AN ANALYSIS OF GRAMMATICAL ERRORS IN WRITING
RECOUNT TEXT MADE BY STUDENTS OF AIR-LANGGA
COURSE IN SENGKALING
THESIS
By:
WITA WIDYARTI
201010100311273
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF TEACHING TRAINING AND EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF MUHAMMADIYAH MALANG
AN ANALYSIS OF GRAMMATICAL ERRORS IN WRITING
RECOUNT TEXT MADE BY STUDENTS OF AIR-LANGGA
COURSE IN SENGKALING
THESIS
This thesis is submitted to meet one of the requirements to achieve Sarjana Degree in English Education
By:
WITA WIDYARTI
201010100311273
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF TEACHING TRAINING AND EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF MUHAMMADIYAH MALANG
MOTTO AND DEDICATION
Sesungguhnya sesudah kesulitan itu ada
kemudahan
(Qs. Al-Insirakh: 6)
Kata Hati
adalah
Kejujuran Sejati
(Wita Widyarti)
DEDICATION:
TABLE OF CONTENTS
COVER ... i
APPROVAL... ii
LEGALIZATION ... iii
ORIGINALITY DECLARATION ... iv
MOTTO AND DEDICATION ... v
ABSTRACT... vi
ACKNOWLEDGMENT... vii
TABLE OF CONTENTS... viii
CHAPTER I-INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background of the Study...1
1.2 Statement of the Problem ...4
1.3 Purpose of the Study ...4
1.4 Significance of the Study...4
1.5 Scope and Limitation ...5
1.6 Definition of the Key Terms...5
CHAPTER II-REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE 2.1 Defenition of Error ...7
2.2 Types of Error... 8
2.2.1 Linguistic Category...9
2.2.2 Surface Strategy Taxonomy...9
2.2.2.1 Omission...10
2.2.2.2 Addition...10
2.2.2.3 Misformation...12
2.2.2.4 Misordering...13
2.2.3 Comparative Taxonomy...13
2.2.4 Communicative Effect Taxonomy...13
2.3 Grammar...14
2.4 Error Analysis ...15
2.5.1 Writing Process...16
2.5.2 Text Types of Writing...18
2.6 Recount Text...18
CHAPTER III-RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 3.1 Research Design ...21
3.2 Research Subject ...22
3.3 Research Instrument ...22
3.4 Data Collection...23
3.5 Data Analysis ...23
3.5.1 Identifying Errors ...23
3.5.2 Classifying Errors...24
3.5.3 The Frequency of Occurrence...24
CHAPTER IV-RESEARCH FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 4.1 Research Findings ...26
4.1.1 Classification and Description of Errors...27
4.1.1.1 Error of Omission...29
4.1.1.2 Error of Addition...30
4.1.1.3 Error of Misformation...31
4.1.1.4 Error of Misordering...32
4.1.2 The Most Dominant Error Type that Appeared in Students’ Writing Task...33
5.2.3 Next Researchers...42
REFERENCES... 43
REFERENCES
AbiSamra, Nada. 2003. An Analysis of Errors in Arabic Speakers’ English Writings. American University of Beirut. http://www.nadasisland.com/languageacq-erroranalysis.html (Febuary-14- 2015)
Ary, Donald. 2006. Introduction to research in Education (Seventh Edition). New York: Thomson Highest Education
Ary, Donald. Lucy Cheser Jacobs. Chris Sorensen. 2010.Introduction to Research in Education (eighth Edition).Canada: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
Australian National Curriculum Resources F-6, Graham, Stephen and Alison Davis.
http://australiancurriculumf-6resources.blogspot.com/2013/04/text-types.html(Febuary-14-2015)
Brown, H. D. (Ed.). 2000. Principles of Language Learning and Teaching (fourth ed.). San Fransisco: Addition Wesly Longman, Inc.
Brown, H. D. 2007. Principles of Language Learning and Teaching (fifth ed.). New York: Pearson Education,Inc.
Creswell, J. W. 2012. Planning, Conducting, and Evaluating Quantitative and Qualitative Research. United States of America: Pearson Education, Inc.,.
Dewi, Fenti Utia. 2011. An Analysis of Grammatical Errors in Writing Descriptive Paragraph Made by the Second Year Students of SMP Muhammadiyah 06 Dau Malang. Unpublished Thesis. Malang: Muhammadiyah University of Malang.
Dulay, et al. 1982.Language Two. New York: Oxford University Press, Inc.
Dulay, H and Burt, M and Krashen, S. 1982. Language Two. New York: Oxford University Press.
Harmer, Jeremy. 2007.How to Teach Writing (New Edition). Malaysia: Longman.
Heaton, J. B. 2007.Writing English Language Text. New York: Longman group UK.
Maulydiyah, H. 2008. Grammatical Errors in the First Year Students’ Writing Task
of SMP Negeri 6 Malang. Unpublished s1 Thesis. Malang: State University of Malang.
Oshima, Alice & Hogue, Ann. 2007.Introduction to Academic English Third Edition. New York: Pearson Education, Inc.
Pardiyono. 2007. Pasti Bisa! Teaching Genre-Based Writing. Yogyakarta: CV Andi Offset.
https://arifianunnes3.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/recount-text-learning-material.pdf(January-22-2015)
Thornbury, Scott. 2004.Natural Grammar. New York: Oxford University Press.
1
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
This chapter presents the background of the study, statement of the problems,
purpose of the study, significance of the study, scope and limitation, and definition of
key terms. Each section is presented as follows:
1.1 Background of the Study
English is an international language, which becomes widely used throughout
the world as formal or informal communication. As an international language,
English has big advantages to learners in the whole world. Therefore, English is a
subject, which is taught in many countries, and it is known as foreign language.
English is introduced to students from elementary school up to university as well in
many countries including Indonesia.
The teaching learning process of English includes four basic skills. Those four
basic skills are speaking, reading, listening, and writing. According to Hammer
(2007), four basic skills of English are divided into two types. Receptive skill is a
term used for reading and listening. These skills just involve understanding words or
sentences or item recognition. Whereas, productive skill is the term for speaking and
writing. Productive skill means that students have to produce language themselves. It
can concluded that productive skill are more difficult than receptive skills. By
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Among the four skills above, writing is also important for communication
after speaking because people can express their idea, opinion, critics on the paper that
will be read by readers in writing. In fact, Writing is a complex subject, and many
people claim that writing is hard to be done. It is because writing is a difficult subject
and it requires special skills in the production. Those special skills are in the word
choice, the use of structure, the mechanic, and the rhetoric.
The complexity of writing often leads some students to make some errors in
making written work. 0ne of the errors is grammatical errors. The grammatical errors
done by students happen in several types of writing such as narrative, descriptive,
recount, news item, exposition, procedure, etc. In this study, the researcher focuses on
writing recount text. It is because recount text is still rarely to be researched and this
text has always been a subject that should be learned in schools. This text often
appears on national exams and the recount text is widely used in daily life, for
examples diary, police reports, sports reports, journey, biography, autobiography,
history and personal letter. Therefore, the researcher is interested in observing recount
text. According to Pardiyono (2007),
“Recount means an event that contains chronological or occurred activities in the past. It is focus on retelling the occurred experience in the past. Therefore, the social function is to retell activities for the purpose of informing or entertaining”.
In Fentis’ study (2011), she found that there were 230 grammatical errors
recognized from the composition in descriptive paragraph made by the second year
students of SMP Muhammadiyah 06 Dau Malang. These errors were caused by
3
experience in the first language to the target language, ignorance of rule restriction,
and incomplete rule application.
There are many reasons why students often make grammatical errors in their
wriring. It is supported by Maulydiyah (2008) who studied about grammatical errors
in students’ writing task. She found that the grammatical errors occurred due to the
existence of differences between grammar rules in English and those in Bahasa
Indonesia. For example, English has concept of tense for verb and subject agreement,
while Indonesian grammar does not have any. Then, in English, the formation of
regular plural nouns and irregular ones are different but not in Bahasa Indonesia.
Moreover, Bahasa Indonesia does not have gender pronouns and its pronouns are not
as various as English where pronouns depend on their position in the sentence.
In order to minimize the errors, students need to learn more about grammar
itself. Nowadays, many courses can be used as a place for students to learn English
specifically. Students can improve their knowledge and their ability by doing a
course. It means that schools are not the main place to learn English any more.
Based on the phenomena, the researcher is interested in analyzing
grammatical errors in writing recount text at informal education like a course. A
course that is chosen by the researcher is Air-Langga course.
Air-Langga course is a course, which is located in Sengkaling-Malang. It is a
fairly new course because this course was founded in 2010. Therefore, Air-Langga
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Based on the reasons above, the researcher chose “An analysis of
grammatical errors in writing recount text made by students of Air-Langga
course in Sengkaling”as the title of this thesis.
1.2 Statement of the Problem
Considering the background of the study above, the problems are formulated
as follows:
1. What are the types of grammatical errors in writing recount text made by students of
Air-Langga course in Sengkaling based on surface strategy taxonomy?
2. What is the most dominant grammatical error in writing recount text made by
students of Air-Langga course in Sengkaling based on surface strategy taxonomy?
1.3 Purpose of Study
Based on the statements of the problems above, the purposes of the study are:
1. To define the types of grammatical errors in writing recount text made by students of
Air-Langga course in Sengkaling.
2. To investigate the most dominant grammatical error in writing recount text made by
students of Air-Langga course in Sengkaling.
1.4 Significance of Study
The result of this study is expected to give some contributions in teaching
English, especially about grammatical errors in writing recount text. Analyzing the
5
errors in writing recount text. It will help the teachers to use the appropriate method
and strategy to teach the students. Besides the teachers can evaluate their material and
develop appropriate teaching techniques.
For the students, by analyzing their errors, the students will try to be careful in
writing, especially recount text. The students will also understand how to write
recount text. The last, the student will not make any errors in producing recount text
in the future.
For other researchers, the result of this study can be used as the reference for
those who want to conduct the similar research and for the researcher himself. This
study can give contribution to increase understanding related to writing, grammatical
errors and recount text.
1.5 Scope and Limitation
This study focuses on the grammatical errors in writing recount text made by
students of Air-Langga course and the researcher limits her study on the errors based
on surface strategy taxonomy that are errors of addition, errors of omission, errors of
misformation, and errors of misordering.
1.6 Definition of Key terms
To avoid misunderstanding, the definition of key terms is presented as
6
Error:
A noticeable deviation from grammar of the adult native speaker reflecting the
language competence of learners (Brown: 2000)
Grammar:
A description of the rules that govern how a language’s sentences are formed.
(Thornbury 2004)
Recount text:
An event that contains chronological or occurred activities in the past. It is focus on
retelling the occurred experience in the past (Pardiyono: 2007)
Air-Langga course:
A course that is located in Sengkaling-Malang. It was found in 2010. This course
offered some classes for junior high school and elementary school students. This
