GRAMMATICAL ERRORS ON STUDENTS’ ANALYTICAL EXPOSITION WRITING.

(1)

GRAMMATICAL ERRORS

ON STUDENTS’ ANALYTICAL

EXPOSITION WRITING

A THESIS

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Pendidikan

By:

AFRIANDO TERMA SIMANJUNTAK

Registration Number: 2113121003

ENGLISH AND LITERATURE DEPARTEMENT

FACULTY OF LANGUAGES AND ARTS

STATE UNIVERSITY OF MEDAN

2016

(2)

(3)

(4)

(5)

(6)

ABSTRACT

Simanjuntak, Afriando Terma. 2113121003. Grammatical Errors on

Students’ Analytical Exposition Writing. A Thesis. Faculty of Languages and Arts, State University of Medan. 2016.

This study deals with grammatical errors on students’ analytical exposition writing. This study was conducted by using qualitative design in which the data were taken from the students’ writing. The population of the study was the students of grade XI Science 1 of SMA Negeri 3 Tebing Tinggi about 32 students in 2015/2016 academic year. The data of the study were obtained from the students’ writing test. The analysis found that: 1) There are four types of errors; namely omission: 135 cases (33%); addition: 103 cases (25 %); misformation: 143 cases (35 %) and misordering: 29 cases (7 %). 2) The dominant type of errors made by the eleventh grade students in writing analytical exposition text is misformation. 3) The causes of errors; Interlingual transfer contributes 56.34 % and intralingual transfer contributes 43.66 %. All types of intralingual occurred with the occurance presentation; overgeneralization contributes 38 %; ignorance of rule restriction 4%; incomplete of rule application 32 % and false concept hypothesize 26 %.

Keywords: Grammatical Errors, Analytical Exposition Text, Eleventh Grade

(7)

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

First of all, the writer would like to express his deepest gratitude to the most merciful and gracious the Almighty God, Jesus Christ, for His amazing grace, love, countless blessings, sincerity, countenance and strength given to the writer during his study and in completing this thesis which entitled: Grammatical Errors on Students’ Analytical Exposition Writing. This thesis is aimed to fulfill one of the requirements for the degree of Sarjana Pendidikan of the English Department, Faculty of Languages and Arts, State University of Medan (UNIMED).

In completing this Thesis, the writer realized that he faced some problems and he had received the academic guidance, suggestions, and comments and got a lot of assistance and moral supports from many people. Therefore, the writer would like to express his gratitude and special thanks to:

 Prof. Dr. Syawal Gultom, M.Pd., as the Rector of State University of

Medan.

 Dr. Isda Pramuniati, M.Hum., as the Dean of Faculty of Languages and

Arts, State University of Medan.

 Prof. Dr. Sumarsih, M.Pd., as the Head of English Department and his

Thesis Advisor

 Dra. Meisuri, M.A., as the Secretary of English Department

 Nora Ronita Dewi, S.S., S.Pd., M.Hum, as the Head of English Education

Study Program.

 Drs. Lidiman S.M. Sinaga, M.Hum., his Academic Advisor and Thesis

Advisor

 Prof. Amrin Saragih, M.A. and Prof. Dr. Berlin Sibarani. M.Pd., as his

Thesis Reviewer and Examiner, who have given their precious time, guidance, suggestions, and comments.

 All the Lecturers of English Department who have taught, guided, and

advised his throughout the academic years.

 Eis Sri Wahyuningsih, M.Pd., as the Administration Staff of English

Department,

 Albert Napitupulu, M.Pd., as the Headmaster of SMA Negeri 3 Tebing

Tinggi and Johanes Manik, S.Pd., the English Teacher, for their permission, opportunities and guidance in allowing the writer to do observation and to collect the data.

 His beloved parents, B.E Simanjuntak and L. Tambun, his lovely sister,

Agnes Dwi Sari Simanjuntak and his lovely brother, Oky Satria Simanjuntak, his lovely cousin, Nesta Alesandro Tambun and all his

families for their endless love, pray, inspiration, motivation, mental and everything they have given to the writer.

 His friends in Reguler Dik. A 2011, as his great class for the love and togetherness throughout four years.

 Arnita, Devi, Dora, Roslinda, Evelin, Harni, Fitry and Martina aka The L Power Puff Girls for their innocence and support for completing this

(8)

iii

 His family in Paduan Suara Filadelfia and all the members for their loyalty, prays, motivation, laughters, loves, services and unforgettable moments during these four years

 His lovely friends, Novilda Angela Saragih, S.Pd and Renol Aprico

Siregar, S.Pd for all of their innocence, supports, prayers, motivation,

laughters, tears, and togetherness through ups and downs, thick and thins and their endless loyalty.

 His friends in PPLT SMA Negeri 1 Siantar Narumonda 2014 for many experiencies and togetherness, especially for Yusni Simanungkalit, S.Pd.,

Christin Sinaga, S.Pd. and Dameria Sitinjak, S.Pd.

 The last, but not the least, Tomato Foundation Group members; Mhd.

Fakhrur Rozi, S.Ked., Tania Suri W, S.I.Kom., Febrina Audina, SKG., Nur Shabrina Sinulingga, S.H. and Fadra Sirvy, S.Ked., for all their silly

yet endless supports, pray and motivation in completing this thesis.

The writer realizes that this thesis still has the paucity, he conveniently welcomes any suggestions, comments, critics, and advices that will improve the quality of this thesis. He hopes that this thesis would be useful for those who read and are interested in the field of this study.

Medan, February 2016 The writer,

Afriando Terma Simanjuntak Reg. No. 2113121003

(9)

ABSTRACT ... i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ... ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS ... iv

LIST OF TABLES ... vi

LIST OF FIGURES ... vii

LIST OF APPENDICES ... viii

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION ... 1

A. The Background of the Study ... 1

B. The Problems of the Study ... 4

C. The Objectives of the Study ... 4

D. The scope of the Study ... 5

E. The Significances of the Study ... 5

CHAPTER II REVIEW OF LITERATURE ... 6

A. Theoretical Framework ... 6

1. Grammar ... 6

a. The Definition of Grammar ... 6

b. Simple Present Tense ... 7

2. Errors ... 10

a. The Nature of Error ... 10

b. Mistake ... 11

c. Error Analysis ... 12

d. Types of Error ... 13

e. Causes of Error ... 19

f. The Procedure of Error Analysis ... 21

3. Writing ... 21

a. The Nature of Writing ... 21

b. Genre-Based Writing ... 23

c. Analytical Exposition Text ... 24

B. Relevant Studies ... 27

C. Conceptual Framework ... 28

CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ... 29

A. Research Design ... 29

B. The Source of Data ... 29

C. Procedure of Collecting Data ... 30

(10)

CHAPTER IV DATA ANALYSIS, FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 32

A. Data Analysis ... 32

1. Types of Errors ... 32

2. Causes of Errors ... 38

B. Findings ... 44

C. Discussions ... 45

CHAPTER V CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS ... 48

A. Conclusions ... 48

B. Suggestions ... 49

REFERENCES ... 51

(11)

LIST OF TABLES

Pages

Table 1.1. The Percentage of Students’ Writing ... 3 Table 2.1. Patterns of Simple Present Tense ... 9 Table 2.2. Adverbs of Frequency in Simple Present Tense ... 10 Table 4.1. The Percentage of Data Analysis of The Grammatical Errors in

(12)

vii

LIST OF FIGURES

Pages

Figure 4.1. The Diagram of the Causes of Grammatical Errors ... 38 Figure 4.2. The Diagram of the Causes of Grammatical Errors ... 39

(13)

viii

LIST OF APPENDICES

Pages

Appendix A. Writing Test. ... 53

Appendix B. Students’ Work Sheet ... 54

Appendix C. The Classification of Errors (I) ... 58

Appendix D. The Classification of Errors (II) ... 62

(14)

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

A. The Background of The Study

Language has been widely and commonly used as a means of communication by human beings in this world. It is a vehicle to share information to other people. Today, there are many languages spread in this world and have made the people master two different languages at least, which includes English, in order to get information fast and well. Furthermore, English has grown rapidly and become a lingua franca. A lingua franca can be defined as a language widely adopted for communication between two speakers whose native languages are different from each other and where one or both speakers are using it as a ‘second’ language (Harmer 2001:1). Therefore, as an international language, English needs some basic skills that consist of speaking, listening, reading and writing.

Due to the importance of English, Indonesia has made English as a subject in school; started from primary school up to university level, which is based on curriculum, such as the Educational Unit Oriented Curriculum ( Kurikulum Tingkat Satuan Pendidikan; KTSP) 2006 of Senior High School for instance. It requires the students to be able to write various types of writing genres, such as descriptive, narrative, anecdote, analytical exposition, hortatory exposition, recount, report, news item, procedure and spoof.

Based on the researcher’s experience in Field Practice Experience

(Pengalaman Praktik Lapangan = PPL) at State Senior High School 1 (Sekolah Menengah Atas: SMAN 1) Siantar Narumonda, many students got low score in

(15)

writing and did not exceed the Minimal Completeness Criteria (KKM), which is about 75. The students did not pay attention and give enthusiasm in writing because they did not know what to write, lack of vocabularies and lack of grammar mastery. The lack of grammar mastery has been a common difficulty for students in learning English and writing English text. They said that it was very hard to them to remember and master all English grammar at once because grammar itself governs the composition of clauses, phrases and words in English. By having good grammar, a writing, such as analytical exposition text, will have a meaningful meaning,

Analytical exposition text is a kind of writing that elaborates the writer’s ideas about phenomenon surrounding which functions to argue that something is the case, with thesis, arguments and reiteration as its structural organization. Therefore, by learning how to write the analytical exposition text, people are expected to be able to convey their ideas and arguments logically. They also will be capable to convey them orderly so that the readers can believe and accept the reasons. However, to write an analytical exposition, there are some grammatical features required, and using of simple present tense is the main features found for it is concerned with generalized phenomena. As an analogy of Clark and Clark (1977:7), they state that the function of a bicycle, which is to transport one person plus baggage for moderate distances at moderate speeds, cannot be served if the bicycle did not have structure it did. Thus, an analytical exposition will not deserve its function if it does not have the structure it does and use simple present tense in explaining the phenomenon.

(16)

However, it cannot be denied that people do some errors in using correct tense on analytical exposition text. Errors can be caused by ignorance of just one word and that affects the entire sentences and is affected in unpredictable ways (Sanders and Sanders, 1987). For example: Human beings known as a novelist, dramatist or short story writers who have created literary works. This sentence should be human beings are known as a novelist, dramatist or short story who have created literary works. In addition, many more errors we can find on

students’ writing. Thus, this learning can be as an evaluation of materials for

learners, awareness of the needs of teachers in terms of teacher training (Taylor, 2002:36).

The same situation is also faced by the researcher when he did an observation at grade XI SMA Katolik Mariana Medan. He found that the students got low scores in writing simple present tense sentences because they did some errors in using the tense, such as ‘she drink’, ‘Ani make cake every week’ and

‘We studying English every Monday. From all the students, only one of them could surpass the Minimal Completeness Criteria (KKM) which was about 75. It can be seen from the table below.

Table 1.1. The Eleventh Grade Students’ Score of Making Simple Present Tense Sentences

Class Score Students Percentage

XI IPA 1 >75 1 7.14%

(17)

From the explanation above and observation that the researcher did, the researcher is interested to take the problem. It is supposed that by analysing

grammatical errors on analytical exposition, can improve the students’ writing and

grammar mastery. This study will become a useful research to make the readers aware of using grammar correctly.

B. The Problems of the Study

In relation to the background explained above, the problems of this study can be stated as follows:

1. What type of errors are found on the students’ analytical exposition writing? 2. What kind of errors is dominantly found on the students’ analytical

exposition writing?

3. Why does the dominant type occur the way it is?

C. The Objectives of the Study

The objectives of the study are to investigate:

1. Type of errors on students’ analytical exposition writing

2. Kind of grammatical errors dominantly found on students’ analytical exposition writing

(18)

D. The scope of the study

This study is only limited to the grammatical errors on students’ analytical exposition writing. It will be based on the language features of analytical exposition text which uses simple present tense in it.

E. The significance of study

Findings of the study are expected to give theoretical and practical significance

1. Theoretically, findings of the study are expected to add up more horizon in theories of grammatical errors. In addition, the findings can be reference for further studies.

2. Practically, the findings can be useful for teachers and students. For teachers, the findings can be information about grammatical errors on

students’ writing. For students, the findings can be a tool to make them

(19)

CHAPTER V

CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS

This chapter presents the conclusions of the result of study that has been discussed in previous chapter and also suggestions for English teacher, students and other researchers.

A. Conclusions

Based on the data analysis of research at eleventh grade students at SMA Negeri 3 Tebing Tinggi, the writer gets conclusions. The conclusions consist of several points that are related to the problems of the study. They are:

1. The types of errors which are found on analytical exposition texts written by the eleventh grade students are omission, addition, misformation and misordering

2. The dominant type of errors which are found on analytical exposition written by the eleventh grade is misformation because they do not pay attention to the modals and changing some irregular plural noun with percentage about 35% (143 errors of 410 errors)

3. The way the errors occurences occures because of interlingual transfer and intralingual transfer. Interlingual transfer happens because of the interference of language mastery of the learner’s first language into target language, such as omitting –s in plural nouns. While intralingual transfer happens because the learners are still affected by the influence of one target language upon another, such as use two marker points at same time

(20)

B. Suggestions

Considering the conclusions above, some suggestions are presented in purpose this thesis can give advantageous information both theoretically and practically.

1. For teachers

a. The teachers are expected to give stronger emphasis about simple present tense. They must give the explanation, examples and exercises about this topic to avoid the error occurences such as omission, additional, misformation and misordering.

b. The teachers are expected to discuss and remind the students of simple present tense. They can put them in group to do some error exercises such as misformulation of noun and verb. As a result, the students will be more aware of simple present tense and are avoided to omit, add, misformulate and misorder the sentences that they probably are going to make.

c. The teachers are expected to give more excercises continuously to the students about grammatical errors such as errors occurances on underlined words and ask the students why it is called error by giving their reasons towards the cases.

2. For students

a. The students are expected to learn and have a group discussion to discuss about simple present tense harder to avoid them from omission, addition, misformation and misordering.

(21)

b. The students are expected to work in team to list some examples of singular nouns and plural noun on their notebook to avoid them from misformation which is the dominant error occurs on their writing.

c. The students are expected to do exercises and practice more about simple present tense to train their ability in using it. Hopefully, they will be avoided from omission, addition, misformation and misordering on their writings

3. For other researchers

It is suggested to the researchers to do research in the same topic about grammar, especially simple present tense, but with different sample of subject in case the result will be different. Hence, if any research will be conducted one day, this paper can be guidance and information because they have already known about types of errors such as omission, addition, misformation and misordering that usually occur on the students’ writings.

(22)

REFERENCES

Adib, Q. 2012. Grammatical Error Analysis of Speaking of English Department Students (A Study at 2010 Speaking Class of ELT Department of IAIN Walisongo). Unpublished Thesis. Semarang: Walisongo State Institute for Islamic Studies

Anggraeni, A. 2013. Grammatical Error Analysis in Students’ Recount Text (The Case of the Eight Year Students of Smp N 1 Gempol in the Academic Year of 2013-2014). Unpublished Thesis. Cirebon: Swadaya Gunung Jati University.

Alexander, L.G. 1998. Longman English Grammar Practice for Intermediate Students. New York: Longman

Ary, D., Jacobs, L.C., Sorensen, C and Razavieh, A. 2010. Introduction to Research in Education. Eighth Edition. Canada: Wadsworth

Azar, B. 2006. Fundamentals of English Grammar. Third Edition. New York: Longman

Bolinger D. 1975. Aspects of Language. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Brown, H. D. 2001. Teaching by Principles an Interactive Approach to Language

Pedagogy Second Edition. New York: Addison Wesley Longman Inc Butt, D.R., Fahey, S., Spinks, C.Y. 1995. Using Functional Grammar: An

Explorer’s Guide. Sydney: Macquarie University

Clark H.H. and Clark, E.V. 1977. Psychology and Language: An Introduction to Psycholinguistics

Coffin, C., Cury, M.J., Goodman, S., Hewings., A., Lillis, T.M and Swann, J. 2003. Teaching Academic Writing: A Toolkit for Higher Education. London: Routledge

Dulay, H., Burt, M and Krashen, S. 1982. Language Two. New York: Oxford University Press

Erdagon, V. 2005. Contribution of Error Analysis to Foreign Language Teaching. Mersin University Journal of The Faculty Education

Frank, M. 1972. Modern English: A Practical Reference Guide. New Jersey: Prentice Hall Inc

(23)

Gass, S. M., Selinker, L. 2001. Second Language Acquisition An Introductory Course. Third Edition. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc. Harmer, J. 2001. The Practice of English Language Teaching: Third Edition.

Cambridge: Longman.

Hasyim, S. 2002. Error in Teaching of English. Journal Kata, 1 (1) 42-50 Jespersen, O. 2010. Essentials of English Grammar. London: Routledge

Knapp, P and Watkins, M. 2005. Genre, Text, Grammar: Technologies for Teaching and Assessing Writing. Sydney: University of New South Wales Press

Lunsford, A. A. 2010. The Everyday Writer. Boston: Bedford/ St. Martin’s Mansur. 2008. An Error Analysis in Recount Writing on The Use of Simple Past

Tense by The Tenth Year Students at SMK PGRI 2 Tuban. Unpublished Thesis. Tuban: University of PGRI Ronggolawe (Unirow) Tuban

McCutchen, D. 2006. Cognitive Factors in The Developmental of Children’s Writing. New York: The Guilford Press

Mertens, N.L. 2010. Writing Process, Tools and Technique. New York: Nova Science Publisher Inc.

Norton, D. 1980. The Effective Teaching of Language Arts. Ohio: A Bell and Howell Company

Oshima, A. and Ann, H. 1998. Writing Academic English. New York: Addison Wesley Longman

Rossenwasser, D and Stephen, J. 2009. Writing Accademically. Boston: Thomson Wadswarth

Turton, N. 1995. ABC of Common Grammatical Errors. London: McMillan Publisher Limited

Ur, P. 1996. A Course in Language Teaching. Melbourne: Cambridge University Press

Sanders, A.F. and Ruth, H.S. 1987. Designing and Implementing a Syntactic Parser. Error Analysis in Purely Syntactic Parsing. 9(1) 77-86

Taylor, N., Fox,C., Bradshaw. 2002. Secondary Courses: English Language Teachers. 56(3) 306-307

(1)

D. The scope of the study

E. The significance of study

Findings of the study are expected to give theoretical and practical significance

1. Theoretically, findings of the study are expected to add up more horizon in theories of grammatical errors. In addition, the findings can be reference for further studies.

2. Practically, the findings can be useful for teachers and students. For teachers, the findings can be information about grammatical errors on students’ writing. For students, the findings can be a tool to make them aware in using grammar correctly.