THE ENGLISH INTERROGATIVE SENTENCE MASTERY OF THE SECOND YEAR STUDENTS OF SMP TRISULA NGLUWAR A THESIS Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements to Obtain the Sarjana Pendidikan Degree In English Language Education
THE ENGLISH INTERROGATIVE SENTENCE MASTERY OF THE SECOND YEAR STUDENTS OF SMP TRISULA NGLUWAR A THESIS Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements to Obtain the Sarjana Pendidikan Degree In English Language Education By Dwi Agustina Student Number: 031214114 ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM DEPARTEMENT OF LANGUAGE AND ARTS EDUCATION FACULTY OF TEACHERS TRAINING AND EDUCATION SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY YOGYAKARTA 2007
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Firstly, I would like to thank Allah SWT. who always gives me grace and love so that I could finish the writing of this thesis. Secondly, I would like to thank P. Kuswandono and Christina Kristiyani for giving me guidance, correction, and suggestions. Without them I would not have been able to improve and finish this thesis well.
Thirdly, I would like to thank Mujiono, the headmaster of SMP Trisula Ngluwar, who had given me his permission so that I could conduct the research. I also express my gratitude to Hartono, the English teacher whose students became my research participants. I could conduct the research successfully because of him.
Next, I would like to thank my beloved parents who always give me love, encouragement, and financial support. I will never forget the helps given by my best friends, Santy, Lia, Widya, and Mamik. Also, I give my special thanks to all Sanata Dharma librarians who always gave best services, especially when I was looking for reference books.
The last, I express my gratitude to Yayasan Salim, Jakarta which has given me scholarship so that I could finish my study. Without its financial helps I would not be able to graduate this year.
Dwi Agustina
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Cover Page Title Page ..................................................................................................... i
Approval Page .............................................................................................. ii Statement of Work’s Originality ................................................................... iv Acknowledgements ...................................................................................... v Table of Contents ......................................................................................... vi List of Tables ............................................................................................... ix List of Appendices ....................................................................................... x Abstract ........................................................................................................ xi
Abstrak ......................................................................................................... xii
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION A. Background ....................................................................................
1 B. Problem Formulation ......................................................................
4 C. Problem Limitation .........................................................................
4 D. Objectives .......................................................................................
5 E. Benefits ...........................................................................................
5 F. Definition of Terms .........................................................................
6 CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW A. Theoretical Description ...................................................................
8 1. Yes – No Questions .........................................................................
8 a. To Be ...............................................................................................
9 b. To Do ..............................................................................................
11
c. Modals .............................................................................................
25 B. Research Participants and Setting ....................................................
33 C. The Group’s Mastery of the English Interrogative Sentences .......................................................................................
32 B. The Student’s Individual Mastery of the English Interrogative Sentences .......................................................................................
30 CHAPTER IV ANALYSIS RESULT A. The Test Reliability .........................................................................
28 F. Research Procedure .........................................................................
28 E. Technique of Data Analysis .............................................................
26 D. Technique of Data Collection ..........................................................
25 C. Research Instrument ........................................................................
23 CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY A. Method ...........................................................................................
12 2. WH – Questions ..............................................................................
22 B. Theoretical Framework ...................................................................
21 4) Error Classification Based on Communicative Effect Taxonomy .....
19 3) Error Classification Based on Comparative Taxonomy ....................
19 2) Error Classification Based on Surface Strategy Taxonomy ..............
18 1) Error Classification Based on Linguistic Category ...........................
18 b. Classification of Errors ....................................................................
18 a. Definition of Errors ..........................................................................
14 3. Errors ..............................................................................................
36
D. Error Classification .........................................................................
37 CHAPTER V CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS A. Conclusions ....................................................................................
39 B. Suggestions .....................................................................................
40 APPENDICES .............................................................................................
42 BIBLIOGRAPHY
LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: To Be ................................................................................................ 9 Table 2: The students’ individual achievement in the pilot test ........................ 34 Table 3: The students’ individual achievement in the real test .......................... 35 Table 4: The group achievement in the real test ............................................... 36 Table 5: Error classification and its percentage ................................................ 37 Table 6: Examples of each type of students’ errors .......................................... 37
LIST OF APPENDICES
APPENDIX 1: Permission letter ...................................................................43 APPENDIX 2: The pilot test ........................................................................
44 APPENDIX 3: The key of the pilot test ........................................................
45 APPENDIX 4: The students’ individual scores in the pilot test .....................
46 APPENDIX 5: The students’ scores to obtain the reliability of half the test ..
47 APPENDIX 6: The reliability of the test .......................................................
48 APPENDIX 7: The students’ errors in the pilot test ......................................
51 APPENDIX 8: The real test ..........................................................................
52 APPENDIX 9: The key of the real test .........................................................
53 APPENDIX 10: The students’ individual scores in the real test ....................
54 APPENDIX 11: The students’ scores in the first part of the real test .............
55 APPENDIX 12: The students’ scores of the second part of the test ...............
56 APPENDIX 13: The students’ answer sheets ................................................
57
ABSTRACT
Agustina, Dwi. 2007. The English Interrogative Sentence Mastery of The
Second Year Students of SMP Trisula Ngluwar. Yogyakarta: Sanata Dharma
University.The main objective of English language teaching and learning is communicative competence. Communicative competence must be supported by grammatical competence since grammatical competence will facilitate the mastery of four language skills of English. If someone is to master English, she or he has to master English grammar.
The English interrogative sentence is one of English grammar elements which is very important for EFL students to master. The interrogative sentences are used to request information so the need to use them arises often. However producing the interrogative sentences is often confusing since there are To Do, To Be, and Modals which can be used to form “Yes or no questions.” Besides, there are several WH words which can be used to form “WH – questions.” To form the interrogative sentences, students need to deal with the sentence inversion as well as with the tense of the sentences. Producing the interrogative sentences is often difficult for students whose native language does not have the tense system.
This study is focused on the mastery of the English interrogative sentence of the second year students of SMP Trisula Ngluwar. The objective is to find,
first , to what extent the students master the interrogative sentence, and second, the
difficulties students have in mastering the English interrogative sentences.In this study, the writer used a survey research to collect the data and she used a cluster sampling in determining the research participants. She used a written test to measure the students’ mastery of the English interrogative sentences as well as to find the errors they made in producing the interrogative sentences.
The research findings show that the students’ mastery of the English interrogative sentences is still low. They have difficulties in mastering the material, and they made many errors in producing the interrogative sentences. The errors they made are syntactical errors, addition of grammatical elements, misformation of grammatical elements, misordering of grammatical elements, developmental errors, interlingual errors, global errors, and local errors.
Furthermore, the writer gives some teaching suggestions to English teachers, especially for English teachers of SMP Trisula Ngluwar. Due to her limitation, she only gave the teaching suggestion to minimize some errors such as misformation of grammatical element, global errors, and misordering of grammatical elements. Hopefully, the suggestion given can help teachers to apply better teaching technique and help the students to master the material easily.
ABSTRAK
Dwi Agustina. 2007. The English Interrogative Sentence Mastery of The
Second Year Students of SMP Trisula Ngluwar. Yogyakarta: Universitas
Sanata Dharma.Tujuan utama pengajaran dan pembelajaran bahasa Inggris adalah tercapainya kompetensi berkomunikasi. Kompetensi isi harus didukung oleh adanya “grammatical competence” atau kemampuan menggunakan struktur bahasa, karena kemampuan menggunakan struktur bahasa akan memfasilitasi penguasaan empat skill dalam bahasa Inggris. Jika seseorang ingin menguasai bahasa Inggris, dia harus menguasai struktur bahasa Inggris.
Kalimat tanya adalah salah satu elemen struktur bahasa Inggris yang sangat penting untuk dikuasai siswa. Kalimat tanya digunakan untuk meminta keterangan sehingga banyak dan sering digunakan. Namun membuat kalimat tanya sering mebingungkan karena dalam bahasa Inggris ada kata kerja bantu To
Do , To Be, dan Modals untuk membuat kalimat tanya jenis ” Yes or no
questions.” Disamping itu ada kata – kata berawalan WH untuk membuat jenis kalimat tanya ”WH – questions.” Untuk membuat kalimat tanya tersebut siswa harus memindah letak kata kerja bantu dalam kalimat dan menyesuaikan dengan
tenses kalimat tersebut. Bagi siswa yang bahasa aslinya tidak memiliki sistem
tenses membuat kalimat tanya dalam bahasa Inggris tidaklah mudah.Penelitian ini difokuskan pada penguasaan kalimat tanya dalam bahasa Inggris oleh siswa kelas VIII SMP Trisula Ngluwar. Tujuannya yang pertama untuk mengetahui seberapa jauh siswa menguasai kalimat tanya dalam bahasa Inggris dan yang ke dua untuk mengetahui kesulitan yang dihadapi siswa dalam mempelajari materi tersebut.
Dalam penelitian ini penulis menggunakan survey untuk mengumpulkan data. Dia menggunakan metode cluster sampling dalam menentukan subjek penelitian. Selain itu penulis memakai tes tertulis untuk mengukur seberapa jauh siswa menguasai kalimat tanya dalam bahasa Inggris dan untuk mencari jenis - jenis kesalahan siswa dalam membuat kalimat tanya dalam bahasa Inggris.
Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa penguasaan kalimat tanya oleh para siswa masih rendah. Mereka memiliki kesulitan dalam menguasai materi tersebut. Mereka juga membuat banyak kesalahan saat membuat kalimat tanya berbahasa Inggris. Kesalahan mereka dapat dikategorikan dalam syntactical errors, addition
of grammatical element, misformation of grammatical element, misordering of
grammatical element, developmental error, interlingual error, global error dan
local error.Selanjutnya penulis memberikan saran pengajaran bagi guru bahasa Inggris, khususnya guru di SMP Trisula Ngluwar. Namun dengan keterbatasan penulis, penulis hanya dapat memberikan saran untuk mengurangi kesalahan jenis
misformation of grammatical element, misordering of grammatical element, dan
global error. Penulis berharap saran – saran tersebut dapat membantu para guru
untuk menerapkan teknik mengajar yang lebih baik dan membantu siswa menguasai materi dengan mudah.
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION This chapter deals with the background information and rationale for the
research. It consists of six important parts. They are background of the study, problem formulation, problem limitation, objectives, benefits, and definition of terms.
A. BACKGROUND
The main objective of language teaching is communicative competence which is defined by Hymes (1972) as “what a speaker needs to know in order to be communicatively competent in a speech community.” Communicative competence has four dimensions, they are grammatical competence, discourse competence, sociolinguistic competence, and strategic competence. Building this communicative competence means building its four dimensions entirely.
Grammatical competence as one of communicative competence dimensions is important to build since to use a language well, people need to know its grammar. Greenbaum (1989:1) defines grammar as “the sets of rules that allow us to combine words in our language into larger units.” In this case, if we want to master English, we have to master English grammar as English grammar provides rules for us to produce correct utterances.
In our curriculum of education, it is stated that grammar should be taught in order to facilitate the mastery of four language skills such as Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing (KTSP, 2006). Grammar should be taught since it helps a student as a speaker, to express his ideas and grammar also helps other students, as listeners, to understand what is expressed by the speaker. It is clear, then, that students have to master English grammar if they are to master English. In short, the teaching of English grammar is necessary, even a must.
The teaching of grammar will help students master the four language skills stated above, however, at the same time it will create difficulties or problems for the learners. It is caused by the different element of the target language and the students’ native language. As stated by Lado (1961:17), “where the native language of the students and the foreign language differ structurally, there is a learning problem and the nature and the description of this problem depend on the comparison of the two language structures.”
This theory arises the writer’s interest to prove whether students have difficulties in mastering English grammar since English has a very different grammar from Indonesian. The writer is interested in studying the students’ mastery of English grammar. In this case, she studies the students’ mastery of the English interrogative sentences.
The English interrogative sentence is one element in English grammar that is taught in Junior High School. The writer chooses the English interrogative sentences since they are very important structures for both ESL and EFL students. They are used to request information, so the need to use them is often. Through the study the writer wants to know to what extent Junior High School students master the English interrogative sentences.
Moreover, the writer wants to investigate potential difficulties faced by the students in mastering the interrogative sentence of English. The students’ difficulties will be seen trough the students’ errors in producing the English interrogative sentences. Therefore, the kind of errors the students make is covered in this study.
In this study, it is the students’ mastery of producing interrogative sentences in written English which is investigated. The writer is interested in studying this case because there are To do, To be, and Modals that have similar meaning of Indonesian “Apakah” to form “Yes- no questions.” They are similar in meaning but far from being always interchangeable. Their similarity in meaning causes difficulties and problems for English learners, especially Indonesian students whose language does not have the concept of tenses. Besides, there are also question words to form another kind of interrogative sentences (WH- question) such as who, when, where, whose, which, what, whom, why, and how.
Producing interrogative sentences is not always easy. It is influenced by not only the tenses of the sentences but also the subjects of the sentences. For the students who know nothing about English grammar, producing interrogative sentences is a very hard work to do. Nevertheless, they have to study them. They need to know the knowledge. This knowledge will enable them to produce grammatically correct sentences.
B. PROBLEM FORMULATION
There are two problems presented in this study. The two problems are
1. To what extent do the second year students of SMP Trisula Ngluwar master the English interrogative sentences?
2. What are their difficulties in mastering the English interrogative sentences?
C. PROBLEM LIMITATION
The students who are learning English can produce interrogative sentences both in spoken and in written English. Since the writer cannot avoid some limitations in carrying out this study, the writer focuses her attention on students’ written English. It means that the discussion is limited in the area of students’ mastery of the English interrogative sentences in written English, and not in spoken English. The discussion will only cover the students’ mastery of the English interrogative sentences and the difficulties they have in producing interrogative sentences.
The subjects of this study are the second year students of SMP Trisula Ngluwar, Magelang Regency. They have been learning English grammar, including the English interrogative sentences, at least from the first year of Junior High School. Therefore, they are quite representative as the research participants.
D. OBJECTIVES
This study deals with the students’ mastery of producing the English interrogative sentences. The objectives of this study are
1. To find out to what extent the second year students of SMP Trisula Ngluwar master the English interrogative sentences.
2. To find out the difficulties they have in mastering the English the English interrogative sentences.
E. BENEFITS
The research means so much for the writer. First, the research is the partial fulfillment of the requirements to obtain the Sarjana Pendidikan degree in English Language Education. Second, the research enlarges the writer’s knowledge of the English Interrogative sentences. Finally, through the research, the writer learns so many things about thesis writing and how to conduct a research.
Hopefully, from this study, the readers, English learners or those who are interested in learning English will be able to know more about the English interrogative sentences. Since there are not many English text books that provide enough space for the discussion on the interrogative sentences both “yes or no questions” and “WH- Question” specifically, then this study will help them to enrich their knowledge about how to produce the interrogative sentences. As a result, when those students should produce the interrogative sentences, mistakes can be reduced or avoided.
As for the English teachers, this study can help them to find students’ difficulties in mastering the English interrogative sentences. The teacher can pay more attention to the difficult parts of this grammar. The teachers, then, will be able to help the students to improve their learning, for example by giving more drills on interrogative sentence production or by teaching grammar explicitly related to the interrogative sentences. Finally, for the further researchers, the result of this study can be used as a start for further research by improving and broadening the topic.
F. DEFINITION OF TERMS
There are some terms that will be frequently used in this study. Therefore, it is necessary to know their definitions.
1. Study The term study used by the writer refers to research. According to Hatch and Farhady (1982: 1) “research is a systematic approach to finding answers to questions.” In this thesis, the study or the research is to investigate the students’ mastery of the English interrogative sentences among the second year students of SMP Trisula Ngluwar, Magelang Regency.
2. Mastery According to Stern (1983: 346) someone has the mastery of a language when she or he has a. the intuitive mastery of the forms of the language, b. the intuitive mastery of the linguistic, cognitive, affective and sociocultural meaning, expressed by the language forms, c. the capacity to use the language with maximum attention to communication and minimum attention to form, and d. the creativity of language use. Someone who has those four aspects is considered as master the language.
In this study, to master the English interrogative sentences means that the students know the form, meaning, and the function of the interrogative sentences.
Besides, the students do not have the difficulties in learning them. The students’ mastery is measured by a written test as the instrument.
3. Interrogative sentences According to Greenbaum (1989: 20) “interrogative sentences are sentences which are used chiefly to request information.” It is usual to refer to interrogatives more simply as questions.
CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter deals with the literature review of the research. In this part,
the writer presents many relevant theories for her study. There are two main parts in this chapter namely theoretical description and theoretical framework.
A. THEORETICAL DESCRIPTION In this part, the writer discusses the English interrogative sentences.
According to Greenbaum (1989: 20) “the English interrogative sentences can be divided into two main types.” The two main types of interrogative sentences are “Yes – no question” and “WH- question.” The writer will discuss these two main types of interrogative sentences.
1. “Yes – no questions” According to Azar (1989) a “yes – no question is a question that may be answered by yes or no.” Another definition is proposed by Celce – Murcia and
Larsen – Freeman (1999: 205) in which “yes – no question” is defined as “questions for which either “yes” or “no” is the expected answer.” Another definition is proposed by Finegan (2004: 160) in which he defines “yes – no questions” as “questions which can be answered with a reply of yes or no.” In English we can make or produce an infinite number of “yes – no questions” through the use of To Be, To Do, and Modals. a. To Be
To Be or what some people may call “Be” consists of is, am, are, was, and
were. They are used differently based on the subjects of the sentences and the adverb of time used in the sentences (present or past). To make it clear, the writer provides a table of To Be as follows:
Table 1: To Be Subject To Be (present form) To Be (past form)
I Am Was You are were We are were They are were He is was She is was It is was
Based on the table above, it is clear that in present tense there are three forms of To Be (is, am, are) which change into two different forms in past tense (was and were). Those five forms of To Be are used differently according to the subject precedes them. For example, “am” is used for the subject I and “are” is used for the subject You, We, and They. While “is” is used with the subject He, She, and It.
Furthermore, according to Azar (1989: Appendix 1) “there are three basic patterns of sentences with To Be as the main verb.” They are 1) S + To Be + A Noun Example: John is a teacher 2) S + To Be + an Adjectives Example: John is clever 3) S + To Be + A Prepositional Phrase Example: John was at the library In addition, To Be can also be used as an auxiliary verb. To Be can be used in both progressive verb tenses and the passive. The patterns are
4) S + To Be + O + A Example: John is writing a letter 5) S + To Be + Past Participle Example: The letter is written (by John)
In order to produce “yes – no questions,” To Be is placed in front of the sentence. Therefore, those five sentences above can be formed into “yes – no questions.” Their interrogative forms are 1) Is John a teacher? 2) Is John clever? 3) Was John at the library? 4) Is John writing a letter? 5) Is the letter written by John?
From the writer’s examples above, the pattern of the questions formed through the use of To Be are 1) To Be + S + A Noun? 2) To Be + S + An Adjective? 3) To Be+ S + A prepositional Phrase? 4) To Be+ S + V ing + O + A? 5) To Be + O + Past Participle?
From the explanation above we know the patterns of “yes – no questions” to make the English interrogative sentences. However, it is not always an easy matter for Indonesian students in using To Be for making interrogative sentences. They will face difficulties and problems if they cannot differentiate the use of To Be from To Do.
b. To Do There are three forms of To Do. They are Do, Does and Did. The use of To
Do is also influenced by the subjects of the sentences and the adverb of time of
the sentences. “Do” and “Does” are used in the present tense while “Did” is used in the past tense. “Do” is used for the subjects I, You, We, They and other plural subjects. While “Does” is used for the third singular person pronouns such as He, She and It and “Did” can be used for every subject of a sentence.
The following are the patterns of interrogative sentences through the use of To Do.
1) Do + S + V1 + O + A? Example: Do you live in Magelang? 2) Does + S + V1+ O + A? Example: Does she study English everyday? 3) Did + S + V1 + O + A? Example: Did they visit you yesterday?
From the patterns and examples presented above, it can be concluded that the main verb in the interrogative sentence is its simple form, there is no final –s or –ed. Therefore, in learning “yes or no questions” concerning to the use of To
Do , English learners should not be bothered with the verb. Rather, they should
give more attention to the subject and adverb of time in the sentence since those elements will determine which form of To Do that must be used in order to produce grammatically correct interrogative sentences. Furthermore, if they master To Be and To Do, it will not be very hard for them to learn “yes – no question” which is formed through the use of modal auxiliaries.
c. Modals According to Azar (1989: 68), “the modal auxiliaries in English consist of
can, may, must , shall, will, could, might, ought to, should, and would.” “Modal
auxiliaries generally express a speaker’s attitudes, or moods. For example, modals can express that a speaker feels something is necessary, advisable, permissible, possible, and in addition, they can convey the strength of these attitudes.”
In sentences, modals never take final –s even when the subject of the sentence is the third singular person. Besides, they are followed directly by the simple form of a verb. In order to make “yes – no questions,” we can simply place modals whose position is after the subject to the initial position of the sentences.
The details are as follows and they are taken from the Azar’s
Understanding and Using English Grammar (1989). However, the writer does not
discuss the modal auxiliaries entirely since not all modal auxiliaries are used to form interrogative sentences, especially “yes – no questions.” The modals which are discussed here are those frequently used in “yes – no questions” by Junior High School students. 1) Can
Can is used, first, to ask one’s ability, and second, to request permission, especially if the speaker is talking to someone she or he knows fairly well.
Examples: Can you run fast? Can I borrow your pen?
2) Could Could is used to request permission.
Examples: Could I borrow your pen? Could we use this room?
3) May May is used to request permission too.
Examples: May I go now? May I use your computer?
4) Might Might is used similarly to May. It is used to request permission.
Examples: Might I borrow your computer? Might I go?
5) Shall Shall is used to express polite request to make suggestion.
Examples: Shall I open the window?
Shall we go now? 6) Will Will is used to express polite request.
Examples: Will you please pass the salt? Will you please buy me a bottle of tea?
7) Would Would is used to request as well.
Examples: Would you mind leaving early? Would you mind opening the door?
Finish learning “yes – no questions” through the use of To Do, To Be, and
Modals , students still have another thing to learn. They will deal with “WH –
questions.” “WH – questions” are not simpler than “yes – no questions.” In “WH – questions” the students must be able to master subject – operator inversion.
2. “WH – questions” “WH – questions” are defined by Greenbaum (1989: 153) as “questions with interrogative word or phrase.” They are called “WH – questions” because most of the interrogative words begin with WH (the exception is how). Azar (1989: Appendix 1) defines a “WH question” as “a question that asks for information by using a question word.”
Another definition is given by Kolln (1990: 70) in which it is stated that “WH – questions are questions begin with a question word or interrogative, that elicit specific information such as why, where, when, who, whom, whose, which,
what, and how.” In this study, the writer discusses all of those words by citing
explanation from Azar’s Understanding and Using English Grammar (1989: A10).
1) When When is used to ask question about time.
Example: When did they arrive? 2) Where Where is used to ask question about place.
Example: Where is she? 3) Why Why is used to ask question about reason.
Example: Why did he leave early? 4) How How generally ask about manner.
Example: How do you go to school? How is used with much and many.
Example: How much money do you have? How many people came? How long asks about length of time.
Example: How long has he been here? How often asks about frequency.
Example: How often do you write home?
How far asks about distances.
Example: How far is it to Miami from here? 5) Who Who is used as the subject of a question and it refers to people.
Example: Who can answer this question? 6) Whose Whose asks questions about possession.
Example: Whose book did you borrow? 7) Whom
Whom is used as the object of a verb or preposition. Whom is used in formal questions.
Example: Whom did you see? 8) What What is used as the subject of a questions and it refers to things.
Example: What made you angry? What is also used as an object.
Example: What do you need? What kind asks about the particular variety or type of something.
Example: What kind of soup is that? What + a form of do is used to ask questions about activities.
Example: What did you do last night? What + be like asks for general description of qualities.
Example: What is Ed like?
What + look like asks for a physical description.
Example: What does Ed look like? 9) Which
Which is used instead of what, when a question concerns choosing from a definite, known quantity or group.
Example: Which book should I buy? The interrogative words in “WH- questions” represents a missing piece of information that speaker wants the hearer to supply (Greenbaum, 1989: 153).
“WH – questions” generally require subject – operator inversion. For example Doddy is going where? (Where is Doddy going?) The exception occurs when the interrogative word or phrase is the subject.
In that case the normal subject – verb order applies: Who has taken my car? Which bus goes to Chicago?
Therefore, in learning “WH- questions” the students must be really careful in identifying the missing information. If they are careless, errors are very possible to occur.
3. Errors
a. Definition of errors According to Dulay et al. (1982:138) “errors” are “the flawed side of learner speech or writing.” They are those parts of conversation or composition that deviate from some selected norm of mature language performance. Students who are learning a new language often made errors in the process of their learning. Therefore, Dulay et al. stated that people cannot learn language without first systematically committing errors.
According to Ellis (1997: 139) “errors” are “deviation in usage which results from gaps in learner’s knowledge of the target language.” Next, “mistakes” are defined as “deviation in usage that reflects learners’ inability to use what they actually know of the target language (Ellis, 1997: 141).” In this study, the writer uses “error” to refer to any deviation from a selected norm of language performance, no matter what the characteristics or causes of the deviation might be.
b. Classification of errors Since the writer will analyze errors made by the research participants without considering the sources of those errors, the writer uses error classification suggested by Dulay et al.. The error classification suggested by Dulay et al. (1982: 146) is error taxonomies that classify errors according to some observable surface feature of the error itself, without reference to its underlying cause or source. The writer considers them representative in defining the classification of errors.
1) Error Classification Based on Linguistic Category
a) Morphological Errors Morphological errors have many types, such as errors in using articles, verb form for third person singular, possessive case, simple past tense, past participle, comparative adjectives, or adverbs.
b) Syntactical Errors In syntactical errors, second or foreign language learners may produce errors in phrases (determiner, nominalization, number, pronoun, and preposition), verb phrases (omission of verb, tenses, and subject – verb agreement), and transformations (negative transformations and interrogative transformation).
2) Error Classification Based on Surface Strategy Taxonomy
a) Omission of Grammatical Elements Omission errors are characterized by the absence of certain items that must appear in a well – formed utterance. Second or foreign language learners produce much more omission errors in grammatical morphemes rather than in content words, such as noun, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. The omission does not contribute much to meaning of the sentence. Omission of grammatical morphemes is commonly produced by beginner learners.
For example: * He go to school next week (He will go to school next week)
b) Addition of Grammatical Elements
Addition errors are the opposite of omission errors. They are characterized by the presence of certain items that must not appear in a well – formed utterance.
For example: *He does not knows my address (He does not know my address)
- This is the man whom I met him (This is the man whom I met)
c) Misformation of Grammatical elements Misformation errors are characterized by the use of wrong form of the morphemes or structures. The learners actually are capable of supplying a certain system of the target language, but it is still incorrect. For examples:
- He goed to the town (He went to the town)
- Are you have much money? (Do you have much money?)
d) Misordering of Grammatical Elements Misordering errors are characterized by the incorrect placement of certain morphemes or a group of morphemes in an utterance. Thus, the learners produce these errors when they put words or phrases in incorrect orders in sentence construction. For example:
- He is all the time late (He is late all the time)
- I don’t know what is her name (I don’t know what her name is)
3) Error Classification Based on Comparative Taxonomy
This classification of errors is based on comparison between the structure of the second language errors and certain other types of construction. There are two major error categories in this classification. The first one is developmental errors and the second one is interlingual errors.
a) Developmental Errors Developmental errors are similar to those made by children learning the target language as their first language. The omission of the grammatical elements may be classified as developmental errors, since the errors are also found in the speech of children learning English as their first language. For examples:
- Monkey eat banana (The monkey eats banana)
- The baby cry (The baby cried)
b) Interlingual Errors Interlingual errors are similar in structure to a semantically equivalent phrase or sentence in the learners’ native language. For examples: Andi sering pergi ke pasar
- Andi often go to market (Andi often goes to market)
4) Error Classification Based on Communicative Effect Taxonomy
Unlike the two other taxonomies that focus on the aspect of errors themselves, the communicative effects of errors deal with errors from the perspective of their effect on the listener or reader. It focuses on distinguishing between errors that seem to miscommunication and those who don’t.
a) Global Errors Global errors are errors that affect overall sentence organization. This can significantly hinder communication. For example:
- English language use many people (English language is used by many people)
- We amused the movie very much (The movie amused us very much)
b) Local Errors Local errors are errors that affect single elements (constituent) in a sentence. They do not usually hinder communication significantly. These include errors in noun and verb inflection, articles, auxiliaries and the formation of quantifiers. For example:
- Why like we each other? or
- Why we like each other? (Why do we like each other?)
B. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
Most of us agree that the teaching and learning of a language aim at communicative competence or proficiency. Grammatical competence as one dimension of communicative competence is considered as the foundation to build grammatically correct sentences in the target language. However, since the grammar system of the target language, English, is different from our own language, Indonesian, difficulties in mastering English grammar always exist. As a result, grammatical errors often occur when English is being learned.
This study is focused on the student’s mastery of the English interrogative sentence. Students’ mastery of the English interrogative sentences as part of the mastery of the whole English grammar is important to research since interrogative sentences are very important structures for ESL and EFL students. They are used to request information, so the need to use them arises often. For instance, “yes – no questions” are used to query an entire proposition, and “WH – questions” are used when the speaker is missing one specific piece of information. For instance, “WH – questions” are used in social interaction, for getting directions, in seeking explanation, for eliciting vocabulary, and so forth.
Furthermore, the result of this study will inform us whether grammatical competence as part of communicative competence has been achieved after a certain period of time spent to learn English. In addition it will inform us the learners’ difficulties in mastering English grammar, in this case the English interrogative sentences which finally can lead us to the improvement of the teaching learning activities. Finally, this kind of improvement will enable us to gain better grammatical competence and communicative competence as well.
CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY This chapter deals with the methodology used in carrying out the research. It covers the research method, research participants, setting, research instrument,
the technique of data collection, the technique of data analysis, and the research procedure.
A. METHOD
In this study, the kind of research the writer conducted was a survey research. Survey research is a method of research in which the writer learns about characteristics of an entire group of interest (a population) by examining a subset of that group. This survey was used to find out the data for the analysis, in this case, the students’ mastery of the English interrogative sentences.
The method of sampling used in this study was cluster sampling. Here, the unit chosen was not an individual but a group of individuals who were naturally together. In this case, the writer conducted a survey in a class and included all the students in the class as the research participants.
B. RESEARCH PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING