AN ANALYSIS OF GRAMMATICAL ERRORS IN WRITING RECOUNT MADE BY THE ELEVENTH GRADE NATURAL SCIENCE AND SOCIAL SCIENCE STUDENTS AT SMA NEGERI 6 TANJUNGBALAI.
AN ANALYSIS OF GRAMMATICAL ERRORS IN WRITING RECOUNT
MADE BY THE ELEVENTH GRADE NATURAL SCIENCE AND
SOCIAL SCIENCE STUDENTS’ AT SMA NEGERI 6
TANJUNGBALAI
A THESIS
Submitted as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Sarjana Pendidikan
By:
SOFA MARWA
Registration Number: 2122121041
ENGLISH AND LITERATURE DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF LANGUAGES AND ARTS
STATE UNIVERSITY OF MEDAN
2016
DECLARATION
I have familiarized myself with the University’s Policy on Academic
integrity. Except where appropriately acknowledge, this thesis is my own work,
has been expressed in my own words and has not previously been submitted for
assessment.
I understand that this thesis may be screened electronically or otherwise
for plagiarism.
Medan,
September 2016
Sofa Marwa
Reg. No. 2122121041
ABSTRACT
Marwa, Sofa. 2122121041. An Analysis of Grammatical Errors in Writing
Recount Made by the Eleventh Grade Natural Science and Social Science
Students’ at SMA Negeri 6 Tanjungbalai. A Thesis. English Education Study
Program. Faculty of Language and Arts. State University of Medan. 2016.
The aim of this study is to discover the analysis of grammatical errors in writing
recount text that have been done by the natural science and social science
students. The descriptive qualitative research is used as the research method. This
research took place at SMA Negeri 6 Tanjungbalai. There were 2 classes chosen
as the sample with 30 students in each class. The classes were divided into two
classes namely natural science class and social science class. The instrument of
the research is the free recount writing made by the students. The most dominant
type of grammatical errors made by the eleventh grade natural science and social
science students in writing recount text are verb. The result has shown the total
errors in natural science students are 130 while in social science students are 105
in the other words the average score of natural science class is 50,8 while in social
science class is 62,6. This study has shown that the natural science students are
not always good than social science students.
Keywords: Grammatical Errors, Recount Writing
i
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
First and foremost, the writer would like to express her greatest gratitude to
Allah SWT for the health, knowledge and opportunity given by Him that this
thesis can eventually be accomplished.
This thesis is submitted to the English Department in Faculty of Language
and Arts, State University of Medan as a partial fulfillment of the requirements
for taking the degree of Sarjana Pendidikan.
During the process of accomplishing this thesis, the writer would thank
many people who have shown their care, support and assistance. Therefore, she
would like to express her deepest gratitude and appreciation to:
1. Prof. Dr. Syawal Gultom, M.Pd., the Rector of State University of
Medan.
2. Dr. Isda Pramuniati, M.Hum., the Dean of Faculty of Languages and
Arts, State University of Medan.
3. Prof. Dr. Hj. Sumarsih, M.Pd., the Head of English and Literature
Department as well as her Thesis Consultant for the consistent support
and suggestion for during this thesis writing process right from the very
beginning.
4. Dra. Meisuri, M.A., the Secretary of English and Literature
Department.
5. Nora Ronita Dewi, S.Pd, S.S., M.Hum., as the Head of English
Education Study Program, Faculty of Language and Arts, State
University of Medan.
6. Dr. Zainuddin, DIP. TEFL, M.Hum., her Thesis Consultant for her
sincere motivation, encouragement, and suggestion.
7. Dr. Rahmad Husein, M.Ed., and Dr. Siti Aisah Ginting, M.Pd., as
her thesis examiner whose valuable inputs and comments have
enlightened her to accomplish this thesis.
8. All the Lecturers of English and Literature Department for the
knowledge, guidance and advice in the academic years.
9. Usman and Sawiyah, her beloved parents, Rezky Fitria, her lovely
younger sisters and all her relatives for the everlasting love, prayer as
well as moral and material support in her whole life.
10. Eis Sri Wahyuningsih, M.Pd., and Mr. Pantes, the administration
staffs of English and Literature Department who always helped the
writer during his academic years.
11. All her classmates in Regular B 2012 who cannot be mentioned one by
one that conquered the lectures and also have been cooperatively
supporting the writer in completing this thesis.
12. Togaweni Rumapea, S.Pd., the Headmaster of SMA Negeri 6
Tanjungbalai who has given the permission to conduct the research in
the school and also for students in XII IPA 2 and XI IPS 2 for their
participation and attention during the research.
ii
13. Budi Santoso, S.Pd., for love, time, laughter, happiness, supports,
togetherness and everything he gave that can make the writer
experiences other sides of life.
14. Her best friend Armaida, Jumita, Yudhi Aditya Kurniawan, S.Pd,
Margareth, Shinta, Plinda, and Dewi for their valuable support, laugh,
advice and motivation throughout her ups and downs.
The writer realizes that her thesis is still far from being perfect, therefore she
warmly welcomes any constructive suggestions that will improve the quality of
this thesis. She hopes that this thesis would be beneficial for further research.
Medan,
September 2016
The writer,
Sofa Marwa
Reg. No. 2122121041
iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Pages
ABSTRACT .................................................................................................. i
ACKNOWLEDGMENT .............................................................................. ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................. iv
LIST OF TABLES ....................................................................................... vi
LIST OF FIGURE ........................................................................................ vii
LIST OF CHARTS ....................................................................................... viii
LIST OF APPENDICES .............................................................................. ix
CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION ................................................................ 1
A. Background of The Study ................................................................... 1
B. The Problem of The Study .................................................................. 5
C. The Scope of The Study ...................................................................... 5
D. The Objective of The Study ................................................................ 6
E. The Significance of The Study ............................................................ 6
CHAPTER II. REVIEW OF LITERATURE ............................................ 8
A. Theoretical Framework ....................................................................... 8
1. Errors and Mistakes ..................................................................... 8
a. Errors .................................................................................. 9
b. Mistakes .............................................................................. 9
2. Grammatical Errors ..................................................................... 10
3. Writing ........................................................................................ 13
4. Recount Text ............................................................................... 16
5. Natural Science Student ............................................................. 19
6. Social Science Student ............................................................... 19
B. Relevant Studies .................................................................................. 20
C. Conceptual Framework ....................................................................... 20
iv
CHAPTER III. RESEARCH METHOD .................................................... 22
A. Research Design .................................................................................. 22
B. Population and Sample ........................................................................ 23
C. The Instrument of Data Collection ...................................................... 24
D. The Procedure of Data Collection ....................................................... 24
E. The Technique of Analyzing Data ...................................................... 24
1. Identifying the errors .................................................................. 24
2. Classifying the errors ................................................................. 24
3. Calculating the errors ................................................................. 25
4. Scoring the students work .......................................................... 25
5. Putting the result into table ........................................................ 26
CHAPTER 1V. DATA, DATA ANALYSIS, FINDINGS, AND DISCUSSION .. 27
A. Data
................................................................................................ 27
1. The qualitative Data ................................................................... 27
a. Students’ grammatical errors ............................................... 27
B. Data Analysis ....................................................................................... 33
1.
Analysis of qualitative data ...................................................... 33
a. Grammatical errors analysis ................................................. 33
C. Findings ............................................................................................... 44
D. Discussion ........................................................................................... 46
CHAPTER V. CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS ........................... 48
A. Conclusion ........................................................................................... 48
B. Suggestion ........................................................................................... 49
REFERENCES ............................................................................................... 50
APPENDICES ................................................................................................ 52
v
LIST OF TABLES
Pages
Table 2.1 The Three Fundamentals of Genre Based Writing ...................... 15
Table 2.2 The Rhetorical Structure or the Textual Elements in
Recount Text ................................................................................ 17
Table 3.1 The result of students work ......................................................... 26
Table 4.1 Grammatical errors of natural science students .......................... 28
Table 4.2 Grammatical errors of social science students ............................ 31
vi
LIST OF FIGURE
Page
Figure 2.1 White and Arndt’s process writing model ................................. 14
vii
LIST OF CHARTS
Pages
Chart 4.1 Error in using noun ...................................................................... 35
Chart 4.2 Error in using pronoun ................................................................ 36
Chart 4.3 Error in using verb ...................................................................... 38
Chart 4.4 Error in using adverb .................................................................. 39
Chart 4.5 Error in using article ................................................................... 41
Chart 4.6 Error in using preposition ............................................................ 42
Chart 4.7 Error in using conjunction ........................................................... 44
viii
LIST OF APPENDICES
Pages
APPENDIX A .................................................................................................
52
APPENDIX B .................................................................................................
53
APPENDIX C .................................................................................................
59
APPENDIX D .................................................................................................
65
APPENDIX E .................................................................................................
69
ix
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
A. Background of the Study
Language is used as a means of communication in human being life. It is
very important because it is used when people make an interaction with other
people. Language is central to human experience and if we are to understand the
process by which men communicate with one another, we must look closely at the
human capacity for language and at the particular qualities of language which
enable it to play so powerful a role within us and between us (Byrne, 1980: 16).
Considering the importance of the language, Indonesia’s government has
drawn up English as a foreign language that should be mastered by the students.
In Indonesia, English teaching aims at mastering four basic skills of language,
which include listening, speaking, reading and writing skills. One of these four
skills which is very important and most required in academic field writing.
Writing skills are related to speaking and reading. Llach and Pilar
(2011:40) say ‘the traditional belief, strongly supported by the structuralist and
behaviourist schools, contented that oral language is the genuine manifestation of
language and that writing is merely rendering of the spoken language’. We must
realize that when we are writing, we automatically express what we think from
our prior knowledge and what we have spoken or listened. Basically, the four
skills in language is interrelated and have connection one another. Writing is one
1
2
of language skills by which students can express their ideas in written form. It
means that they have to be able to write correct sentences and arrange them into a
good paragraph.
Indonesian schools divide the classes of Grade eleventh into Natural
Science and Social Science classes. Natural Science and Social Science are two
different majors in Senior High School. The specific Natural Science subjects are
Physics, Chemistry, and Biology. The focus of Natural Science is nature. The
specific Social Science subjects are Economics, Geography, and Sociology. The
focus of Social Science is society. Compared to the Social Science, the Natural
Science rely more mathematically based methods (Boutellier, 2011: 3).
There is a common opinion in society that students of Natural Science tend
to be more intelligent, more hardworking, and therefore are said to be cleverer
compared to the Social Science students. Based on the oral interviews conducted
by researcher to about 23 parents in Tanjungbalai whom their children are
currently attending the senior high school, 17 of them believe that Natural Science
students are better than Social Science students with the dominant reason is
because Natural Science students study a more complex and difficult subjects
which will train the brain more in thinking and concentrating. They are considered
to be more focus and careful in studying based on the different specific subjects
that they learn at school. This opinion leads to a new perspective that the Natural
Science students would make fewer mistakes compared to the Social Science
students in doing something, including in writing an English text. Unfortunately,
we can’t judge a book by its cover, we can’t directly judge the ability of the Social
3
Science as well as the Natural Science students in the case of writing an English
text with proper grammatical structures.
Natural science students make errors in use of verb tenses because English
language is different from Indonesian. In Indonesian language, there is no rule
about past form. They miss to change the verb from the first form to second form.
Sometimes, they forget to distinguish regular verb and irregular verb. While,
Social science students make errors in usage because they are interfered by
Indonesian language. In Indonesian language pattern, there is no rule on using
articles (definite and indefinite article), preposition, and singular-plural (countable
noun and uncountable noun). By making errors in their practice of learning, they
will later find out what errors they have made and are expected to improve the
errors itself.
Research about Error Analysis (EA) itself is actually quite popular in the
education field, particularly in countries where English is as the second or foreign
language. In other words Heydari (2012) defined, EA is a procedure used by both
researchers and teachers which involves collecting samples of learner language,
identifying the errors in the sample, describing these errors, classifying them
according to their nature and causes, and evaluating their seriousness. (Zawahreh,
2012) conducted a research of EA that analyzed the applied error made by tenth
grade students in Jordan. So, In Indonesia, there are still not many researchers that
conduct the research of Error Analysis, when actually it is a useful research to see
the development of the students in learning English.
4
Khansir (2012) says the basic task of error analysis is to describe how
learning occurs by examining the learner’s output and this includes his or her
correct and incorrect utterances. Hourani (2012) indicates that errors are
significant in three different ways. First to the teachers, in that they tell them how
far towards the goal the learners have advanced and consequently, what remains
for them to learn. Secondly, they provide to the researchers evidence of how
language is learnt or acquired, what strategies or procedures the learners are
employing in their discovery of the language. Thirdly, they are indispensable to
the learners themselves, because we can regard the making of errors as a device
the learners use in order to learn.
Crystal (2008: 173) says that ‘Errors are assumed to reflect, in a systematic
way, the level of competence achieved by a learner; they are contrasted with
‘mistakes’, which are performance limitations that a learner would be able to
correct’. Hourani (2012) notes, 'Knowing more about how grammar works is to
understand more about how grammar is used and misused'. By looking through
the previous researches, it can be concluded that though Error Analysis seems to
be unimportant, it actually has its specific purpose and useful result for teachers,
students, and other researchers in education field.
The purpose of this research is to find out the ability of the Natural
Science and Social Science students in writing recount based on how many
grammatical errors are made by the students. The analysis uses the grammatical
errors theory from Richards. Therefore, a conclusion can be made as the indicator
whether the students of Natural Science and Social Science classes have the same
5
ability in writing recount with proper grammatical structures, or one is better than
the other. In addition, the findings of the research can also be used as a prove to
see whether the judgment of the society about Natural Science students are better
than Social Science students is true or not at SMA Negeri 6 Tanjungbalai.
B. The Problem of the Study
Based on the background of the study above, the problems found are:
1. What kinds of grammatical errors that are found in the recount text
written by the eleventh grade Natural Science and Social Science
students?
2. What is the dominant errors made by the students of Natural Science and
Social Science?
C. The Scope of the Study
This research will only focus on errors found in student’s writing recount
text especially in grammar. In grammar errors, there are also many kinds of errors.
Sawalmeh (2013:1) states that there are some kinds of error in grammar. They are
errors in verb tense, word order, singular/plural form, subject-verb agreement,
double negatives, spellings, capitalization, articles, sentence fragments and
prepositions. This research will only focus grammar errors found in student’s
writing recount text (noun, verb, adverb, article, preposition, and conjunction).
The scope of this study is the product in a recount text written by the eleventh
6
grade students of Natural Science and Social Science at SMA Negeri 6
Tanjungbalai.
D. The Objective of the Study
Based on the research statement, this particular study aimed at finding out:
1. To know the kind of grammatical errors which found in recount text
written by the students of grade eleventh natural science and social
science.
2. To know the dominant errors that made by students of natural science and
social science students.
E. The Significance of the Study
Finding of the study are expected to be relevant theoretically and
practically.
1. Theoretically
Theoretically the study will be useful for English teacher the implication
of teaching recount text.
2. Practically
Practically the study (findings) to the students of natural science and
social science students will give some contributions to row to develop
teaching recount text.
1. For teachers, this research becomes reference for them to select the better
ways in teaching process.
7
2. For the students, this research becomes feedback for them so they can be
better in learning English, especially in writing.
3. For the readers, this research becomes reference for them to know
grammatical errors made by the students.
8
48
CHAPTER V
CONCLUSSION AND SUGGESTION
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
readers.
A. CONCLUSION
Based on the data analysis of research at eleventh grade students at SMA
Negeri 6 Tanjungbalai, the researcher wants to present the conclusions. The
conclusions is the natural science student’s made 15 or 11,53% and the social science
student’s made 11 or 10,47% noun errors. The natural science student’s made 5 or
3,84% and the social science students’ made 1 or 0,95% pronoun errors. The natural
science students’ made 77 or 59,23% and the social science students’ made 71 or
67,61% verb errors. The natural science students’ made 6 or 4,61%and the social
science students’ made 1 or 0,95% adverb errors. The natural science students’ made
5 or 3,84% and the social science students’ made 2 or 1,9% article errors. The natural
students’ made 16 or 12,3% and the social science students’ made 15 or 14,28%
preposition errors. The natural science students’ made 16 or 12,3% and the social
students’ made 4 or 3,8% conjunction errors. It can be seen from the previous chart.
The dominant error was verb. The reason why they made errors is because some of
students commonly make grammar mistakes in their learning especially in writing
48
49
such as tenses, there are no tenses in Indonesia language. So, they confuse in using
the right tenses for their writing.
By having analyzed the data, the researcher has found the result, that the
natural science students are not always better than social science students. It can be
seen from the average score of natural science class is 50,8 while social science class
is 62,6. In this case we can’t say that the natural science students are good in writing
text rather than social science students. This study has proved the perspective which
has been made by the society is not always true, it can be seen well from the results
that have been done by the students.
B. SUGGESTION
Considering the conclusions above, some suggestions are presented in this
past. As discussed in chapter I, this study hopefully can give advantageous
information both theoretically and practically. Especially for the teachers, they are
expected to give stronger emphasis, and also give more writing exercise continuously
to the students and discuss it together if the grammatical errors especially about noun,
pronoun, verb, adverb, article, preposition, and conjunction. For the students, they
should be able to comprehend and they do more practices in writing by using about
noun, pronoun, verb, adverb, article, preposition, and conjunction. Then for readers, it
is suggested to readers to improve increase their knowledge about grammar
especially verb, adverb, noun, pronoun, article, preposition, and
conjunction in other kinds of texts which are students learn.
50
REFERENCES
Ary, D., Jacobs, L.C.,& Razavieh, A. 2002. Introduction to Research in Education.
Australia: Wadsworth Thomson Learning
Boutellier, Roman & Gassman Oliver. 2011. What is the difference between Social
and Natural Scinces?.Switzerland: Universitat St. Gallen.
Brown, H. Douglas. 2000. Principles of Language Learning and Teaching. New
York: Longman.
Byrne, Donn. 1980. English Teaching Perspectives. London: Longman.
Corder, S. Pit. 1973. Introducing Applied Linguistics. Cited in Byrne, D. 1980.
English Teaching Perspectives. London: Longman.
Dayij, Muhammad. 2011. Teaching and Assessing Writing Strategies for Secondary
School Students and Investigating Teacher’s and Students’ Attitudes towards
Writing Practice. Int J Edu Sci. III (1).
Dirgeyasa, I Wy. 2012. Maritime English Writing – A genre Based Approach.
Medan: Unimed Press.
Dirgeyasa, I Wy. 2014. College Academic Writing – A genre Based Perspective.
Medan: Unimed Press.
Fraenkel&Wallen. 2009.How to Design and Evaluate Research in Education. New
York: The McGraw-Hill Companies.
Harmer, Jeremy. 2004. The Practice of English Language Teaching (Third Edition
Completely Revised and Updated). Malaysia: Longman.
Heydari, Pooneh & Bagheri Muhammad S. 2012. Error Analysis: Sources of L2
Learners’ Errors. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, Vol. 2, No. 8, pp.
1583-1589. Finland: Academy Publisher.
51
Hourani, Taiseer Mohammed. Y. 2008. An Analysis of the Common Grammatical
Errors in the English Writing made by 3rd Secondary Male Students in the
Eastern Coast of the UAE. Dubai: Institute of Education, British University.
Khansir, A. Ahmad. 2012. Error Analysis and Second Language Acquisition. Theory
and Practice in Language Studies, Vol. 2, No. 5, pp. 1027-1032. Finland:
Academy Publisher.
Pardiyono. 2007. Pasti Bisa! Teaching Genre Base Based Writing. Metode Mengajar
Writing Berbasis Genres Secara Efektif. Yogyakarta: Andi Yogyakarta.
Pilar, M. and Llach, A. 2011. Lexical Errors and Accuracy in Foreign Language
Writing. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
Richards, Jack. C. 1970. A Non-Contrastive Approach to Error Analysis. Presented at
the TESOL Convention, San Fransisco.
Richards, Jack. C. 1974. Error Analysis: Persprectives on Second Language
Acquisition. London: Longman.
Salkind, Neil. J. 2010. Encyclopedia of Research Design Volume 1. USA: SAGE
Publications, Inc.
Smith, M. Sharwood. 1976. A Note on ‘Writing Versus Speech’. Cited in Byrne, D.
1980.English Teaching Perspectives. London: Longman.
Subasini, M. & Kokilavani B. 2013.Significance of Grammar in Technical English.
International Journal of English Literature and Culture Vol. 1(3), pp. 56-58.
Veit, Richard. 1986. Discovering English Grammar. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co.
Zawahreh, Firas A. Sulaiman. 2012. Applied Error Analysis of Written Production
of English Essays of Tenth Grade Students in Ajloun Schools, Jordan.
International Journal of Learning & Development, Vol. 2, No. 2.
MADE BY THE ELEVENTH GRADE NATURAL SCIENCE AND
SOCIAL SCIENCE STUDENTS’ AT SMA NEGERI 6
TANJUNGBALAI
A THESIS
Submitted as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Sarjana Pendidikan
By:
SOFA MARWA
Registration Number: 2122121041
ENGLISH AND LITERATURE DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF LANGUAGES AND ARTS
STATE UNIVERSITY OF MEDAN
2016
DECLARATION
I have familiarized myself with the University’s Policy on Academic
integrity. Except where appropriately acknowledge, this thesis is my own work,
has been expressed in my own words and has not previously been submitted for
assessment.
I understand that this thesis may be screened electronically or otherwise
for plagiarism.
Medan,
September 2016
Sofa Marwa
Reg. No. 2122121041
ABSTRACT
Marwa, Sofa. 2122121041. An Analysis of Grammatical Errors in Writing
Recount Made by the Eleventh Grade Natural Science and Social Science
Students’ at SMA Negeri 6 Tanjungbalai. A Thesis. English Education Study
Program. Faculty of Language and Arts. State University of Medan. 2016.
The aim of this study is to discover the analysis of grammatical errors in writing
recount text that have been done by the natural science and social science
students. The descriptive qualitative research is used as the research method. This
research took place at SMA Negeri 6 Tanjungbalai. There were 2 classes chosen
as the sample with 30 students in each class. The classes were divided into two
classes namely natural science class and social science class. The instrument of
the research is the free recount writing made by the students. The most dominant
type of grammatical errors made by the eleventh grade natural science and social
science students in writing recount text are verb. The result has shown the total
errors in natural science students are 130 while in social science students are 105
in the other words the average score of natural science class is 50,8 while in social
science class is 62,6. This study has shown that the natural science students are
not always good than social science students.
Keywords: Grammatical Errors, Recount Writing
i
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
First and foremost, the writer would like to express her greatest gratitude to
Allah SWT for the health, knowledge and opportunity given by Him that this
thesis can eventually be accomplished.
This thesis is submitted to the English Department in Faculty of Language
and Arts, State University of Medan as a partial fulfillment of the requirements
for taking the degree of Sarjana Pendidikan.
During the process of accomplishing this thesis, the writer would thank
many people who have shown their care, support and assistance. Therefore, she
would like to express her deepest gratitude and appreciation to:
1. Prof. Dr. Syawal Gultom, M.Pd., the Rector of State University of
Medan.
2. Dr. Isda Pramuniati, M.Hum., the Dean of Faculty of Languages and
Arts, State University of Medan.
3. Prof. Dr. Hj. Sumarsih, M.Pd., the Head of English and Literature
Department as well as her Thesis Consultant for the consistent support
and suggestion for during this thesis writing process right from the very
beginning.
4. Dra. Meisuri, M.A., the Secretary of English and Literature
Department.
5. Nora Ronita Dewi, S.Pd, S.S., M.Hum., as the Head of English
Education Study Program, Faculty of Language and Arts, State
University of Medan.
6. Dr. Zainuddin, DIP. TEFL, M.Hum., her Thesis Consultant for her
sincere motivation, encouragement, and suggestion.
7. Dr. Rahmad Husein, M.Ed., and Dr. Siti Aisah Ginting, M.Pd., as
her thesis examiner whose valuable inputs and comments have
enlightened her to accomplish this thesis.
8. All the Lecturers of English and Literature Department for the
knowledge, guidance and advice in the academic years.
9. Usman and Sawiyah, her beloved parents, Rezky Fitria, her lovely
younger sisters and all her relatives for the everlasting love, prayer as
well as moral and material support in her whole life.
10. Eis Sri Wahyuningsih, M.Pd., and Mr. Pantes, the administration
staffs of English and Literature Department who always helped the
writer during his academic years.
11. All her classmates in Regular B 2012 who cannot be mentioned one by
one that conquered the lectures and also have been cooperatively
supporting the writer in completing this thesis.
12. Togaweni Rumapea, S.Pd., the Headmaster of SMA Negeri 6
Tanjungbalai who has given the permission to conduct the research in
the school and also for students in XII IPA 2 and XI IPS 2 for their
participation and attention during the research.
ii
13. Budi Santoso, S.Pd., for love, time, laughter, happiness, supports,
togetherness and everything he gave that can make the writer
experiences other sides of life.
14. Her best friend Armaida, Jumita, Yudhi Aditya Kurniawan, S.Pd,
Margareth, Shinta, Plinda, and Dewi for their valuable support, laugh,
advice and motivation throughout her ups and downs.
The writer realizes that her thesis is still far from being perfect, therefore she
warmly welcomes any constructive suggestions that will improve the quality of
this thesis. She hopes that this thesis would be beneficial for further research.
Medan,
September 2016
The writer,
Sofa Marwa
Reg. No. 2122121041
iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Pages
ABSTRACT .................................................................................................. i
ACKNOWLEDGMENT .............................................................................. ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................. iv
LIST OF TABLES ....................................................................................... vi
LIST OF FIGURE ........................................................................................ vii
LIST OF CHARTS ....................................................................................... viii
LIST OF APPENDICES .............................................................................. ix
CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION ................................................................ 1
A. Background of The Study ................................................................... 1
B. The Problem of The Study .................................................................. 5
C. The Scope of The Study ...................................................................... 5
D. The Objective of The Study ................................................................ 6
E. The Significance of The Study ............................................................ 6
CHAPTER II. REVIEW OF LITERATURE ............................................ 8
A. Theoretical Framework ....................................................................... 8
1. Errors and Mistakes ..................................................................... 8
a. Errors .................................................................................. 9
b. Mistakes .............................................................................. 9
2. Grammatical Errors ..................................................................... 10
3. Writing ........................................................................................ 13
4. Recount Text ............................................................................... 16
5. Natural Science Student ............................................................. 19
6. Social Science Student ............................................................... 19
B. Relevant Studies .................................................................................. 20
C. Conceptual Framework ....................................................................... 20
iv
CHAPTER III. RESEARCH METHOD .................................................... 22
A. Research Design .................................................................................. 22
B. Population and Sample ........................................................................ 23
C. The Instrument of Data Collection ...................................................... 24
D. The Procedure of Data Collection ....................................................... 24
E. The Technique of Analyzing Data ...................................................... 24
1. Identifying the errors .................................................................. 24
2. Classifying the errors ................................................................. 24
3. Calculating the errors ................................................................. 25
4. Scoring the students work .......................................................... 25
5. Putting the result into table ........................................................ 26
CHAPTER 1V. DATA, DATA ANALYSIS, FINDINGS, AND DISCUSSION .. 27
A. Data
................................................................................................ 27
1. The qualitative Data ................................................................... 27
a. Students’ grammatical errors ............................................... 27
B. Data Analysis ....................................................................................... 33
1.
Analysis of qualitative data ...................................................... 33
a. Grammatical errors analysis ................................................. 33
C. Findings ............................................................................................... 44
D. Discussion ........................................................................................... 46
CHAPTER V. CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS ........................... 48
A. Conclusion ........................................................................................... 48
B. Suggestion ........................................................................................... 49
REFERENCES ............................................................................................... 50
APPENDICES ................................................................................................ 52
v
LIST OF TABLES
Pages
Table 2.1 The Three Fundamentals of Genre Based Writing ...................... 15
Table 2.2 The Rhetorical Structure or the Textual Elements in
Recount Text ................................................................................ 17
Table 3.1 The result of students work ......................................................... 26
Table 4.1 Grammatical errors of natural science students .......................... 28
Table 4.2 Grammatical errors of social science students ............................ 31
vi
LIST OF FIGURE
Page
Figure 2.1 White and Arndt’s process writing model ................................. 14
vii
LIST OF CHARTS
Pages
Chart 4.1 Error in using noun ...................................................................... 35
Chart 4.2 Error in using pronoun ................................................................ 36
Chart 4.3 Error in using verb ...................................................................... 38
Chart 4.4 Error in using adverb .................................................................. 39
Chart 4.5 Error in using article ................................................................... 41
Chart 4.6 Error in using preposition ............................................................ 42
Chart 4.7 Error in using conjunction ........................................................... 44
viii
LIST OF APPENDICES
Pages
APPENDIX A .................................................................................................
52
APPENDIX B .................................................................................................
53
APPENDIX C .................................................................................................
59
APPENDIX D .................................................................................................
65
APPENDIX E .................................................................................................
69
ix
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
A. Background of the Study
Language is used as a means of communication in human being life. It is
very important because it is used when people make an interaction with other
people. Language is central to human experience and if we are to understand the
process by which men communicate with one another, we must look closely at the
human capacity for language and at the particular qualities of language which
enable it to play so powerful a role within us and between us (Byrne, 1980: 16).
Considering the importance of the language, Indonesia’s government has
drawn up English as a foreign language that should be mastered by the students.
In Indonesia, English teaching aims at mastering four basic skills of language,
which include listening, speaking, reading and writing skills. One of these four
skills which is very important and most required in academic field writing.
Writing skills are related to speaking and reading. Llach and Pilar
(2011:40) say ‘the traditional belief, strongly supported by the structuralist and
behaviourist schools, contented that oral language is the genuine manifestation of
language and that writing is merely rendering of the spoken language’. We must
realize that when we are writing, we automatically express what we think from
our prior knowledge and what we have spoken or listened. Basically, the four
skills in language is interrelated and have connection one another. Writing is one
1
2
of language skills by which students can express their ideas in written form. It
means that they have to be able to write correct sentences and arrange them into a
good paragraph.
Indonesian schools divide the classes of Grade eleventh into Natural
Science and Social Science classes. Natural Science and Social Science are two
different majors in Senior High School. The specific Natural Science subjects are
Physics, Chemistry, and Biology. The focus of Natural Science is nature. The
specific Social Science subjects are Economics, Geography, and Sociology. The
focus of Social Science is society. Compared to the Social Science, the Natural
Science rely more mathematically based methods (Boutellier, 2011: 3).
There is a common opinion in society that students of Natural Science tend
to be more intelligent, more hardworking, and therefore are said to be cleverer
compared to the Social Science students. Based on the oral interviews conducted
by researcher to about 23 parents in Tanjungbalai whom their children are
currently attending the senior high school, 17 of them believe that Natural Science
students are better than Social Science students with the dominant reason is
because Natural Science students study a more complex and difficult subjects
which will train the brain more in thinking and concentrating. They are considered
to be more focus and careful in studying based on the different specific subjects
that they learn at school. This opinion leads to a new perspective that the Natural
Science students would make fewer mistakes compared to the Social Science
students in doing something, including in writing an English text. Unfortunately,
we can’t judge a book by its cover, we can’t directly judge the ability of the Social
3
Science as well as the Natural Science students in the case of writing an English
text with proper grammatical structures.
Natural science students make errors in use of verb tenses because English
language is different from Indonesian. In Indonesian language, there is no rule
about past form. They miss to change the verb from the first form to second form.
Sometimes, they forget to distinguish regular verb and irregular verb. While,
Social science students make errors in usage because they are interfered by
Indonesian language. In Indonesian language pattern, there is no rule on using
articles (definite and indefinite article), preposition, and singular-plural (countable
noun and uncountable noun). By making errors in their practice of learning, they
will later find out what errors they have made and are expected to improve the
errors itself.
Research about Error Analysis (EA) itself is actually quite popular in the
education field, particularly in countries where English is as the second or foreign
language. In other words Heydari (2012) defined, EA is a procedure used by both
researchers and teachers which involves collecting samples of learner language,
identifying the errors in the sample, describing these errors, classifying them
according to their nature and causes, and evaluating their seriousness. (Zawahreh,
2012) conducted a research of EA that analyzed the applied error made by tenth
grade students in Jordan. So, In Indonesia, there are still not many researchers that
conduct the research of Error Analysis, when actually it is a useful research to see
the development of the students in learning English.
4
Khansir (2012) says the basic task of error analysis is to describe how
learning occurs by examining the learner’s output and this includes his or her
correct and incorrect utterances. Hourani (2012) indicates that errors are
significant in three different ways. First to the teachers, in that they tell them how
far towards the goal the learners have advanced and consequently, what remains
for them to learn. Secondly, they provide to the researchers evidence of how
language is learnt or acquired, what strategies or procedures the learners are
employing in their discovery of the language. Thirdly, they are indispensable to
the learners themselves, because we can regard the making of errors as a device
the learners use in order to learn.
Crystal (2008: 173) says that ‘Errors are assumed to reflect, in a systematic
way, the level of competence achieved by a learner; they are contrasted with
‘mistakes’, which are performance limitations that a learner would be able to
correct’. Hourani (2012) notes, 'Knowing more about how grammar works is to
understand more about how grammar is used and misused'. By looking through
the previous researches, it can be concluded that though Error Analysis seems to
be unimportant, it actually has its specific purpose and useful result for teachers,
students, and other researchers in education field.
The purpose of this research is to find out the ability of the Natural
Science and Social Science students in writing recount based on how many
grammatical errors are made by the students. The analysis uses the grammatical
errors theory from Richards. Therefore, a conclusion can be made as the indicator
whether the students of Natural Science and Social Science classes have the same
5
ability in writing recount with proper grammatical structures, or one is better than
the other. In addition, the findings of the research can also be used as a prove to
see whether the judgment of the society about Natural Science students are better
than Social Science students is true or not at SMA Negeri 6 Tanjungbalai.
B. The Problem of the Study
Based on the background of the study above, the problems found are:
1. What kinds of grammatical errors that are found in the recount text
written by the eleventh grade Natural Science and Social Science
students?
2. What is the dominant errors made by the students of Natural Science and
Social Science?
C. The Scope of the Study
This research will only focus on errors found in student’s writing recount
text especially in grammar. In grammar errors, there are also many kinds of errors.
Sawalmeh (2013:1) states that there are some kinds of error in grammar. They are
errors in verb tense, word order, singular/plural form, subject-verb agreement,
double negatives, spellings, capitalization, articles, sentence fragments and
prepositions. This research will only focus grammar errors found in student’s
writing recount text (noun, verb, adverb, article, preposition, and conjunction).
The scope of this study is the product in a recount text written by the eleventh
6
grade students of Natural Science and Social Science at SMA Negeri 6
Tanjungbalai.
D. The Objective of the Study
Based on the research statement, this particular study aimed at finding out:
1. To know the kind of grammatical errors which found in recount text
written by the students of grade eleventh natural science and social
science.
2. To know the dominant errors that made by students of natural science and
social science students.
E. The Significance of the Study
Finding of the study are expected to be relevant theoretically and
practically.
1. Theoretically
Theoretically the study will be useful for English teacher the implication
of teaching recount text.
2. Practically
Practically the study (findings) to the students of natural science and
social science students will give some contributions to row to develop
teaching recount text.
1. For teachers, this research becomes reference for them to select the better
ways in teaching process.
7
2. For the students, this research becomes feedback for them so they can be
better in learning English, especially in writing.
3. For the readers, this research becomes reference for them to know
grammatical errors made by the students.
8
48
CHAPTER V
CONCLUSSION AND SUGGESTION
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
readers.
A. CONCLUSION
Based on the data analysis of research at eleventh grade students at SMA
Negeri 6 Tanjungbalai, the researcher wants to present the conclusions. The
conclusions is the natural science student’s made 15 or 11,53% and the social science
student’s made 11 or 10,47% noun errors. The natural science student’s made 5 or
3,84% and the social science students’ made 1 or 0,95% pronoun errors. The natural
science students’ made 77 or 59,23% and the social science students’ made 71 or
67,61% verb errors. The natural science students’ made 6 or 4,61%and the social
science students’ made 1 or 0,95% adverb errors. The natural science students’ made
5 or 3,84% and the social science students’ made 2 or 1,9% article errors. The natural
students’ made 16 or 12,3% and the social science students’ made 15 or 14,28%
preposition errors. The natural science students’ made 16 or 12,3% and the social
students’ made 4 or 3,8% conjunction errors. It can be seen from the previous chart.
The dominant error was verb. The reason why they made errors is because some of
students commonly make grammar mistakes in their learning especially in writing
48
49
such as tenses, there are no tenses in Indonesia language. So, they confuse in using
the right tenses for their writing.
By having analyzed the data, the researcher has found the result, that the
natural science students are not always better than social science students. It can be
seen from the average score of natural science class is 50,8 while social science class
is 62,6. In this case we can’t say that the natural science students are good in writing
text rather than social science students. This study has proved the perspective which
has been made by the society is not always true, it can be seen well from the results
that have been done by the students.
B. SUGGESTION
Considering the conclusions above, some suggestions are presented in this
past. As discussed in chapter I, this study hopefully can give advantageous
information both theoretically and practically. Especially for the teachers, they are
expected to give stronger emphasis, and also give more writing exercise continuously
to the students and discuss it together if the grammatical errors especially about noun,
pronoun, verb, adverb, article, preposition, and conjunction. For the students, they
should be able to comprehend and they do more practices in writing by using about
noun, pronoun, verb, adverb, article, preposition, and conjunction. Then for readers, it
is suggested to readers to improve increase their knowledge about grammar
especially verb, adverb, noun, pronoun, article, preposition, and
conjunction in other kinds of texts which are students learn.
50
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