A study on the seventh grade student\' grammatical errors in descriptive writing of SMPN 1 Muntilan - USD Repository
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A STUDY ON THE SEVENTH GRADE STUDENTS’ GRAMMATICAL ERRORS IN DESCRIPTIVE WRITING OF SMP N 1 MUNTILAN A THESIS
Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements to Obtain the Sarjana Pendidikan Degree in English Language Education
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A STUDY ON THE SEVENTH GRADE STUDENTS’ GRAMMATICAL ERRORS IN DESCRIPTIVE WRITING OF SMP N 1 MUNTILAN A THESIS
Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements to Obtain the Sarjana Pendidikan Degree in English Language Education
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ABSTRACT
Hanafitria. 2009. A Study on the Seventh Grade Students’ Grammatical Errors in
Descriptive Writing of SMP N 1 Muntilan . Undergraduate Thesis. Yogyakarta:
English Education Study Program, Department of Language and Arts Education, Faculty of Teachers Training and Education, Sanata Dharma University.
This research started with the occurrence of grammatical errors that happened in most of students writing. They did not pay much attention to the sentences they have made, therefore, there are many grammatical errors happened. Through this research which is a study on grammatical errors that are commonly made by the seventh grade students in writing descriptive paragraph, hopefully the errors happen could be minimized. There were two questions that needed to be answered. The first question was the grammatical errors that the seventh grade students commonly made in their descriptive writing. The second was what the teacher could do to improve students’ descriptive writing.
The subjects of the research were the bilingual class and the regular class of seventh grade students and their teacher in a public school, SMP N 1 Muntilan. The data of the research were the students’ descriptive writing. From the writing collected, the grammatical errors made by the students were analyzed.
There were some theories to support this research. The theories were used to provide the theoretical framework of this research. The theories included the rubrics in evaluating a writing task, which contains task fulfillment/content, organization, vocabulary, language, and mechanics in descriptive writing.
The result of the study confirmed that, first, the grammatical errors commonly made by the seventh grade students based on the checklist on the Frequency Errors Made by ESL Writers adopted from La Trobe University was
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ABSTRAK
Hanafitria. 2009. A Study on the Seventh Grade Students’ Grammatical Errors in
Descriptive Writing of SMP N 1 Muntilan . Skripsi Sarjana Pendidikan.
Yogyakarta: Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris, Jurusan Bahasa dan Seni, Fakultas Pendidikan, Universitas Sanata Dharma.Penelitian ini berawal dari kejadian banyaknya kesalahan struktural yang dilakukan oleh para siswa. Mereka tidak memberi perhatian atas kalimat-kalimat yang telah mereka buat, sehingga kesalahan struktural masih banyak terjadi. Melalui penelitian ini yang adalah sebuah studi tentang kesalahan struktural yang umumnya dilakukan oleh siswa kelas tujuh sekolah menegah pertama dalam menulis paragraf deskriptif; diharapkan kesalahan-kesalahan tersebut dapat diminimalis. Ada dua pertanyaan yang perlu untuk dijawab. Pertanyaan pertama adalah apakah kesalahan struktural yang umumnya dilakukan oleh siswa kelas tujuh dalam tulisan paragraf deskripsif mereka. Pertanyaan kedua adalah apa yang bisa dilakukan oleh guru untuk meningkatkan kemampuan siswa dalam menulis paragraf deskriptif..
Subjek dari penelitian ini adalah para siswa kelas tujuh (kelas dua bahasa dan kelas regular) dan seorang guru mereka di sebuah sekolah negeri, yaitu, SMPN 1 Muntilan. Data dari penelitian ini adalah hasil dari tulisan deskriptif siswa. Dari data yang telah diperoleh, kesalahan stuktural yang dilakukan siswa dianalisa.
Ada beberapa teori yang digunakan untuk mendukung penelitian ini. Teori-teori ini digunakan untuk memberikan pembatasan bahasan dari penelitian. Teori itu meliputi rubrik dalam mengevaluasi sebuah karya tulis, yang terdiri dari konten, organisasi, kosakata, bahasa, dan mekanik dalam penulisan paragraf
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Our greatest glory is not in never falling,
but in rising every time we fall.Confucius
Knowing is not enough; we must apply.
Willing is not enough; we must do.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First of all, I would like to thank to the Almighty God who is always by my side through the ups and downs of my life. He shows me that I will get the best if only I believe. I would also like to express my deepest gratitude for those who have supported, facilitated, and helped me for all this time:
1. Yohana Veniranda, S. Pd., M.Hum, for her willingness to guide me through this thesis, so I manage to finish it.
2. My lovely parents, Ag. Mudakjo and Ag. Murtinah for their endless love for me. I thank them for all the supports and lessons that I could not get at school.
3. All PBI lecturers, I thank them for sharing their knowledge, so now I can share my knowledge to other people as well.
4. Ms. Suci Pambasmi, S.Pd. and all the seventh grade students at SMP N
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8. All of my friends in PBI 2004, Danti, Yulis a.k.a Adi, Okki “Bokki” and those that I cannot mention one by one, I thank them for the precious time we spent together. Friends are for forever.
9. My lovely younger sister, Sri Handayani, I thank her for her support and silly jokes which always make me laugh.
10. My Dee2, I thank him for his companion and support along the way here. I hope that our dreams will come true.
11. My ‘crazy’ friends at ELTI, Yu Widh, Mbok De, Mr. ‘Leo’ Panda, DanDan, KioKio, Tante Nay, Tim Tam, Shoe See, and Felix da Cat who taught me how to share wonderful experiences; and also all the seniors who always have the willingness to help whenever I need help.
12. Last, but not least, I would like to thank NdHut for accompanying and helping me so I can finish this thesis on time. I thank him for the supports he always gave.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page TITLE PAGE……………………………………………………………..... i APPROVAL PAGES…………………………………………………….... ii STATEMENT OF WORK’S ORIGINALITY…………………………..... iv ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………….. vi
ABSTRAK …………………………………………………………..……… vii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……………………………………………….. ix TABLE OF CONTENTS………………………………………………….. xi LIST OF TABLES………………………………………………................. xiv LIST OF FIGURES……………………………………………………....... xv LIST OF APPENDICES……………………………………………….. ….. xvi
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION A. Background of the Study……………………………………….. 1
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2. Writing Focus on Language Structures……………………
9
3. The Process of Writing……………………………………
9 4. Descriptive Writing……………………………………….
11 5. Techniques of Description………………………………..
12
6. Grammar in Writing………………………………………
13 7. Grammatical Error………………………………………..
14
8. Stages of Error……………………………………………
14 B. Theoretical Framework………………………………………
16 CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY A. Methods……………………………………………………..
19 B. Research Respondents……………………………………….
20 C. Setting……………………………………………………….
21 D. Data Collection……………………………………………..
22 CHAPTER V CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION A. Conclusion……………………………………………………… 60 B. Suggestions…………………………………………………….. 61 REFERENCES………………………………………………………… …. 63 PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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LIST OF FIGURES
Page Figure 1. The Chart of Students’ Grammatical Errors of Bilingual Class…… 33 Figure 2. The Chart of Students’ Scores of Bilingual Class ………………… 37 Figure 3. The Chart of Students’ Grammatical Errors of Regular Class…..... 43 Figure 4. The Chart of Students’ Scores of Regular Class………………….. 48
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LIST OF TABLES
Page Table a.1 Data on the Frequency Errors Made by ESL Writers adopted from La Trobe University (1992)....…………………………. 30 Table a.2 The Result of the Students’ Scores Based on the Assessment
Scale (Christopher Tribble, 1996)……………………………………… 34 Table b.1 Data on the Frequent Errors Made by ESL writers adopted from La Trobe University (1992)…………………………….. 38 Table b.2 The Result of the Students’ Scores Based on the Assessment
Scale (Christopher Tribble, 1996)……………………………………… 44 Table B.1 Most Writing in the Classroom Falls on a Continuum from Copying to Free Writing………………………………………… 58
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Page Appendix A. Muatan Kurikulum Tingkat Satuan Pendidikan Mata Pelajaran Bahasa Inggris for Seventh Grade Students…...................................
66 Appendix B. List of Names of the Seventh Grade Students’ of SMP N 1 Muntilan ……………………………………………….. 69 Appendix C. The Transcript of Interview with the Seventh Grade Students’ of SMP N 1 Muntilan’s Teacher………………………….
72 Appendix D. Examples of Seventh Grade Students’ Descriptive Writing……………………………………………………………… 76
Appendix E. Examples of Students Activities in Three Stages of Learning………………………………………………………….
80 Appendix F. An Example of Games to Raise Students’ Awareness in Descriptive Writing………………………………………………... 82
Appendix G. Examples of Games to Drill Students’ Understanding in
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CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION This chapter discusses about the background of the research. It consists of
six parts. They are background of the study, problem formulation, problem limitation, objectives of the study, benefits of the study, and definition of terms.
A. BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
In today’s era, mastering English is one of the important skills that people need to achieve a better life. English is also used in many aspects of life such as politics, economics, commercial and trade, culture, and many more. By mastering English, people can have a better job than people who do not master English.
Seeing the benefits of English, Indonesian government in their educational regulations had made a decision to make English as a compulsory subject in junior high schools. Therefore, all of the junior high school students have to learn
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In learning English there are four language skills that need to be learned. They are listening, speaking, reading, and writing. All those skills are very important and supporting each other. However, this research gives more emphasis on writing skill. Writing, according to Iris Tiedt (1989: 1) in his book Writing:
From Topic to Evaluation , said that writing is a method of expressing ideas about
any subject content; it appears in classrooms everywhere and, therefore, must be the concern of every teacher.
Still according to Iris Tiedt, there are certain basic understandings about writing process. The first is students learn to write by writing. It means that students have to write many writings in order to be able to write good texts. The source of the ideas can come from their own experiences. Second, writing expresses thinking. A teacher’s role is as a guide to see the relationship between thinking and writing process. Third, students learn to write by reading. It is important for the students to read and understand model text before they write
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see writing as a way of communicating thought in any subject area; the emphasis should be on the ideas expressed through writing.
Writing ability, in relation, follows reading ability. Therefore, writing skill and reading skill cannot be separated. Students cannot write if they cannot read, and they cannot make a good writing if they make a lot of errors. Even so, this research gives more specification in writing; and the research will focus on descriptive text. This type of text consists of three major components; those are describing people, describing things, and describing places. According to the
Kurikulum Tingkat Satuan Pendidikan (KTSP) Sekolah Menengah Pertama , the
basic competence of writing skill of the seventh grade students in the second semester is that the students are able to express meaning and rhetoric steps on a simple short essay using accurate types of written language to interact with the nearest environment in descriptive and procedure texts. That is why descriptive text is chosen to be the object of this study. Students in the future will have an
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and written assessment, students also have to pay attention to the features or characteristics of a descriptive text.
The aim of this research is to discover the grammatical errors commonly made by the students’ and their level of mastery in the five aspects of a descriptive writing, namely task fulfillment/content, organization, vocabulary, language, and mechanics, and also to find out what can the teachers do to improve the students’ descriptive writing.
B. PROBLEM FORMULATION
The researcher in this research wanted to find out about the answer to these following questions:
1. What are the grammatical errors that the seventh grade students of SMP N
1 Muntilan commonly made in their descriptive writing?
2. What can the teachers do to improve the students’ descriptive writing?
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taught by the same teacher, two classes were for bilingual class and four classes for regular class. However, the researcher decided to use only two of those classes as the subjects of the research, one from bilingual class and one from regular class; since it was impossible to make use all of the classes. There were no specific reasons why the researcher chose bilingual class and bilingual class. From those subjects, the researcher got the information that was needed to answer the questions mentioned before in the problem formulation.
D. OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
This research was conducted as an attempt to discover the grammatical errors commonly made by the seventh grade students in writing descriptive text by evaluating their writing based on the evaluative checklist which emphasized five major aspects of a piece of written work. This research also tried to find out what the teachers did to improve the students’ writing.
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F. DEFINITION OF TERMS
1. Descriptive writing
In this study, descriptive writing refers to a text which lists the characteristics of something or someone that you want to picture. The goal of description is to enable the reader to visualize a person, place, or thing, you must provide as much detail, and the right kind of detail, as possible.
(McMurrey, David A., 1983: 239).
2. Grammatical Errors
The term grammatical errors in this study are related to the grammatical mistakes that are produced by the students in their descriptive writing.
Errors according to Pit Corder (1973) refer to the utterances which are
either superficially deviant or inappropriate in terms of the target language grammar.
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an acceleration class which consists of twenty students. In the acceleration class, the students only need to take two years of study. This school has many facilities to support the teaching and learning process; they are language laboratory, computer media, and classes with supporting environment, and so on.
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CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter consists of theories related to the topic of the research. There
are two major sections which are used as the groundwork of this research. They are theoretical description and theoretical framework.
A. THEORETICAL DESCRIPTION
The researcher in this chapter, make an effort to gather theories related to writing, descriptive writing, and grammatical errors to support the research. The theories were stated by experts in language teaching.
1. The Concept of Writing
Since this research is frequently related to writing, especially descriptive
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b. Its purpose is both to express and impress.
Writers typically serve two masters: themselves, and their own desires to express an idea or feeling, and readers or audience who need to have ideas expressed in certain ways. Writers then choose the best form for their writing - a shopping list, notes from a meeting, a scholarly article, a novel, or poetry are only a few of the choices. Each of these types of writing has a different level of complexity, depending on its purpose.
c. It is both a process and a product.
The writer imagines, organizes, drafts, edits, reads, and rereads. This process of writing is often cyclical, and sometimes disorderly.
Ultimately, what the audience sees, whether it is an instructor or a wider audience is a product - an essay, letter, story, or research report.
2. Writing focus on language structures
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presents its problems, but each makes an important contribution to the finished paper (Perrin, 1965: 38). He proposed these stages of writing a paper: Stages of Writing a Paper
a. Focusing on a subject – Definition of topic, sensing of problem involved and of possible sources of information.
b. Gathering material – Notes from memory, observation, interviews, reading, speculation.
c. Deciding on methods of development – The ways of approaching and exploring the subject.
d. Organizing the paper – A synopsis or outline of the paper.
e. Writing the first draft – Tentative of the copy.
f. Revising – Necessary changes in material, corrections and improvement in words, sentences, paragraphs.
g. Preparing the manuscript – The completed paper, ready for reading or for printing.
h. Seeing the manuscript into the print – The printed copy. Whereas, the stages outlined based on Tribble (1996: 38) below are among the
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Another type of process writing is proposed by Raimes (1983: 139) Selection of Preparation Writing Rewriting, Teacher’s topic for writing and editing marking of prewriting proofreading paper activities
There is also a process model of writing instruction according to Hyland (2003: 11)
Selection of topic: by teacher and/or students Prewriting: brainstorming, collecting data, note taking,
outlining, etc.
Composing: getting ideas down on paper
Response to draft: teacher/peers respond to ideas, organization, and style
Revising: reorganizing, style, adjusting to readers, refining
ideas
Response to revisions: teacher/peers respond to ideas,
organization, and style
Proofreading and editing: checking and correcting form, layout, evidence, etc. Evaluation: teacher evaluates progress over the process Publishing: by class circulation or presentation,
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visualize a person, place, or thing as much detail, and the right kind of detail, as possible. It includes all the appropriate senses, particularly sight. But the other senses - smell, hearing, touch, and taste - can also play important role in description. (McMurrey, 1983: 239)
5. Techniques of Description
According to McMurrey, these following strategies can be used for developing a good description.
a. Analysis of the Item Described The writer has to consider and then select the parts of that subject that will actually describe. Analysis help in two ways: it limits the enormous amount of detail by which most people, places, or things can be described; and it also provides an organizational pattern.
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c. Dominant Mood of Description 1.
Objective description
It concentrates on presenting only facts and avoids showing how the writer actually feels about the topic. Business or scientific reports primarily use objective description.
2. Subjective description It includes the writer’s own reactions; the description is designed in such a way that the reader is clearly being encouraged to respond to it emotionally. A subjective description might cover anger, fear, resentment, hostility, serenity, excitement, craziness, melancholy, depression, happiness, joy, wonder, awe, or skepticism, depending on the purpose of the writer or the writing situation.
d.
Showing Versus Telling
One of the most serious problems that arise in descriptive writing involves
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Grammar in writing should mean helping writers develop their knowledge of linguistic resources and grammatical systems to convey ideas meaningfully and appropriately to intended readers. (Frodesen in Celce-Murcia, 2001: 233)
7. Grammatical Error
Grammar is more than just a set of rules. It is the ever-evolving structure of our language, a field which merits study, invites analysis, and promises fascination.(http://www.dartmouth.edu/~writing/materials/student/ac_paper/gram mar.shtml) a. Competence errors It is developed from a lack of knowledge or ability.
b. Performance errors It is developed from a mistake in language processing in the head. E.g. error in typing the word, “the” becomes “teh”.
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1) Pre-systematic errors are those committed by the learners while he or she is trying to come to grips with a new point.
2) Post-systematic errors occur when one temporarily forgets a point that has been previously understood.
3) Systematic errors are those which occur when the learner has formed inaccurate hypothesis about the target language (i.e. the language that he is learning.
b. Description of Errors
Description of errors tries to explain to the learners how they failed to realize the intended message. Errors that occur repeatedly should be looked so that the rule that the learner uses and tries to describe can be observed. It is a difficult task to do because individual learners may be highly inconsistent in their errors. Inconsistency is more characteristic of
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16
B. Theoretical Framework
Basically, students in learning writing have already known about types of texts. One of those texts is descriptive text. The goal of descriptive text or description is to enable the reader to visualize a person, place, or thing as much detail, and the right kind of detail, as possible. It includes all the appropriate senses, particularly sight. But the other senses - smell, hearing, touch, and taste - can also play important role in description. (McMurrey, 1983: 239).
Writing for the seventh grade students can be more difficult than the other skills because they have to pay more attention on the grammar and the spelling.
Students in their writing often make many grammatical errors which can make the writing quite odd to understand. Students also sometimes lack of vocabulary.
Therefore, it makes them use words which are not suitable to the context of the sentences.
Seeing the difficulties of writing, the researcher gave more attention to the
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17 descriptive writing based on the second checklist, that is an evaluative checklist proposed by Christopher Tribble (1996) which is suitable enough for every type of writing.
1. Task fulfillment/content – It involves the treatment of the subject, interpretation of the topic, content relevant to the topic, and accurate detail.
2. Organization – It includes the ideas of the description, the organized paragraphs, the coherence (logically sequence), and the cohesion (connectives appropriately used)
3. Vocabulary – It focuses on the range of vocabulary, accurate word choice and usage, and appropriate selection to match.
4. Language – It relates with the structures of the description, any errors of agreement, tense, number, word order, articles, pronouns, and prepositions; and also the meaning of the sentence is not obscured.
5. Mechanics – It connects with the spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and
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18 The researcher also conducts an interview with the teacher of the seventh grade students of SMP N 1 Muntilan to find out what can the teacher’s do to improve students’ descriptive writing. The last, the researcher reported the result of the research and made conclusion of what had been analyzed.
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CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY The discussion in this chapter includes the method that is used in the
research, research respondents, research instrument, research setting, data gathering technique, and data analysis technique.
A. METHOD
This research was a descriptive research because it was designed to gather information as natural as possible, without any treatment of the researcher in the data collection. Descriptive research was used to obtain information concerning the current status of the phenomena to describe "what exists" with respect to variables or conditions in a situation. (P. Key, James, 1997).
Based on Introduction to Research in Education (Ary et al, 1990), there are
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for Analysis and Application (1992), “One common type of descriptive research involves assessing attitudes or opinions toward individuals, organizations, events or procedures. Descriptive data are typically collected through a questionnaire survey, an interview, or observation”. Therefore, the researcher in this research also conducted interview with the one of the teachers. The interview was conducted to find what the teacher’s did to improve students’ descriptive writing.
B. RESEARCH RESPONDENTS
The respondents of the research were the seventh grade students and their teacher in one of the public schools in Muntilan, that was SMP N 1 Muntilan. This research was conducted in the second semester because this research wanted to find out about the students’ descriptive writing and it was relevant to the standard competency and basic competence of junior high school, which is “to express a simple meaningful short written functional text to interact with the nearest
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higher level of learning than before. Moreover, the descriptive writing was also learned in this level. The collected data were the documents analyzed by the researcher.
At first, the grammatical errors collected from the students were checked; the researcher tried to find what were the grammatical errors commonly made by the students based on the first checklist. After the researcher checked the grammatical errors, then the researcher marked the composition of students’ descriptive writing by using the second checklist, that was the assessment scale of written work mentioned before.
The seventh grade students in SMP N 1 Muntilan were supervised by a teacher. The teacher was also being interviewed related to the result of students’ descriptive writing. From the interview, the researcher also tried to find what the teacher can do to improve the students’ descriptive writing.
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D. DATA COLLECTION
In order to meet the data about the grammatical errors made by the seventh grade students in their descriptive writing, the researcher gathered the students’ assignments about descriptive writing from the teacher. The descriptive writing could be about places, people, or things. However, the data of descriptive writing about people was the focus and analyzed in this research.
There were two data used by the researcher. The first was the students’ descriptive writing data. From the data collected, the researcher made an analysis of the grammatical errors that the students made. The grammatical errors were marked from any students’ mistakes in their writing. The aspects for analyzing students’ errors were based on checklists. These checklists included some frequent errors made by ESL students and they were first taken from LAS ESL La Trobe University Australia (http://www.latrobe.edu.au/lasesl/assets/downloads/error.doc
st
{online} accessed on March 31 2007). This checklist was relevant to the
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After the researcher found out the grammatical errors commonly made by the students, then the researcher analyzed their written works and marked the works based on the above checklists.
E. DATA ANALYSIS
In analyzing the data, instrument 1 and 2 were the instruments to specify the presence and the absence of some items of the grammatical errors and written work in students’ descriptive writing. The specific calculation of the data in reckoning the presence and the absence of students’ grammatical errors and students’ descriptive writing based on the task fulfillment/content, organization, vocabulary, language, and mechanics was using this formulation:
1. Percentage = ∑X x 100% N
∑X = the total of each grammatical errors occurs
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The sum of the score was 100 and it was considered as 100%. To decide the real mark of a piece of writing, the researcher used this scoring procedure: Scores 8 or above A
≥ 90% = 9 ≥ 50% = 5 Scores 6 to 7 B
≥ 80% = 8 ≥ 40% = 4 Scores 4 to 5 C
≥ 70% = 7 ≥ 30% = 3 Scores 2 to 3 D
≥ 60% = 6 ≥ 20% = 2 Scores 0 to 1 F
The marking of the students’ writing was one of the ways to give the students feedback of their works.
Below are the two instruments that were used to treat the data:
Table 1.1 Frequent errors made by ESL writers (La Trobe University)
Frequent errors Descriptor + / -
Articles A mistake with the article –a, an, the, etc.A mistake with the verb tense.
Verb tense The subject and verb do not agree in number. Subject verb agreement e.g. She run/We was smiling.
A mistake with number (singular/plural).
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Table 2.1 Assessment scale for written work (Christopher Tribble, 1996) Area Score DescriptorTask 20-17 Excellent to very good: Excellent to very good treatment
Fulfillment/ of the subject; considerable variety of ideas or argument;
Content independent and thorough interpretation of the topic; content relevant to the topic; accurate detail.16-12 Good to average: Adequate treatment of topic; some variety of ideas or argument; some independence of interpretation of the topic; most content relevant to the topic; reasonably accurate detail. 11-8
Fair to poor: Treatment of the topic is hardly adequate;
little variety of ideas or argument; some irrelevant content; lacking detail. 7-5
Very Poor: Inadequate treatment of the topic; no variety
of ideas or argument, content irrelevant, or very restricted; almost no useful detail. 4-0 Inadequate: Fails to address the task with any effectiveness. 20-17 Excellent to very good: Fluent expression, ideas clearly
Organization
stated and supported; appropriately organized paragraphs or sections; logically sequenced (coherence); connectives appropriately used (cohesion). 16-12 Good to average: Uneven expression but main ideas stands out; paragraphing or section organization evident;
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11-8 Fair to poor: Limited range of vocabulary; a noticeable number of mistakes in word/idiom choice and usage; register not always appropriate. 7-5
Very Poor: No range of vocabulary; uncomfortably
frequent mistakes in word/idiom choice and usage; no apparent sense of register. 4-0
Inadequate: Fails to address this aspect of the task with any effectiveness.
30-24 Excellent to very good: Confident handling of
Language
appropriate structures, hardly any errors of disagreement, tense, number, word order, articles, pronouns, prepositions; meaning never obscured. 23-18 Good to average: Acceptable grammar – but problems with more complex structures; mostly appropriate structures; some errors of agreement, tense, number, word order, articles, pronouns, prepositions; meaning sometimes obscured. 17-10 Fair to poor: Insufficient range of structures with control only shown in simple constructions; frequent errors of agreement, tense, number, word order, articles, pronouns, prepositions; meaning sometimes obscured. 9-6
Very Poor: Major problems with structures – even
simple ones; frequent errors of negation, agreement, tense, number, word order, articles, pronouns, prepositions; meaning often obscured. 5-0 Inadequate: Fails to address this aspect of the task with any effectiveness.
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seventh grade class to give the two target research classes assignment to make a descriptive writing about people.
Second, the researcher analyzed the data collected. The researcher tried to find what the grammatical errors were commonly made according to the frequent errors made by ESL writer’s checklist. Finishing the step, the researcher gave mark to the students’ descriptive writing based on the second checklist, which was assessment scale for written work which included task fulfillment/content, organization, vocabulary, language, and mechanics.
The last was the researcher conducted an interview with the teacher about the students’ performance in descriptive writing and what could the teacher do to improve students’ writing. After that, the researcher reported the result of the research and made conclusion of what had been analyzed.
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CHAPTER IV
RESEARCH FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION This chapter includes the discussion of problem formulation mentioned in Chapter I. In order to answer the questions, the data gathered were analyzed inthis chapter. The data gathered during the research were presented and analyzed here.
A. Data Presentation and Analysis of the First Question
The data was gathered from one type of texts, that was description. There are three kinds of descriptive writing, they are describing people, describing places, and describing things. The description topic that was discussed in this research was about describing people.
This part was divided into data presentation and data analysis of
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writing, the researcher used two instruments as explained before in chapter III. The result of the grammatical errors commonly made by the seventh grade students was presented in the following tables. The first two tables were the result of grammatical errors made by students in bilingual class. The second two tables were the result of grammatical errors made by students in regular class.
The number mentioned in the tables referred to the number of the students in each class. Therefore, number one up to twenty two referred to the students in bilingual class; while number one up to thirty six referred to the students in regular class.
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a. Bilingual Class Table a.1 Data on the Frequency Errors Made by ESL Writers adopted from La Trobe University (1992) Frequent errors 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 Articles A mistake with the article –a, an, the, etc.
Verb tense A mistake with the verb tense.
Subject verb agreement The subject and verb do not agree in number. e.g. She run/We was smiling.
Singular/plural A mistake with number
(singular/plural). e.g. They have three doll in the cupboard.
Punctuation Capital letters, full stops, or
31 PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
commas missing Word class The word is in the wrong class. e.g. She is unemployment.
Vocabulary The wrong word is used. e.g. Let’s discuss about Mathematics.
Sentence structure The sentence is not complete or perhaps is too long and need to be reorganized.
Spelling
- = symbolizes the present of the frequent errors
- = symbolizes the absent of the frequent errors
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The Summary of the Frequent Errors and the Percentage of Bilingual Class
Subject verb agreement : 19 x 100%= 86.36%22 Verb tense : 15 x 100%= 68.18%
22 Word class : 12 x 100%= 54.54%
22 Vocabulary : 12 x 100%= 54.54%
22 Singular/plural : 12 x 100%= 54.54%
22 Articles : 10 x 100%= 45.45%
22 Sentence structure : 9 x 100%= 40.9%
22 Spelling : 7 x 100%= 31.81%
22 Punctuation : 2 x 100%= 9.09%
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100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10 Pun
Artic Verb Sub Sing Voca Sen Spe
Word les ctua tenc lling bula tens ject v ular/p clas e s tion ry e str erb alural
ructu gree re ment
Figure 1. The Chart of Students’ Grammatical Errors of Bilingual Class
Therefore, from the percentage, it can be concluded that grammatical errors commonly made by the students from bilingual class was Subject verb
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Table a.2 The Result of the Students’ Scores Based on the Assessment Scale (Christopher Tribble, 1996), (Bilingual Class) Area Score Descriptor 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22 Task 20-17 Excellent to Fulfillment/
17
18
17
17
17
18
18 very good Content 16-12 Good to
12
15
12
16
15
12
16
13
15
16
16 average
11-8
10
11
11
11 Fair to poor 7-5 Very Poor
4-0 Inadequate Organization 20-17 Excellent to
17
17
18
18 very good
16-12 Good to
16
16