In a journal entitled “Grammatical Errors of + 2 Students” An Analysis written by Rajeev Sinha 2003, there is a question asked “Why is grammar so
popular in certain schools and with certain teachers?” First, it is possible for a teacher to teach the grammar of a language although he has no real command over
that language; second, grammar is so popular with examiner. It is difficult to test fluent speaking ability or writing ability grammar questions are easy to set and
correct; third, Directors of Education demands grammar. They observe that the children in the schools speak and write ungrammatically and say, “Therefore
teach them more Grammar”. For the answer of the question above, we know that grammar is important
in learning language. Without learning it, students will have difficulties in mastering the communicative competence. The importance of grammar is not
only for oral language, but also the writing language needs grammar. Some linguists argue that fluency in writing is in paramount point that accuracy.
2.2.3 Writing
Writing is one of the four basic skills which should be mastered by the students. Those four skills are listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Writing
skills is regarded as the highest level of language competence because it needs good performance of three other skills. Writing is also known as a complex
system because it needs more tools and skills. According to Ramelan 1992: 42, writing is defined as a representative or
symbol. It is not a usual symbol, but writing is a meaningful symbol. It represents the idea of the people who make it, and it delivers meaning in which
communication happens. Writing as an activity to put together a symbol, an alphabet, to gather to make meaning, and to represent people ideas through those
symbols has rules, and the rules are grammar. Writing is a tool of communication besides ‘saying’ orally. It is an act of communication in a form of graphic
representation to make meaning. Besides, writing is regarded as a language form and based on the rule that
every language has grammar, so does writing. The grammar in written language is different with oral language. Then, it is important to learn it because there is a rule
that in order to be able to communicate, people need grammar and writing also needs it. Nevertheless, when someone learns grammar, actually he is also learning
to communicate. Everyone usually have reason for what they write and make them want to
write. People write can be because they want to tell about their friends, their exciting and unforgettable moment. It can be done through writing because as we
know that through this activity, people can explain, describe, entertain, persuade, and retell something.
Meanwhile, people tend to tell what just happened in their life to other people. It can be exciting, happy, wonderful, bad, and even terrifying events
which are happened a day ago, a month ago, a year ago, some years ago, or even one minute ago. Telling past event through speaking or writing is called recount,
and especially for a writing which does that purpose is called recount text.
2.2.4 Recount Text
The definition of recount text can be described as a piece of text that retells past event, usually in the other word in which they happened. The purpose
of recount is to give the audience a description of what occurred and when it occurred Mark Anderson and Kathy Anderson 2003: 48. While the generic
structures of recount text are; 1. Orientation that gives the readers background information includes
what, who, where, and when; 2. Events are series of action that happened in sequence;
3. Reorientation is the optional part of recount text which is usually about personal comment on the event happened from the writer itself.
Meanwhile, common grammatical features of a Recount include: 1. Use a Specific Participant to identify people, animals or things
involved; I, the book, my family.. 2. Use of Material Processes to refer to the action; swim, cook, drive,
draw 3. Use of past tense to locate events in relation to speakerwriter’s time;
swam, cooked, drove, drew 4. Use of Temporal connectives to sequence the events; and then, after,
after that 5. Use of Circumstances of place and time yesterday, after lunch, to the
beach, at my house Wignell and Gerot: 194. The example of recount text is below;
My Adventure at Leang Cave
On Sunday, my parents, my best friend
Novi, and I visited a cave at Maros called Leang- leang. It was my first time to visit the cave, better
yet; my best friend came to visit it with me. The cave was famous for its primitive cave
wall paintings which were some hand prints and wild boar paintings. The cave and its surroundings
were turned into a national park, so it was taken care of. My parents took a rest in a small hut for
Orientation
Event 1
visitors of the park, while Novi and I adventured around the cave with a guide, we had to climb
some metal stairs to get to the cave, because the cave was embedded into a small mountain. Next
stop was a place where some seashells littered the ground and some were actually piled into a big
mound. The guide said that these piles of seashells are called kitchen trash.
The humans who lived here ate the shells and dumped the left over’s in their ‘kitchen’. The
last place was a small museum where they have skeletons of the humans who lived in the caves.
The skeletons along with some roughly made jewelry and weapons were places inside glass
cases for display. The walls of the museum were adorned with photographs taken when they did
an excavation there.
After a quick lunch with Novi and my
parents, we decided it was time to go back home. We really had the time of our lives. Kennedy,
2015.
Grammatical Features: Specific Participant: the italic words
Material Processes: the underlined words Past Tense: the bold words
Circumstance of Time and Place: the bold italic words Temporal of Sequence: the underlined italic words
Different language has different rules, different structures, different words, and different grammar. Those differences make learners often make errors. It is
common thing for students to make errors and mistakes while they are learning something includes language. Not many people know that errors and mistakes are
actually different. Event 2
Reorientation
