91 implied that the students had not had enough knowledge of the uses of these
prepositions. The errors mainly occurred in Part 1 of the test, where the students were required to fill the blank in each test item by choosing the appropriate
prepositions among at, in, or on. In Part 2 of the test, which was translation part, the students had problems in
translating Indonesian prepositions pada and di into English by using prepositions at, in, or on. They made errors in using prepositions at, in, and on to translate
Indonesian prepositions di and pada. Their difficulty was caused by the similarity of the uses of Indonesian prepositions pada and di. Besides, the concepts of
prepositions di, pada, dalam, and di atas as prepositions indicating place and time in Indonesian were different from the concepts of prepositions at, in, and on
indicating time and place. As a result, most of the students tended to choose preposition at in translating Indonesian prepositions pada and di. Meanwhile, to
translate preposition of place dalam or di dalam, the students used preposition in, and to translate preposition of place di atas, they tended to use preposition on.
2. The Possible Factors Which Cause the Students’ Errors in Using Prepositions at, in, and on
Based on the data obtained by distributing the questionnaire and interviewing some students, it could be concluded that there were several possible
factors which caused the students’ errors in using prepositions at, in, and on. These factors could be the internal factors, which came from the students
themselves, and the external factors that referred to the factors outside the
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92 students. Based on the students’ answers from the questionnaire and interview, it
could be concluded that most of the students thought English prepositions at, in, and on were important to learn, but they also thought that these prepositions were
complicated to learn. The stereotype that English prepositions at, in, and on were complicated to learn had influenced the students’ motivation to learn more about
these prepositions. Most of the students who became the respondents of this research admitted
that they did not make any effort to find other sources that discussed English prepositions at, in, and on to increase their understanding on these prepositions.
As a result, they did not have good understanding in using these prepositions in sentences that caused them made many errors in the test. Almost all of the
students who became the respondents of this research stated that they would rather depend on their intuition or feeling than ask their lecturer or consult grammar
book and dictionary when they found difficulty in using prepositions at, in, and on. This could be one of the factors which caused them to make errors in using
prepositions at, in, and on. Most of the respondents of this research also admitted that when they used a
certain English preposition, they would find the appropriate meaning of the preposition in Indonesian first. They also applied this system when they did the
test. Most of them were not aware that to do the test well, they had to have good understanding of the uses of these prepositions. It was not only a matter of
translating the prepositions from Indonesian into English. As a result, most of them made many errors in the test.
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93 The availability of correction and feedback from the lecturers and friends
also played an important role to the students’ process of learning a second language. Most of the students said that they obtained feedback or correction to
their errors when using prepositions at, in, and on more often from their lecturers than their friends. In fact, although their friends did not give correction or
satisfactory feedback to their errors in using prepositions at, in, and on, they preferred asking their friends to asking their lecturers when they found difficulty
in using these prepositions. This could be one of several factors which caused them to make errors in using prepositions at, in, and on.
The errors made by the students could also be caused by the unavailability of an explicit learning material which specifically discussed about English
prepositions. Most of the students who became the respondents of this research stated that as far as they took Structure classes, there was no explicit learning
material about English prepositions being discussed. They also stated that learning material about English prepositions, especially prepositions at, in, and on, had not
been accommodated enough in a number of courses in English Language Education Study Program.
B. Suggestions
