She can to help me. The above sentence is wrong because the students use to infinitive
after auxiliary can, whereas according to English structure auxiliaries are not followed by to infinitive but followed by infinitive without to, so the
right sentence is:
She can help me.
And in other sentence:
She cans swim well.
The above sentence is wrong because the students add
–s after auxiliary can, whereas modal auxiliaries have no
–s on the third person singular, so the right sentence is:
She can swim well.
The writer concludes that one of the reasons of errors is the difficulty to understand the form of the modal auxiliaries for Indonesian learners,
because Indonesian language does not have modality to express ability, possibility, probability, etc. as English does.
After finding some problems mentioned above, the writer concludes that the problem is that the students are not aware of how to use modal
auxiliaries correctly. The writer sees that there are so many errors that the students have made. The students don’t use these auxiliaries properly and
are still being confused to use or choose the right auxiliaries in writing and communicating.
Therefore, the writer tries to analyze the students’ errors in using
modal auxiliaries especially can and may, so the writer makes a research
entitled
“AN ANALYSIS ON STUDENTS’ ERROR IN USING CAN AND
MAY” A Case Study at the Second Grade Students of MTs Negeri Parung, Bogor.
The writer chooses can and may because most of students still confuse
in using can and may and most of materials about modal auxiliary in
English textbook are using can and may.
B. The Limitation of the Study
In this study, the writer focused on analyzing the students’ errors in
using modal auxiliary can and may. To be more focused, the problem is
limited on analyzing the students’ errors in using modal auxiliary can and may
that are based on Betty Azar’s grammatical error classification. Here are the classifications: singular-plural, word form, word choice, verb tense,
add word, omit word, word order, incomplete sentence, spelling punctuation, capitalization, article, meaning not clear, and run on sentence.
7
C. The Formulation of the Study
Based on the background of the study, the writer would like to formulate the problems as follows:
1. What grammatical errors did The MTs Negeri Parung, Bogor’s Second
Grade Students make in using can and may?
2. What are the sources of the students grammatical errors?
D. The Objective of the Study
This study is aimed to find empirical evidence of major errors in using can and may which the Second Grade students of MTs Negeri Parung,
Bogor made in the even semester of the 2010- 2011 academic year.
7
Betty Schrampfer Azar, Understanding and Using English Grammar 2
nd
Edition, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1992, p.A29.
E. The Significance of the Study
The significance of the study is to broaden the writer’s perception of
the students learning style in particular and the reader in general.
7
CHAPTER II THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
In this chapter, the writer explains some theories that still relate to the topic. First, the writer explains the definition of error analysis that consist of the
understanding of error analysis, goal of error analysis, types of error, sources of error, and differences between error and mistake. Second, she explains definition
of Modal Auxiliary, kinds of Modal Auxiliary, and Modal Auxiliary can and may.
A. ERRORS
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.
1
Making errors is an inevitable part of learning. It is impossible that learners never make any errors in language learning process.
Students can make errors when they write or speak and it is natural. The errors that they make are even potentially important for the understanding of language
and it is as a part of learning process. The study of errors is carried out by means of
Error Analysis EA. In the 1970s, error analysis supplanted
contrastive analysis, which sought to predict the errors that learners make by identifying the linguistic differences between their
first language and the target language.
2
B. THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ERROR AND MISTAKE
When we talk about error it is always connected to mistake. Some people even think that the term of error and mistake are the same and they commonly
cannot see the distinction between both of them. Error and mistake are different.
Jacek Fisiak in his book; Contrastive Linguistics and the Language Teacher mad
1
Heidi Dulay, Marina Burt, and Stephen Krashen, Language Two, New York: Oxford
University Press, 1982, p. 138
2
Rod Ellis, The Study of Second Language Acquisition, New York: Oxford University
Press, 2008, p.47
a distinction between them: Error are systematic, consistent deviances characteristic of the learner’s linguistic system at a given stage of learning.
Mistakes are deviations due to performance factors such as memory limitations e.g. spelling pronunciations, fatigue, emotional strain, etc. they are typically
random and are readily corrected by the learner when his attention is drawn to them.
3
Mistakes are skin to slips of the tongue. That is, they are generally one-time- only events. The learner who makes a mistake is able to recognize it is a mistake
and correct it if necessary. On the other hand, an error is systematic. That is, it is likely to occur repeatedly and is not recognized by the learner as an error. The
learner in this case has incorporated erroneous form from the persectives of the target language into his or her system.
4
Hubbard et al. also make difference between error and
mistake. “Errors caused by lack of knowledge about the target language English or by incorrect
hypothesis about it; and unfortunate mistake caused by temporary lapse of memory, confusion, slip of the tongue and so on.”
5
In other words, Ellis stated
that “Error is a lack of knowledge and mistake is the students’ posses’ knowledge of the correct form and it is just slipping up”.
6
Brown also gave the similar opinion about error and mistake. According to
him, an error is a noticeable from the adult grammar of a native speaker, reflects the competence of the learner. And a mistake is “slip”, a failure to utilize a known
system correctly. An error cannot be self corrected, while mistake can be self corrected if the deviation is pointed out to speaker.
7
Based on the opinions above the writer summed up that error caused by lack of knowledge, the student did not know what were they wrote and they could not
3
Jacek Fisiak, Contrastive Linguistics and the Language Teacher, Oxford: Pergamon
Press, 1981, p. 224
4
Susan M. Gass, Larry Selinker, Second Language Acquistion: An Introductory Course,
New York: Routledge Taylor Francis Group, 2008, p.102
5
Peter Hubbard, et, al,. A Training Course for TEFL, New York: Oxford Univeristy
Press, 1983, p. 134
6
Rod Ellis, The Study of Second Language Acquisition, Second Edition, New York:
Oxford University Press, 2008, p.17
7
H. Douglas Brown, Principle of Language Learning and Teaching, New Jersey:
Prentice Hall Inc, 1987, p. 217
