AN ERROR ANALYSIS OF USING PRESENT TENSE BY THE TENTH GRADE STUDENTS OF SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL IN WRITING DESCRIPTIVE TEXT.

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AN ERROR ANALYSIS OF USING PRESENT TENSE

BY THE TENTH GRADE STUDENTS OF SENIOR

HIGH SCHOOL IN WRITING DESCRIPTIVE TEXT

A THESIS

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

FRANSISKA INSANI RAHESTY SINAGA

Registration Number 2113121028

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT

FACULTY OF LANGUAGES AND ARTS

STATE UNIVERSITY OF MEDAN

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ABSTRACT

Sinaga, Fransiska Insani Rahesty. 2113121028. An Error Analysis of Using Present Tense by The Tenth Grade Students of Senior High School in Writing Descriptive Text. A thesis: English Department. Faculty of Languages and Arts, State University of Medan. 2016.

This study deals with the error analysis. It was conducted by using qualitative research design. The respondents of this study were Grade Ten (X) students of SMA Negeri 1 Tanjung Morawa. The respondents of this study were 3 classes which chosen randomly ten students from each class. The data of this study were

taken from the students’ descriptive test. Dulay’s theory was applied to analyze

students’ error in writing and divided each error into types. Based on the research there were four types of error found in students’ writing. There were Omission, Addition, Misformation, and Misordering. Then, after analyzing the data, it was found that the highest error found in Omission with the number 281 items (61.50%) . The result of this study shows that students’ ability in using present tense still low and students still made errors.

Keywords: Error Analysis, Students’ Writing, Qualitative Design, Descriptive Text, Writing Test.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The greatest gratitude is expressed to Allah SWT, the Almightily and Most Beneficial for his Grace, Guidance, Praise, Honor and Mercy that has been given to writer so that she finally accomplishes her thesis entitled “An Error Analysis of Using Present Tense by The Tenth Grade Students of Senior High School in Writing Descriptive Text”.

This thesis is submitted to the English Department, Faculty of Languages and Arts, State University of Medan as a partial fulfillment of the requirements for taking the degree of Sarjana Pendidikan. During the completion of this thesis, the writer realized that she had received a lot of helps, and suggestions. Therefore, the writer would like to express her sincerest gratitude to:

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

 Dr. Isda Pramuniati, M.Hum., the Dean of Faculty of Languages and Arts State University of Medan and all her Staffs.

 Prof. Dr. Hj. Sumarsih, M.Pd., the Head of English Department and her Thesis Examiner.

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

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

 Dra. Masitowarni Siregar, M.Ed., her First Thesis Consultant.  Dr. Anni Holila Pulungan, M.Hum., her Second Thesis Consultant.  Prof. Dr. Busmin Gurning, M.Pd., her Academic Advisor.

 Rita Suswati, S.Pd., M.Hum., her Thesis Examiner.

 All the Lecturers of English and Literature Department who have taught, guided, and advised her throughout the Academic years.

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 All Teachers and Students at SMA Negeri 1 Tanjung Morawa for helping the writer to do this thesis especially to Lisnawati, S.Pd.I and Siti Maisyaroh, S.Pd.

 Eis Sri Wahyuningsih, M.Pd and Mr. Pantes, Administrative Staffs of English Department.

 Her beloved parents Edi Sinaga and Widiyawati. Thanks for their endless love and their patience, affection, prayer and everything that have given not only in finishing her study but also in her entire life. Her beloved sister Amelia Endayu Syahputri Sinaga.

 Her beloved family, Bintang Berliana Panjaitan, Christin Aurelia, Anastacia Itonaro for the support and prayer.

 Raja Bobby Adytia, her beloved man for the support, prayer, and companion to the successful of her thesis.

 Her beloved friends, the students of English Department, Anna Elisabet Sinaga, Ester Margaretha Sitorus, Putri Sri Murnita Bangun, Ricka Setiawati, Ruminah Rambe, Serius Afandi Bukit for always be there when she needed their support and motivation.

Medan, April 2016 The Writer

Fransiska Insani Rahesty Sinaga NIM. 2113121028

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Pages

ABSTRACT ... i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ... ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS ... iv

LIST OF TABLES ... vi

LIST OF APPENDICES ... vii

CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION ... 1

A. The Background of the Study ... 1

B. The Problems of the Study ... 5

C. The Objectives of the Study ... 5

D. The Scope of the Study ... 5

E. The Significances of the Study ... 6

CHAPTER II. REVIEW OF LITERATURE ... 7

A. Theoretical Framework ... 7

1. Writing ... 7

2. Definition of Writing ... 7

3. Genre Based Writing ... 8

4. Descriptive Text ... 8

5. Present Tense ... 12

B. Error Analysis ... 17

1. Error and Mistake ... 17

2. Description of Errors ... 18

3. Sources of Error ... 19

4. Types of Error ... 20

C. Relevant Studies ... 23

D.Conceptual Framework. ... 24

CHAPTER III. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ... 27

A. Research Design ... 27

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C. The Procedure of Collecting Data ... 27

D. The Technique of Analyzing the Data ... 28

CHAPTER IV. DATA AND DATA ANALYSIS ... 29

A. The Data ... 29

B. The Data Analysis ... 29

C. Causes of Error ... 36

D. Discussion ... 37

E. Research Findings ... 39

CHAPTER V. CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS ... 40

A. Conclusions ... 40

B. Suggestions ... 41

REFERENCES ... 42

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LIST OF TABLES

TABLE 1.1The Percentage of The Tenth Grade Students’ Score... 3 TABLE 2.1 Sample of Descriptive Text ... 12 TABLE 4.1 The Percentage of The Data Analysis ... 29

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vii LIST OF APPENDICES

APPENDIX 1 The Analysis of Types of Error ... 44 APPENDIX 2 Writing Test ... 60 APPENDIX 3 Occurences of Each Error ... 61

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1 CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

A. The Background of the Study

There are four language skills that we know in common, namely reading, writing, listening, and speaking. Two of them are called by receptive skills, those are: reading and listening. And the other two are called by productive skills, those are: speaking and writing.

Writing is included in the four skills namely reading, writing, listening, and speaking that took place as the important thing. By writing people can express the feelings in the case of sentence, text or anything else which is related to the written product.

Writing something is not as simple as people think off somehow. According to Sarosdy, et.al (2006: 57) writing and speaking belong to the output stage of language production they are operating towards the communicative end of the communication continuum.

In writing, people need more than just the ability in writing letter or words. People have to understand about the aspects of language (structure, vocabulary, and spelling). Those aspects cannot be ignored because a written product can only be understood by the reader if those aspects of language have completely fulfilled.

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According to Knapp (2005:14) learning to write is a difficult and complex series of processes that require a range of explicit teaching methodologies throughout all the stages of learning. In addition, written text has a number of conventions which separate it out from speaking. Apart from differences in grammar and vocabulary, there are issues of letter, word, and text formation manifested by handwriting, spelling, and layout punctuation, Harmer (2001: 255).

Based on previous research by Erdogan that helps me to get me more influence of how a language learning process might create many problems. It can appear from the failure to realize the system of language or misunderstanding of the language target. As I got from my experience of observing tenth grade of SMA Negeri 1 Tanjung Morawa in that observation they had problems in writing descriptive in correct pattern, the tense is often wrong, the lack of vocabulary are

sure enough to confirm. So basically learning from third grade doesn’t assure you

to master English or at least to realize the correct grammar.

In detail, based on the writer’s observation of the Tenth Grade Students at SMA Negeri 1 Tanjung Morawa on 03rd October 2015, then the writer got some information about the students. First, the writer asked the teacher about the

students’ score and the minimum criteria mastery (KKM or Kriteria Ketuntasan Minimum) for English lesson which counted as 75. Then, the writer asked the teacher about the number of students in three classes that were taken as the samples; those are X-7 : 36 students, X-8 : 36 students, and X-9 : 35 students also about the curriculum applied on that school which referring to the Educational Unit Oriented ( Kurikulum Tingkat Satuan Pendidikan: KTSP). Last, the writer

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asked for the teacher’s permission to instruct the students to write a descriptive text. And from the observation, the writer can accumulate the data as:

Table 1.1. The Percentage of the Tenth Grade Students’ Score in Writing

KKM <75 75 >75 X- 7 21 Students (58%) 11 Students (31%) 4 Students (11%) X- 8 17 Students (53%) 5 Students (16%) 10 Students (31%) X -9 22 Students (65%) 4 Students (12%) 8 Students (24%) Source: The students accumulated score of tenth grade at SMA Negeri 1 Tanjung Morawa academic year 2015/2016

Example of some errors found in students’ descriptive text:

a. Omission of verb inflection (marker -s/ -es) 1. *She like to lick her tail

The subject is third singular person, so we must add suffix –s after the verb and the sentence must be:

She likes to lick her tail. 2. *Belang like to eat fish

The subject is third singular person, so we must add suffix –s after the verb and the sentence must be:

Belang likes to eat fish. 3. *She also like tempe

The subject is third singular person, so we must add suffix –s after the verb and the sentence must be:

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b. Error of misordering 1. *She is the sister very good.

The error is in word misorder, so the sentence must be: She is a very good sister.

2. *It often is washed clean

The error is in word misorder, so the sentence must be: It is often washed clean.

The data above led me to the conclusion that students’ ability in writing was low. It was proved from the data that showed the numbers of students who fulfilled and exceed the KKM were less than who did not pass the KKM. There were still many mistakes found in their written product. Many students were known as to literally write text by using English without understanding about what they really wrote down. They just followed the instruction from the teacher that asked them to write a text. They were hardly to express everything on their mind into the form of text. Besides their basic in English like grammar and vocabularies were limited so that they have difficulties to produce a good text.

One of the genres of text is Descriptive. In this genre the students were asked to describe an object, it can be a person, animal, thing or else. The tense used in this genre is simple present tense in which people use it often in daily conversation. The problem was that the students still made mistakes in using this simple present tense moreover when they were asked to write it down in a form of text.

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Response to this problem, the writer decided to conduct a research titled An Error Analysis of Using Present Tense by the Students of Senior High School in Writing Descriptive Text.

B. The Problems of the Study

Based on the previous discussion in the background of the study, the problems of the study could be formulated as:

1. What are the types of grammatical errors made by the students in writing descriptive text?

2. What are the causes of the students’ grammatical errors in writing descriptive text?

C. The Objectives of the Study

Based on the problems which are stated above, the objectives of the study are:

1. To find out the types of grammatical errors made by the students in writing descriptive text.

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D. The Scope of the Study

The study deals with the error analysis. This study focuses on the error made by students in using Present Tense in their writing descriptive text. This study limits in using present tense.

E. The Significances of the Study

This research finding was expected to be useful for both theoretical and practical perspective:

1. Theoretical perspectives

a. The findings of the study could be useful for teaching present tense in descriptive text.

b. The findings of this study could be useful as a reference those who are interested in doing the related study.

2. Practical perspectives a. To the Teachers

The findings of this study expects become a reference and input for them, also for showing that more exercises and correction about simple present tense

needed to improve students’ ability in writing and the teacher could rearrange the way to share material effectively based on the curriculum and students’

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b. To the Students

The writer expects that the students could improve their ability in using simple present tense correctly and could share the idea easily through writing.

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CHAPTER V

CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS

A. Conclusions

After analyzing the data, conclusions could be drawn as the following:

1. The four types of error were found in the students’ descriptive text. Those

were: (1) omission that is consisting of the absence of an item in using verb, marker, and auxiliary verb. (2) addition that is containing of the opposite from omission that is an appearance of some items which are not needed in the sentence and in this research the type was only addition of double marking . (3) misformation which consists of wrong selection in using morpheme or structure in which the misformation of archi forms was only type could be found in this research.. (4) misordering which is wrong placement of words in a sentence that makes the sentence weird and the sense of the sentence can be changed. . Total number are 457 occurrences found with Omission are 281 items (61.50%), Addition are 49 items (10.72%), Misformation are 61 items (13.34%), and Misordering are 66 items (14.44%).

2. The data findings showed that the most dominant type of errors made by students was omission with total number 281 items (61.50%). Because in omission the errors are categorized by the misused of verb, auxiliary verb and also marker -s/ -es after the verb which dominates descriptive text wholly.

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3. The four causes of error in students’ writing descriptive text were (1)

interlingual transfer, (2) intralingual transfer, (3) context of learning, (4) communication strategies. And intralingual transfer was the cause that gave most impact to students error because their failure in creating correct sentence in correct form by translating the word literally from source language into target language.

B. Suggestions

In relation to the conclusions, the following suggestions are:

1. The teachers, it is better for them to understand not only the theory of present tense but also the practice of that theory in daily such found in descriptive text.

2. The students to improve the ability in using present tense starts from little thing. It can be from daily conversation, practice it through writing and helping each other with classmate to give correction and be brave to express all things in mind to the communication case.

It is suggested for other researchers to make other research relate to the types of error. They can do the analysis to the other subject and improve the development of knowledge because in learning every single thing errors will always still be found. This thesis would be place as the main references in order to make further research about types of error.

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REFERENCES

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Brown, H. Douglas, 2007. Principles of Language Learning and Teaching. Fifth Edition. New York: Pearson Education.

Chandler, Jean. 2003. Journal of Second Language Writing. The Efficacy of Various Kinds of Error Feedback for Improvement in The Accuracy and Fluency of L2 Student Writing. 12, 267-296.

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Corder, S. Pit. 1960. An Intermediate English Practice Book. United Kingdom: Longman.

Corder, S. Pit. 1981. Error Analysis and Interlanguage. New York. Oxford University Press.

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

Effendy, 2014. An Error Analysis in Writing Descriptive Text Made by 8th Grade Students of SMP Al-Islam Kartasura in 2013/2014 Academic Year. Surakarta: Universitas Muhammadiyah.

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Harmer, J. 2004. How to Teach Writing. Cambridge, UK: Longman.

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D. The Scope of the Study

The study deals with the error analysis. This study focuses on the error made by students in using Present Tense in their writing descriptive text. This study limits in using present tense.

E. The Significances of the Study

This research finding was expected to be useful for both theoretical and practical perspective:

1. Theoretical perspectives

a. The findings of the study could be useful for teaching present tense in descriptive text.

b. The findings of this study could be useful as a reference those who are interested in doing the related study.

2. Practical perspectives a. To the Teachers

The findings of this study expects become a reference and input for them, also for showing that more exercises and correction about simple present tense needed to improve students’ ability in writing and the teacher could rearrange the way to share material effectively based on the curriculum and students’ difficulties.