changes of reported speech were 354, and errors based on the types of reported speech were 33.
Based on the surface strategy taxonomy, the students made 10 errors of omission of major content 19.61, 4 errors of omission of grammatical
morpheme 7.84, 2 errors of double marking 3.92, 17 errors of simple addition 33.33, 5 errors of alternating form 9.80, and 13 errors of
misordering 25.49. It indicates that students had not mastered how to convert direct speech into the correct reported speech.
The fourth semester students still found difficulties in mastering some components of English grammar in reported speech. They made 97 errors of tense
27.40, 29 errors of pronoun 8.19, 154 errors of adverbial time 43.50, 19 errors of adverbial place 5.37, 10 errors of demonstratives this and these
2.82, 1 error of modal verb 0.28, 14 errors of word order 3.95, 2 errors of to-infinitive 0.56, and 28 errors of that-clause 7.91.
The students had difficulties not only in the grammatical changes of reported speech but also in the types of reported speech itself. They still made 11 errors of
reported question 33.33, 17 errors of reported command 51.51, and 5 errors of reported exclamation 15.15.
The errors the students made were influenced by the three main possible causes. The first was the interference of students’ mother tongue, Indonesian
interlingual transfer. Students made many errors of reported speech because they often took the Indonesian transfer by translating the sentence word by word when
they were required to convert direct speech into reported speech. They also often translated the sentence using Indonesian word order. The second was the nature of
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reported speech. Students who have begun to acquire some parts of a new system, in this case was reported speech, might develop their own wrong hypotheses
within the reported speech. They often did generalization in reported speech. The third was the context of learning. The word ‘context’ refers to the classroom, the
lecturers, and the material. The lecturers became the sources of errors because they might not give enough explanation of reported speech to the students. The text
book they used might provide inadequate explanation of reported speech, and they did not persuade students to learn reported speech from other grammar books.
B. Suggestions
This study proposes the following suggestions.
1. For the Lecturers of the English Language Education Study Program of Sanata Dharma University
The English lecturers, especially the lecturers of the English Structure IV, should teach reported speech step by step. Because of the complexity the types
and the grammatical changes, it will be confusing if the lecturers teach reported speech to the students only in a short time. It is better and advisable for the
lecturers to provide special time in Structure IV classes to teach this material. It is much better if the special time to teach reported speech is provided by the lecturers
in the earlier time this material given that is in Structure II. If the students have understood well reported speech in Structure II, they hopefully will master it in the
higher semester, especially in semester IV in which this material is given for the second time.
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Success of teaching reported speech in which students master this material should get much attention from the lecturers. It is because by learning reported
speech, students will master not only the reported speech itself but also the other components of reported speech such as tenses, pronouns, adverbial time and
place, modals , etc.
The lecturers should give a lot of exercises of reported speech to the students. For example, the lecturers can ask students to practice reported speech orally with
their friends frequently. Although it is in Structure classes, the lecturers should invite students to practice speaking more. This way can help students mastering
reported speech not only written but also spoken. However, the lecturers should always monitor the students if they make errors. Although errors are tolerated,
they should be corrected immediately in order to avoid students forming the habit in making errors of reported speech.
Based on the researcher’s own experience when she learnt reported speech in semester IV, the way the lecturer gave the exercise of reported speech to the
students could be adopted by the other lecturers since it is considered as a good way to practice reported speech. The way of giving the exercise was the lecturer
gave the students a written dialogue. Then she asked students to paraphrase the dialogue using reported speech. Next, the lecturer and the students discussed it
together. Beside those suggestions, this study provides the other teaching suggestions
that can be applied in the class. First, the lecturers can involve themselves in the students’ activity, in which they make the reported speech first, and then they ask
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