The Significances of the Reseacrh

example, English has different tenses to indicate time of happening, such as present, past, and future, while Indonesian language does not. Therefore, these differences obviously cause many Indonesian learners make errors in tenses. John Norrish exposes three types and causes of errors: a. Carelessness: it is often closely related to lack of motivation. Many teachers will admit that it is not alwa ys the students’ fault if he loses interest; perhaps the materials andor the style of presentation do not suit him. b. First language interference: It was commonly believed until fairly recently that learning a language mother tongue or a foreign language was a matter of habit formation. The learners’ utterances were thought to be gradually ‘shaped’ towards those of the language he was learning. For instance, in English ‘some’ and ‘any’ are used in different ways. c. Translation: it should be made clear at this point that the distinction between ‘interference’ is that what takes place is largely unconscious in the mind of the learner. 7 Meanwhile, Brown 2000 states that “Causes of errors are inter-lingual transfer, intra-lingual transfer, context of learning, and communication strategies.” 8 For more details, please look at the explanations below: a. Inter-lingual transfer Inter-lingual transfer is cause of error from transferring knowledge or grammar into the target language. It means the native language interference the target language in terms of patterns, system or rules. b. Intra-lingual transfer Intra-lingual transfer refers to errors caused by the lack competence of the language being learnt TL. There are items produced by the learner that does not reflect the structure of the mother tongue, but generalizations based on partial exposure to the target language. The learner tries in this case to derive the rules behind the data to which has been exposed by the learner, and may develop hypotheses that correspond neither to the mother tongue nor to the target language. 7 John Norrish, Language Learners and Their Errors, London: Macmillan, 1983, pp. 21 – 26. 8 Douglas Brown, Principles of Language Learning and Teaching 4 th Edition., New York: Longman, 2000, pp. 223 –227. c. Context of learning A third major source of error, although it overlaps both types of transfer, it is the context of learning. “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. In a classroom context, the teacher or the textbook can lead the learner to make faulty hypotheses about the language. Students often make errors because of a misleading explanation from the teacher, faulty presentation of a structure or word in a textbook, or even because of a pattern that was rottenly memorized in a drill, but it is improperly contextualized. In addition, teacher may provide incorrect information-not an uncommon occurrence-by way of a misleading definition, word, or grammatical generalization. Another manifestation of language learned in classroom contexts is the occasional tendency on the part of learners to give in contracted and inappropriately formal forms of language. The sociolinguistic context of natural, untutored language acquisition can give rise to certain acquisition that may itself be a source of error. For example, a Japanese immigrant who lived in a predominantly Mexican American area of a US city produced a learner language that was an interesting blend of Mexican American English and the standards English colored by his Japanese accent. d. Communication strategies Communication strategies are a means whereby a learner can express himself in the language he is learning, using some sort of ‘inter language’ as a half-way house between his own and his target language. 9 In conclusion, there are some aspects that may lead errors in learning the target language. The cause of errors may come from the interference of native language to the target one, the lack of competence of the target language, the learning environment, and the personal learning strategies. 9 John Norrish, Language Learners and Their Errors, London: Macmillan, 1983, p. 27.