ANE RRORA NALYSIS ON THEE NGLISHS TUDENTS ’ N ARRATIVEW RITINGT
AN ERROR ANALYSIS ON THE ENGLISH STUDENTS’
NARRATIVE WRITING TEXTS
Cholimatus Zuhro, Sukarno, Albert Tallapessy
Magister of Linguistics, Faculty of Letters,
University of Jember (UNEJ)
E-mail: [email protected]
ABSTRACT
This research investigates the errors made by the students of the 5th semester
of English Study Program of Politeknik Negeri Jember in their narrative
writing texts. This study revealed that there were 323 errors in the students‘
narrative writing texts and classified into 5 grammatical categories, they were
Verb tense (228 errors/71%), Plurality (30 errors/9%), Article (24 errors/7%),
Subject Verb Agreement (23 errors/7%), and Preposition (18 errors/6%). The
students committed errors in applying sentence structure rules in English.
Since grammatical features of each language are not similar, errors made are
obviously different. These errors are caused by the interference of the
students‘ first language and their inadequate understanding of grammatical
rules of English. Therefore, it is important to make the students aware of the
differences of the structure of these two languages to produce a good and
acceptable sentence. The teachers need to emphasize on how the concepts are
handled in English and Indonesian.
Key words: Error analysis, Students‟Narrative Writing Texts
Introduction
English is considered as an international language, since people use it all over
the world. As an international language, English is used as medium in many fields, such
as in scientific and technology research as well as international trade. In Indonesia,
English has a special place as the first foreign language with different statuses from one
institution to another. At particular schools, such as polytechnics, colleges or
universities, English is treated as a compulsory subject because most of the textbooks,
journals, and other resources given to the students are written in English.
Learning English as a foreign language is different thing to do for the most of
Indonesian students, because it cannot be learnt naturally as their mother tongue. In
other words, learning foreign language means learning the dictionary, grammar and the
sound of system in that language. In learning English, most of the Indonesian language
learners may face many problems. The problems are caused by some reasons. The first
reason is every language is unique, it means that every language has its own structure
and its use. English compared to Indonesian language has many similiarities and also
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differences. The second reason is English and Indonesian are from different language
families. English belongs to the Germanic family, while Indonesian belongs to the
Austronesian language family. The third reason is Languages differ cross culturally. It
means that when people talk about learning language, they also have to learn about the
way of thinking of the native speakers and the culture of the target language.
It is important to shed the light on some of the studies conducted on students‘
errors in some parts of other countries. Darus & Hei Ching (2009) conducted a study
about an error analysis in written English Essays of Chinese students from vernacular
schools in Malaysia. This study investigated the common errors in essay written in
English by 70 Chinese students in a selected public school in Perak. For all these
students, Chinese is their first language (L1). 70 essays were analyzed and catagorized
into 18 types of errors. The result of the analysis shows that four most common errors
were mechanics, tenses, preposition, and subject-verb agreement. In composing these
essays, the students were very much influenced by their L1.
Darus & Subramaniam (2009) studied secondary school students‘error in writing
English essays in Malaysia. This study examined errors in a corpus of 72 essays written
by 72 participants. The participants are Form Four Malay students who are studying at a
secondary school in Malaysia; 37 male and 35 female. They have experienced
approximately the same number of years of education through primary and secondary
education in Malaysia. All of the participants come from non-English speaking
background and hardly communicate in English outside the school. The instrument used
for this study was participants‘ written essays and Mark in software. All of the errors in
the essays were identified and classified into various categorizations. The results of the
study show that six most common errors committed by the participants were
singular/plural form, verb tense, word choice, preposition, subject-verb agreement and
word order. These aspects of writing in English pose the most difficult problems to
participants.
It is essential to know the term of errors when we are discussing them. In this
case, Dulay et al. (1982: 138), state that ―errors are parts of a conversation or
composition that deviate from some selected norm of mature language performance‖.
Meanwhile, Brown (1987: 70) defines errors as noticeable systematic deviation from the
adult grammar of a native speaker reflecting the interlanguage competence of a learner.
From these ideas, it can be restated that errors are systematic deviation tha can be found
in both oral and written language and they can be caused by competence factors or
performance factors.
Jie (2008: 37) also notes, ―a mistake occurs as the result of processing
limitations rather than lack of competence while an error is the breaches of rules of
code‖. According to Jie, an error happens from a lack of requisite knowledge of a
language learner. As such, he/she makes such errors in his/her writing because he/she
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does not know grammatical properties in a new language. The rules of L1 knowledge
are then employed in the use of L2 writing, which causes the mother tongue
interference. While Ellis (1996: 51) explains the errors reflect the gaps in the learner‘s
knowledge; that is, an error is produced due to the fact that the learners cannot identify
what is correct and incorrect. In contrast, a mistake reflects the learners‘ inefficient
performance; that is, it occurs because the learners are not able to perform what they
already know correctly. He also suggests two ways in determaining error or mistake.
The first one is to check the consistency of learner‟s writing. If he sometimes uses the
correct form and sometimes the wrong one, it is a mistake. However, if he always uses
it incorrectly, it is then an error. The second way is to ask learner to try to correct his
own deviant utterance. Where he is unable to, the deviations are errors; where he is
successful, they are mistakes.
Error Analysis in language Learning
Teachers who have waged long battles againts their students‘ language errors
have come to realize that making errors is an evitable part of learning. People cannot
learn language without first systematically comitting errors, Dulay et.al state that
studying learners‘ errors serve two major purposes. First, it provides data from which
inferences about the nature of the language learning process can be made. Second, it
indicates the teachers and curriculum developers which part of the target language
students have most difficult producing correctly and which errors types detract most
learners‘ ability to communicate effectively (Dulay et al., 1982:138).
Based on the opinion above, it can be concluded that studying learners‘ errors
are useful for the lecturers, the learners, and the researcher. It is expected that the
learners‘ errors can help (a) the lecturers judge the effectiveness of certain methods in
language learning, (b) the students get feedback and improve their mastery of language,
and (c) the researcher gets an evidence of how the students learn or acquire the
language.
The Source of Errors
In order to be able to decide whether it is error or not, it is needed to understand
fully the source of errors. The source of an error could be interlanguage or
intralanguage. Brown (1987: 177-181) notes that classification of errors in comparative
taxonomy is based on comparisons between the structure of second language erorrs and
certain other types of construction. He also states about souce of errors related with
comparative taxonomy, namely: interlingual errors, intralanguage and developmental
errors.
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Interlanguage Errors
Dulay et al. (1982:171) state that interlanguage errors are similar in structure to a
semantically equivalent phrases or sentences in the learners‘ native language. In line
with this, Richards (1974:173) states that interlingual errors are caused by interference
of the learners‘ mother tongue. It means that interlingual errors happen because there is
influence of the learners‘ native language construction of phrases and sentences. It can
be taken as an example in the usage of English in oral or written forms. It is found in the
interference of the Indonesian construction. For instance, the students omit the verb
―be‖ in the simple present tense pattern, for example: He at home. In this sentence, the
students make a grammatical error by omitting the verb ―is‖. This error may be caused
by interlingual errors, because the sentence is influenced by their mother tongue‘s
sententence construction. In the English sentence, the verb ―be‖ must be put between
the subject and complement. This system does not happen in Indonesian. The correct
sentence should be: He is at home.
Intralanguage Errors and Developmental Errors
According to Richards (1985:174) intralanguage errors are those which reflect
the general characteristics of learning rules and failure to learn condition under which
rules apply. Further, he states that developmental erros illustrate the learner‘s attempt to
build up hypothesis about the English language from his limited experience of it in the
classroom or textbook. Briefly, developmental errors happen because the learner has
limited experience of attempting to build up hypothesis about the English language. The
causes of intralanguage and developmental errors are a) overgeneralization, b)
ignorance of rule restrictions, c) incomplete application of rules, and d) false concepts
hypothesized.
The Definition Narrative text
Meyers (2005:52) states that narrative is one of the most powerful ways of
communicating with others. A good written story lets your reader response to some
event in your life as if it were own. They not only understand the event, but they can
almost feel it. The action, details, and dialogue put the readers in these seem and make it
happen for them. Moreover, Anderson (1997: 8) states that narrative is a piece of text
tells a story and, in doing so, entertains or informs the reader or listener.
One of the language features of narrative text is using action verbs in past form.
About narrative, Knapp and Watkins (2005) adds that formally, narrative sequences
people/characters in time and space. In its most basic form, in text types such as
recounting and retelling, the genre does little more than simply sequence. A key
characteristic for all text types in the genre, however, is the requirement to orient or
introduce the reader/listener to the people, time and place in the story. The structure of
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narrative is generally more complex than the orientation and sequencing typical of
recounting.
Method
This research belongs to a case study which is done under the purpose to provide
more information thorough an analysis and give clear explanations about the objects
analysed. The data of this research are qualitative data, they are some errors that taken
from the studens‘ writing narrative texts. 48 students in the 5th semester of English
Study Program of State polytechnic are as the respondent of this research. The data
were collected through 2 steps. In the first step, the respondents were given test 1, they
were asked to write narrative text writing and the topic was about Holiday. They had to
write their texts based on their experiences of their own holiday. The narrative writing
text ranged from 200-300 words each. Then, the second step was applying a second test.
The second test was aimed to know the students‘ consistency in making the mistakes so
that it can be said that they made some errors. The 26 students were asked to write
narrative writing texts based on their experiences when they joined the field study at
Kebun Raya Purwodadi and Wonosari Tea Plantation Lawang, Malang. The narrative
writing text ranged from 300-400 words each.
The document used in this research is students‘assignments on writing narrative
texts. The document itself is used to analyze students‘ errors made in their narrative
writing texts. Three steps are used to analyze the data obtained from the students‘ hand
writings. Firstly, the students‘ works are all checked and read. The incorrect sentences
are given check marks by using stabilo ink. Secondly, the students‘ errors are classified
into some types. The classification of errors is tabled based on Ellis‘ theory (1996:48).
Findings and Discussion
The data were collected through 2 steps. In the first step, the respondents were
given test 1, they were asked to write narrative text writing and the topic was about
Holiday. They had to write their texts based on their experiences of their own holiday.
The narrative writing text ranged from 200-300 words each. Having been analyzed, the
test showed the result that there were 22 students who did not make any mistake, and
there were 26 students who made some mistakes in their works. The result of test 1, can
be presented in Table 1.
Table 1. The Result of the First Test
Category
Making some Mistakes/Errors
Making no Mistakes
The Total Number
Number of the Students
26
22
48
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Percentage
54%
46%
100%
5
Referring to Table 1, there are only 26 students who made some mistakes in
their narrative writing texts that can be considered as the first data, because the other 22
students did not make any mistake. The aim of this research is to investigate and
examine the students‘ errors not their mistakes in their narrative writing texts.
For this purpose, to make sure whether the 26 students make some errors or
mistakes, they were given a second test. The second test was aimed to know the
students‘ consistency in making the mistakes so that it can be said that they made some
errors. The 26 students were asked to write narrative writing texts based on their
experiences when they joined the field study at Kebun Raya Purwodadi and Wonosari
Tea Plantation Lawang, Malang. The narrative writing text ranged from 300-400 words
each. Having been analyzed, the second test indicated that 14 students made some
mistakes in their first test, but they did not make any mistake in the second test. In
contrast, 12 students were consistently making some mistakes both in test 1 test 2. It
meant that there were only 12 students who made Errors in the first and second data.
The result of test 2 can be presented in Table 2.
Table 2. The Result of the Second Test
Category
Making Mistakes
Making errors
Total of the Students
Number of the Students
14
12
26
Percentage
54%
46%
100%
After conducting the first and the second step, it was considered that the data of
this research were in the form of the students‘ errors that were obtained from the 12
students in their first and second test of narrative writing texts.
The 12 students made 323 errors. The identified errors were counted based on
their frequencies. When the same error occurred twice, they were counted as two errors
in the tabulation. From the errors analyzed, the result showed that the category of errors
committed by the students in their narrative writing texts were 5 categories, they were
Verb Tense (VT), Subject Verb Agreement (SVA), Plurality (Pl), Article (Ar), and
Preposition (Prep). The distribution of the data according to the 5 categories can be
presented in Table 3.
Table 3. The Distribution of Errors in the Students’ Narrative Writing Texts
No
1
2
3
4
5
Categories of Error
Verb Tense
Plurality
Article
Subject Verb Agreement
Preposition
Total
Frequency of Errors
228
30
24
23
18
323
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Percentage (%)
71%
9%
7%
7%
6%
100%
6
This sub section analyzes and interprets the research findings that were obtained
during the research. In Table 3, it can be seen that there were three hundred and twenty
three (323) errors of various grammatical categories were found in the students‘
narrative text writings. In this section, 10% up to 20% of errors of each category were
taken as sample of errors that were analyzed and interpreted. In determining the sample,
Arikunto (1989:107) states that if the subjects are less than 100, we can take all of them,
while if the subjects are more than 100, we take 10%-15%, 20%-25%, or more as
sample. Therefore, to avoid the overlapping in taking the sample of errors that will be
analyzed; each category of error was taken 10% up to 20% as the sample. 10% for the
category is applied to the data which had more than 100 errors and 20% applied to the
data which had less than 100 errors. Following the calculation, the data that will be
analyzed are as follows; Verb tense (23 errors), Plurality (6 errors), Subject Verb
Agreement (5 errors), Article (5 errors), and Preposition (4 errors). The discussion of all
those errors will be discussed in the following subchapters below.
Verb Tense (VT)
As explained before there were 23 samples of errors that will be discussed. This
category is the largest grammatical category of errors in the classifications. Since the
topics were My holiday and My field trip in Malang, it obliged the students to compose
sentences mostly in the past tense to refer to something that happened. The result of the
tests showed that the students made the most errors in the usage of the tenses. The list of
the example of errors in verb tense can be seen in Table 4.
Table 4. Errors in Verb Tense
Number
of Data
1
2
Error Identification
Error Correction
Last month I went to Kediri
...but I only chose Kampung Inggris
47
48
70
Last month I go to Kediri
...but I only choose Kampung
Inggris.
...we arrive at tourism object
Purwodadi
It is the first time I did holiday.
I also join in the one of the
International conference there.
We prepare to go home.
My lecturer invite us...
We continue the journey to Malang.
80
99
120
124
139
146
...we do not know anything.
I have final examination.
We decide to reach...
I get a lot of information...
..the driver drives us..
I am so happy.
15
29
30
...we arrived at tourism object
Purwodadi
It was the first time I did holiday.
I also joined in the one of the
International conferences there.
We prepared to go home.
My lecturer invited us...
We continued the journey to
Malang.
...we did not know anything.
I had final examination.
We decided to reach...
I got a lot of information...
...the driver drove us...
I was so happy.
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173
178
198
224
245
261
289
294
323
I also get a knowledge...
The assignments consists...
We visite agrotourism object.
We need someone to be our friends.
I also got a knowledge...
The assignments consisted...
We visited agrotourism object.
We needed someone to be our
friends.
We rent a car from the car rental.
We rented a car from the car rental.
We finish the task in a few minutes.
We finished the task in a few
minutes.
We think that we are hungry
We thought that we were hungry
...when we watch some videos
...when we watched some videos
We leave Malang to continue our trip We left Malang to continue our trip
to Jember
to Jember..
All those sentences in Table 4 should be in the form of past tense because they
told about the activities happened in the past. However, the students used verbs 1 in
their sentences. This is an error because students should use verb 2 in the past form
instead of verb 1. It shows that the students have not captured the sequence rule of
tenses. This type of error can be attributed to intralingual interference mainly
incomplete knowledge of the rules.
The wrong application of verb tense can also be seen when the students did not
apply the correct tense to the verb in the sentences. It can be assumed that the students
were not aware of the different rules for tenses application. The result is not surprising
since English notion of tense is somewhat confusing to the Indonesian learners. In
English, there is an indication of time with present, past, future and continuous tense but
Indonesian verb itself does not indicate time. English verbs change according to aspect
of time. However, in Indonesian, the same form of verb can be used for present, past,
future and continuous tense.
In short, the differences between the verb system of Indonesian and English
tense make the students difficult to grasp the English notion of tense. Due to the rule of
Indonesian that do not need any changes of verbs according to time aspect, students
tend to omit the inflection of the English verb. This is correct in Indonesian, but it is not
acceptable in English.
Plurality
The common errors on plurality of English are the omission of plural markers
from the nouns. Pluralization is a process of adding morpheme (-s/-es) to pluralize
nouns. There are many exceptional nouns that do not use adding -s/-es to construct their
plural forms. The list of the example of errors in plurality can be seen in Table 5.
Table 5. Errors in Plurality
Number
of Data
10
Error Identification
Error Correction
We saw many kind of ornamen of We saw many kinds of ornamens of
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34
109
112
148
hindu heritage
We visited 2 place they are
Purwodadi and Wonosari
There are three class...
We stop in some mosque
There are three main process in
making tea product.
Hindu heritage
We visited 2 places they were
Purwodadi and Wonosari
There are three classes ...
We stopped in some mosques
There are three main processes in
making tea product.
Some of the students did not know that the plural marker using the suffix ‗-s/-es‘
must be applied to the countable noun. A possible reason is in Indonesian, there is no
plural marker for plural noun. Those errors may be attributable to the different system
of plurality between Indonesian and English. Indonesian only has quantifiers before
nouns without additional affixed plural marker to noun. For some students, they have
already hypothesized that English nouns have plural and singular forms. However, they
were not sure when they should apply the plural marker.
Article
An article is a word that is used with a noun to indicate the type of reference
being made by the noun. English has two articles, they are definite and indifinite: the
and a/an. The is used to refer to specific or particular nouns; a/an is used to modify
non-specific or non-particular nouns. We call the the definite article and a/an the
indefinite article. (Leech and Startvik, 1981: 52).
The errors on articles are classified into the errors arising from the omission of
an article when it needed. The list of the examples of errors in article can be seen in
Table 6.
Table 6. Errors in Article
Number
of Data
27
60
151
210
248
Error Identification
Error Correction
...we learn __ process of tea
harvesting.
It is __ first time of my visit to
Malang.
It is __ very good place.
I am an university student.
We wait for about a hour.
...we learn the process of tea
harvesting.
It is the first time of my visit to
Malang.
It is _a_ very good place.
I am a university student.
We wait for about an hour
The students had difficulties in deciding whether a definite article is needed for a
noun in a particular context or not. They also omitted them to simplify their tasks or
replaced them with each other. This showed that the students still had difficulty in
understanding the concepts of definiteness and indefiniteness.
The indefinite articles a/an are relatively easy to use if the students know the
simple rule of using ―an‖ before words that start with a vowel sound. However there are
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some instances where the indefinite articles are confusing for the students. For example
when a word starts with a vowel sound but is pronounced with a consonant sound as in
―a university student‖ the student might get confused and use ―an‖ instead. The same
applies for instances where a word starts with a consonant letter but is pronounced with
a vowel sound as in ―an hour‖. This might confuse the students and cause the errors to
be made.
Subject Verb Agreement
Subject verb agreement means that in a sentence, subjects and verbs must agree
with one another in number (singular or plural). Agreement between subject and verb is
influenced by the subject form whether it is singular or plural. To construct a correct
sentence structurally, the verb must agree with the subject.Thus, if a subject (the person
or thing doing the action) is singular, its verb (the word representing the action) must
also be singular; if a subject is plural, its verb must also be plural (Surina &
Kamaruzaman, 2009:190).
When the students fail to recognize this, it means that they fail to construct the
correct sentences structurally. Thus, the students must be able to identify the subject
whether it is singular or plural. If the students do not have any competence in
identifying the subject, they will fail to use the correct form of the verbs. It means that
the students have made errors in making the agreement between subject and verb. The
list of the example of errors in subject verb agreement can be seen in Table 7.
Table 7. Errors in Subject Verb Agreement
Number
of Data
66
81
140
183
216
Error Identification
Error Correction
One of my friends like to cook
There was two buses already in my
campus
...and the tree were green and big.
...they was Mam Titik and Mam
Tutus.
My friend Syarah like to go hiking
One of my friends likes to cook
There were two buses already in my
campus.
...and the tree was green and big.
...they were Mam Titik and Mam
Tutus.
My friend, Syarah, likes to go
hiking.
Subject-verb agreement errors pose problems for the Indonesian students for a
number of reasons. The students were having difficulties in distinguishing the verb ‗is‘
or ‗was‘ with ‗are‘ or ‗were‘ whether the subject was a singular or plural noun.
Certainly, the absence of agreement between subjects and verbs in Indonesian language
also causes the students to commit errors in this category.
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Preposition
A preposition is a word that shows the relationship between a noun or pronoun
and other words in a sentence. It links nouns, pronouns and phrases to other words in a
sentence. The word or phrase that the preposition introduces is called the object of the
preposition (Littel 2007: 127). The great majority of the students in this study
demonstrated confusion for the right usage of prepositions as shown in the examples in
Table 8.
Table 8. Errors in Preposition
Number of
Data
14
63
224
311
Error Identification
I am in twenty years old
She lives at Malang.
He works in the office.
He put the camera in the table.
Error Correction
I am twenty years old
She lives in Malang.
He works at the t office.
He put the camera on the table.
Referring to Table 8, those errors arise mostly from the confusion of the
selection of appropriate preposition and the irregularity of uses. This category
comprised the omission, insertion and the wrong choice of preposition. The errors are
dominated by the wrong selection of preposition. The wrong choice is, normally, caused
by mother tongue interference. Some of Indonesian prepositions are similar in meanings
and functions with the English prepositions. Sometimes, a single Indonesian preposition
maybe translated into various English prepositions.
When the students do not know in using the suitable preposition in a sentence,
they use their first language rules to map up and shape the intended form. Therefore,
students were incapable of choosing the correct prepositions when more than one
English preposition corresponds to a single Indonesian preposition and they created
errors. When the students were not sure of which prepositions to use, they omitted the
prepositions. There is no good way or rule on how to use prepositions; the students just
have to learn when and how to use them.
Recommendations to Overcome the Problem
The study of the students‘ errors helps teachers to identify the problematic areas
of headline in language learning and teaching. It implies that teachers must see errors as
the key to understand and solve accuracy problems in English writing courses. Then,
they should adopt, modify or even develop remedial procedures that can elevate the
students‘ level and minimize their errors. Teachers should try to find the best method to
deliver the lesson to their students.
Error analysis is also a clue for the teacher to pinpoint the learning problems.
Furthermore, a course based on the frequency of errors will enable the teacher to teach
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the point of error and to emphasize more on those errors where the error frequency is
higher. Teachers should then be more aware of these types of errors and provide the
necessary follow up work to check the problem areas as discussed earlier. It is important
for teachers to establish what the error is, to establish the possible sources of errors, to
explain why they happen. Errors provide feedback, they tell the teachers something
about the effectiveness of their teaching techniques and show them what parts of the
syllabus they have been following have been inadequately learned or taught and need
further attention.
Clonclusion
The 12 students made 323 errors in their narrative text writing. The identified
errors were classified based on their frequencies. When the same error occurred twice,
they were counted as two errors in the tabulation. From the errors analyzed, the result
showed that the category of errors committed by the students in their narrative writing
texts were 5 categories, they were Verb tense (228 errors/71%), Plurality (30
errors/9%), Article (24 errors/7%) Subject Verb Agreement (23 errors/7%), and
Preposition (18 errors/6%).
These students have problems in acquiring normal grammatical rules in English.
Since grammatical features of each language are not similar, errors made are obviously
different. These errors are caused by the interference of the students‘ first language and
their inadequate understanding of grammatical rules of English. They tend to refer to
their first language whenever they face difficulties when they write in English. They
construct sentences with errors because of the differences of the grammatical rules of
Indonesian and English.
Therefore, it is important to make the students aware of the differences of the
structure of these 2 languages to produce a good and acceptable sentence. And the
teachers need to emphasize on how the concepts are handled in English and Indonesian.
Teachers should also highlight certain rules in Indonesian that are not appropriate to be
used when they write in English. This is to ensure that the students apply the correct
form while they write in English and hence, it will decrease the occurrence of errors.
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English Essays of Secondary School Students in Malaysia: A Case Study‖.
European Journal of Social Sciences, 8 (3), pp.563-579
Dulay, Heidi, Burt, Marina K, & Krashen, Stephen. 1982. Language Two. New York:
Oxford University Press.
Ellis, Rod. 1996. The Study of Second Language Acquisition. Oxford : Oxford
University Press.
Jie, Xue. 2008. ―Error theories and second language acquisition‖. US-China Foreign
Language Journal, 6 (1), pp. 35-42.
Knapp, Peter & Watkins, Megan. (2005). Genre, Text, Grammar: Technologie for
Teaching and Assessing Writing. Australia: UNSW Press.
Meyers, Allan. 2005. Gateways to Academic Writing: Effective Sentences Paragraph
and Essay. New York: Longman.
Richards, Jack C. 1985. Error Analysis; Prospective on Second Language Acquisition.
Singapore: Ban Wah Press.
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NARRATIVE WRITING TEXTS
Cholimatus Zuhro, Sukarno, Albert Tallapessy
Magister of Linguistics, Faculty of Letters,
University of Jember (UNEJ)
E-mail: [email protected]
ABSTRACT
This research investigates the errors made by the students of the 5th semester
of English Study Program of Politeknik Negeri Jember in their narrative
writing texts. This study revealed that there were 323 errors in the students‘
narrative writing texts and classified into 5 grammatical categories, they were
Verb tense (228 errors/71%), Plurality (30 errors/9%), Article (24 errors/7%),
Subject Verb Agreement (23 errors/7%), and Preposition (18 errors/6%). The
students committed errors in applying sentence structure rules in English.
Since grammatical features of each language are not similar, errors made are
obviously different. These errors are caused by the interference of the
students‘ first language and their inadequate understanding of grammatical
rules of English. Therefore, it is important to make the students aware of the
differences of the structure of these two languages to produce a good and
acceptable sentence. The teachers need to emphasize on how the concepts are
handled in English and Indonesian.
Key words: Error analysis, Students‟Narrative Writing Texts
Introduction
English is considered as an international language, since people use it all over
the world. As an international language, English is used as medium in many fields, such
as in scientific and technology research as well as international trade. In Indonesia,
English has a special place as the first foreign language with different statuses from one
institution to another. At particular schools, such as polytechnics, colleges or
universities, English is treated as a compulsory subject because most of the textbooks,
journals, and other resources given to the students are written in English.
Learning English as a foreign language is different thing to do for the most of
Indonesian students, because it cannot be learnt naturally as their mother tongue. In
other words, learning foreign language means learning the dictionary, grammar and the
sound of system in that language. In learning English, most of the Indonesian language
learners may face many problems. The problems are caused by some reasons. The first
reason is every language is unique, it means that every language has its own structure
and its use. English compared to Indonesian language has many similiarities and also
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differences. The second reason is English and Indonesian are from different language
families. English belongs to the Germanic family, while Indonesian belongs to the
Austronesian language family. The third reason is Languages differ cross culturally. It
means that when people talk about learning language, they also have to learn about the
way of thinking of the native speakers and the culture of the target language.
It is important to shed the light on some of the studies conducted on students‘
errors in some parts of other countries. Darus & Hei Ching (2009) conducted a study
about an error analysis in written English Essays of Chinese students from vernacular
schools in Malaysia. This study investigated the common errors in essay written in
English by 70 Chinese students in a selected public school in Perak. For all these
students, Chinese is their first language (L1). 70 essays were analyzed and catagorized
into 18 types of errors. The result of the analysis shows that four most common errors
were mechanics, tenses, preposition, and subject-verb agreement. In composing these
essays, the students were very much influenced by their L1.
Darus & Subramaniam (2009) studied secondary school students‘error in writing
English essays in Malaysia. This study examined errors in a corpus of 72 essays written
by 72 participants. The participants are Form Four Malay students who are studying at a
secondary school in Malaysia; 37 male and 35 female. They have experienced
approximately the same number of years of education through primary and secondary
education in Malaysia. All of the participants come from non-English speaking
background and hardly communicate in English outside the school. The instrument used
for this study was participants‘ written essays and Mark in software. All of the errors in
the essays were identified and classified into various categorizations. The results of the
study show that six most common errors committed by the participants were
singular/plural form, verb tense, word choice, preposition, subject-verb agreement and
word order. These aspects of writing in English pose the most difficult problems to
participants.
It is essential to know the term of errors when we are discussing them. In this
case, Dulay et al. (1982: 138), state that ―errors are parts of a conversation or
composition that deviate from some selected norm of mature language performance‖.
Meanwhile, Brown (1987: 70) defines errors as noticeable systematic deviation from the
adult grammar of a native speaker reflecting the interlanguage competence of a learner.
From these ideas, it can be restated that errors are systematic deviation tha can be found
in both oral and written language and they can be caused by competence factors or
performance factors.
Jie (2008: 37) also notes, ―a mistake occurs as the result of processing
limitations rather than lack of competence while an error is the breaches of rules of
code‖. According to Jie, an error happens from a lack of requisite knowledge of a
language learner. As such, he/she makes such errors in his/her writing because he/she
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does not know grammatical properties in a new language. The rules of L1 knowledge
are then employed in the use of L2 writing, which causes the mother tongue
interference. While Ellis (1996: 51) explains the errors reflect the gaps in the learner‘s
knowledge; that is, an error is produced due to the fact that the learners cannot identify
what is correct and incorrect. In contrast, a mistake reflects the learners‘ inefficient
performance; that is, it occurs because the learners are not able to perform what they
already know correctly. He also suggests two ways in determaining error or mistake.
The first one is to check the consistency of learner‟s writing. If he sometimes uses the
correct form and sometimes the wrong one, it is a mistake. However, if he always uses
it incorrectly, it is then an error. The second way is to ask learner to try to correct his
own deviant utterance. Where he is unable to, the deviations are errors; where he is
successful, they are mistakes.
Error Analysis in language Learning
Teachers who have waged long battles againts their students‘ language errors
have come to realize that making errors is an evitable part of learning. People cannot
learn language without first systematically comitting errors, Dulay et.al state that
studying learners‘ errors serve two major purposes. First, it provides data from which
inferences about the nature of the language learning process can be made. Second, it
indicates the teachers and curriculum developers which part of the target language
students have most difficult producing correctly and which errors types detract most
learners‘ ability to communicate effectively (Dulay et al., 1982:138).
Based on the opinion above, it can be concluded that studying learners‘ errors
are useful for the lecturers, the learners, and the researcher. It is expected that the
learners‘ errors can help (a) the lecturers judge the effectiveness of certain methods in
language learning, (b) the students get feedback and improve their mastery of language,
and (c) the researcher gets an evidence of how the students learn or acquire the
language.
The Source of Errors
In order to be able to decide whether it is error or not, it is needed to understand
fully the source of errors. The source of an error could be interlanguage or
intralanguage. Brown (1987: 177-181) notes that classification of errors in comparative
taxonomy is based on comparisons between the structure of second language erorrs and
certain other types of construction. He also states about souce of errors related with
comparative taxonomy, namely: interlingual errors, intralanguage and developmental
errors.
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Interlanguage Errors
Dulay et al. (1982:171) state that interlanguage errors are similar in structure to a
semantically equivalent phrases or sentences in the learners‘ native language. In line
with this, Richards (1974:173) states that interlingual errors are caused by interference
of the learners‘ mother tongue. It means that interlingual errors happen because there is
influence of the learners‘ native language construction of phrases and sentences. It can
be taken as an example in the usage of English in oral or written forms. It is found in the
interference of the Indonesian construction. For instance, the students omit the verb
―be‖ in the simple present tense pattern, for example: He at home. In this sentence, the
students make a grammatical error by omitting the verb ―is‖. This error may be caused
by interlingual errors, because the sentence is influenced by their mother tongue‘s
sententence construction. In the English sentence, the verb ―be‖ must be put between
the subject and complement. This system does not happen in Indonesian. The correct
sentence should be: He is at home.
Intralanguage Errors and Developmental Errors
According to Richards (1985:174) intralanguage errors are those which reflect
the general characteristics of learning rules and failure to learn condition under which
rules apply. Further, he states that developmental erros illustrate the learner‘s attempt to
build up hypothesis about the English language from his limited experience of it in the
classroom or textbook. Briefly, developmental errors happen because the learner has
limited experience of attempting to build up hypothesis about the English language. The
causes of intralanguage and developmental errors are a) overgeneralization, b)
ignorance of rule restrictions, c) incomplete application of rules, and d) false concepts
hypothesized.
The Definition Narrative text
Meyers (2005:52) states that narrative is one of the most powerful ways of
communicating with others. A good written story lets your reader response to some
event in your life as if it were own. They not only understand the event, but they can
almost feel it. The action, details, and dialogue put the readers in these seem and make it
happen for them. Moreover, Anderson (1997: 8) states that narrative is a piece of text
tells a story and, in doing so, entertains or informs the reader or listener.
One of the language features of narrative text is using action verbs in past form.
About narrative, Knapp and Watkins (2005) adds that formally, narrative sequences
people/characters in time and space. In its most basic form, in text types such as
recounting and retelling, the genre does little more than simply sequence. A key
characteristic for all text types in the genre, however, is the requirement to orient or
introduce the reader/listener to the people, time and place in the story. The structure of
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narrative is generally more complex than the orientation and sequencing typical of
recounting.
Method
This research belongs to a case study which is done under the purpose to provide
more information thorough an analysis and give clear explanations about the objects
analysed. The data of this research are qualitative data, they are some errors that taken
from the studens‘ writing narrative texts. 48 students in the 5th semester of English
Study Program of State polytechnic are as the respondent of this research. The data
were collected through 2 steps. In the first step, the respondents were given test 1, they
were asked to write narrative text writing and the topic was about Holiday. They had to
write their texts based on their experiences of their own holiday. The narrative writing
text ranged from 200-300 words each. Then, the second step was applying a second test.
The second test was aimed to know the students‘ consistency in making the mistakes so
that it can be said that they made some errors. The 26 students were asked to write
narrative writing texts based on their experiences when they joined the field study at
Kebun Raya Purwodadi and Wonosari Tea Plantation Lawang, Malang. The narrative
writing text ranged from 300-400 words each.
The document used in this research is students‘assignments on writing narrative
texts. The document itself is used to analyze students‘ errors made in their narrative
writing texts. Three steps are used to analyze the data obtained from the students‘ hand
writings. Firstly, the students‘ works are all checked and read. The incorrect sentences
are given check marks by using stabilo ink. Secondly, the students‘ errors are classified
into some types. The classification of errors is tabled based on Ellis‘ theory (1996:48).
Findings and Discussion
The data were collected through 2 steps. In the first step, the respondents were
given test 1, they were asked to write narrative text writing and the topic was about
Holiday. They had to write their texts based on their experiences of their own holiday.
The narrative writing text ranged from 200-300 words each. Having been analyzed, the
test showed the result that there were 22 students who did not make any mistake, and
there were 26 students who made some mistakes in their works. The result of test 1, can
be presented in Table 1.
Table 1. The Result of the First Test
Category
Making some Mistakes/Errors
Making no Mistakes
The Total Number
Number of the Students
26
22
48
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Percentage
54%
46%
100%
5
Referring to Table 1, there are only 26 students who made some mistakes in
their narrative writing texts that can be considered as the first data, because the other 22
students did not make any mistake. The aim of this research is to investigate and
examine the students‘ errors not their mistakes in their narrative writing texts.
For this purpose, to make sure whether the 26 students make some errors or
mistakes, they were given a second test. The second test was aimed to know the
students‘ consistency in making the mistakes so that it can be said that they made some
errors. The 26 students were asked to write narrative writing texts based on their
experiences when they joined the field study at Kebun Raya Purwodadi and Wonosari
Tea Plantation Lawang, Malang. The narrative writing text ranged from 300-400 words
each. Having been analyzed, the second test indicated that 14 students made some
mistakes in their first test, but they did not make any mistake in the second test. In
contrast, 12 students were consistently making some mistakes both in test 1 test 2. It
meant that there were only 12 students who made Errors in the first and second data.
The result of test 2 can be presented in Table 2.
Table 2. The Result of the Second Test
Category
Making Mistakes
Making errors
Total of the Students
Number of the Students
14
12
26
Percentage
54%
46%
100%
After conducting the first and the second step, it was considered that the data of
this research were in the form of the students‘ errors that were obtained from the 12
students in their first and second test of narrative writing texts.
The 12 students made 323 errors. The identified errors were counted based on
their frequencies. When the same error occurred twice, they were counted as two errors
in the tabulation. From the errors analyzed, the result showed that the category of errors
committed by the students in their narrative writing texts were 5 categories, they were
Verb Tense (VT), Subject Verb Agreement (SVA), Plurality (Pl), Article (Ar), and
Preposition (Prep). The distribution of the data according to the 5 categories can be
presented in Table 3.
Table 3. The Distribution of Errors in the Students’ Narrative Writing Texts
No
1
2
3
4
5
Categories of Error
Verb Tense
Plurality
Article
Subject Verb Agreement
Preposition
Total
Frequency of Errors
228
30
24
23
18
323
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Percentage (%)
71%
9%
7%
7%
6%
100%
6
This sub section analyzes and interprets the research findings that were obtained
during the research. In Table 3, it can be seen that there were three hundred and twenty
three (323) errors of various grammatical categories were found in the students‘
narrative text writings. In this section, 10% up to 20% of errors of each category were
taken as sample of errors that were analyzed and interpreted. In determining the sample,
Arikunto (1989:107) states that if the subjects are less than 100, we can take all of them,
while if the subjects are more than 100, we take 10%-15%, 20%-25%, or more as
sample. Therefore, to avoid the overlapping in taking the sample of errors that will be
analyzed; each category of error was taken 10% up to 20% as the sample. 10% for the
category is applied to the data which had more than 100 errors and 20% applied to the
data which had less than 100 errors. Following the calculation, the data that will be
analyzed are as follows; Verb tense (23 errors), Plurality (6 errors), Subject Verb
Agreement (5 errors), Article (5 errors), and Preposition (4 errors). The discussion of all
those errors will be discussed in the following subchapters below.
Verb Tense (VT)
As explained before there were 23 samples of errors that will be discussed. This
category is the largest grammatical category of errors in the classifications. Since the
topics were My holiday and My field trip in Malang, it obliged the students to compose
sentences mostly in the past tense to refer to something that happened. The result of the
tests showed that the students made the most errors in the usage of the tenses. The list of
the example of errors in verb tense can be seen in Table 4.
Table 4. Errors in Verb Tense
Number
of Data
1
2
Error Identification
Error Correction
Last month I went to Kediri
...but I only chose Kampung Inggris
47
48
70
Last month I go to Kediri
...but I only choose Kampung
Inggris.
...we arrive at tourism object
Purwodadi
It is the first time I did holiday.
I also join in the one of the
International conference there.
We prepare to go home.
My lecturer invite us...
We continue the journey to Malang.
80
99
120
124
139
146
...we do not know anything.
I have final examination.
We decide to reach...
I get a lot of information...
..the driver drives us..
I am so happy.
15
29
30
...we arrived at tourism object
Purwodadi
It was the first time I did holiday.
I also joined in the one of the
International conferences there.
We prepared to go home.
My lecturer invited us...
We continued the journey to
Malang.
...we did not know anything.
I had final examination.
We decided to reach...
I got a lot of information...
...the driver drove us...
I was so happy.
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173
178
198
224
245
261
289
294
323
I also get a knowledge...
The assignments consists...
We visite agrotourism object.
We need someone to be our friends.
I also got a knowledge...
The assignments consisted...
We visited agrotourism object.
We needed someone to be our
friends.
We rent a car from the car rental.
We rented a car from the car rental.
We finish the task in a few minutes.
We finished the task in a few
minutes.
We think that we are hungry
We thought that we were hungry
...when we watch some videos
...when we watched some videos
We leave Malang to continue our trip We left Malang to continue our trip
to Jember
to Jember..
All those sentences in Table 4 should be in the form of past tense because they
told about the activities happened in the past. However, the students used verbs 1 in
their sentences. This is an error because students should use verb 2 in the past form
instead of verb 1. It shows that the students have not captured the sequence rule of
tenses. This type of error can be attributed to intralingual interference mainly
incomplete knowledge of the rules.
The wrong application of verb tense can also be seen when the students did not
apply the correct tense to the verb in the sentences. It can be assumed that the students
were not aware of the different rules for tenses application. The result is not surprising
since English notion of tense is somewhat confusing to the Indonesian learners. In
English, there is an indication of time with present, past, future and continuous tense but
Indonesian verb itself does not indicate time. English verbs change according to aspect
of time. However, in Indonesian, the same form of verb can be used for present, past,
future and continuous tense.
In short, the differences between the verb system of Indonesian and English
tense make the students difficult to grasp the English notion of tense. Due to the rule of
Indonesian that do not need any changes of verbs according to time aspect, students
tend to omit the inflection of the English verb. This is correct in Indonesian, but it is not
acceptable in English.
Plurality
The common errors on plurality of English are the omission of plural markers
from the nouns. Pluralization is a process of adding morpheme (-s/-es) to pluralize
nouns. There are many exceptional nouns that do not use adding -s/-es to construct their
plural forms. The list of the example of errors in plurality can be seen in Table 5.
Table 5. Errors in Plurality
Number
of Data
10
Error Identification
Error Correction
We saw many kind of ornamen of We saw many kinds of ornamens of
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34
109
112
148
hindu heritage
We visited 2 place they are
Purwodadi and Wonosari
There are three class...
We stop in some mosque
There are three main process in
making tea product.
Hindu heritage
We visited 2 places they were
Purwodadi and Wonosari
There are three classes ...
We stopped in some mosques
There are three main processes in
making tea product.
Some of the students did not know that the plural marker using the suffix ‗-s/-es‘
must be applied to the countable noun. A possible reason is in Indonesian, there is no
plural marker for plural noun. Those errors may be attributable to the different system
of plurality between Indonesian and English. Indonesian only has quantifiers before
nouns without additional affixed plural marker to noun. For some students, they have
already hypothesized that English nouns have plural and singular forms. However, they
were not sure when they should apply the plural marker.
Article
An article is a word that is used with a noun to indicate the type of reference
being made by the noun. English has two articles, they are definite and indifinite: the
and a/an. The is used to refer to specific or particular nouns; a/an is used to modify
non-specific or non-particular nouns. We call the the definite article and a/an the
indefinite article. (Leech and Startvik, 1981: 52).
The errors on articles are classified into the errors arising from the omission of
an article when it needed. The list of the examples of errors in article can be seen in
Table 6.
Table 6. Errors in Article
Number
of Data
27
60
151
210
248
Error Identification
Error Correction
...we learn __ process of tea
harvesting.
It is __ first time of my visit to
Malang.
It is __ very good place.
I am an university student.
We wait for about a hour.
...we learn the process of tea
harvesting.
It is the first time of my visit to
Malang.
It is _a_ very good place.
I am a university student.
We wait for about an hour
The students had difficulties in deciding whether a definite article is needed for a
noun in a particular context or not. They also omitted them to simplify their tasks or
replaced them with each other. This showed that the students still had difficulty in
understanding the concepts of definiteness and indefiniteness.
The indefinite articles a/an are relatively easy to use if the students know the
simple rule of using ―an‖ before words that start with a vowel sound. However there are
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some instances where the indefinite articles are confusing for the students. For example
when a word starts with a vowel sound but is pronounced with a consonant sound as in
―a university student‖ the student might get confused and use ―an‖ instead. The same
applies for instances where a word starts with a consonant letter but is pronounced with
a vowel sound as in ―an hour‖. This might confuse the students and cause the errors to
be made.
Subject Verb Agreement
Subject verb agreement means that in a sentence, subjects and verbs must agree
with one another in number (singular or plural). Agreement between subject and verb is
influenced by the subject form whether it is singular or plural. To construct a correct
sentence structurally, the verb must agree with the subject.Thus, if a subject (the person
or thing doing the action) is singular, its verb (the word representing the action) must
also be singular; if a subject is plural, its verb must also be plural (Surina &
Kamaruzaman, 2009:190).
When the students fail to recognize this, it means that they fail to construct the
correct sentences structurally. Thus, the students must be able to identify the subject
whether it is singular or plural. If the students do not have any competence in
identifying the subject, they will fail to use the correct form of the verbs. It means that
the students have made errors in making the agreement between subject and verb. The
list of the example of errors in subject verb agreement can be seen in Table 7.
Table 7. Errors in Subject Verb Agreement
Number
of Data
66
81
140
183
216
Error Identification
Error Correction
One of my friends like to cook
There was two buses already in my
campus
...and the tree were green and big.
...they was Mam Titik and Mam
Tutus.
My friend Syarah like to go hiking
One of my friends likes to cook
There were two buses already in my
campus.
...and the tree was green and big.
...they were Mam Titik and Mam
Tutus.
My friend, Syarah, likes to go
hiking.
Subject-verb agreement errors pose problems for the Indonesian students for a
number of reasons. The students were having difficulties in distinguishing the verb ‗is‘
or ‗was‘ with ‗are‘ or ‗were‘ whether the subject was a singular or plural noun.
Certainly, the absence of agreement between subjects and verbs in Indonesian language
also causes the students to commit errors in this category.
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Preposition
A preposition is a word that shows the relationship between a noun or pronoun
and other words in a sentence. It links nouns, pronouns and phrases to other words in a
sentence. The word or phrase that the preposition introduces is called the object of the
preposition (Littel 2007: 127). The great majority of the students in this study
demonstrated confusion for the right usage of prepositions as shown in the examples in
Table 8.
Table 8. Errors in Preposition
Number of
Data
14
63
224
311
Error Identification
I am in twenty years old
She lives at Malang.
He works in the office.
He put the camera in the table.
Error Correction
I am twenty years old
She lives in Malang.
He works at the t office.
He put the camera on the table.
Referring to Table 8, those errors arise mostly from the confusion of the
selection of appropriate preposition and the irregularity of uses. This category
comprised the omission, insertion and the wrong choice of preposition. The errors are
dominated by the wrong selection of preposition. The wrong choice is, normally, caused
by mother tongue interference. Some of Indonesian prepositions are similar in meanings
and functions with the English prepositions. Sometimes, a single Indonesian preposition
maybe translated into various English prepositions.
When the students do not know in using the suitable preposition in a sentence,
they use their first language rules to map up and shape the intended form. Therefore,
students were incapable of choosing the correct prepositions when more than one
English preposition corresponds to a single Indonesian preposition and they created
errors. When the students were not sure of which prepositions to use, they omitted the
prepositions. There is no good way or rule on how to use prepositions; the students just
have to learn when and how to use them.
Recommendations to Overcome the Problem
The study of the students‘ errors helps teachers to identify the problematic areas
of headline in language learning and teaching. It implies that teachers must see errors as
the key to understand and solve accuracy problems in English writing courses. Then,
they should adopt, modify or even develop remedial procedures that can elevate the
students‘ level and minimize their errors. Teachers should try to find the best method to
deliver the lesson to their students.
Error analysis is also a clue for the teacher to pinpoint the learning problems.
Furthermore, a course based on the frequency of errors will enable the teacher to teach
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the point of error and to emphasize more on those errors where the error frequency is
higher. Teachers should then be more aware of these types of errors and provide the
necessary follow up work to check the problem areas as discussed earlier. It is important
for teachers to establish what the error is, to establish the possible sources of errors, to
explain why they happen. Errors provide feedback, they tell the teachers something
about the effectiveness of their teaching techniques and show them what parts of the
syllabus they have been following have been inadequately learned or taught and need
further attention.
Clonclusion
The 12 students made 323 errors in their narrative text writing. The identified
errors were classified based on their frequencies. When the same error occurred twice,
they were counted as two errors in the tabulation. From the errors analyzed, the result
showed that the category of errors committed by the students in their narrative writing
texts were 5 categories, they were Verb tense (228 errors/71%), Plurality (30
errors/9%), Article (24 errors/7%) Subject Verb Agreement (23 errors/7%), and
Preposition (18 errors/6%).
These students have problems in acquiring normal grammatical rules in English.
Since grammatical features of each language are not similar, errors made are obviously
different. These errors are caused by the interference of the students‘ first language and
their inadequate understanding of grammatical rules of English. They tend to refer to
their first language whenever they face difficulties when they write in English. They
construct sentences with errors because of the differences of the grammatical rules of
Indonesian and English.
Therefore, it is important to make the students aware of the differences of the
structure of these 2 languages to produce a good and acceptable sentence. And the
teachers need to emphasize on how the concepts are handled in English and Indonesian.
Teachers should also highlight certain rules in Indonesian that are not appropriate to be
used when they write in English. This is to ensure that the students apply the correct
form while they write in English and hence, it will decrease the occurrence of errors.
References
Anderson, Mark (1997) Text Type in English 2. Australia: Mackmillan
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