The Grammatical Error Analysis On Using The Simple Past Tense In Writing Recount Text (A Case Study At The First Grade On Ma Al - Khairiyah)

PAST TENSE IN WRITING RECOUNT TEXT

(A Case Study at the First Grade on MA Al - Khairiyah)

A Skripsi

By:

Siti Bayinah

108014000056

ENGLISH EDUCATION DEPARTMENT

FACULTY OF TARBIYA AND

TEACHERS’ TRAINING

SYARIF HIDAYATULLAH STATE ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY

JAKARTA

i

ABSTRACT

GRAMATICAL ERROR ANALYSIS ON USING THE SIMPLE PAST TENSE IN WRITING RECOUNT TEXT. A Case Study in the First Year of MA Al-Khairiyah. Skripsi of English Education Department at Faculty of Tabiyah and Teacher‟s Training of State Islamic University Syarif Hidayatullah Jakarta. 2013

Keywords: Error, Error Analysis, Types, Omission, Addition, Selection, Ordering, Frequency of Error, Sources,Interlingual Transfer, Intralingual Transfer

This study was carried out to analyze and to classify the types and the sources of students‟ errors in using the simple past tense in writing recount text. The error collected was classified based on Corder‟s theory. Besides, the purpose of this study were to find out their frequency of occurrence and to find out the sources of errors which students made in using the simple past tense in writing recount text.

The method used in this study was qualitative. The qualitative design applied in this study was case study. Furthermore, the subject of this study was first year students of X-1 class which consisted of 31 students. The data were collected through test and interview both students and English teacher.

The result of the error analysis process showed that students committed error into four types: omission, addition, miselection, and ordering. From the frequency of each error types, miselection was the error which most frequently produced by the students. It took 53.4% of the total errors. Moreover, 41.1% errors fell into omission and 4.9% errors fell into addition; whereas, for ordering, it only took 0.6%. These errors were conducted because most of the students were still influenced by their mother tongue and their Indonesian logical thinking (interlingual transfer). Besides, errors occurred because students generalized the rule and applied it incompletely (intralingual transfer). To sum up, it showed that the usage of the simple past tense in writing recount text is difficult for students.

ii ABSTRAK

GRAMATICAL ERROR ANALYSIS ON USING THE SIMPLE PAST TENSE IN WRITING RECOUNT TEXT. A Case Study in the First Year of MA Al-Khairiyah. Skripsi of English Education Department at Faculty of Tabiyah and Teacher‟s Training of State Islamic University Syarif Hidayatullah Jakarta. 2013

Keywords: Error, Error Analysis, Types, Omission, Addition, Selection, Ordering, Frequency of Error, Sources, Interlingual Transfer, Intralingual Transfer

Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menganalisis dan mengelompokkan

kesalahan-kesalahan yang dilakukan oleh peserta didik dalam menggunakan the

simple past tense dalam tulisan teks recount. Kesalahan-kesalahan tersebut dikelompokkan berdasarkan teori Corder. Selain itu, penelitian ini bertujuan untuk memperoleh persentasi dari setiap jenis kesalahan yang dilakukan oleh peserta didik, serta untuk mengetahui penyebab terjadinya kesalahan-kesalahan yang

dilakukan oleh peserta didik dalam menggunakan the simple past tense dalam

tulisan teks recount.

Metode yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah metode kualitatif, sedangkan pola umum atau rancangan penelitian yang digunakan oleh peneliti

adalah study kasus (case study). Selanjutnya, peneliti memilih peserta didik kelas

X-1 yang berjumlah 31 orang sebagai subjek dalam penelitian ini. Data dalam penelitian ini diperoleh melalui tes dan wawancara kepada peserta didik dan guru bahasa Inggris.

Hasil dari proses error analysis adalah peserta didik melakukan empat

jenis kesalahan yaitu omission, addition, miselection, and ordering. Dilihat dari

presentase setiap jenis kesalahan, miselection merupakan jenis kesalahan yang

paling sering dilakukan dengan presentase sebesar 53, 4%. Selanjutnya, kesalahan

omission sebesar 41,1%, addition sebesar 4,9%, sedangkan jenis kesalahan

ordering hanya sebesar 0,6% dari total kesalahan yang dilakukan oleh peserta didik. Kesalahan-kesalahn tersebut terjadi karena sebagian besar peserta didik masih dipengaruhi oleh bahasa ibu dan masih berfikir secara logika bahasa

Indonesia mereka (interlingual transfer). Disamping itu, kesalah-kesalahan

tersebut terjadi karena peserta didik mengeneralisasikan aturan (rule) simple past

tense in writing recount text dan menerapkan aturan tersebut dengan tidak

sempurna (intralingual transfer). Hal ini menunjukkan bahwa penggunaan simple

iii

ACKNOWLEDGMENT In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful.

All praise be to Allah, Lord of the Worlds, who has bestowed strength and health upon the writer in finishing this research paper. Peace and blessing be upon our prophet Muhammad SAW, his family, companions, and all his followers.

Alhamdulillah by the grace of Allah the Highest, the writer could finish her research paper after long hard effort of writing. Thus, she would like to

express her greatest gratitude to her beloved parents (H. Idris Muhasyim and Hj.

Atiyah) who always pray, support, and motivate her in every part of her life especially in doing this study.

The writer would also like to address her gratitude to her advisors Dr.

Fahriany, M. Pd and Neneng Sunegsih M. Pd for their patient guidance, kindness, valuable advice, and correction during the development of this research.

She would like to express her deep appreciation and gratitude to:

1. All lecturers of English Education Department who have taught her new

knowledge and have given her gorgeous experiences in study.

2. Drs. Syauki, M.Pd. and Neneng Sunengsih M.Pd., the head and secretary

of English Education Department.

3. Prof. H. Rif‟at Syauqi Nawawi, MA., the Dean of Faculty of Tarbiyah and Teachers Training.

4. The principal and the English teacher of MA Al-Khairiyah; Nurul Huda

for permitting and helping the writer to conduct the research.

5. All her beloved friends whose name cannot be mentioned one by one who

always help and motivate her in accomplishing this research paper.

iv

Finally, the writer realizes that this research paper still has some weakness and shortage. Thus, she would be grateful to accept any suggestions and corrections from anyone for better writing.

Jakarta, 4 April 2013 The Writer

v

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT ... i

ABSTRAK ... ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ... iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS ... v

LIST OF TABLES ... viii

LIST OF APPENDICES ... ix

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION A.The Background of the Study ... 1

B.The Identification of the Problem ... 3

C.The Limitation of the Problem ... 4

D.The Formulation of the Problem ... 4

E. The Objective of the Study ... 4

F. The Significance of the Study ... 4

CHAPTER II: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK A. Error and Error Analysis …. ... 6

1. The Definition of Error …………. ... 6

2. The Definition of Error Analysis ... 6

3. The Types of Error... 7

4. The Source of Error ... 9

5. The Stages of Error Analysis ... 12

B. The Simple Past Tense ... 14

1. The Statement with Past Tense Verb ... 14

2. Yes / No Question and Short Answer ... 19

3. Informative Question ... 19

C. Writing ... 22

1. The Definition of Writing ... 22

vi

D. The Recount Text ... 24

1. The Definition of the Recount Text ... 24

2. The Schematic Structure of the Recount Text ... 25

3. The Language Features of Recount Text ... 26

4. The Types of Recount Text ... 26

E. The Previous Study ... 27

CHAPTER III: REASERCH METHODOLOGY A. The Research Design ... 29

B. The Place and Time of the Study …………. ... 30

C. The Subject of the Study ... 30

D. The Research Instrument ... 30

E. The Technique of Data Collection ... 30

F. The Technique of Data Analysis ... 31

CHAPTER IV: RESEARCH FINDING A. The Description of the Data.. ... 32

1. The Result of Interview ... 32

2. The Result of Test ... 33

B. The Analysis of the Data ... 42

1. The Description of Errors ... 42

2. The Explanation of Errors ... 43

3. The Evaluation of Errors ... 45

C. The Interpretation of the Data ... 45

CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION A. Conclusion ………. ... 47

B. Suggestion ……… .... 47

BIBLIOGRAPHY ... 49 APPENDICES

vii

LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.1 Description of Errors ... 13

Table 2.2 Informative Question ... 20

Table 4.1 The Recapitulation of Student‟s Error of Omission ... 34

Table 4.2 The Recapitulation of Student‟s Error of Selection ... 35

Table 4.3 The Recapitulation of Student‟s Error ... 37

Table 4.4 The Recapitulation of Error Types, Frequency, and its Percentage ... 39

Table 4.5 The Recapitulation of Source of Error ... 40

Table 4.6 The Recapitulation of Source of Error, Frequency, and its Percentage ... 41

Table 4.7 The Recapitulation of Error Types, Frequency, and its Percentage ... 45

viii

LIST OF APPENDICES

1a Interview for the English Teacher ... 51

1b The Result of English Teacher Interview ... 52

2a Structured Interview for the Student ... 53

2b The Result of Students‟ Interview ... 54

3 Unstructured Interview for the Student ... 55

4a The Specification of the Test Instrument ... 56

4b Instrument of the Research (Test) ... 57

5 Description of Students‟ Error ... 58 5 Students‟ Answer Sheets

1 CHAPTER I

A. Background of Study

KTSP focuses on developing students‟ ability to do the competence and the tasks in KTSP standard, so the students will be able to mastery the specific competence. This educational program standard, makes the students have competence of the knowledge and understand every values which is learnt because this curriculum based on the number of competence, so after the students finish the educational program, they will mastery all of the competence and apply in their own life.

In KTSP, teacher is a facilitator and mediator who keep the students learning process. Teacher only help the learners or students to mastery the competence that has already studied.

In the other words, this educational program standard (KTSP) focuses on the learners and the students because in KTSP every activity is done by the students. It focuses on the students‟ mastery and competence. Teacher only helps them to do it, but it depends on the students‟ own ability.

Standard Competence (Standar Kompetensi) and Basic Competence

(Kompetensi Dasar) are the components on the KTSP curriculum. Both of them should be mastered by the students.

There are four skills in Standard Competence and Basic Competence; listening speaking, reading and writing. The writer focuses on the last skill, writing because writing is viewed as the most complex and hardest language skills among the others. The students need to think everything at once. They should produce words, sentences, paragraph, and extending compositions at the same time. That‟s why some experts said that writing is not an automatic process and it‟s the hardest skill that should be mastered by the students. The writer

emphasizes this research in students‟ competence in writing ability in recount text which is learnt in second grade of junior high school.

The Standard Competence in writing skill in recount text is “Mengungkapkan makna dalam teks tulis fungsional dan esei pendek sederhana berberntuk recount dan narrative uuntuk berinteraksi dengan lingkungan sekitar”

. And the Basic Competence in writing skill in recount text is ”Mengungkapkan

makna dan langkah retorika dalam esei pendek sederhana dengan menggunakan ragam bahasa tulis secara akurat, lancer dan berterima untuk berinteraksi dengan lingkungan sekitar berbentuk recount dan narrative” .

From the Standard Competence and Basic Competence above, in this writing competence, the students should understand and write the recount text to be able to interact with the society by using recount text.

Recount is a piece of writing that retells past events usually in order in

which they happened, so the past event can‟t be separated to recount text. In the

other hand, if the students want to write the recount text, they have to be able to understand or mastery the grammatical of recount text to tell the recount text well. Many students have considerable difficulty with the English tense system. The difficulties arise from the nature of the system itself and from the differences between English and the learners‟ mother tongue. The students‟ disability in using the tenses to communicate is the problem that found by the students because time and tense in English is related not same as in Indonesia. In English, the verb will show the time orientation, and there is regular and irregular verb that in other language include Indonesia has not that rules.

In the writer‟s experience, when the students tell about the events that has happened in the past, they still use the presents tense. It because the students don‟t have any knowledge of grammar; present tense, past tense, and future tense to apply in their writing. Based on those reasons, the writer chooses the recount text because it is the simple writing that tells about the students‟ habit. The writer also

wants to research about the grammatical errors which is made by the students in writing recount text and the factors behind.

Based on the background above, the writer is intended to research about: “The Grammatical Error Analysis on the Simple Past Tense in Writing Recount

Text”

B. The Identification and Limitation of the Problem

It is significant to identify the problem in this research paper so that, the problem will be obvious. And the general questions of this research are:

1. Can the students identify the form of simple past tense in recount text?

2. What types of grammatical errors of the simple past tense did the

students make in writing recount text?

3. Why did the students make some grammatical errors in writing recount

text?

The writer limits the subject matter on the grammatical error analysis in writing recount at the first grade of student of MAN 4 Jakarta.

C. The Objective of the Study

The objective in this study is one of the important things in order the study would reach the target what the writer hopes.

1. To identify types of grammatical errors of the students in writing

recount text

2. To find out the sources of students‟ grammatical errors in writing

D. Significance of the Research

The research finding is expected to give contribution for the related English education practitioner, such as:

1. The writer; to deepen the subject of the research and to fulfill the partial of the requirement Bachelor of Arts in English Language Education

2. English teacher; to improve of their skill in teaching recount text and simple past tense.

5

CHAPTER II

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

1. Error and Error Analysis

a. The Definition of Error

Error arises when the learner has a lack of knowledge in learning target language. According to Brown, “an error is a noticeable deviation from the adult grammar of native speaker, reflects the competence of the learner.”1

It means, error come from the learners‟ competence in learning the language. Vacide Erdogan quotes Ellis on his journal said that an error is when the learner always use the incorrect form, and when the learner is

unable to try to correct his own deviant utterance.2 The learners‟ error can

be known from their consistency in making error. The learner will make the error over and over again because they don‟t know what is correct or incorrect, and if the teacher asks the learner to self-correct his/her error, they will not be able to do it.

b. The Definition of Error Analysis

Error analysis can be used to analyze the errors that are made by the learners. “Error analysis is the fact that learners do make errors, and that these errors can be observed, analyzed, and classified to reveal something of the system operating within the learner, led to surge of study of learners‟ errors.”3

The errors can help the teacher in teaching and learning process because the teacher can observe the reason or background why the learners do the errors.

1

H. Douglas Brown, Principles of Language Learning and Teaching, 5th Edition, (New York; Pearson Education, Inc. , 2007), p. 258.

2

Vacide ERDOGAN, Contribution of Error Analysis to Foreign Language Teaching,

Mersin University Journal of the Faculty of Education, Vol 1, 2005, p. 263.

3

H. Douglas Brown, Principles of Language Learning and Teaching, 4th Edition, (New York;Addison Wesley Longman,2000), p.218.

The teacher realizes that the errors which are made by the learner in language learning process should be analyzed carefully because with this analysis, the teacher can identify the difficult areas that are faced by the learners, so it can be used in making learning materials and strategies. “Error analysis was conceived and performed for its „feedback‟ value in designing pedagogical materials and strategies.”4

c. The Types of Error

According to Corder, error is divided into four categories: error of

omission, error of addition, error of selection, and error of ordering5. Here

are the explanations.

1) The Error of Omission

Error of omission is the absence of an item that should appear. “Errors of omission where some element is omitted which should be present.” 6

The learner omits the item that should appear

in the good utterance. “Omission has two types of morphemes that

are omitted more than others. They are content morphemes and grammatical morphemes.”7

Content morphemes are morphemes

that have meaning like nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs.

Grammatical morphemes are little words that have minor play in sentences like noun and verb inflections, articles, auxiliaries, and preposition.

Example: Angelina is an actress

4

Jacek Fisiak, Contrastive Linguistics and the Language Teacher, (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1981), p. 221

5

S. P. Corder, Error Analysis and Interlanguage, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), p. 36.

6 Ibid. 7

Heidi Dulay, Marina Burt, and Stephen Krashen, Language Two, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), p. 150.

From the explanation and example above, the word

Angelina and actress are content morphemes because Angelina and

actress is noun and has a mayor meaning. The words is and an are grammatical morphemes because they are verb auxiliaries and article, and they are also play a minor meaning in that sentence.

“Omit grammatical morphemes are more frequently than

content words.”8 It is caused by the grammatical morphemes are

more complex, for example in using tenses, the learner should be

aware of the addition of the ending of the verb (-ed,- ing, -s)

correctly. Omit content morphemes are typically made by the

learner in the early stage. It happens because the learner still has limitation of the vocabulary which is used in the sentences.

2) The Error of Addition

Addition is the opposite of omission. Addition is ”the presence of an item that must not appear in well-formed

utterences”9. In addition, the learners add the utterance which is not

needed in a sentence, or the learners add some unnecessary element.

For example: She didn’t studied yesterday

From the example above, the learner want to tell that she

didn’t study yesterday. She knows that to tell the past event, she has to use the past verb, but she puts two items for the same

features; didn’t and studied.

8

Ibid., p.155.

9

Rod Ellis, The Study of Second Language Acquisition, 2nd Edition, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), p. 52.

3) The Error of Selection

This error is made by the learner where the learner chooses the wrong items in the right place. Different from omission where the items are not supplied at all, in errors of selection, the learner supplies something even though that is incorrect. For example;

I buyed a novel two days ago.

A past tense marker is put by the learner, but it is incorrect.

4) The Error of Ordering

Error of ordering is the error where the items presented are correct but wrongly sequences.

For example, I have pen blue.

From the example above, the items are correct, but the writer doesn‟t put the items in the appropriate order.

d. The Sources of Error

By determining the sources of error, the teacher will understand how the learner made the errors. According to Brown, there are two sources of error; interlingual transfer, intralingual transfer, context of

learning, and communication strategies10.

1) Interlingual Transfer

Interlingual transfer is also known as the native language transfer because the errors are caused by the learner‟s first language. Like Brown said, “The beginning stages of learning a second language are especially vulnerable to interlingual transfer from the native language, or interference.”11

In this stage, before

10

Brown, op,cit., pp. 263-266.

11 Ibid.

the second language is familiar with the learner, the native language is the only linguistic system that is mastered by the

learner. Because of this fact, it‟s easier for the teacher to analyze

the errors from the learner if the teacher has been familiar with the learner‟s first language. For example,

I breakfast and then I go to the zoo yesterday. The sentence

supposed to write, I had breakfast and then I went to the zoo

yesterday.

To identify an interlingual error, researcher can translate the grammatical form of the learner‟s phrase or sentence into the learner‟s first language to see the similarity exist. From the

sentence above, it can be known that the learner didn‟t put had and

didn‟t change go to wentbecause there‟s not rules in learner‟s first

language.

2) Intralingual Transfer

Intralingual transfer is the main factor in learning second language. In this stage, the errors come from the partial learning rather than the transfer itself. “Intralingual errors occur as a result of learners‟ attempt to build up the concepts and hypotheses about the target language from their limited experience with it. Learners

may commit errors due to this reason in many ways.” 12 In the

other hand, the error is a result of the fault‟s concept and hypotheses of the learner in learning the second language.

Example: “She goed to the market”

From the example above, the learner is doing negative

intralingual transfer or overgeneralization. In learning the simple

past tense above, the learner knows about the rules of the simple

12

past tense itself; he/she knows that the rules of the simple past

tense use verb two by adding –ed, but she/he make wrong concept

and hypotheses because the partial learning. The verb go doesn‟t

become goed, but went The learner doesn‟t know that there are

irregular and regular verb. In short, the example above proves that overgeneralization or negative intralingual transfer is done by the learner because the learner overgenerates the rules in wrong

concept.

3) Context of Learning

Context of learning is the source of error that comes from the teacher, the situation in the class, and also from the textbook. “Context refers, for example, to the classroom with its teacher and its material in the case of school learning or the social situation in the case of untutored second language learning.”13

The teacher or a textbook can be one of the sources of errors that made by the learners in the classroom. It is caused by the learner make faulty hypothesis about the language. The learners often make error because of misleading explanation from the teacher, the faulty presentation of the structure in textbooks, or the concept of item that is memorized by drilling but it‟s not proper with the other context.

4) Communication Strategies

Learners must have their own strategies in language learning to enhance their message across, but these techniques can be the source of errors. “A communication strategy is the conscious

employment of verbal or nonverbal mechanisms for

communicating an idea when precise linguistic forms are for some

13

H. Douglas Brown, Principles of Language Learning and Teaching, (New Jersey; Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, 1980), p.174.

reason not readily available to the learner at a point in communication.”14

Communication strategies caused by the learners‟ learning techniques.

To sum up, there are some sources that may lead errors in learning target language. Those sources may come from the interference of native language to the target language, the lack of competence of the target language, the learning environment and personal learning strategies.

e. The Stages of Error Analysis

In analyzing students‟ errors, there are some steps to be followed. Many linguists have already discussed how to analyze students‟ errors in their book. One of them is Corder; he suggests five steps in analyzing students‟ errors, they are: collection of sample of learner language, identification of errors, description of errors, explanation of errors and

evaluation of errors.15

1) Collection of Sample of Learner Language

The first step of analyzing errors which suggested by Corder is collection of sample. In this step, the researcher must decide a number of students which is being sample for the research. Then, they will be given regular examination in order to get data.

2) Identification of errors

In this step the researcher must identify error from data collection. For identifying error, the researcher must compare the sentence that was produced by students to the correct sentence in the target language. For examples,

Sherina watched TV, and Rudi sleeped in his room.

14

Ibid., p. 178.

15

The correct form in target language is

Sherina watched TV, and Rudi slept in his room.

By comparing two sentences it can be seen that the student produced an error in constructing simple past tense sentence where

she used –ed after sleep instead of using irregular verb.

3) Description of Errros

After identifying errors, the next step is description of errors. In this step, all errors that have been identified, then they would be classified into the types of errors. In description of error James introduces a table to make it easy. This table can be seen as below16:

TABLE 2.1 Description of Errors LEVEL

MODIFICATI ON

SUBSTANCE TEXT

DISCOURSE

GRAMMAR LEXIS

Graphology RANK: Clause-Phrase-Word- Morpheme CLASS: Noun,Verb,Adjective , Adverb,Preposition, Conjunction,etc. SENSE RELATION COLOCATIONS COHESION COHERENCE GENDER-FIDELITY FELICITY OMISSION ADDITION SELECTION ORDERING

The horizontal columns indicate the levels of errors: substance, text and discourse whereas the vertical columns show the types of errors

16

Carl James, Error in Language Learning and Use: Exploring Error Analysis, (New York: Wesley Longman Inc., 1998), p. 274.

which consist of omission, addition, Misformation/misselection, and misorder.

4) Explanation of Errors

This step will explain why errors occur. This explanation concerned on the sources of errors. From example above, the researcher may consider that the student above does an error in

using –ed (regular verb) instead of using irregular verb whether

because of interlingual transfer/overgeneralization, ignorance of

the rule restriction, incomplete application of rules, or false concept

hypothesis.

5) Evaluation of Errors

In this step, the researcher must decide the criteria of errors which will be corrected because some errors can be considered more serious than other. The aim of evaluating errors is to distinct which errors will be corrected so the learner, which made an error, will not be stress of getting correction.

2. The Simple Past Tense

Elaine Kirn divides the simple past tense into three components. They are “statement with past tense verb, yes/no questions and short answers and information questions” 17

A. The Statement with Past Tense Verbs

The simple past tense is the tense that is used to complete events, states or actions in a finished period of time. It is also used to tell story and to describe the past events;

The simple past is one if the tenses we use to refer to completed events, states or actions. We choose the simple past when we consider that the event, state or action took place within a finished period of

17

Elaine Kirn, et all, Interactions 1 Grammar 4th Edition, (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2002), p. 107.

time, such as last week, at the weekend, etc. In telling stories and describing what happened in the past we use the past simple as a „time anchor‟ –to establish the key „time frame‟ of events.18

This statement is also supported by Betty Schrampfer Azar. She said that “The simple past tense indicates that an activity or situation began and ended at a particular time in the past”19

. The simple past tense can be used to give

the information of the time. In A Student’s Introduction to English

Grammar‟s book said that “Past time is understood as time proceeding the

time of speaking”20_{. The simple past tense is also called “time anchor”} because the simple past tense can show the time when the action happen. The simple past tense can be used to talk about completed past events and

activities.21 The way about how to tell activities in the past time, using this

tense is the right way.

The form of most verbs in the simple past tense by adding –ed in the

ending of the verbs in singular and also plural form, it is called by “regular

verbs” and “irregular verb” for which has changes in the verb. “Regular verbs are those in which the past tense and the past participle are formed by adding

the suffix –ed (or in a few cases, -t) to the base form.”22 From that statement,

the regular verbs can be marked by the ending of the verb; suffix –ed. With

suffix –ed, it is easier to know this regular verbs. From A Student’s

Introduction to English Grammar’s book, regular verb is “one whose

inflectional forms are all predictable by general rule.”23 The form of all

regular verbs can be predicted because there is the general rule which can be used as a reference.

18

Martin Parrot, Grammar for English Language Teachers Second Edition, (Britain: Cambridge University Press, 2010), p. 219-210.

19

Betty Schrampfer Azar, Understanding and UsingEnglish Grammar 3rd Edition, (New York: Pearson Education, 1999), p. 27.

20

Rodney Huddleston, A Student’s Introduction to English Grammar, (Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 2005) p. 44. 21

Ibid. 22

Martha Kolln & Robert Funk, Understanding English Grammar (Eight Edition), (New York: Pearson Education Inc., 2010), p. 68.

23

In the certain verbs, there are also changes in the verbs; they are called “irregular verbs”. “An irregular verb, by contrast, is one where the shape of at least one inflectional form has to be specified for the particular verb.”24

The dictionary helps to find the irregular verbs because the form of the verbs can‟t be predicted.

The writer may conclude that regular verbs have their clear rules, but the irregular verbs don‟t have the rules, but they can be found in the list of irregular verbs or dictionary. Like John Langan said in his book, “Almost everyone has some degree of trouble with irregular verbs. When you are unsure about the form of the verb, you can check the following list of irregular verbs, or you can check a dictionary, which gives the principal parts of irregular verbs.”25

The examples below show the rules of statement with simple past tense.

1. We listened to music after dinner.

2. The teacher taught the student in the class yesterday.

The examples above show the rules of the regular and irregular verb.

The first example uses the regular verb “listened”. It is easy to identify

regular verb. As the explanation before, the regular verb can be known by the

ending of the verb; suffix –ed. The second example uses the irregular verb,

“taught”. It is quite hard to identify the irregular verb because the form of irregular verb cannot be predicted. It is needed to see the list of irregular verb on the dictionary to know about it. “If the verb is irregular, the dictionary will list the principal for you. If there are no principal parts given, form the past and past participle using the regular method”. On the other word, if the

24

Ibid., p. 34.

25

John Langan, Sentence Skills A Workbook for Writers 7th Edition, (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2003), p. 164.

dictionary can‟t show the principal or form of the irregular verbs, the

principal of regular verbs can be used with adding –ed at the end of the verbs.

In the negative past tense statement, the verbs can be added by “didn’t

or did not” before the simple form of the main verbs. The examples of negative form of the simple past tense below, explain the rules clearer.

My roommate didn’t like that restaurant. I didn’t live in a dorm last year.

The examples above show the rules of the negative past tense

statement. There are didn’t before the simple form of the main verb, like and

live. The past tense verb is not used in writing negative past tense statement

because to indicate the statement is past tense, it is marked by didn’t.

Beside the irregular verbs, there is also irregular be. “The only

English verb with more than five forms is be, the most irregular of our

irregular verbs. It is also the only verb with a separate form for the infinitive,

or base (be); it is the only one with three forms for present tense (am, is, are)

and two for past tense (was, were)….”26 The verb be in the past tense only

has two forms; they are was and were. Was for the singular, and were for the

plural.

There are many changes in spelling rules of the simple past tense that should be known by everyone.

Spelling rules for the simple past tense verbs regular verb:

1. If a simple form of a verb ends in –y after a consonant, change the

–y to i and add –ed

Examples: try/tried carry/carried dry/dried

2. If the simple form of a one syllable verbs ends in a consonant + a

vowel + a consonant, double the consonant and add –ed.

Example: plan/planned

Exception: do not double final w, x or y. (example: row/rowed)

26

3. If the simple form of a two syllable verb ends in consonant + a

vowel + a consonant, double the final consonant only if the last

syllable is stressed.

Example: permit/permitted

4. If the simple form of a verb ends in –e and only –d

5. Example: tie/tied

6. Add –ed to the simple form of all other regular verbs.

Example: want/wanted27

Beside the rules of the verbs (regular and irregular verbs), there are other rules that should be known, one of them is spelling rules for the simple past tense of regular verb. The table shows that every verb in the regular verb has different spelling, and it depends on the ending sound of the verb whether the verbs ending by consonant or vowel. They have different rules.

Beside the spelling rules, there are also rules in pronunciation of the –

ed verb ending.

The –ed ending is pronounced three ways, according to the end of the

verb:

1. /id/ after d and t endings

Examples: existed, needed, wanted, traded

2. /t/ after the voiceless endings s, k, p, t, sh, ch, and x

Examples: cooked, helped, washed, whatced

3. /d/ after the voiced endings, b, g, l, m, n, r, v, z, and all vowels

Examples: robbed, listened, lived, sewed28

Same as the rules of spelling in the regular verb, the pronunciation of the regular verb depends on the ending sound of the verbs. Different ending sound of regular verb can cause different sound.

Expression of past time is also needed to specify the time in the past when an action was completed. “We often use an expression such as last week, at the weekend, in 1972, 3 years ago, or when we were on holiday to

make it clear that the period of time is finished.”29 That statement prove that

in telling the past events, the time is very important to make the statements clear, and to show that the events has finished.

27

Kirn, op. cit., p. 107.

28

Ibid., p.108.

29

B. The Yes/No Questions and Short Answers

Yes/no simple past tense question is started by using did(not) in the

beginning of the question. Did(not) is followed by the verb, but the verb that is

used in the question is the simple form; it is not followed by regular or irregular verb . “Simple past tense yes/no questions did(n’t) before the subject. Note that

the main verb in the question is in the simple form. There is no final –ed ending in

the question form.”30

In the yes/no question form, the principle of regular and irregular verbs can be ignored because in yes/no question form only uses the

simple present form with didn’t before the main verb. Here are the examples:

Affirmative question:

1. Did your mother cook yesterday?

The possible answers are: Yes, she did or No, she didn’t.

2. Did you move to a new apartment?

The possible answers are: Yes, I did or No, I didn’t.

Negative question:

1. Didn’t she rent video last night?

The possible answers are: Yes, she did orNo, she didn’t.

2. Didn’t he call you before you left your home?

The possible answers are: Yes, he did orNo, he didn’t.

From the examples above, every question is begun by did (for affirmative

question; did your mother cook yesterday?) and didn’t (for negative question:

didn’t she rent video last night?). Did and didn’t are followed by the simple verb

form; cook, move, rent, and call.

C. The Informative Questions

Same with the previous explanation, in informative questions also use the

simple form in the main verbs, so there is no final –ed ending in the informative

questions. “Many simple past tense information questions use did before the

30

subject; why can also have didn’t before the subject. Note that when who or what

is the subject of the sentence, the main verb is in the simple past tense and did is

not used before the subject.”31

like shows in the table 2.2 below;

Table 2.2 Informative Question32

Examples Possible answers Notes

Who did you call?

What did you do

yesterday?

Where did you relatives stay?

When did you relatives visit?

How did she find her apartment?

Why did you cook last night?

Why didn‟t you order in pizza?

I called my sister I cleaned my house

They stayed in the

upstairs bedroom

The y visited last month

She looked in the paper

I wanted a home-cooked meal.

I wanted to

In information questions

with did and didn’t, the

main verb is in the simple

form. There is no –ed

ending.

What happened last

night?

Who argued a lot?

We rent a video

My sister and I argued a lot.

When who and what is

the subject, the main verb is in the simple past tense

and did is not used before

the subject.

31

Kirn, op. cit., p. 111.

32

The table above explains about the examples of informative questions.

Every question is begun by WH-questions, did or didn’t and followed by the

simple verb form, except for who and what. Because when who and what is the

subject, did or didn’t is not used before it, and use the simple past tense as the

main verb.

If Elaine Kirn divides the simple past tense into three components;

statement with past tense verb, yes/no questions and short answers and

information questions, Marianne Celce-Murcia and Diane Larsen-Freeman divide the simple past tense into six form, they are: (1) a definite single completed event/action in the past, (2) habitual or repeated action/event in the past, (3) an event with duration that applied in the past with the implication that it no longer applies in the present, (4) with states in the past, (5) imaginative conditional in the

subordinate clause (referring to present time), (6) social distancing33

The first form is a definite single completed event/action in the past. It means that the event or action had been finished in the past, or the event is no longer in the present. The second form is habitual or repeated action/event in the past. This statement means that the action or event has a repetition in the past, it

can be indicated by the using the expression, like every (every day, every week,

every weekend, etc.). For example: It rained almost every day last weekend. The next form is an event with duration that is applied in the past with the implication that it no longer applies in the present. It uses for the event that has a duration,

but still happened in the past. It is usually marked by the word for; for 3 weeks,

for a month, etc. the fourth is with state in the past. The event in this form stated in the past. And then, the next form is imaginative conditional in the subordinated clause. ”in clauses introduced by if, the simple past expresses an unreal condition.”34

It is know by conditional sentence, but the action or the event still happened in the past. Finally, is social distinction. “Particularly with

33

Marianne Celce-Murcia and Diane Larsen-Freeman, The Grammar Book An ESL/EFL

Teacher’s Course 2nd

Editon, (USA: Heinle & Heinle Publisher, 1999), p. 114

34

Ron Cowan, The Teacher’s Grammar of English”, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), p. 359

requests and questions, the simple past tense is often used instead of the simple present to express a more deferential”35

In giving an offer or a request by using the past form, it is more polite than using the present form because by using the

present form, it gives the impolite statement or offer. For example: “Did you

want to come in?” is more polite that “Do you want to come in?”

3. Writing

a. The Definition of Writing

Writing is a skill that not easy to be done. The learner has to think about

the ideas and the details to connect them correctly. John Langan said that “writing

is a process of discovery that involves a series of steps, and those steps are very often a zigzag journey.” 36

On the other hand, writing is a long process. There are many steps in the writing process that should be mastered by the writer. Because writing is a skill, someone should practice it for a better writing.

The four basic principles that must learn to write effectively, they are: (1) start with a clearly started point, (2) provide logical, detailed support for your point, (3) organize and edit connect your supporting material, and (4) revise and

edit so that your sentences are effective and error-free.37

From the four basic principles above show that writing is a chronological process. The first principle is we have to know what we are going to write, and then search the detail to support our idea, organize it, and the last is edit our writing to make it perfect.

b. The Writing Process

According to John Langan in his book, Basic Principles of Effective

Writing, there are four steps in writing processes; prewriting, writing first draft,

35 Ibid. 36

John Langan, English Skills, (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001), p.12.

37

revising and the last is editing38. The first step is prewriting. With this step, writer is hoped to think about the topic and what is the writer going to write. After thinking about the idea of the writing, the writer can start to write the first draft, revising, and editing the writing, so the errors can be deleted in this last step.

1. Prewriting

Many people have trouble getting started writing, so in this first step “they are five techniques that will help to think about and develop a topic and get words on paper: freewriting, questioning, making a list, clustering, and preparing a scratch outline.”39

These techniques help to do the writing process and make writing easier.

In freewriting, the writer only writes what are the ideas come to the writer‟s mind. The writer only keeps writing without stopping. The second is questioning. In this technique, the writer can make the questions about the subject that the writer wants to write. The third is making a list. In making a list, the writer only has to write the list about the aspects that relate to the topic. The next is clustering. This technique can be done by stating the subject or the topic in the center of a paper. Then, the details or the ideas can be put in the boxes or circles around the subject, and draw lines to connect them each other. The last is preparing scratch outline. The details that are not needed or not connected with the subject can be crossed by the writer with this technique.

2. Writing a First Draft

After the writer does the prewriting, the next step is writing a first draft. Writing a first draft must be hard to do without prewriting before because in this step, the writer writes the ideas or the arguments into a text. “While writing your first draft, focus on getting your meaning down on paper; do not be overly concerned with grammatical correctness at this

38

Ibid., p. 17.

39

stage.” 40

In writing a first draft, the writer should more focus on the meaning of his/her writing than the grammatical of the writing.

3. Revising

After writing a first draft has been done, the real work of the writing begins because revising spends more time than writing a first draft or doing prewriting. As a writer, revising is an important process in writing. In this process, the writer needs to reread and correct all of the ideas, connect with the topic or not. “Rewriting means that you rewrite a paper, building upon what has already been done, in order to make it stronger.”41 The writer has to rewrite what have already been written in writing a first draft to a new paper to make it stronger than the first one. 4. Editing

In this last process, the writer should correct all of the errors and mistakes that have been ignored in the previous process. Because it is the last process, the writer should be very careful to check the whole of the writing. The writer should make sure that every sentence is correct in grammatical or mechanical aspect.

4. The Recount Text

A. The Definition of Recount Text

Recount text is used to retell the story that had happened in the past time. According to Anderson “recount is a piece of writing that retells past events usually in order in which they happened and the purpose of a recount is to give the audience a description of what occurred and when it occurred”42

. In other source tells that “the purpose of a recount is to tell the readers what happened in the past

40

Regina L. Smalley & Mark K. Ruetten, Refining Composition Skills (Rhetoric and Grammar), (Boston: Heinle & Heinle Publisher,1995), p. 12.

41

Langan, op.cit., p.26.

42

Mark Anderson and Kathy Anderson, Text Types in English 3(South Yarra: MacMillan, 1997) , p.24.

through a sequence of events.”43

In other words, recount text is writing text type which retells the past event chronologically. The purpose of recount text is to describe what happened in the past time through sequence of the events to the reader.

B. The Schematic Structure of Recount

Every text has a schematic structure. And according to Anderson, recount has three schematic structures. They are, “orientation, events, and re -orientation.”44

The orientation is the opening of the recount text. It is consists of background information about recount text. Events tell about what happened in a chronological order. Re-orientation is the conclusion of the recount text.

1) Orientation

In this part, the writer tries to introduce the recount writing to the readers, so the readers know about the details of setting or background

information about the events. “The orientation is consists of background

information about who were involved in the story, what, when, and where the events takes a place. It is in the first paragraph.”45

This orientation is in the first paragraph as an opening of the recount text.

2) Events

The orientation is followed by the events of the recount text. The function of the event is to “tell what happened in a chronological order.”46 Event is the main important part of recount text because those events are the core of the story. This is followed by a series of paragraph that tell about all of the past events that happened in the story.

43

Th.M. Sudarwati & Eudia Grace, Look Ahead An English Course for Senior High School Students Year X, (Jakarta:Erlangga, 2006), p.30.

44

Anderson, loc.cit. 45

Ibid. 46

3) Re-orientation (optional)

In this part, the writer can choose to give the conclusion for the readers or not. Re-orientation is about the conclusion of the experience. It is optional because some recounts are only consists of orientation, and the series of events. The conclusion and comment of the story can be given in this last part.

C. The Language Features of Recount Text

Anderson divides the language features of recount text into four, they are: (1) proper nouns to identify those involves in the text, (2) descriptive words to give details about who, what, when, where and how, (3) the use of the past tense

to retell the events, and (4) words that show the order of events47

In the other words, those language features above help to write the recount

text. The first is proper nouns to identify those involves in the text. It is useful to

show who, where and when the story took place, for example; Rina, at home,

South Africa, etc. The second is descriptive words. It is used to give details about

who what, when, where, and how the events happen. The next is the use of the

past tense. Because recount is retelling a story that happens in the past time, so the using of the past tense is needed to make sure the readers that the events is happen

in the past time. The last is words that show the order of events, for example, first,

next, then, etc.

D. The Types of Recount Text

According to Anderson and Anderson there are many types of recount text, they are: (1) eyewitness accounts, (2) letters, (3) conversations, (4)

newspaper Reports, (5) television, (6) interviews, and (7) speech.48

47

Anderson, op.cit., p.24.

48

Mark Anderson and Kathy Anderson, Text Types in English 1, (South Yarra: MacMillan, 1997) , pp. 56-75.

Firstly is the eyewitness account. The purpose of the eyewitness accounts is to provide details about the past event chronologically, such as the accidents, the explosion a flight, etc. The audience can be a reader of newspaper or can be a police officer. Secondly, is letters. Letters is written for some reasons, one of them

is to tell the events that have happened in the past, for example writing about the

activities in last holiday to a friend. Thirdly, is conversations. The conversation is spoken by two or more people to tell the listener about something. In this case, the

conversation tells about past event, for example, telling about what happen this

morning or last night. The next type is newspaper reports. In newspaper the reader can read about some events that have happened in the order in which they occur,

for example how a robber stole some money in the bank last night, etc. The next

type is television interview. In television interview, there are reporter (who asking the questions) and interviewee (person who being interviewed). The reporter asks to recount part of the interviewee life. The last type is speech. ” Speech is a spoken text that can have a variety of purposes. A recount speech would be one where the speaker tells the audience about a past happening. The speaker would

recount the events in the order in which they took place.”49 On the other hand, a

speech has many purposes, but in recount speech, the speaker in speech is someone who tells to the audience about a past event.

5. The Previous Studies

There are three previous studies that the writer takes about error analysis.

They are Nita Sugiarti and Dede Rosdiana. An Analysis on Students’ Grammatical

Errors in Writing Recount Text, and An Analysis Of Students’ Errors In Writing

Narrative Text.

The first previous study is about an analysis on students‟ grammatical

errors in writing recount text, case study in the first year student of SMAN 3 TangSel. The study focused on what the most grammatical error and causes of error that made by the students in writing recount text. The result of the research

49

is verb tense is the most grammatical error made by the students with 149 errors,

and the major source of the error is mother tongue interference.50

The second study is about an analysis of students‟ errors in writing narrative text, a study case in second year of SMAN 3 Bekasi. The study focused on what the commonest error and the source of error made by students in narrative writing. The result of this research is the commonest error is in verb tense with 26, 212 % and the lowest percentage is in incomplete sentence with 0, 346%. The

major source of error that the writer found is intralingual transfer.51

The previous studies above can be a good a good reference for the writer in doing her research. She will compare the result of the research. Beside the most grammatical error, the writer will also focus on the source its error too.

50_{Nita Sugiarti, “An Analysis on Students‟ Grammatical Error in Writing Recount Text,”} Skripsi of the Degree of Strata I UIN Syarif Hidayatullah Jakarta, Jakarta, 2012, p. 43,

unpublished.

51

Dede Rosdiana, “An Analysis of Students‟ Errors In Writing Narrative Text,” Skripsi

28 CHAPTER III

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY A. Research Design

The form of this study is a qualitative research because the writer takes

place in the real situation about social phenomena. “Qualitative research is an

approach to social science research that emphasizes collecting descriptive data in natural setting, uses inductive thinking, and emphasizes understanding the subjects point of view.”52

Natural means that qualitative research is done in the real setting as a direct source of data. The writer comes and spends the time in the class, or other learning place about educational concern. In qualitative research, the writer doesn‟t build any hypothesis to be proved or disproved, but accent the writer‟s idea.

The writer does a case study because the writer chooses the possible places

and the pupils as a subject or the resource of the data. “Case study is a detailed examination of one setting, or a single subject, a single depository of documents, or a particular event”53

. The writer scouts for the place and people who can be the source of the data. When the subject and the place have been chosen, the writer begins to collect the data, and analyze it based on error analysis procedure.

The data analysis of this study is descriptive statistic. It is a statistic that organizes and analyzes the data, so that can give the description about the phenomenon and the situation which exist at the time of the study. “The data collected take the form words or picture rather than the numbers. The written results of the research contain quotations from the data to illustrate and substantiate the presentation.”54

The data is not reduced to numerical symbols.

52

Robert, C. Bogdan, and Sari Knopp Biklen, Qualitative Research for Education 5th Edition An Introduction to Theories and Methods, (Boston: Pearson Education, Inc., 2006), p. 274.

53

Ibid., p. 271.

54

This research is about analysis of students‟ errors at the first grade of MA

Al-Khairiyah Jakarta Selatan in using the simple past tensein writing recount text.

B. Place and Time of the Study

The writer does her research at the first grade of MA Al-Khairiyah Jakarta which is located on. Jl. Mampang Prapatan IV, Jakarta Selatan. The writer does her research on Desember 2012.

C. Subject of the Study

In this research, the writer takes the subject of the study in first grade

students of MA Al-Khairiyah Jakarta Selatan. The writer chooses all of the

students in X-1 class as the subject of study. The class consists of 31 students. D. Research Instrument

The instruments of this research are a test and interview for the students and the English teacher. The test is writing test, which the topic is given to the students about “What Did You Do Last Weekend”. The students need to compose a writing based on 10 questions given, on the blank paper that also is given. The teacher‟s interview consists of 5 questions about the method that she/he uses in teaching recount text, the problem that she/he faces in teaching recount text, and how she/he solves it. The student‟s interview consists of 7 questions about their problem in learning simple past tense in recount text.

E. Technique of Data Collection

To measure the ability of students, the writer takes writing in the blank paper that is given as the test to the first grade student of MA Al-Khairiyah Jakarta Selatan. The writing test that students made indicates their understanding in using the simple past tense in recount text. Before the students do the test, the writer gives the explanation and direction about what the students should do with the test. The interview is used to get the information from the students and the

teacher about the students‟ comprehension about the simple past tense in writing

F. Techniques of Data Analysis

To analyze the interview data, the writer adopts from Miles and Hubarman, there are three steps in qualitative data analysis; data reduction, data

display and verify conclusion.55 The writer reduces the data that she has collected

because not all of the data can be presented in this research to get the conclusion at the end of this research.

The writer uses the formula by Annas Sudjono to have the frequency and

percentage of errors56:

P = x 100%

P = Percentage of error

F = Frequency of false answer N = Number of students

55

Emzir, Metodologi Penelitian Kualitatif: Analisis Data, (Jakarta: PT. Raja Grafindo Persada, 2010), p. 129-133.

56

Anas Sudijono, Pengantar Statistik Pendidikan, (Jakarta: PT. Raja Grafindo Persada, 2010), Cet. 22, p. 4.

31

CHAPTER IV RESEARCH FINDING

A. The Description of the Data

In the previous chapter, the techniques of completing the data have been mentioned clearly. Furthermore, the results of collecting data could be seen as below:

1. The result of Interview

The writer did interview twice, before and after giving the test to the students. First, before giving test, she interviewed the teacher. The writer asked five (5) questions. The first question talked about the method which was used in

teaching simple past tense in recount text writing (see appendix 1a no.1). The

teacher gave basic explanation and task about the simple past tense, after that she

explained about the usage of the simple past tense in recount text. She only asked

the students to make a simple sentence about the simple past tense, and she never

asked the students to write recount text. In learning recount text, the students only

read the example of recount text, and speak about their experience in the past.

The second question talked about the textbook which was used in teaching and learning process in the class (see appendix 1a no.2). According to the teacher,

the textbook was good enough for helping the students in learning recount, but for

making recount writing, she thought that the students still faced difficulty in writing recount text.

The third and fourth questions were about the students‟ difficulties and the

most difficulty in teaching the simple past tense in writing recount text (see

appendix 1a no. 3-4). According to the teacher, the most difficulty level in using

the simple past tense in writing recount was the students‟ difficulty in differentiate

among to be, verb (regular and irregular), noun, adjective and adverb, so they

still confused when they should use all of them in a sentence. Vocabularies that they knew are limited. The last question asked to the teacher what she did with

those difficulties (see appendix 1a no. 5). The teacher gave the students basic

explanation about the usage of to be, verb (regular and irregular), noun, adjective

and adverb, and also explained about new vocabularies in a sentence.

Besides interviewed the teacher, she also interviewed the students which conducted after they did the test. However, not all students interviewed; she only took ten (10) students for this research. The writer asked the students some

questions about problem in learning simple past tense in writing recount text

which consisted of seven (7) questions. The questions were divided into two

categories. The first category talked about their knowledge and problem about the

simple past tense (see appendix 2a, no. 1-4). The second category talked about

usage of simple past tense in writing recount text (see appendix 2a, no. 5-7).

From the students‟ interview, the writer found that the most of the students

faced difficulty in determining and using past tense form and irregular verb. This

difficulty made the students did an error where some of them tended to use simple

past form for every verbs. Besides the simple past form, they also got difficulty in

determining irregular verb, so they applied regular pattern; by adding –ed, instead

of regular pattern. The errors occurred because they did not pay fully attention to the teacher‟s explanation and because they did not understand in teacher‟s explanation. It was also caused by the teacher never asked them to make a complete recount text paragraph.

2. The Result of Test

The writer found a lot of errors in using the simple past tense in students‟

recount writing, and then she made the classifying of the students‟ error on

grammatical aspect. It has been mentioned in the previous chapter, the writer only focused on the types of grammatical errors according to Corder, error of omission,

error of addition, error of selection, and errors of misordering.57

57

S. P. Corder, Error An-alysis and Interlanguage, (New York: Oxford University Pre-ss, 1982), p. 36.

After gathering the data, then the writer counted the errors by using the table and calculated the number of each error. Next, she processed the calculation of the result of the writing task by using percentage. Then, the writer made a graphic of writing error based on the calculation. Interpreting the data is done after processing the result.

Table 4.1

The Recapitulation of Student’s Error of Omission

No. Students‟ Number

Omission

Substance Text Discourse

Grammatical Lexis

1 Student 1 - 5 - -

2 Student 2 - 2 - -

3 Student 3 - 2 - -

4 Student 4 - 4 - -

5 Student 5 - 2 - -

6 Student 6 - 6 - -

7 Student 7 - 6 - -

8 Student 8 - - - -

9 Student 9 - 1 - -

10 Student 10 - - 2 -

11 Student 11 - 1 - -

12 Student 12 - 1 - -

13 Student 13 - 4 - -

14 Student 14 - 2 - -

15 Student 15 - 2 - -

16 Student 16 - 5 - -

17 Student 17 - 3 - -

18 Student 18 - 3 - -

No. Student‟s Number

Omission

Substance Text Discourse

Grammatical Lexis

20 Student 20 - 1 - -

21 Student 21 - 1 - -

22 Student 22 - 2 1 -

23 Student 23 - 1 - -

24 Student 24 - 1 1 -

25 Student 25 - 2 - -

26 Student 26 - - - -

27 Student 27 - - - -

28 Student 28 - 1 - -

29 Student 29 - - - -

30 Student 30 - 2 - -

31 Student 31 - 1 - -

TOTAL = 67 - 63 4 -

Table 4.2

The Recapitulation of Student’s Error of Selection

No. Students‟ Number

Selection

Substance Text Discourse

Grammatical Lexis

1 Student 1 2 1 1 -

2 Student 2 - 2 - -

3 Student 3 - 2 1 -

4 Student 4 - 4 2 -

5 Student 5 1 3 1 -

No. Students‟ Number

Selection

Substance Text Discourse

Grammatical Lexis

7 Student 7 1 1 -

8 Student 8 - 1 1 -

9 Student 9 - 1 - -

10 Student 10 - 1 - -

11 Student 11 - - - -

12 Student 12 - - - 1

13 Student 13 - 1 - -

14 Student 14 - 2 - -

15 Student 15 - 4 2 -

16 Student 16 - 2 1 -

17 Student 17 - 1 - -

18 Student 18 - - 1 -

19 Student 19 - 4 - -

20 Student 20 - 6 - -

21 Student 21 - 4 - -

22 Student 22 - 4 - -

23 Student 23 - 5 - -

24 Student 24 - 1 - -

25 Student 25 - 1 - -

26 Student 26 - 3 - -

27 Student 27 - 3 2 -

28 Student 28 - 1 - -

29 Student 29 - 2 1 -

30 Student 30 - 1 - -

31 Student 31 - 3 - -

TOTAL = 87 5 67 14 1

Error of addition and misordering are only found in the text (grammatical), 8 errors for error or addition, and an error in misordering. Student number 5, 6, 7, 16, 19, and 20 did the error of addition, and student number 29 did error in misordering.

Here are the data of students‟ error in using the simple past tense in writing recount text

Table 4.3

The Recapitulation of Student’s Error

No. STUDENTS‟

NUMBER

Types of Error Error of

Omission

Error of Addition

Error of Selection

Error of Misordering

1 Student 1 5 - 4 -

2 Student 2 2 - 2 -

3 Student 3 2 - 3 -

4 Student 4 4 - 6 -

5 Student 5 2 1 5 -

6 Student 6 6 1 5 -

7 Student 7 6 1 2 -

8 Student 8 - - 2 -

9 Student 9 1 - 1 -

10 Student 10 2 - 1 -

11 Student 11 1 - - -

1 Student 12 1 - 1 -

13 Student 13 4 - 1 -

14 Student 14 2 - 2 -

15 Student 15 2 - 6 -

16 Student 16 5 2 3 -

17 Student 17 3 - 1 -

No. Students‟ Number

Types of Error Error of

Omission

Error of Addition

Error of Selection

Error of Misordering

19 Student 19 2 1 4 -

20 Student 20 1 2 6 -

21 Student 21 1 - 4 -

22 Student 22 3 - 4 -

23 Student 23 1 - 5 -

24 Student 24 2 - 1 -

25 Student 25 2 - 1 -

26 Student 26 - - 3 -

27 Student 27 - - 5 -

28 Student 28 1 - 1 -

29 Student 29 - - 3 1

30 Student 30 2 - 1 -

31 Student 31 1 - 3 -

TOTAL = 163 67 8 87 1

As the calculation above, the writer describes the examples and the causes why the errors occur as follow:

1. The Error of Omission =

41, 1 % 2. The Error of Addition =

3. The Error of Selection =

4. The Error of Misordering =

Table 4.4

The Recapitulation of Error Types, Frequency and its Percentage

No. LEVEL /

MODIFICATION SUBSTANCE

TEXT

DISCOURSE TOTAL OF

ERROR

GRAMMAR LEXIS

1. OMISSION 63 =

38. 65 %

4 = 2. 45 %

67 = 41. 1%

2. ADDITION 8 =

4. 9 %

8 = 4. 9%

3. SELECTION 5 =

3. 1%

67 = 41. 1 %

14 = 8. 6 %

1 = 0. 6%

87 = 53. 4%

4. ORDERING 1 =

0.6%

1 = 0.6%

TOTAL 163 = 100%

Based on the calculation above, it can be concluded that the total errors of

omission are 67 errors or 41.1% (error of omission in grammar text level are 63

errors or 38.65% and in lexis text level are 4 errors or 2.45%), addition are 8 errors

or 4.9% in grammar text level, selection are 87 errors or 53.4% (error of selection

in substance level are 5 errors or 3.1%, in grammar text level are 67 errors or

41.1%, in lexis text level are 14 errors or 8.6%, and in discourse level is 1 error or

0.6%), and in ordering is 1 error or 0.6% in grammar text level. From the

calculation of the data, error of selection is the most frequent errors that done by

the first grade students of MA Al-Khairiyah Jakarta Selatan with the percentage

53.4%. Moreover, it is followed by error of omission with percentage 41.1%, and

Table 4.5

The Recapitulation of Source of Student’s Errors

No.

The

Students‟

Number

Source of Error Interlingual

Transfer

Intralingual Transfer

Context of Learning

Communication Strategies

1 Student 1 6 3 - -

2 Student 2 2 2 - -

3 Student 3 2 3 - -

4 Student 4 6 4 - -

5 Student 5 2 6 - -

6 Student 6 10 2 - -

7 Student 7 6 3 - -

8 Student 8 - 2 - -

9 Student 9 1 1 - -

10 Student 10 - 3 - -

11 Student 11 1 - - -

12 Student 12 1 1 - -

13 Student 13 4 1 - -

14 Student 14 3 1 - -

15 Student 15 4 4 - -

16 Student 16 7 3 - -

17 Student 17 4 - - -

18 Student 18 3 1 - -

19 Student 19 4 3 - -

20 Student 20 3 6 - -

21 Student 21 2 3 - -

22 Student 22 3 4 - -

23 Student 23 3 3 - -

No.

The Students‟

Number

Source of Error Interingual

Tranfer

Intralingual Transfer

Context of Learning

Communication Strategies

25 Student 25 2 1 - -

26 Student 26 1 2 - -

27 Student 27 3 2 - -

28 Student 28 1 1 - -

29 Student 29 1 3 - -

30 Student 30 2 1 - -

31 Student 31 3 1 - -

TOTAL SOURCE OF ERROR = 163

92 71 - -

1. Interlingual Transfer :

2. Intralingual Transfer :

3. Context of Learning : 0 % 4. Communication Strategies : 0 %

Table 4.6

The Recapitulation of Source of Error, Frequency, and its Percentage

No. Source of Error Frequency of

Error

Percentage

1. Interlingual transfer 92 56. 4%

2. Intralingual transfer 71 43.6%

3. Context of learning 0 0%

From the calculation of the data, source of errors of interlingual error is the major source of errors that done by the first grade students of MA

Al-Khairiyah Jakarta Selatan with 92 errors or 53.4%. It is caused by the students

might be influenced by their mother tongue in terms of pattern, systems or rules. It

is followed by intralingual transfer with 71 errors or 43.6% it happen because the

students might attempt to derive the rules before the data to which has been concerned by the students gradually and it may lead to the false hypotheses related to neither their native language nor the target language. For source of error of

context of learning and communication strategies, the frequencies are 0%.

B. The Analysis of the Data

The writer analyzed the errors that are taken from the Data Description and calculate them according to the formula as written below:

1)The Description of Errors

After identifying the data, the writer analyzed the errors and classified them based on the Surface Taxonomy Categories to know whether these errors involve in omission, addition, selection, or ordering.

a. The Error of Omission

There are 67 errors that made by the students with 63 errors are made in grammatical level, and 4 errors in lexis level. Many students made errors in forming the right utterance. It is caused by the grammatical morphemes are more complex, for example in using tenses, the learner should be aware of the addition of the ending of the verb (-ed,- ing, -s) correctly. For example,

We walk until 12.30 am. While he supposed to write, We walked

until 12.30 a.m.

I arrive to the place at 09.00 a.m. While she supposed to write, I

b. The Error of Addition

There are 8 errors in addition, and all of them are errors in grammatical level. In this type, the students add some items that shouldn‟t

appear. The student knew about the using of verb 2 but they add to be

which is not needed in the sentence. The example is, “we are prayed”

instead of “we prayed”. The students add to be before the verb, and it isn‟t

needed. The students know that they should use simple past tense form in

their writing, but they don‟t know when they should add to be in the sentence.

c. The Error of Selection

In the error of selection, the writer found 87 errors with 67 errors happen in grammatical level, 14 errors in lexis level, 5 errors in substance level, and 1 error in the discourse level. It is the most frequent error that

made by the students. For example, the students use “go”, “take”, and

“is/am” in their writing, instead of “went”, “took”, and “was”.

Before we go, we had breakfast. While he supposed to write,

before we went, we had breakfast.

I take a bath, while he supposed to write, I took a bath.

I broke in the home, while she supposed to write, I took a break in the house.

d. The Error of Ordering

There is only an error in ordering. It means only 0.6% who did error in ordering. The student wrote “we late to arrived home” instead of “we arrived home late”.

2) The Explanation of Errors

In this step, the errors are classified based on the source of their

errors. In this analysis, the writer would not consider that learner‟s errors

are caused by the context of learning and communications strategies; she

language system and English, and the target language system itself (intralingual).

1) Interlingual Transfer

This error is caused by the influence of their native language which is Bahasa. The student translated the Bahasa into English directly. For example,

Students wrote “I back to home” while they supposed to write “I was back home”.

Students wrote “after lunch, I prayed Dzuhur” while they supposed

to write “after having lunch, I prayed Dzuhur”

Students wrote ”before I went, I breakfast” while they supposed to

write “before I went, I had breakfast”

They omit the items that should appear. This happened because

the pattern of Both Bahasa – which is their mother tongue- and English are

totally different. The students omitted “was”, “having”, and “had”

because Bahasa doesn‟t have those rules. The teacher‟s interview also said that the students didn‟t know about the usage of to be and verb. These errors occurred because the students had not clearly understood of the structure of the sentence. The source of this error is from the interlingual transfer. It happens because are still influenced by their mother tongue.

2) Intralingual Transfer

Negative intralingual transfer or overgeneralization is done by the learner because the learner overgenerates the rules in wrong concept. The

example is the students overgeneralized in using –ed in their writing. For

example, they wrote, After arrived, I played together, instead of after

arriving, I played together. It happened because the students think that every verb in recount text writing always use the simple past form. The source of this error is intralingual transfer because they overgenerates the rules in wrong concept.

3)The Evaluation of Errors

If the purpose of the error analysis is to help students to study second language, it is important to evaluate the errors. Some errors can be considered more serious than others because they could hinder the message of the communication. In this research, the writer considered that the errors which are caused by mother tongue interference are the most

serious errors because English and Bahasa’s structure are totally different.

For example:

I went there by busway, before it I breakfast and prepared.

If the sentence above is translated to be Bahasa, it will become

“Saya pergi kesana naik busway, sebelumnya saya sarapan dan

bersiap-siap.” In Bahasa it will be accepted, but in English it cannot be accepted. Therefore, this error should be treated intensively because this error will hinder the message to be understood.

C. The Interpretation of the Data

In this Part, the writer will interpret some errors that students made as follow:

Table 4.7

The Recapitulation of Error Types, Frequency and its Percentage

NO TYPES OF ERROR FREQUENCY OF

ERROR

PERCENTAGE OF ERRORS

1 Error of Omission 67 41. 1%

2 Error of Addition 8 4. 9%

3 Miselection 87 53. 4%

As shown on the table above, error of selection is the most frequent errors that done by the first grade students of MA Al-Khairiyah Jakarta Selatan with the percentage 53.4%. They did it because some students found difficult in

distinguishing between the simple past tense and other tense.

Table 4.8

The Recapitulation of Source of Error, Frequency, and its Percentage

No. Source of Error Frequency of

Error

Percentage

1. Interlingual transfer 92 56. 4%

2. Intralingual transfer 71 43.6%

3. Context of learning 0 0%

4. Communication strategies 0 0%

As shown on the table above, the most frequent sources of the errors are interlingual transfer and intralingual transfer; with 92 errors or 56.4% for interlingual transfer, and 71 errors or 43.6% for intralingual transfer. It is caused by the students might be influenced by their mother tongue in terms of pattern,

systems or rules. They also translated the Bahasa into English directly which have

not the same at all. On the other word, students often generalized what they know from their mother tongue to the new language, which is English, that known as Intralingual Transfer. From the percentage above, the major source of error is interlingual transfer.