors on the use of grammar in composing writing paragraph. Besides, by knowing the types of errors the teachers can evaluate their material, develop appropriate teaching techniques and give more attention to the students in making good and correct in their writing paragraph on

the use of grammatical errors, so that the students‟ weakness in errors can be minimized.

For the students, the result of the study will help them to know and realize their errors in using grammar in their writing. By realizing their errors, they will be more aware on the use of grammar in composing their paragraph. Furthermore, it will help students to improve their ability in understanding grammar patterns and writing descriptive paragraph more effectively.

1.5 Scope and Limitation

The scope of this study is focused on the grammatical errors in writing descriptive paragraph and the limitation of this study is second year students of SMP Muhammdiyah 06 Dau Malang in academic year 2010/2011.

1.6Definition of the Key Terms

To avoid misinterpretation of the key terms used in this study, it is essential to give definitions as follow:

1. Grammar: a person‟s subconscious language knowledge. Whenever we speak or write English or we understand someone else speech or writing, we use our English grammar (Veit, 1986). Grammar in this study is grammar consist of principle or rules which is taught to the students in junior high school.

2. Error: a noticeable deviation from the adult grammar of a native speaker reflects the competence of the learner. Errors are systematic, consistent deviance characteristics of the learner linguistic system at a given stage of learning (Brown, 2000: 217).

3. Descriptive writing: kind of writing to convey our dominant impression at a person, a place or even to a reader in order that they are able to use their sense about something (Martin, 1980). Descriptive writing is a strategy for presenting a verbal portrait of a person, place or thing. It can be used as a technique to enrich other form of writing or as a dominant strategy for developing a picture “how it looks like”. (McCrimmon, 1984: 163)

4. Writing: a process of putting ideas down on paper to transform thought into words, to sharp main ideas, and to give structure and coherent organization into writing. (Brown: 2001)

5. Paragraph: a basic unit of organization in writing in which a group of related sentences develops one main idea. (Oshima & Hogue, 1999: 16)