Background of the Study

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CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the Study

Students who learn English are expected to master two skills: language skill and language component. In language skills, they learn listening, reading, speaking, and writing, while in language components, they learn grammar, vocabulary, syntax, phonology, semantics, and so forth. Grammar as a language component is important to be taught. It is because before the teachers introduce a new language, the teachers should have analyzed the form that they are going to teach, for example how the verb is formed, how certain nouns become plural, and also the grammatical pattern that they are going to teach it in. 1 In learning grammatical English, students learn a lot of rules in English language such as tenses, prepositions, punctuations, modals, part of speech, kinds of sentences including kinds of clauses independent clause and dependent clause. Therefore, kinds of clauses independent clause and dependent clause will be the major topic in this paper. Before talking about kinds of clauses independent clause and dependent clause, the writer will first talk about types of sentences. There are four kinds of sentences: Simple Sentence, Compound Sentence, Complex Sentence, and compound-complex sentence. Simple Sentence is a single independent clause; Compound sentence is two or more simple sentence join together by a comma and a coordinating conjunction; Complex Sentence is sentence that has a main independent clause and at least one sub clause dependent clause. 2 The last is compound-complex sentence. Compound-complex sentence is a combination of two or more independent clauses and one or more dependent clauses. 3 1 Jeremy Harmer, The Practice of English Language Teaching, New York: Longman, 1991, p. 59. 2 Patricia K. Werner, et al., Interaction 2: Grammar, New York: McGraw Hill, 2002, 4 th edition, p. 175. 3 Alice Oshima and Ann Hogue, Writing Academic English, New York: Addison Wesley Longman, 1999, 3 rd edition, p. 162. Independent clause is a complete sentence. It containts a subject and a verb that expresses a complete tought. While dependent clause is not a complete idea. It depends on the main clause. 4 Learning the differences between independent clause and dependent clauses is important in understanding how to construct sentences and to avoid fragments. When dependent clause is not attached to an independent clause, it is fragment incomplete idea. The problem will occur if students do not understand enough the difference between independent clause and dependent clause. The first problem, the writer found out some of her friends while she was at seventh semester that her friends used double clause connectors subordinating conjunction and coordinating conjunction in one sentence in argumentative essay . It‟s absolutely incorrect because in English grammar there is no subordinator and coordinator in one sentence. The sentence will incorrect if the sentence there is no independent clause in it. The sentence should consists of independent clause and dependent clause in one sentence. Example: “Although Dona is a rich woman, but she is not arrogant” incorrect DC DC although is subordinating conjunction but is coordinating conjunction “Although Dona is a rich woman, she is not arrogant.” correct DC IC “When I went to Giant supermarket, so I bought some vegetables DC DC and meats. ” incorrect when is subordinating conjunction 4 Ibid., p. 153. so is coordinating conjunction “When I went to Giant supermarket, I bought some vegetables DC IC and meats. ” correct The first line of those sentences is incorrect because there is no independent clause [IC] of those sentences. Meanwhile in the second line is correct because the sentence consists of independent clause and dependent clause. The second problem, the writer and some of her friends made errors when they were at seventh semester. They usually translated the sentence from Indonesian language into English language. Example: 1. Incorrect : He has already eaten breakfast this morning at 7 o‟clock. addition of pronoun for this and noun for morning Correct: He has already eaten breakfast at 7 o‟clock. 2. Incorrect : Where Sinta lives? omission of auxiliary verb Correct: Where does Sinta lives? 3. Incorrect : I am interesting in his idea. misuse of verb Correct : I am interested in his idea. Because of those reasons, learning English is not easy because English itself is a foreign language in Indonesia. Learning a foreign language isn‟t like native language learning. In learning a foreign or a second language there would be trial and error. 5 When students learn a foreign language, they will learn the different rules of both those two languages. In English language there are 12 verb tenses, meanwhile in Indonesian language, there is no sequence in it sentences. Accordingly, making an error is a natural and unavoidable part of process of learning English. If the teacher did not correct the students when their students made error, their students will be stuck at a plateau, never to go any further or it can be called as the fossilization. 6 5 H. Douglas Brown, Principles of Language Learning and Teaching, New York: Pearson Education, Inc., 2007, 5 th edition, p. 257. 6 Retrieved on April 25, 2014, at 1.30 PM, http:www.timothyjpmason.comWebPagesLangTeachLicenceCMOldLecturesL7_Interlanguage. htmInterlanguage. There are some factors contributing to students‟ errors, such as interlingual transfer errors caused by using language pattern of first language into a second language or the interference of the learner‟s mother tongue and intralingual transfer it reflects learner‟s competence at a particular stage and the outcome from partial learning of the target language. 7 These factors referred to as the source of errors or causes of errors. Error lies in language performance, and it usually happens on students‟ speaking or students‟ writing, because speaking and writing are productive skills which are susceptible of error. As Dulay, Burt, and Krashen noted that errors itself are the flawed side of student speech and writing. Errors are parts of conversation or composition that diverges from some selected norm of mature language performance. 8 Based on the error made by the writer and some of her friends while they were at seventh semester and some problems that has been described above, the writer will conduct an error analysis to investigate students‟ ability in identifying and writing independent clause and dependent clause in an argumentative essay at seventh semester of Department of English Education of Faculty Tarbiyah and Teachers Training of Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University Jakarta.

B. Identification of the Problem