GRAMMATICAL ERRORS IN WRITING NARRATIVE MADE BY THE GRADE XI NATURAL SCIENCE AND SOCIAL SCIENCE STUDENTS AT SMA NEGERI 1 AEKKUO, LABUHANBATU UTARA.

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GRAMMATICAL ERRORS IN WRITING NARRATIVE MADE

BY THE GRADE XI NATURAL SCIENCE AND SOCIAL

SCIENCE STUDENTS

’

AT SMA N 1 AEK KUO,

LABUHANBATU UTARA

A THESIS

Submitted in Partial fulfillment of the Requirements for the degree of Sarjana Pendidikan

By :

YUDHI ADITYA KURNIAWAN

Registration Number : 2111521017

ENGLISH AND LITERATURE DEPARTMENT

FACULTY OF LANGUAGES AND ARTS

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ABSTRACT

Kurniawan, Yudhi Aditya. 2111521017. Grammatical Errors in Writing Narrative Made by the Grade XI Natural Science and Social Science Students at SMA Negeri 1 AekKuo, Labuhanbatu Utara. A Thesis.English and Literature Department. Faculty of Languages and Arts. State University of Medan. 2016

The aim of this study is to discover of grammatical errors in writing narrative text that have been made by the natural science and social science students. Causal-comparative design is used as the research method. This research took place at SMA N 1 Aek Kuo, Labuhanbatu Utara. There were 2 classes chosen as the sample with 15 students in each class. The classes were divided into two classes namely natural science class and social science class. The instrument of the research is the free narrative writing made by the students. The result has shown the total errors in natural science students are 155 while in social science students are 125 in the other words the average score of natural science class is 73,8 while in social science class is 78,6. This study has shown that the natural science students are not always good than social science students.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

All praises and the greatest thankfulness to Allah SWT who has blessed, given time, opportunity, health, and mercy to the writer in finishing this thesis

entitled “Grammatical Errors in Writing Narrative Made by the Grade XI Natural Science and Social Science Students at SMA N 1 Aek Kuo, Labuhanbatu Utara” to fulfill the requirements for the degree of Sarjana Pendidikan (S.Pd) at English Department, Faculty of Languages and Arts, State University of Medan.

In the process of writing this thesis, so many people have always assisted, supported, prayers, suggested, helped, adviced, and motivated the writer. Therefore, the writer would like to express his thanks and his sincere appreciation that directed to :

 Prof. Dr. Syawal Gultom, M.Pd, the Rector of State University of Medan.

 Dr. Isda Pramuniati, M.Hum, the Dean of Faculty of Languages and

Arts, State University of Medan.

 Drs. Johan Sinulingga, M.Pd, Drs. Lidiman Sahat Martua Sinaga,

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 All the Lecturers of English Department who have taught and

adviced his during the academic years.

 Eis Sri Wahyuningsih, S.Pd., M.Pd and Mr. Pantes, the

administration staffs of English and Literature Department who always helped the writer during his academic year.

 Suyanto, S.Pd, the Headmaster of SMA Negeri 1 Aek Kuo, Labuhanbatu Utara who has given the permission to conduct the research in the school. And also for students in XI IPA 2 and XI IPS 2 for their participation and attention during the research.

 His special sincere gratitude goes to his beloved parents; his lovely

Sarah Silaban, Mega Siregar, Sameris Sitanggang, Putri Samosir,

Sirikit Sembiring, Mauritz Panggabean for their endless support, attention, pray and love and beautiful day spent together.

 His best partner ever, Sylvia Febyani Taruna who always support

and accompany wherever and whenever. Thank you very much for your time and everything you give for him. He hopes you are happy in your new journey.

Finally, the writer hopes this thesis can give the contribution to the English Education students and also further qualitative research.

Medan, January 2016 The writer,

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LIST OF TABLES

Page

Table 2.1 Genre of Texts………...12

Table 3.1 Causal-Comparative design……….………..18

Table 3.2 The result of students work………….………..21

Table 4.1 Grammatical errors of natural science students……….23

Table 4.2 Grammatical errors of social science students………..24

Table 4.3 Natural science students score……….………..25

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LIST OF PICTURES

Page

Picture 4.1 Error in using noun ... 28

Picture 4.2 Error in using pronoun ... 30

Picture 4.3 Error in using verb ... 33

Picture 4.4 Error in using adverb ... 35

Picture 4.5 Error in using adjective ... 37

Picture 4.6 Error in using article ... 39

Picture 4.7 Error in using preposition ... 41

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LIST OF APPENDICES

APPENDIX A ... 47

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CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

A.Background of the Study

Indonesian schools divide the classes of Grade XI into Natural Science

classes and Social Science classes. Natural Science and Social Science are two

different majors in Senior High School. The specific Natural Science subjects are

Physics, Chemistry, and Biology. The focus of Natural Science is nature. The

specific Social Science subjects are Economics, Geography, and Sociology. The

focus of Social Science is society. Compared to the Social Science, the Natural

Science rely on more mathematically based methods (Boutellier, 2011).

There is a perspective stated by the society that students of Natural

Science tend to be more intelligent, more hardworking, and therefore are said to

be cleverer compared to the Social Science students. Based on the oral interviews

conducted by researcher to about 20 parents, both in Aek Kuo and Merbau, whom

their children are currently attending the senior high school, 16 of them believe

that Natural Science students are better than Social Science students with the

dominant reason is because Natural Science students study more complex and

difficult subjects which will train the brain more in thinking and concentrating.

They are considered to be more focused and careful in studying based on the

different specific subjects that they learn at school. This perspective leads to a

new perspective that the Natural Science students would make fewer mistakes

compared to the Social Science students in doing something, including in writing

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the students’ writing, specifically the grammatical structures, from both types of

classes since grammar is one of the important elements in writing an English text

(Richards & Renandya 2002 in Hourani) whereas grammar is also said to be the

most difficult subject that should be learned by the students. Also, based on the

popular saying that it cannot judge a book by its cover, it cannot directly judged

the ability of the Social Science as well as the Natural Science students in the case

of writing an English text with proper grammatical structures.

Research about Error Analysis (EA) itself is actually quite popular in the

education field, particularly in countries where English is as the second or foreign

language. Hourani (2008) chose EA particularly in the analysis of common

grammatical errors found in 3rdsecondary male students’ writings in Dubai as his

dissertation, Zawahreh (2012) conducted a research of EA that analyzed the

applied error made by tenth grade students in Jordan, Khansir (2012) wrote an

article of the importance of error analysis for the second language acquisition, and

so on. In Indonesia, there are still not many researchers that conduct the research

of Error Analysis, when actually it is a useful research to see the development of

the students in learning English. The basic task of error analysis is to describe

how learning occurs by examining the learner’s output and this includes his/her

correct and incorrect utterances (Khansir, 2012). Corder (in Hourani, 2012)

indicates that errors are significant in three different ways. First to the teachers, in

that they tell them how far towards the goal the learners have advanced and

consequently, what remains for them to learn. Second, they provide to the

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procedures the learners are employing in their discovery of the language. Thirdly,

they are indispensable to the learners themselves, because we can regard the

making of errors as a device the learners use in order to learn. Research has

provided empirical evidence pointing to emphasis on learners' errors as an

effective means of improving grammatical accuracy (White et al, 1991; Carroll

and Swain, 1993 in Hourani, 2012). Indeed, as Carter (1997:35 in Hourani, 2012)

notes, 'Knowing more about how grammar works is to understand more about

how grammar is used and misused'. There is a need for students to recognize the

significance of errors which occur in their writing, to fully grasp and understand

the nature of the errors made. By looking through the previous researches, it can

be concluded that though Error Analysis seems to be unimportant, it actually has

its specific purpose and useful result for teachers, students, and other researchers

in education field.

The purpose of this research is to find out the ability of the Natural

Science and Social Science students in writing narrative based on how many

grammatical errors are made by the students. The analysis uses the grammatical

errors theory from Richards. Therefore, a conclusion can be made as the indicator

whether the students of Natural Science and Social Science classes have the same

ability in writing narrative with proper grammatical structures, or one is better

than the other. In addition, the findings of the research can also be used as a prove

to see whether the judgment of the society about Natural Science students are

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B.The Problem of the Study

Based on the background of the study above, the problems found are:

1. What kinds of grammatical errors that are found in the narratives written by

the students of Grade XI Natural Science and Social Science?

2. Are there any different grammatical errors made between the students of

Grade XI Natural Science and Social Science in writing narrative?

3. What are the dominant errors made by both types of classes?

4. What are the dominant causes of the errors based on the Richards’

grammatical errors theory?

5. Is the society’s judgment about the difference of Natural Science and Social

Science students proven to be true at SMAN 1 Aek Kuo?

C.The Scope of the Study

This study is limited to the analysis of the grammatical errors found in

narratives made by the Grade XI students of Natural Science and Social Science

classes at SMAN 1 Aek Kuo to see the ability of the students in writing English

with proper grammar as well as to prove whether the judgment of the society who

claims that Natural Science students are better than Social Science students is true

or not.

D.The Objective of the Study

In relation to the problem, the objective of the study is to identify the

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Aek Kuo which later the analysis finding can be used as a data to find the

dominant errors made by the students, the causes of the errors, and also to prove

whether the society’s perspective is true or not.

E.The Significance of the Study

This study is useful for:

1. The teacher, as a source of information or data about the students’ ability in

writing narrative with proper grammar to be further used as a way to find

the most suitable teaching technique or strategy and to prove whether the

teacher’s believe about the students’ ability is true or not.

2. The students, as a tool to motivate them as well as a reflection of how to

write a text (genres of text) using appropriate grammatical elements.

3. The future researchers who are also interested in analyzing the errors made

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CHAPTER V

By having analyzed the data, the writer has found :

1. There are 8 grammatical errors, they are : noun, pronoun, verb, adverb,

adjective, article, preposition and conjunction.

2. There are any different grammatical errors made between the students of

Grade IX Natural Science and Social Science in writing narrative.

3. The dominant error was verb.

4. The dominant error was Incomplete application of rules

5. The natural science students are not always better than social science

students. It can be seen from the average score of natural science class is

73,8 while social science class is 78,6. In this case we can’t say that the

natural science students are good in writing text rather than social science

students. This study has proved the perspective which has been made by the

society is not always true, it can be seen well from the results that have been

done by the students.

B.Suggestion

Based on my research, it is suggested that :

1. English teacher gives more explanation in grammatical aspect especially

about noun, pronoun, verb, adverb, adjective, article, preposition and

conjunction.

2. The students must study and practice English, especially in grammatical

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GRAMMATICAL ERRORS IN WRITING NARRATIVE MADE BY THE GRADE XI NATURAL SCIENCE AND SOCIAL SCIENCE STUDENTS AT SMA NEGERI 1 AEKKUO, LABUHANBATU UTARA.