SPELLING ERRORS MADE BY ELEMENTARY STUDENTS IN
GROUP WORK
THESIS
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Sarjana Pendidikan
Novince Fatima Puspitaria 112009128
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
SATYA WACANA CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY
i
SPELLING ERRORS MADE BY ELEMENTARY STUDENTS IN
GROUP WORK
THESIS
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Sarjana Pendidikan
Novince Fatima Puspitaria 112009128
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
SATYA WACANA CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY
ii
SPELLING ERRORS MADE BY ELEMENTARY STUDENTS IN
GROUP WORK
THESIS
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Sarjana Pendidikan
Novince Fatima Puspitaria 112009128
iii
COPYRIGHT STATEMENT
This thesis contains no such material as has been submitted for examination in any course or accepted for the fulfillment of any degree or diploma in any university. To the best of my knowledge and my belief, this contains no material previously published or written by any other person except where due reference is made in the text.
Copyright@ 2013. Novince Fatima Puspitaria and Prof. Dr. Gusti Astika, M.A.
All rights reserved. No part of this thesis may be reproduced by any means without the permission of at least one of the copyright owners or the English Department, Faculty of Language and Literature, Satya Wacana University, Salatiga.
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Name : Novince Fatima Puspitaria Student ID Number : 112009128
Study Program : English Language Teaching Department Faculty : Language and Literature
Kind of Work : Undergraduate Thesis
In developing my knowledge, I agree to provide SWCU with a non-exclusive royalty free right for my intellectual property and the contents therein entitled:
Spelling Errors Made by Elementary Students in Group Work along with any pertinent equipment.
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1
SPELLING ERRORS MADE BY ELEMENTARY STUDENTS
IN GROUP WORK
Novince Fatima Puspitaria ABSTRACT
English has become international language, so it is important for people to learn English in order to be able to communicate with people around the world. People believe that learning English since early age will give benefits in language acquisition. For English as Foreign Language (EFL) especially young learners, spelling is one of the problems that might occur in acquiring a new language. Based on this fact, this study aimed to describe the kinds of spelling errors made by elementary school students in group work. There were one hundred six (106) elementary school students of SD Negeri Kumpulrejo 02 Salatiga involved in this study. The data for this descriptive study were collected through ten classroom observations and students’ written exercises. The analysis of the data showed that most spelling errors made by students could be classified into intralingual errors (L2-based). There were three kinds of intralingual errors that could be found in this study. They were sound-based errors, over-generalization of spelling rules, and anomalous misspelling that there is more than one error that happened in the same word.
Key words: young learners, spelling errors, intralingual errors
INTRODUCTION
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However, the major challenge for beginning readers and spellers of ESL including EFL is how they deal with written language (van Hell et al., 2003). Learning to write will also include learning to spell the word in written language. For young learners, spelling is one of the problems that they may encounter while learning English. In general, most alphabetic orthographies, the written symbols represent systematic phonemes and other sub-lexical segments such as onsets and rimes (Leong, 2009), spellings are more difficult than reading for young learners. The reason is because there is lower consistency of sound to spelling rather than spelling to sound (Bosman & Van Orden, 1991, in van Hell et al., 2003).
Based on my previous experience when I did mini observation in 2012 located in SD Negeri Kumpulrejo 02 for my Teaching English for Young Learners (TEYL) class, in three weeks of observation I found out that some students had difficulties in spelling some words in English. The second graders of elementary school who worked in groups had some spelling problems in writing new vocabulary. Even though the teacher asked them to work in groups where they could help one another to write the correct spellings, still some students could not figure them out. They tended to keep silent instead of asking other group members. Some students approached their teacher to help them write the correct spelling since English was a difficult subject for them.
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learners’ spelling errors is an evidence of a process of learning. Error has played an important role in the study of language acquisition (Lengo, 1995). Here, Lengo emphasized that people would learn from errors that they had made. Lennon (1991) in Maicusi (2000) referred to errors as deviant forms of language produced by learners. Thus, identifying L2 learners’ errors is good to find how well learners know and learn the language as it is one of learners’ performance evidence in a class. By knowing learners’ performances, we can see their comprehension, even though their competences may not be easy to examine.
Based on those reasons, this study was conducted to find out the spelling problems that elementary students committed in group work. While conducting the study, there might be other facts discovered during the study about elementary students’ spelling problems. Therefore, the research question was, “What kinds of spelling errors are made by elementary students in group work?” The aim of this study was to describe the kinds of written spelling errors the elementary students made in group work.
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LITERATURE REVIEW
Since English becomes international language which plays an important role in globalization, people nowadays concern to have English proficiency. They send their children since early age to learn English. The major challenge for young learners is how they deal with written language including spelling. Spelling is a difficult task for many elementary school students especially EFL learners (Anastasiou, 2011) since they have problems in writing the correct spelling. Deacona & Bryant (2006) in Hong & Chen (2011) stated that spelling has been noted as an essential component skill in English children’s early development.
Learning to spell a word in an alphabetic language involves acquiring knowledge about the phonological properties and how to relate these to an orthographic or written representation where it should focus in spelling training programs (Hilte & Reitsma, 2011). As Joshi, Treiman, Carreker, & Aaron (2009) added in Hong & Chen (2011), spelling was a language-based process which involved coordination of phonological, orthographic, and morphological skills as children actively constructed their spelling system (Bourassa & Treiman, 2007 in Hong & Chen, 2011). Thus, as mentioned by Graham (1999) in Anastasiou (2012), for many second language learners especially elementary school levels, spelling was a difficult task that might interfere with the execution of higher-order processes that later on would affect the writing ability.
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learning process, finding learners’ errors is an evidence of a process of language learning (Lengo, 1995) because learners would learn better after they made errors. Gordon (2007) added when learners learned the morphology and syntax of a second language they would make errors because of the negative transfer. Negative transfer happens when the first language interferes the second language learning process. The first language which is Bahasa Indonesia may interfere English learning process.
Besides, another main reason the errors made probably is irregularity of English spelling system (Qaboos, 2013). He added, it did not mean that there was no spelling rules in English, but it was more on the rules that were hardly described as regular and rule-governed of English spelling.
In his article, Qaboos (2013) divided the types of errors into two which were interlingual errors and intralingual errors. Interlingual errors were believed due to the influence of the first language, while intralingual errors were made because of the second language-based. Qaboos (2013) described the intralingual errors could be classified into four main types of errors. There were sound-based misspelling, misspelling because of homophonous word or another form of the same word, misspelling because of concerning with the ignorance of spelling rules, and errors that included anomalous misspelling.
The Description of Group Work
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another and they were psychologically aware and interdependent with the other group members who shared same concept to be a group of task learning. When students work in group, it makes them build a positive within-group relationships that includes collaborative and cooperative working together (Cazden, Cox, Dickenson, and Stone, 1979, in Kutnic & Berdondini, 2009).
Developing cooperative learning where students can work together in groups will help students understand the materials. The learning process is not only about putting students in group then they do something but it is more as principles and techniques that teacher can use to build mutual helpfulness in group so that all the group members actively participate in the discussion. By considering cooperative learning as techniques, it will make students help themselves, their group members, and even their whole group so they are ready to explain their group’s answer(s) (Kagan, 1992 in Richards and Renandya, 2002).
There are some ways to decide how big groups should be (Jacobs and Hall, 2002 in Richards and Renandya, 2002). The first method is a group work can consist of two people that it creates opportunity for every member to speak up because there will be less chance to leave out someone. A smaller group can also deal with activity which only gives limited time. While a larger group is good for people who deal with big tasks because it can increase skills, personalities, background of people in group. Also, having larger groups will help teacher to monitor the groups.
teacher-7
selected groups where it will work best to achieve a heterogeneous mix because it helps to break down the barriers that the different types of students have. Another method that they mentioned is teacher assigned teams. This method considers some factors, including language proficiency, first language, sex, race, and diligence. The next method is mixed-proficiency groups which have the aim to create groups that consist of range proficiency levels of the group members. And the last one is random grouping which is an easy and fast way to convey the idea that one can work with anyone.
Research Findings
There have been several studies that show problems in spelling. Treiman (1991, 1993) and Treiman et al., (1995) in Werfel and Schuela (2012) found that when children were asked to spell monosyllabic with consonant blends, they mostly represented only one sound in the blend which nearly always represented the first sound of the blend (95% of word errors in natural writing were written as this pattern, e.g., sop for stop). On the contrary, in final blends, children usually represented the last sound of the blend (71% of written spelling errors in this pattern, e.g., fat for fast).
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Tavosanis (2007) in Qaboos (2013) found that Arabic-speaking learners of EFL (English as a Foreign Language) shared same problems with other EFL learners where the spelling errors occured because there were some differences of the spelling systems of English as the target language and learners’ first language. Other researchers, Kharma and Hajjaj (1989), in Qaboos (2013), added the errors made by Arabic-speaking learners of EFL were caused by the irregularity of English spelling rules.
THE STUDY
Method
This study was a descriptive study which aimed to describe the spelling errors made by elementary school students in group work. The data were gathered through ten observations conducted in SD Negeri Kumpulrejo 02, Salatiga. The school was selected because it gave me easy access to do the research since my mini observation was conducted there beforehand.
Participants
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participants were selected from second grade level because they had already got English basic in the first grade level. Most of them were Javanese.
Table 1. Students participated in this study in Grades 2 until 6
Grade Number of Students (Total = 106)
Range of Ages (7-13)
2 13 7-8
3 19 8-9
4 26 9-10
5 24 11-12
6 24 12-13
Research Instrument
10 Data Collection
The data for this study were collected through observations. Firstly, I observed every class in three weeks and there were two observations for every class. Then, the obsevations were conducted from 13th February to 2nd March 2013. The observations lasted for eighty minutes for every meeting. The purpose of conducting this observation was to describe what happened in the classroom. During the class observations, I took notes as additional data collection in how the teacher delivered the materials and the students’ activities during group discussions. In doing the observation, I placed myself as non-participant observer who minimally participated in the research setting (Zacharias, 2011) in order to fully observe what all the participants did.
Data Analysis
The data gathered that were students’ written exercises were classified based on each grade level and each topic of the lesson. Then, the errors that occurred were coded into some tables so it became easier to be analyzed. The notes taken during the observations became additional information for analysis. After that, the data were analyzed descriptively.
FINDING AND DISCUSSION
11 A. Spelling Problems in Transportation
From the first observation the English teacher taught vocabulary to the students using similar strategies even though the grade levels were different. The English teacher used pictures to help the learners engaged with the materials (in this case, the English teacher taught Kind of Transportations as the topic). Wright (2007) stated that pictures as a visual representation of mind give better effect for students in learning a language. In the first observation, the students in the second grade level who learnt Kinds of Transportations for the first time were shown some pictures of transportation that they were familiar with. This is in line with Rivers (1964) statement saying that students in this case are young learners are linked to their surroundings and are more interested in the physical and the tangible.
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Transportation
How do you come to school?
1.
I take a ________.
2.
I drive a________.
3.
I ride a ________.
4.
I fly a _________.
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In group of three or four, they worked cooperatively together to complete the sentences, although they did not choose their group members by themselves. They asked the teacher if they found some difficulties in understanding the pictures. Some of them preferred to open their dictionaries to help them finish the exercise. These were some misspellings done by the students during the group works. Table 2. Students’ spelling errors in Transportations
No Questions Expected
Answers
Table 2 shows that there were sixteen errors made by students. Most of the errors made were sound-based errors. This kind of errors are made because of a single phoneme (sound) in English may have more than one graphic (letter) representation which is the first sub-category of sound-based error (Qaboos, 2013). As Qaboos stated in his article, there were some types of these errors. Here are the examples for bus and airplane:
1. The vowel sound /a/ could be written as u or a.
As shown on the table above, there were twelve students who answered bus
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2. The diphthongs / eə / could be written as ai or ae.
Four students made errors in their work that they misspelled the word airplane
written as aerplane.
There was also another type of intralingual error in data. The errors committed could be classified into the last type that misspellings occured where plausible strategy-based explanations were not possible. The students commit compound errors that they make more than one error in the same word (Qaboos, 2013). Table 2 shows that four errors (33,3%) were made by four students out of twelve students who answered. They misspelled /i/ in bicycle/’baIsIkl/ which was spelled /bai sikel/. The compound errors occurred when students committed more than one error in the same word. In this case, students not only spelled the word based on the correct pronunciation but also based on separate words and written as bai sikel.
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After the teacher provided the material to the students, she distributed some exercises that related to the topic. In this type of exercise, which was a productive test, the students were asked to categorize transportations into three categories, water, air, or land transportations. Before they started doing the exercises, the teacher asked them to work in groups of four and she decided the group members for each group. She also let the students to open their dictionaries if there were some words that they did not understand. Below is the exercise for the students.
Name: __________________________ Group:________
Group the transports correctly.
Scooter Ship Bulldozer hot air balloon hang-gliders
Raft Ambulance Airplane Canoe Jet
sail boat cement truck Helicopter Train Submarine
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Before doing the task above, the teacher gave explanations on what students needed to do in order to complete the tasks. The material also provided some pictures, so that they would help students understand the meaning. There were some students who were still confused to classify the types of transportations into each category. It is probably because some students who work in groups may feel that they are threatened by the presence of other group members which make them afraid to ask (Latane, William, & Harkins, 1979, in in Kunick & Berdondini, 2009). Most of them mixed up the categories with water and air transportations
since air means water in Bahasa Indonesia. These were some errors committed by the students.
Table 3. Students’ spelling errors in Transportations
No Questions Expected
Answers
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this level, other types of errors could be found since the students’ language proficiencies increased. There were twelve (12) errors happened in this level. Similar to the second grade level, most students in this level made sound-based errors because of the irregular nature of English spelling system. The first type of sound-based errors in the data above is due to single phoneme (sound) in English that may have more than one graphic (letter) representation (Qaboos, 2013). Tabel 3 shows the spelling error for helicopter was committed because the consonant sound /k/ could be written as k or c. The students misspelled the word helicopter
to helikopter. From twenty-four students who answered, there was one student (4,2%) who misspelled the word. The second type of sound-based errors is due to the omission resulting in the reduction strategies (Qaboos, 2013). As Qaboos states this second type can be classified into two subs-categories, the first sub-category is due to substitution, addition, or omission based on the correct pronunciation of some words. And the second sub-category is because of incorrect pronunciation. Below are examples of the spelling errors based on correct pronunciation for words hot air balloon and bulldozer.
Hot air ballon (hot air balloon) Buldozer (bulldozer)
18 Hot our balloon (Hot air balloon)
Scoter (scooter)
Han-gliders (hang-gliders)
Cement truk (cement truck)
Out of twenty-four students who did the task, there was one student (4,2%) who misspelled each the following words hot air balloon, scooter, hang-gliders, and
cement truck.
B. Spelling Problems in Order and Request
Students of sixth grade level learnt Order and Request (Ordering Food in a Restaurant) for the first time. The teacher started to ask to them about their experiences in how they ordered food in restaurants. Then, she pointed at some students to do a role play as a seller and buyer in a fast food restaurant so that the rest would have the idea what the topic was about. By involving students to do new kind of activity which are exciting to stimulate their brains, it makes them not to get bored during the language learning (Hammer, 1993).
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free to decide whom they wanted to work with. Below is the exercise for the students.
Ordering Food in a Restaurant
Waiter : Hello, Can I___________ you?
Kim : Yes, ___________to have some lunch.
Waiter : _______ _______ _____ a starter?
Kim : Yes, I'd like a bowl of chicken soup,__________.
Waiter : And what _____ ____ ______for a main course?
Kim : I'd like a grilled cheese sandwich.
Waiter : Would you like ____________to drink?
Kim : Yes, I'd like a glass of Coke, please.
Waiter ... After Kim has her lunch: Can I bring you anything else?
Kim : No thank you. Just the ________________.
Waiter : Certainly.
Kim : I don't have my glasses.___________ is the lunch?
Waiter : That's $6.75.
Kim : ____ _____ _____ Thank you very much.
Waiter : You're__________________. Have a good day.
Kim : Thank you, the same_____ _____________.
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Table 4. Students’ spelling errors in Order and Request
No Questions Expected
Answers
21
categorized into the second sub-category of sound-based intralingual (L2-based) errors caused by the omission as the result of reduction strategies which included cases of substitution, addition, or omission based on the correct pronunciation of some words. These were the examples of spelling errors based on incorrect pronunciations:
Helb (help)
Hare, hore (here)
Wold (would)
Somethin
Out of twenty four students who answered, there was one error (4%) for words
help, would, and something. And out of twenty one students who completed the dialogue, there were five errors (23,8%) made by writing hare one error made (4,7%) by writing hore for the word here.
C. Spelling Problems in telling Time
From the third day of observation, the students of third grade level learnt about Time. It was new materials for them so they only learnt about …….o’clock
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After giving explanations, the teacher asked the students to make group consisted of three or four students. She selected the group members so it broke down the barriers that the different types of students had (Jacobs and Hall in Richards and Renandya, 2002). Then, she distributed the exercise to the students and did not let them open their dictionaries because they already learnt about
Numbers. Below is the exercise for the students. Exercise
1.
It is __________ o’clock.
2.
It is ________ _________.
3.
It is _________ ____________.
4.
It is _________ past ________.
5.
It is_________ _______ ________.
6.
It is _______ _______ _______.
23 Table 5. Students’ spelling errors in telling Time
No Questions Expected
Answers
1. It is______________ o’clock misspelling in the first sub category which is due to the fact that a single phoneme in English may have more than one graphic representation. These are the examples of the spelling errors made by the students. The errors for three made by students due to the consonant sound /θ/ could be written as θ or t. There was one error (5,3%) made out of nineteen students in the third grade level who misspelled the word three to tree. There was substitution of consonant sound /θ/ to /t/. There were some spelling errors that could be categorized into another sub-category of sound-based intralingual errors (includes case of substitution, additional, and omission) from data above. The errors based on incorrect pronunciation could be displayed as the following:
Vive (five) Fife (five)
There was one (7,7%) student out of thirteen who substituted the consonant sound
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also made for the same word. There were three students (23%) substituted the consonant sound v to f and made errors by writing fife.
D. Spelling Problems in Classroom Objects
From the fourth day of observations, the students in fourth grade level learnt about Classroom Objects. It was new material in that day lesson. The teacher started the lesson by asking some students to mention things in the classroom. Then, she pointed at some things else in the classroom that students did not mention. The teacher did some gestures about the use of classroom objects so the students could guess. By doing some gestures, it helps students convey the meanings as stated by Gordon (2007) that comprehensible input can be delivered using nonverbal communication strategies, for example using gestures and pantomime.
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Table 6. Students’ spelling errors in Classroom Objects
No Questions Expected
Answers classifications of intralingual errors (L2-based errors). The spelling errors in this data were more complicated compared to the previous sub-themes. The first errors category committed by the students due to a single phoneme in English might have more than one graphic representation (the first sub-category of sound-based spelling errors). Below are the examples:
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There were five errors (19,2%) made out of twenty six students who answered the question. The students misspelled the word by writing nat. The data also showed that the second sub-category of sound-based spelling errors were made. The students made spelling errors based on the correct pronunciation. Below are the examples:
Ruber eraser (rubber eraser)
Bollpoint (ballpoint)
The error was made by one student (4,5%) out of twenty two students who answered the questions. The error was made by writing ruber eraser. The same type of errors also was committed by two students (8,7%) out of twenty-three students who did the task who wrote bollpoint. Another type of errors can be classified based on Table 6 above. The misspellings committed where plausible strategy-based explanations were not possible. There were some students made compound errors where they made more than one errors in the same words as the following:
Balpoin (balpoint)
The error made by one students (4,3%) out of twenty three students who answered the question. The error made when balpoin was replaced ballpoint. It happened because there was omission of l and t due to sound-based spelling.
E. Spelling Problems in Toys
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Look and w r i te
Hello! My name is... I have got a toy………….. and a toy …….
I have got a ………. and a toy ……… I have got a lot of
………. and a ………..
atmosphere so that the students would not get bored with the class. Students already learnt Toys in the previous meeting so they only reviewed the material. Teacher asked all the students to pay attention to what she wrote on the blackboard. Then, she asked the students to translate the words in Bahasa Indonesia. When they could not find the meaning, the teacher gave some clues by drawing on the blackboard, for example, when she wrote kite but students forgot what kite was, she directly drew kite on the blackboard so students could discover the meaning. The use of pictures as a visual representation of mind will give better effect for students in learning a language as stated by Wright (1990:6) cited in Joklova (2009).
After reviewing the previous lesson, teacher distributed some exercises to the students. The teacher asked students to work in pairs or group of three and let the students to decide their group members by themselves. By asking them to work in groups, they would have positive relationships and dialogue among group members to support the cognitive-based learning (Kutnick et al., 2005, in Kutnick & Berdondini, 2009). Below is the exercise for the students.
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Thirteen students working in groups did the exercise which required them to produce new language from their thoughts. The pictures on the exercise guided them to find the answers to complete the task. The students were free to open their dictionaries if they found some difficult words. Some students who did not feel really comfortable with their pairs or group members preferred to ask the teacher when they found difficulties. Below are the errors made by the students through group work.
Table 7. Students’ spelling errors in Toys
No Questions Expected
Answers
According to the data, the errors made could be classified into some sub-categories of based misspellings. The first sub-errors category from sound-based misspelling is due to the fact that a single phoneme (sound) in English may have more than one graphic representation in Qaboos (2013). Tabel 7 shows the spelling errors for helicopter was committed because the consonant sound /k/ could be written as k or c. There were two errors (20%) made by students out of ten students who answered the question. They misspelled the word helicopter
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analyzed from the data provided. There are some errors that can be classified into the second sub-category of sound based intralingual errors which includes omission, addition, or substitution from the reduction strategies whether errors based on correct pronunciation and errors based on incorrect pronunciation (Qaboos, 2013). Here are examples of errors based on correct pronunciation: Baisikel (bicycle)
Truk (truck)
There was one error (9%) made out of eleven students who answered bicycle and misspelled into baisikel. The same type errors were committed by two students (22,2%) out of nine students answered the question, they omitted consonant sound /c/ and wrote as truk. There were also some errors based on incorrect pronunciation as the following:
Airplen (airplane)
One student (8,3%) out of thirteen students who did the exercise misspelled the word airplane and wrote as airplen where he/she substituted vowel sound /a/ into /e/ and omitted vowel sound e at the end of the word.
F. Spelling Problems in Interesting Places
re-31
wrote some words mentioned by the students on the blackboard to recall their memories. The vocabulary list that she wrote on the blackboard had another function which was to help the students do their tasks.
Then, the students were asked to work in pairs to discuss and do the exercise distributed. The teacher let her students open their dictionaries if they found some difficult words. The exercise provided some pictures in order to help students understand the questions. By giving number in every picture, it gave some clues for the students to answer the questions. Below is the exercise distributed to the students.
Name: Group:
1
2
3
4 5 6
7 1.Merbabu mountain__is an interisting place. It is located near Kopeng.
2.Laras Asri is a_________________that is located near bakso ABC, Salatiga.
3.We can see many animals in Gembira Loka __________. 4.Borobudur _________ is one of seven wonders in the world
that is located in Magelang.
5. One of the famous _____________in Jogjakarta is Parang Tritis.
6.We can go to__________to find many historical things. 7.In Jakarta, there is a national____________________ that
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Eighteen students who worked in pairs did the exercises enthusiastically since they worked with their friends. It makes them build a positive within-group relationships that includes collaborative and cooperative working together (Cazden, Cox, Dickenson, and Stone, 1979, in Kutnic & Berdondini, 2009). They shared and discussed the answers with their group members. When students found difficulties, the teacher helped them by giving some clues to the students. The errors made by the students could be analyzed into data bellow.
Table 8. Students’ spelling errors in Interesting Places
No Questions Expected
Answers
1. Laras Asri is a _______________ that is located near bakso ABC, Salatiga.
3. Borobudur _________ is one of seven wonders in the world that is located in Magelang.
Temple Tample 4 (25,3%) 17
4. One of the famous _____________ in Jogjakarta is Parang Tritis.
Beach Boach 5. We can go to__________to find
many historical things.
33 The vowel sound /i/ could be i or e
musium (museum)
The seven errors (41%) for the word museum were found out of seventeen students who answered. The students wrote as musium. The error was committed because they substituted the vowel sound e to i. There were also some sound-based errors of the second sub-category analyzed (see Table 8). The errors occured due to substitution, additional, or omission based on correct or incorrect pronunciation of some words. The errors based on correct pronunciation of the words could be seen as the following:
monumen (monument)
There were four students (25%) out of sixteen who misspelled the word
monument and wrote as monumen. The errors were made because they omitted the consonant sound t at the end of the word. There were also some errors that could be classified based on incorrect pronunciation. Here are the examples:
tample (temple)
There were four students (25,3%) out of seventeen students made errors by writing tample. The errors were made because they substituted the vowel sound e
to be a.
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The observation was conducted to twenty four students of the fifth grade level who learnt Hospital. At the beginning of the lesson, the teacher asked some students if they had experiences to visit hospital. Then, she explored students’ background knowledge by asking some questions about Hospital. Also, there was a mini game where teacher drew some pictures related to the topic and required the students to guess the pictures. By doing games, it will help teacher to create context in which the language is useful and meaningful. It will also develop students’ speaking abilities in order to express their point of views or give information (Wright et al., 2002).
After having fun game, teacher prepared some exercises to check students’ understandings. She asked her students to work in group of four and let students to decide the group members by themselves. The teacher also asked students to name their groups based on things or professions in the Hospital. Then, she explained the things that the students should do with the exercise. Students were also free to open their dictionaries if the found some difficult words.
The Hospital
H-o- s- i - a -t- p -l =______________________ b- h -t- o -r - m -o- a =_____________________ m- d - n -i- e -i- c -e =______________________ h- a - o -p-i- t- s - l b- d - e=________________ n- i-i-t-a-w-g r- m -o- o=___________________
e - n - u -s- r =___________________ p- t - a -i - n - e -t =_______________ X a -r- y =_____________________ r-e-c-e-p-t-i-o-n =_________________ t -o- d - o - c -r =______________
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... ... ... ... ...
The type of exercise above required students to re-arrange the jumbled letters into correct forms. After students finished re-arranging into correct forms, they matched the words to the correct pictures. The students actively did the exercises and helped the group members. There were some errors committed by the students. Below are the data about students’ spelling errors.
Table 9. Students’ spelling problems in Hospital
No Questions Expected
36
There were several errors that could be classified as sound-based errors of interlagual (L2-based). Here are the examples of the first sub-category. For example:
The vowel sound /e/ could be e or a.
Petient (patient)
There were four students who made errors (16,6%) out of twenty four students who answered the question. The students made errors by substituting the letter a
to e and wrote as petient.
The vowel sound /e/ could be e or o.
Docter (doctor)
There were four errors (16,6%) made out of twenty four students who answered the question. The errors were committed because the students substituted the letter
o into i and wrote it as petient. Another sub category of sound-based misspelling could be determined from the data above. The second sub-category (errors based on correct pronunciation words) could be seen in the following:
Medicien (medicine)
Nurs (nurse)
Patien (patient)
There were two students (8,3%) out of twenty four students who answered the questions, misspelled the word medicine into medicien. There was one students who (4%) made error of the word nurse into nurs, and two students wrote patien
37 H. Spelling Problems in Parts of Body
There were twenty four students of fourth grade level who were observed. The class reviewed the previous material about Parts of Body. The teacher pointed at some parts of her body, while the students enthusiastically answered the teacher’s questions. Then, the teacher pointed at some students and gave them some questions. Some students avoided having eye contacts with her and some tended to be silent when they could not answer the teacher’ questions.
After reviewing the previous material, the teacher gave some exercises to the students. The exercise aimed to engage the students with the lesson. Before distributing the exercises, she asked students whether they wanted to work individually or in groups. Most students preferred to work in group and chose the group members by themselves. Students worked in group of three or four. They were also free to open their dictionaries if they found some difficult words. Below is the exercise for the students.
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Name :_______________________ Group :__________
Below are the errors committed by the students. Table 10. Students’ spelling errors in Parts of Body
No Questions Expected Answers Write the plural of the words:
1) one arm / two __arms______
2) one hand / two ____________
3) one mouth / two ____________
4) one nose / two ____________
5) one finger / two ____________
6) one eye / two ____________
7) one leg / two ____________
8) one head / two ____________
9) one ear / two ___________
39 categories of intralingual (L2-based) sound-based errors. Most misspellings made due to substitution, additional, or omission based on correct pronunciation and incorrect pronunciation of some words (second sub-category of sound based intralingual errors). There were some errors committed based on correct pronunciations, for example:
Mauth (mouth)
Nous (nose)
From nineteen students who did the exercise, there was one student (5,2%) who made error by writing mauth and one error (5,2%) by writing the word nous. There were also some errors committed based on incorrect pronunciations, for example:
Hends (hands)
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There were two students (9%) out of twenty two students who answered the question, made errors by writing hends. And there was one student (5,2%) who committed error by writing mout.
I. Spelling Problems in Holiday
The Holiday was new topic for the twenty one students in sixth grade level. The main focus of the lesson was simple present tense. Actually the students already learnt simple present tense when they were in fifth grade, but they forgot about the lesson. So, the English teacher started to review simple present tense to the students. After she explained some points of simple present tense, she checked the students’ understandings through some games. Games help and encourage students to maintain their interest and work. Generally, games are often associated with fun activities which can reduce anxiety that may occur during acquiring a language (Wright, et al, 2002).
41 Exercise
Name : Group:
The exercise above required students to find appropriate answers which could represent the situations of the pictures on the right column. Every picture was given number in order to make it easier for students to complete the sentences. The exercise also provided the verbs choice that helped students to do the tasks. During the group discussions, there were some groups that were still confused 9. Mum ……… terrible headaches. 10. The hotel ……… old and dirty.
WHAT GOES WRONG ON HOLIDAY?
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about things they should do. Then, the teacher reviewed until all students in the class understood. Below are some errors committed by students.
Table 11. Students’ spelling errors in Holiday
No Questions Expected
Answers
the toys almost every day.
Fight - - 21
8. We … the food at the hotel. Do not like Do nat like 3 (14,7%) 21 9. Mum … terrible headaches.
hotel.
Gets - - 21
10. The hotel ..… old and dirty. Is - - 21
From the data presented above, there were some errors that could be classified into two types (based on Qaboos, 2013). The first type is sound-based misspelling which becomes more specific into the first sub-category of sound-based errors. The spelling errors was made because of the fact that there was a single sound of English which might have more than one letter, as the following: The vowel sound /ɒ/ could be written a or o.
nat (not)
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the suffixes –s or –es in simple present tense verbs into‘s. This kind of errors probably happened due to performance problems (Qaboos, 2013), for example: Rain’s (rains)
Forget’s (forgets)
There were two students (9,5% for each error) out of twenty one students who answered the questions misspelled wrote rains as rain’s and forget’s for forgets.
CONCLUSION
Learners will make errors during acquiring a new language, especially spelling errors in written language. This study was done to find out the kinds of spelling errors made by elementary school students in group work. The study was limited to seek the answer of the research question, “What are the kinds of spelling errors made elementary students in group work?” The other limitation is the one hundred and six (106) elementary school students who participated came from one elementary school site, SD Negeri Kumpulrejo 02 Salatiga from grade 2 until 6.
Based on the result of the study, there were one hundred and sixty seven (167) spelling errors committed by the students. All of the students’ spelling errors could be analyzed under the category of intralingual (L2-based) errors. Intralingual errors usually occur during learning process when learners have limited knowledge about the target language.
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could be classified into two sub-categories. The two sub-categories were due to the fact that a single phoneme or sound in English may have more than one graphic representation and due to the omission, substitution, or addition based on correct or incorrect pronunciations or words. There were also other types of spelling errors found in this study. The second kind of errors was errors because of the students’ over-generalization of spelling rules. And the third type of errors was anomalous misspelling where there was more than one error in the same words committed by students.
The result of this study focused on that particular elementary school. Based on those limitations, the result of this study may suggest further study to discover some ways to help students in their spelling problems during group work activities which involve more participants from different schools. By doing this study, I could know some kinds of spelling errors committed by elementary students in group work. And I hope the result of this study will give some information and benefits for those who read it.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
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thank to SD Negeri Kumpulrejo 02 members for their help. I also thank to Super Seniorita 76, Ruci, Meykke, Dian, Shinta, Mela, Inggit, Nurul, and Niners for their infinite support, motivation, even laugh while doing my thesis. Last, I thank you for all the people who cannot be mentioned one by one for their help and willingness to be involved in my thesis.
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