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PREPOSITIONAL VERB ERRORS
IN ACADEMIC ESSAY WRITING ASSIGNMENTS
A THESIS
Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements to Obtain the Sarjana Pendidikan Degree
in English Language Education
By Kanina Pramesi Student Number: 051214043
ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGE AND ARTS EDUCATION FACULTY OF TEACHERS TRAINING AND EDUCATION
SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY YOGYAKARTA
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Don’t put off till tomorrow what you can do today….
Where there is a will, there is a way….
Not all that glitters is gold….
vi ABSTRACT
Pramesi, Kanina. (2010). Prepositional Verb Errors in Academic Essay Writing Assignments. Yogyakarta: Sanata Dharma University.
Prepositional verbs are parts of English grammatical elements which could reflect the accuracy of English learners’ productions, especially in writing. These would contribute to the quality of the writing itself. Besides, writing is also a part of communication in which misunderstanding is avoided. Since prepositional verb errors often occur in English learners’ writing, they might create misunderstanding. It is because when the preposition in a prepositional verb is omitted or replaced by another preposition, the meaning would change or it would be meaningless. Consequently, prepositional verb errors are problematic for English learners, particularly for ELESP students, who are prepared to be English teachers. As English teachers, they would be role models for their students. This means that their prepositional verb errors could be imitated by the students. As a result, the problems would be wider if they were not well handled. For that reason, it would be beneficial to find out the prepositional verb errors produced by English learners and the suggested solutions to minimize the learners’ prepositional verbs errors.
This research aimed at answering two research questions: (1) What prepositional verb errors are found in students’ Academic Essay Writing course assignments? and (2) what efforts should be done to minimize the students’ prepositional verb errors in their writing? The participants of this research were divided into two groups. The first group consisted of ELESP students who were taking Academic Essay Writing class in the academic year 2009/2010. They were the participants of the first research question. The writer chose them as the participants of this research because they were assumed to have acquired advanced writing skill and English grammar. The second group consisted of ELESP lecturers who were teaching Academic Essay Writing class in the academic year 2009/2010. They were the participants of the second research question. The writer chose them to be interviewed because they had experienced in teaching fifth semester students taking Academic Essay Writing class. Therefore, the lecturers knew the characteristics of the students, the students’ problems, and the proper solutions to minimize the problems.
To answer the first research question, the writer conducted document analysis. The data taken to be analyzed were writing assignments composed by Academic Essay Writing students of 2007/2008 academic year. Then, the errors found in the assignments were classified into several categories based on surface structure taxonomy. To answer the second research question, the writer carried out an interview. The respondents of the interview were ELESP lecturers who taught Academic Essay Writing course in the academic year 2009/2010.
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verb errors were addressed to English teachers and learners. For English teachers, they should not be ignorant about the students’ errors, be careful about using prepositional verbs in teaching, practice and re-memorize prepositional verbs, and read a lot of texts to find the examples of prepositional verbs. In addition, in facing their students’ errors, they needed to give spoken and written feedback, keep reminding the students about their errors, assemble group discussions, provide prepositional verb practices for students, and provide authentic reading texts for students. For English learners, they should consult dictionaries and grammar books, memorize the prepositional verbs, and practice the prepositional verbs. Especially for ELESP students, prepositional verbs should be introduced in early semesters and taught integratedly in other classes.
viii ABSTRAK
Pramesi, Kanina. (2010). Prepositional Verb Errors in Academic Essay Writing Assignments. Yogyakarta: Universitas Sanata Dharma.
Kata kerja berpreposisi adalah bagian elemen gramatikal Bahasa Inggris yang dapat merefleksikan keakuratan siswa Bahasa Inggris dalam memproduksi bahasa tersebut, khususnya dalam bentuk karya tulis. Hal ini juga menentukan kualitas karya tulis tersebut. Di samping itu, karya tulis merupakan bagian dari komunikasi, di mana kesalahpahaman dalam mengartikan ide dalam karya tulis tersebut sebisa mungkin dihindari. Karena kesalahan kata kerja berpreposisi sering muncul dalam karya tulis siswa, kesalahan kata kerja berpreposisi menimbulkan masalah. Hal ini dikarenakan ketika preposisi pada sebuah kata kerja berpreposisi dihilangkan atau diganti dengan preposisi lain, arti dari kata kerja berpreposisi tersebut akan berubah atau akan kehilangan artinya. Maka dari itu, kesalahan kata kerja berpreposisi menjadi masalah khususnya bagi mahasiswa Program Studi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris (PBI), yang disiapkan menjadi calon guru Bahasa Inggris. Sebagai guru Bahasa Inggris, mereka akan menjadi teladan bagi murid-murid mereka. Hal ini berarti kesalahan kata kerja berpreposisi yang mereka buat dapat ditiru oleh murid-murid mereka. Akibatnya, masalah ini akan menjadi meluas bila tak ditangani dengan baik. Untuk itu, sangatlah penting mengetahui kesalahan kata kerja berpreposisi apa saja yang dibuat oleh para siswa and solusi-solusi yang disarankan untuk mengurangi kesalahan-kesalahan kata kerja berpreposisi tersebut.
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Untuk menjawab kedua pertanyaan penelitian tersebut, penulis menjalankan analisa dokumen dan wawancara. Untuk menjawab pertanyaan pertama, penulis mejalankan analisa dokumen. Data yang diambil untuk dianalisa berupa tugas karya tulis mahasiswa Academic Essay Writing angkatan 2007/2008. Kemudian, kesalahan-kesalahan yang ditemukan dalam tugas tersebut diklasifikasikan ke dalam kategori-kategori berdasarkan surface structure taxonomy. Untuk menjawab pertanyaan kedua, penulis menjalankan wawancara. Responden wawancara tersebut adalah para dosen PBI yang mengajar mata kuliah Academic Essay Writing di tahun akademik 2009/2010.
Berdasarkan data yang diperoleh, penulis menemukan bahwa kesalahan-kesalahan yang ditemukan diklasifikasikan ke dalam: Penghilangan (68%), Penambahan (30%), dan Salah Informasi (2%). Kemudian, berdasarkan wawancara, penulis menemukan bahwa solusi-solusi yang disarankan untuk mengurangi kesalahan-kesalahan kata kerja berpreposisi ditujukan kepada para guru dan siswa Bahasa Inggris. Para guru Bahasa Inggris disarankan untuk tidak mengabaikan kesalahan-kesalahan yang dibuat para siswa, berhati-hati dalam menggunakan kata kerja berpreposisi dalam mengajar, berlatih dan mengingat kembali kata kerja berpreposisi, dan membanca banyak teks Bahasa Inggris untuk menemukan contoh-contoh kata kerja berpreposisi. Di sisi lain, dalam menghadapi kesalahan-kesalahan yang dibuat siswa, para guru perlu untuk memberikan umpan balik secara lisan maupun tulisan, terus mengingatkan para siswa akan kesalahan mereka, membentuk kelompok diskusi, menyediakan latihan kata kerja berpreposisi secara sistematis untuk siswa, dan menyediakam bacaan berbahasa Inggris asli untuk siswa. Para siswa Bahasa Inggris disarankan untuk mengecek kamus dan buku tata bahasa, menghafalkan kata kerja berpreposisi, dan berlatih kata kerja berpreposisi. Khusus untuk mahasiswa PBI, kata kerja berpreposisi sebaiknya diperkenalkan di awal semester dan diajarkan secara integral dalam mata kuliah lainnya.
Sebagai ucapan penutup, penulis berharap skripsis ini dapat bermanfaan bagi para guru Bahasa Inggris, para siswa Bahasa Inggris, dan para pembaca skripsi ini secara umum. Di samping itu, penulis juga mengajukan saran-saran bagi peneliti lain yang ingin melanjutkan skripsi ini.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Initially, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my Lord Jesus Christ for His timeless blessing, guidance, and love so that I could finish this thesis.
I also would like to express my sincere appreciation to Ms. Made Frida Yulia, S.Pd., M.Pd., my sponsor, for her precious time, patience, meticulous guidance, advice, and encouragement during the research process until the final form of this thesis.
I am also greatly indebted to the lecturers of Academic Essay Writing class, Ms. Yuseva Iswandari, S.Pd., M.Ed., who has allowed her class’ assignments as data of the research for this thesis. Also, I am greatly indebted to other lecturers of Academic Essay Writing class, Mr. Nugraha Krisdiyanta, S.Pd., M.Hum. and Mr. Hanandyo Dardjito, S.Pd., M.Hum., who were willing to be interviewed as the respondents of this thesis. My gratitude is also addressed to Mr. Fx. Ouda Teda Ena, S.Pd., M.Pd. and Dr. Retno Muljani, M.Pd., my academic counselors who guided me during my study in ELESP until I finished this thesis.
My sincere thankfulness is also addressed to Academic Essay Writing students of 2007/2008 academic year who have contributed their priceless writing assignments as data of this research.
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for her support and care. I would also like to thank Mrs. Rio Rini Diah Moehkardi, M.A., my aunt, for the sharing and books used as references of this thesis.
My special thanks also go to all my fellows: Mega Wulandari, Monica Ella Harendita, Ignasius Indra Kristanto, Fransisca Ninditya Kusumaningrum, Ayoe
Risna Hanna Kusuma, Laurensius Verdika, Audhifax Aditya Sulistyanto,
Priyatno Ardhi, and also my friends in PROCESS, PPL 2, KKN, SPD, my classmates, my seniors, my colleagues, my relatives, and my students who I could not mention one by one.
Finally, my deepest thanks go to everybody who has directly or indirectly supported me in writing this thesis.
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STATEMENT OF WORK’S ORIGINALITY ... v
ABSTRACT... vi
ABSTRAK... viii
LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN PUBLIKASI KARYA ILMIAH UNTUK KEPENTINGAN AKADEMIS... x
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ... xi
CHAPTER II. REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE A. Theoretical Description... 12
1. Error ... 12
a. The Source of Error... 13
b. Category of Error ... 15
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a. Simple Prepositions... 25
b. Complex Prepositions ... 26
5. Prepositional Verbs ... 27
a. Types of Prepositional Verbs ... 28
b. Exceptional Types of Prepositional Verbs... 30
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CHAPTER IV. RESEARCH FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
A. The Prepositional Verb Errors ... 48
1. Data Presentation ... 48
2. Discussion ... 49
B. The Efforts Should be Done to Minimize the Students’ Prepositional Verb Errors... 55
CHAPTER V. CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS A. Conclusions ... 70
B. Suggestions ... 72
1. For English Teachers ... 73
2. For Students ... 74
3. For Other Researchers... 74
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LIST OF TABLES
Table Page
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LIST OF APPENDICES
Appendix Page
A Samples of Students’ Assignments ... 79
B Data of Prepositional Verb Errors... 92
C The Interview Blueprint ... 95
D The Interview Guide ... 97
E The Interview Results ... 99
1 CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
This chapter consists of research background, problem formulation, problem limitation, research objectives, research benefits, and definition of terms.
A. Research Background
English Language Education Study Program (ELESP) students, as learners of English as a Foreign Language (EFL), are expected to have good proficiency of English. They need it because they would be English users in professional fields they enter after graduating from ELESP. As ELESP graduates, their English is expected to be more accurate compared to that of other graduates from other study programs. They are not only expected to be able to recognize English language, including the patterns, but also to be able to produce the language (Heaton 1979: 6).
initiate their language development (Harmer, 2005: 31). Therefore, accuracy could be evidently detected in written form because writing is considered to be the final product of planning and modifying process, consisting of a lot of drafting.
Besides, language problems could be visibly detected in written form because it is transcendent or permanent. Unlike spoken language which is transient or temporary, written language could be more noticed and read for many times. On the contrary, spoken language tends to be ignored and forgotten (Harmer, 2005: 7). As Harmer (2005: 9) mentioned,
two of the most noticeable dissimilarities between speaking and writing are the level of correctness and the issue of well-formedness. Speakers can and do mispronounce and use deviant grammar without anyone objecting or judging the speakers’ level of intelligence and education, but spelling mistakes and grammar ‘awkwardness’, for example, are far more harshly judged.
In acquiring the writing skill, ELESP students are given several writing classes, in which they have to complete writing assignments. Through writing, they apply their English mastery that they acquire. The higher semester they belong to, the higher level of accuracy of English mastery they are expected to prove. However, in the process of completing the writing assignments, the students often make grammatical errors which indirectly show their problems in English mastery. Recent study tends to consider that the learners’ habit of making errors could influence their linguistic development (Thornbury, 2006: 113).
the prepositions follow the verbs or adjectives (Azar, 1985: 335). In addition, according to Benson (1986) as said by Moehkardi (2002: 54), the prepositions could also follow nouns, except preposition of and by. Actually, preposition combination is a part of collocation. As Baker (1992: 47) said, collocation is defined as a tendency of certain words to co-occur regularly in a given language. Specifically, preposition combination is under grammatical category of collocation, which is drawn from a closed set of obligatory options.
Collocations themselves, according to Prodromou (2004) as stated by Al- Sibai (2007, http:// faculty. ksu. edu. sa/ dinaalsibai/ Research % 20 Papers / 04. % 20 Collocation% 20Review.pdf), “either fixed or more flexible, are the result of many years of habitual use by fluent speakers of the English language.” They have been recognized as one of the ways that differentiate native speakers and foreign language learners. This fact creates a problem for the learners. This problem occurs because the students of EFL realize that learning English prepositions is something difficult since every language has a different way of using prepositions.
The transfer of the L1 prepositions may cause mistakes because of the different concept between the L1 prepositions to the English. For example, the Indonesian expression ‘tertarik dengan’ is literally transferred to English ‘interested with’, whereas ‘interested in’ will be difficult to remember because preposition ‘in’ is equivalent to Indonesian ‘di’. (Moehkardi, 2002: 58)
combinations is not taught in certain classes, ELESP students could gain the knowledge by reading a lot of English texts, in which they could find various preposition combinations. Furthermore, they need to apply the knowledge to their own writing. This learning process would encourage them to use the correct preposition combinations. As a matter of fact, most of EFL students, especially the ELESP students, often produce incorrect preposition combinations. This would become a crucial problem because as ELESP students, their accuracy of English is demanded for their proficiency as English teacher candidates.
Furthermore, when the ELESP students become English teachers, they would become role models for their students. In this case, they are considered as the masters of English, whose accuracy is highly demanded. They are no longer learners whose errors are tolerable. If they could not write good writings with correct preposition combinations, they would not be able to guide their students to use the correct ones. The students would have the same problem as their teachers have and eventually, this problem would be a vicious circle.
This problem encourages the writer to describe errors in preposition combinations which ELESP students often produce. However, in this research, she focuses on prepositional verbs. They are preposition combinations of verbs and preposition. The reason why this research chooses prepositional verbs is because verbs are obligatory in producing sentences. Nevertheless, in some cases, knowing the verbs must be followed by knowing the prepositions which follow them. Then, she wants to propose the possible solutions.
complex English structure, including prepositional verbs, which they could apply in their writings.
B. Problem Formulation
Based on the background, there are two problems addressed in this research. They are:
1. What are prepositional verb errors in students’ Academic Essay Writing class assignments?
2. What efforts should be done to minimize the students’ prepositional verb errors in their writing?
C. Problem Limitation
The Academic Essay Writing class is chosen in this research because it is taught in the fifth semester of ELESP, where the students are assumed to have acquired adequate competence in writing. Knowing their prepositional verb errors would give insight into their English accuracy and help them to produce more accurate writings, especially for their undergraduate thesis later. Then, this research would find the recommended solutions to minimize this problem.
D. Research Objectives
This research is conducted in order to answer the questions stated in the problem formulation. Thus, the objectives of this research are to find out:
1. The prepositional verb errors in the students’ Academic Essay Writing class assignments.
2. The efforts should be done to minimize the students’ prepositional verbs errors.
E. Research Benefits
readers. As the ELESP graduates, they are assumed to have good proficiency of English. It means that they are considered to be good role models for the readers of their writings. Therefore, if the readers are lower level English users, they might imitate the same errors as what the writer does in producing their own writings. Nevertheless, for the advanced English readers, the errors would disturb and confuse them. As a result, they would doubt the proficiency of the writers. Second, for English teacher candidates, the result of this research would bring awareness of prepositional verb errors in teaching their students so that they could guide their students to produce accurate language. In addition, they could apply recommended solutions presented in this research to the problem of prepositional verb errors that they find in their teaching. Third, the readers of this thesis in general are expected to be more aware of the significance of prepositional verbs in English language.
F. Definition of Terms
There are some terms in this research that need to be defined. The terms which are frequently used in this research are as follows.
1. Errors
stated that error is the incorrect form of target language produced by learners. Harmer (2007: 96) added that errors are mistakes which students could not correct themselves because they have not mastered the new information that they need deeper explanation. Errors in this research mean the incorrect usage of English prepositional verbs produced by the fifth semester students of ELESP taking Academic Essay class in their writing assignments. The errors appear because of lack of knowledge of prepositional verbs.
2. Prepositional Verbs
According to Swan (1982: 492), a prepositional verb is a verb that has two parts: a ‘base’ verb and a preposition. According to Downing and Locke (2002: 334), “prepositional verbs are combinations of a lexical verb and a preposition which is semantically associated.” It is usually a monotransitive complement verb, in which the component which follows it has a function as a direct object (Aarts and Aarts, 1982: 42). Thus, the noun phrase which follows the preposition is called prepositional object (Oprep).
There are two types of prepositional verbs. They are type I and type II prepositional verbs. Type I includes V + prep + Oprep. Examples of type I prepositional verbs are: insist on, care for, agree with, arrive at, ask for, believe in, belong to, deal with, depend on, hope for, insist on, laugh at, listen to, look after, look
(something) with, thank (someone) for, protect (someone/something) from, confine
(something) under, ply (someone) with, deprive (someone) of.
Therefore, it is obvious that a prepositional verb is a transitive verb plus a preposition which are semantically associated. This research is intended to find out the prepositional verb errors in Academic Essay students’ assignments.
3. Academic Essay Writing
According to Oshima and Hogue (1991: 2), academic writing is a type of writing which college or university students are required to compose. Then, an essay, according to Muhyidin (1988: 153-154), is a formal composition which consists of introductory, body, and concluding paragraphs which develop one central idea. Additionally, Heaton (1979: 127) stated that an essay includes not only the production of grammatically correct sentences within paragraphs, but also originality and creativity of the writer to inform and entertain the readers.
In this research, based on Academic Essay Writing Syllabus (Aji, 2009), Academic Essay Writing is one of the writing classes of ELESP Sanata Dharma University which aims at introducing the students the underlying principles of academic writing. Then, through this class, the students are expected to be able to analyze the characteristics of academic essays and to write good academic essays.
12 CHAPTER II
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
This chapter discusses theories which are related to this research. The discussion is divided into two parts: theoretical description and theoretical framework. The theoretical description explains relevant theories that support this research, consisting of theory of error, error analysis, collocation, preposition, prepositional verb, and academic essay writing. Meanwhile, the theoretical framework elaborates the framework synthesized from the discussed theories in theoretical description.
A. Theoretical Description
This part deals with error, error analysis, collocation, preposition, prepositional verb, and writing and academic essay.
1. Error
When the learners recognize them, they could correct them. On the other hand, errors are more systematic. When making errors, learners could repeat the same incorrect forms of language without recognizing the errors.
Nevertheless, Brown (1991: 109) proposed a distinct definition of errors. He classified errors into two types: goofs and mistakes. Goofs are errors made not only by the language learners, but also by the native language users. They are caused by slips of the tongue and are correctable. Meanwhile, mistakes are errors occurring when the learners attempt to produce the language correctly, as a result of the process of second language rules system which is incompletely formed. Hence, Brown’s definition of mistakes is similar to the definition of errors defined by Corder.
a. The Sources of Error
Basically, errors are divided into two types. They are interlingual and intralingual errors.
1) Interlingual Errors or Transfer Errors
They are errors which are connected to the first language. In fact, the influence of the first language to the language being learned could be positive or negative. If the influence does not produce errors, it is called positive transfer. Nevertheless, if it produces errors, it becomes negative transfer or L1 interference (Thornbury, 2006: 114).
impression they wish to have on their interlocutor” (Rampton (1987) as stated by Ellis and Barkhuizen (2005: 62)). Learners do this to show their reluctance to use the L2 because they do not master it.
2) Intralingual Errors or Developmental Errors
They are errors which are because of the language being learned. Ellis and Barkhuizen (2005: 62) mentioned that psycholinguistic source is a part of this error. It is related to the processing mechanism involved in the use of the language being learned and to the nature of the language knowledge system. This type of error is common to all language learners. Therefore, they become a part of language development (Gass and Selinker, 2001: 80). In this case, the learners experience developmental stages to be nearly the same as the target language. In the developmental stages, learners’ development follows a route, of which the rate is different for every learner. This development process, then, creates a systematicity. In this stage, learner’s first language and target language are parallel (Mitchell and Myles, 2004: 15-16). Therefore, errors are viewed as “indications of a learner’s attempt to figure out some system; that is, to impose regularity on the language learner is exposed to do. As such, they are evidence of an underlying rule-governed system” (Gass and Selinker, 2001: 78).
1) Learners’ Native Language
Learners use their first language as the pattern in learning the new language. The pattern could be in the form of the first language’s sound system, grammatical system, or vocabulary.
2) The Second Language Itself
Errors are seen as the result of the complexity of the second language. The fact that the second language rule is different from learners’ first language rule makes the learners confused to produce the second language.
3) The Context of the Learning Situation
Learning situation could become the source of errors. The context of learning language in a classroom which becomes the source of errors are: the teacher’s limitation in the language mastery, the confusing method in presenting the knowledge, confusing or misleading textbooks, or influence from other students. 4) The Strategies Employed by the Learners
The learners’ strategy in the process of attempting to make the language their own could cause errors. For instance, learners memorize English expressions to apply them in communication. In fact, those expressions might be inappropriate with the situation of communication.
b. Category of Errors
There are two kinds of taxonomy to be used in describing errors. They are linguistic taxonomy and surface structure taxonomy.
1) Linguistic Taxonomy
It is based on categories described from descriptive grammar of the target language. Here, a researcher identifies the errors found in the sample using the category based on the descriptive grammar.
2) Surface Structure Taxonomy
It is based on the ways surface structures are changed in erroneous utterances/sentences. According to Dulay, Burt, and Krashen (1982:150) as stated by Ellis and Barkhuizen (2005: 61), the errors are divided into five types, as follows. a. omission, the absence of an item which must exist in a correct utterance. For
example: omission of to be in the sentence My sisters very pretty.
b. addition, the presence of a form which does not appear in a regular sentence. It is sub-categorized into:
i. regularization, for example: eated for ate. ii. double-marking, for example: He didn’t came.
iii. simple additions, they involve other cases of addition, excluding regulation and double-marking.
c. misinformation, the use of the incorrect form of the morpheme or structure. It is sub-categorized into:
ii. archi-forms, for example, the learners uses me as both subject and object pronoun.
iii. alternating forms, for example: Don’t + V and No + V.
d. misordering, the errors are categorized as the incorrect placement of a morpheme or groups of morpheme in a sentence, as in She fights all the time her brother. e. blends, the errors which reflect the learners’ uncertainty as to which of two forms
is required. For example: The only one thing I want which is a combination of The only thing I want and The one thing I want.
Thornbury (2006: 114) added that there are three categories of errors based on their occurrence in levels of language: lexical errors, grammar errors, and discourse errors.
1) Lexical Errors
Learners make the errors in choosing the wrong form of words or the meaning of words they want to express. They occur at the word level.
2) Grammar Errors
Learners make the errors related to verb form and tense. They occur at sentence structure level.
3) Discourse Errors
2. Error Analysis
Error Analysis is “a set of procedures for identifying, describing and explaining learner errors” (Ellis and Barkhuizen, 2005: 51). It is a type of linguistics analysis that focuses on the errors made by learners. It is similar to contrastive analysis, in which the errors are compared to the native language. Conversely, in error analysis, the comparison is between learners’ production of target language and the target language form itself (Gass and Selinker, 2001: 79). Stern (1986: 354) mentioned that according to Selinker (late 1960’s), error analysis is also called interlanguage study because the developing learner language is assumed as a system in its own right. According to Selinker, Swain, and Dumas (1975) as said by Stern (1986: 354),
second language speech rarely conforms to what one expects native speakers of the target language to produce, that is not an exact translation of the native language, that it differs from the target language in systematic ways, and that the forms of utterances produced in the second language by a learner are not random. This interlanguage-hypothesis proposes that the relevant data of a theory of second language learning must be the speech forms which result from the attempted expression of meaning in a second language.
a. Category of Error Analysis
According to Corder (1971), as mentioned by Ellis and Barkhuizen (2005: 56), error analysis is categorized as grammaticality and acceptability.
1) Grammaticality Category
sentence/utterance in which it occurs. On the other hand, an error is covert if it only becomes obvious when a larger stretch of the discourse is considered.
2) Acceptability Category
Errors are identified in a situational context in which the utterance might correspond in question.
b. The Significance of Errors
According to Corder (1967) as stated by Ellis and Barkhuizen (2005: 51), learner errors are significant to be analyzed in three ways:
1) The errors provide a pedagogic purpose by showing teachers what learners have learned and what they have not mastered.
2) The errors provide a research purpose by presenting evidence about how language is learned.
3) The errors provide a learning purpose by playing a role as a device by which learners could find out the rules of the target language.
c. Steps of Error Analysis
1) Collection of A Sample of Learner Language
It is the starting point in error analysis, in which the researcher decides the sample of the research and how to collect them.
2) Identification of Errors
It is the step in which the definition of errors and the procedure to recognize them must be identified.
2) Description of Errors
In this step, learners’ productions are compared to the reconstruction of the productions in target language.
3) Explanation of Errors
In this step, the errors are explained. The explanation is concerned with the source of the errors.
4) Error Evaluation
This step involves a consideration of the effect of the errors on the learners. It aims at improving learners’ language mastery based on the errors.
3. Collocation
means ‘to go together’ (Finch, 2000: 152). Then, “collocation would be to think of it in terms of the tendency of certain words to co-occur regularly in a given language” (Baker 1992: 47). Hence, preposition combinations are seen as the co-occurrence between the prepositions and the verbs, adjectives, and nouns.
Furthermore, collocation is seen as
a part of continuum of strength of association: a continuum that moves from compound words (second-hand, record player), through multi-word units - or lexical chunks - (bits and pieces), including idioms (out of the blue) and phrasal verbs (do up), to collocations of more or less fixedness (set the record straight, set a new world record) (Thornbury, 2008: 7).
It means that collocation consists of various range of idiomaticity and has been the habit of English native speakers for many years (Prodromou (2004) as stated by Al- Sibai (2007, http:// faculty. ksu. edu. sa/ dinaalsibai/ Research % 20 Papers / 04. % 20 Collocation% 20Review.pdf). This distribution of the range of collocation is called collocational range (Finch, 2000: 152).
a. Category of Collocation
1) Grammatical Collocation
It consists of a noun, an adjective, or a verb, plus a particle, which is in the form of a preposition, an adverb, or grammatical structure like infinitive or gerund. Specifically, Benson, Benson, and Ilson (1986), as stated by Moehkardi (2002: 54-58), added that grammatical collocation consists of:
a) noun + preposition combinations b)noun + to + infinitive
c) noun + that-clause
d)preposition + noun combinations e) adjective + preposition combinations f) predicate adjective + to + infinitive g)adjective + that clause
h)Nineteen patterns of collocational verb:
(1) Moving an indirect object to a position before the direct object of transitive verbs is allowed.
(2) Moving an indirect object to a position before the direct object by deleting to is not allowed.
(3) Transitive verbs with preposition for allow the deletion of for and the movement of the indirect object to a position before the direct object.
(6) Verbs followed by infinitive, without to. They include modals and verbal phrases like had better and would rather.
(7) Verbs followed by second verbs in V-ing form.
(8) Transitive verbs followed by an object and to + infinitive. (9) Transitive verbs followed by an object and infinitive, without to. (10) Verbs followed by an object and V-ing.
(11) Verbs could be followed by a noun or pronoun and gerund.
(12) Verbs followed by a noun clause which begins with conjunction that.
(13) Transitive verbs could be followed by a direct object, an infinitive to be and adjective/past participle/noun/pronoun.
(14) Transitive verbs followed by a direct object and adjective/past participle or noun/pronoun.
(15) Transitive verbs followed by two objects.
(16) Intransitive/reflexive/transitive verbs must be followed by an adverbial in the form of an adverb, a prepositional phrase, a noun phrase, or a clause.
(17) Verbs could be followed by interrogative words.
(18) Dummy it is followed by transitive verbs which express emotion and to + infinitive or that + clause or by either.
2) Lexical Collocation
It is a type of collocation which does not contain grammatical elements. Benson, Benson, and Ilson (1986), as stated by Moehkardi (2002: 59-60), mentioned seven types of lexical collocation:
a) CA (Creation and Activation) collocation, which consists of transitive verbs + noun/pronoun/prepositional phrase. This collocation refers to creation or activation, such as: compose a music (creation), set an alarm (activation).
b) EN (Eradication and Nullification) collocation, which consist of verbs which means eradication or nullification + noun, such as: reject an appeal, revoke a license, annul a marriage, withdraw an offer.
c) Adjective + noun, such as: strong/weak tea, kind/kindest/best regard. d) Noun + verb, such as: bees buzz, bomb explodes, alarms go off.
e) Noun + noun, such as: a herd of buffalo, a bouquet of flowers, a bit of advice. f) Adverb + adjective, such as: deeply absorbed, hopelessly addicted.
g) Verb + adverb, such as: appreciate sincerely, argue heatedly.
4. Preposition
According to Sinclair (1994: vi), there are over 100 prepositions in English. In English, prepositions are function words. This means having little meaning in dictionary sense. Nevertheless, they have important purpose in English language because they relate other words in grammatical structures (Collier-Macmillian, 1970: v). In English, prepositions are applied to make nouns become attributives and complements for verbs. According to Curme (1966: 27), in general, “a preposition is a word that connects a noun or pronoun with verb, adjective, or another noun or pronoun by indicating a relationship between the things for which they stand”. Hence, a preposition normally precedes a noun or noun phrase (Close, 1975: 24).
Basically, English prepositions express ideas of space, time, agency, instrument, means, purpose, and topic (Close, 1975: 177). Then, based on their form, English prepositions are divided into simple prepositions and complex prepositions, and have grammatical and lexical use (Yule, 2004: 158).
a. Simple Prepositions
They are prepositions which do not contain nouns and possess grammatical or lexical use.
1) Grammatical Use
2) Lexical Use
The prepositions belonging to this category usually consist of two or more-syllable-form prepositions which have specific conceptual meanings and contribute directly to the meaning of the phrases where they occur, such as: above, among, before, behind, below, despite, during, opposite, toward(s), under.
b. Complex Prepositions
Complex prepositions are prepositions which include nouns, such as: in accordance with, on account of, in addition to, on behalf of, in case of, by means of,
for the purpose of, with reference to, for the sake of, in spite of.
Considering the nature of English prepositions as mentioned before, Learning English prepositions in EFL language learning is something difficult since every language has a different way of applying prepositions. As stated by Moehkardi (2002: 58),
the transfer of the L1 prepositions may cause mistakes because of the different concept between the L1 prepositions to the English. For example, the Indonesian expression ‘tertarik dengan’ is literally transferred to English ‘interested with’, whereas ‘interested in’ will be different to remember because preposition ‘in’ is equivalent to Indonesian ‘di.’
5. Prepositional Verbs
According to Downing and Locke (2002: 334), “prepositional verbs are combinations of a lexical verb and a preposition which is semantically associated.” It is usually a monotransitive complement verb, in which the component which follows it has a function as a direct object (Aarts and Aarts, 1982: 42). This component is called prepositional object (Oprep) (Eastwood and Mackin, 1982: 117). Several instances of prepositional verbs are: insist on, care for, agree with, arrive at, ask for, believe in, belong to, deal with, depend on, hope for, insist on, laugh at, listen to, look
after, look for, pay for, send for, talk about.
Downing and Locke (2003: 75) stated that cohesion between verbs and prepositions is variable if:
(a) their cohesion is such that without the preposition the verb is either meaningless (e.g. account for) or has a different meaning (e.g. allow, allow for); and (b) if the verb can passivise with the completive of the preposition at Subject (The loss can’t be accounted for). In addition, such verbs can typically answer a question beginning with what or who(m) (What/who must I see to?). Nevertheless, prepositional verbs could not be followed by that-clauses. In other words, that-clauses are not prepositional objects (Downing and Locke, 2003: 78). Consequently, some prepositional verbs such as: insist on, agree to, admit to, see to, could be replaced by
a. Dropping the preposition. For example:
1) We insist that he is old the truth.
b. Retaining the preposition and following it with anticipatory it before the that -clause.
For example:
1) We insist on it that he is told the truth.
2) They agreed to it that there should be changes.
In addition, some prepositional verbs could insert the fact before the that-clause. For example:
1) You must allow for the fact that he is severely depressed.
2) Several of the neighbors have commented on the fact that the gates were left open all night.
a. Types of Prepositional Verbs
Greenbaum and Quirk (1990: 338) mentioned that there are two types of prepositional verb:
1)Type I Prepositional Verbs
For example:
1) Look at these pictures.
2) I don’t care for Jane’s parties. 3) We must go into the problem. 4) Can you cope with the work? 5) I approve of their action.
6) His eyes lighten upon the jewel.
This type allows the passive form of the sentence. For example: 1) The picture was looked at by many people.
2) Jane’s parties are not cared for by me. 3) Can the work be coped with by you?
It also allows the insertion of an adverbial between the lexical verb and the preposition.
For example:
1) Many people looked disdainfully at the picture. 2) We must go straightforwardly into the problem. 3) His eyes lighten brightly upon the jewel.
2)Type II Prepositional Verbs
The verbs of type II prepositional verbs are ditransitive verbs. They are verbs which are followed by two objects or noun phrases. The noun phrases are normally separated by the prepositions, and the second of which is the prepositional object. For example:
1) He deprived the peasants of their land. 2) They plied the young man with food.
3) Please confine your remarks to the matter under discussion. 4) This clothing will protect you from the worst weather. 5) Jenny thanked us for the present.
6) May I remind you of your agreement?
7) They have provided the child with a good education.
The passive form of the sentence requires the direct object of the active form as the subject.
For example:
Active: The gang robbed her of her necklace.
Passive: She was robbed of her necklace (by the gang).
b. Exceptional Types of Prepositional Verbs
1) For prepositional verbs like make a mess of, make allowance for, take care of, pay attention to, take advantage of, the passive forms, in which the prepositional object becomes the subject, are less acceptable.
For example:
1. A (terrible) mess has been made of the house. 2. The house has been made a (terrible) mess of.
2) For prepositional verbs like catch sight of, keep pace with, give way to, lose touch with, cross swords with, keep tabs on, give rise to, only the prepositional object which could be the subject of the passive form. Nevertheless, it is still considered to be peculiar.
For example:
The lifeboat was suddenly caught sight of.
6. Academic Essay Writing
Writing is a language skill which demands accuracy. The accuracy of writing could be evidently proved because writers need to pay attention to meaning and form. Besides, they have more time to plan, monitor, and modify it until the final writing is done (Thornbury, 2006: 92).
a. The Nature of Writing
1) Writing is permanent. Therefore, it could be read and analyzed repeatedly. Harmer (2005: 7) added that written language could be more noticed and read for many times, while spoken language tends to be ignored and easily forgotten.
2) The participants could not see each other so that it is not feasible for any clarification or confirmation.
3) Writing demands punctuation, capitalization, spatial organization, color, and other graphic effects.
4) Lexical and grammatical differences are under significant consideration. 5) Language in written form is more formal than that in spoken.
b. The Significance of Writing
“Writing encourages students to focus on accurate language use and, because they think as they write, it may well provoke language development as they resolve problems which the writing puts into their minds” (Harmer, 2007: 31). Therefore, giving writing class to learners, especially ELESP students, is necessary.
The purpose of the class is to facilitate the best piece of writing possible, given such exigencies as the linguistic and conceptual sophistication of the students, their knowledge of the subject, and their ability to produce a piece of discourse which conforms to the ‘norms of communication. (White and McGovern, 1994: 6)
c. Academic Writing
kinds of writing in the audience, tone, and purpose. The audience on academic writing is primarily the lecturer of the class. The tone is formal with impersonal tone. It also demands more passive forms and technical vocabulary. Then, the purpose of it is specific and mostly is giving explanation.
d. Essay
An essay, according to Muhyidin (1988: 153-154), is a formal composition which consists of introductory, body, and concluding paragraphs which develop one central idea. The introductory contains the background of the essay and also attracts the readers’ interest to read the essay, whereas the concluding contains the summary of information presented in previous paragraphs (John and Yates, 1982: 202). Additionally, Heaton (1975: 127) stated that an essay includes not only the production of grammatically correct sentences within paragraphs, but also originality and creativity of the writer to inform and entertain the readers.
John and Yates (1982: 202-203) mentioned that the organization of essay could be in several ways, as follows:
1) Chronological Order
It is the most common way in writing essays that is usually applied in reporting events, explaining process, or explaining cause and effect and is presented in narrative way.
2) Spatial Order
3) Logical Order
It emphasizes logical connection among parts of an essay. It could be in deductive order, from general to specific, or inductive, from specific to general. Logical order is appropriate in constructing generalization.
e. Academic Essay Writing
In this research, based on Academic Essay Writing Syllabus (Aji, 2009), Academic Essay Writing class is a writingclassin ELESP Sanata Dharma University which aims at introducing the students to the underlying principles of academic writing. Then, through this class, the students are expected to be able to analyze the characteristics of academic essays and to write good academic essays. The topics of the students’ writing are comparison and contrast, cause and effect, argumentation, and book or article review. The competence standard expected by the students after completing this class are they would be able to understand academic writing conventions and to write academic essays on language, language teaching, and literature. The procedure of writing process in this class includes exploring ideas, prewriting, organizing, writing first drafts, revising the drafts, and producing the final copy.
B. Theoretical Framework
prepositional verbs in this research are categorized as the combinations of a lexical verb and a preposition which is semantically associated (Downing and Locke, 2002: 334). Prepositions involved in prepositional verbs are in the form of simple prepositions. Furthermore, prepositional verbs are also parts of grammatical collocation, and are specifically included into 19 collocational verb patterns.
To achieve the first objective of this research, the prepositional verb errors in students’ Academic Essay Writing class assignments, the writer needs to understand the underlying principle of errors. The writer agrees with Gass and Selinker (2001: 453), who stated that error is the incorrect form of target language produced by learners. This means that although errors and mistakes are distinct based on their causes, errors in this research are seen as the incorrect forms of prepositional verbs as found in students’ writing assignments. In the other words, errors and mistakes in this research are considered to be the same.
sentences. Specifically, the writer needs to pay attention to the function of the prepositions, whether they attach to the verbs or they precede noun or noun phrase.
The prepositional verb errors could be evidently found in written form. Therefore, this research uses writing assignments written by ELESP students taking Academic Essay Writing class. The assignments correspond with the level of the fifth semester students. The assignments are used as documents, in which the prepositional verb errors are analyzed.
37 CHAPTER III
METHODOLOGY
This chapter discusses the research methodology employed in this research. It consists of six parts: (a) research method, (b) research participants, (c) research instrument, (d) data gathering technique, (e) data analysis technique, and (f) research procedure.
A. Research Method
This research applied qualitative method with the purpose of solving the two research problems stated earlier in the first chapter: (1) What are prepositional verb errors in students’ Academic Essay Writing class assignments? and (2) What efforts should be done to minimize the students’ prepositional verb errors in their writing? According to Taylor (1988: 162), as stated by Ellis and Barkhuizen (2005: 53), analyzing errors are not only proven quantitatively. Instead, he suggested that a new qualitative approach be used to analyze errors based on interpretative traditions of humanistic discipline. For this reason, this research applied qualitative method as the basic principle.
underlie and are reproduced by what occurs. According to Best (1981: 106), the characteristics of descriptive research are:
1. They are non-experimental.
They deal with the relationships between natural variables in an existing setting, without manipulation.
2. They include hypothesis formulation and testing.
3. They use inductive-deductive methods in analyzing the idea to formulate generalizations.
4. They often employ random methods so that error might be estimated in identifying the characteristics of the population when conducting observations. 5. The variables and procedures are described as accurately and completely as
To answer the first research question, the writer particularly employed document analysis method. The documents analyzed in this research were the writing assignments of Academic Essay Writing students. This research was conducted through document analysis because it used students’ assignments as data. Document or content analysis, according to Ary, Jacobs, and Razavieh (1990: 385), is “the procedure for systematically analyzing written materials.” It explains some phenomenon at a particular time or development of the phenomenon, and the result of the research might lead to generalizations. Besides, it should aim at bringing information about evaluation or explanation of social or educational practices (Best, 1981: 106-107).
The purposes of document analysis in educational research are (Best, 1981: 108):
1. To describe existing conditions.
2. To discover the importance of, or interest in, certain topics or problems. 3. To discover level of difficulty of textbooks or in other publications. 4. To evaluate bias, prejudice, or misinformation in textbook presentation. 5. To analyze types of errors in students’ works.
6. To analyze the use of symbols representing persons, political parties or institutions, countries, or points of view.
7. To identify the literary style, concepts, or beliefs of a writer.
The purpose of document analysis in this research referred to the fifth purpose as mentioned above.
The second research question was answered through an interview method and supporting references. The writer carried out an interview with three ELESP lecturers who were teaching Academic Essay Writing class in the academic year 2009/2010. In conveying the results of this research, the writer described what she obtained in the given situation.
B. Research Participants
the assignments. For this reason, the writer only considered the 30 students as the participants of this research and worked on their submitted writing assignments to find prepositional verb errors.
The writer chose students taking Academic Essay Writing class as the research participants because those students considerably acquired adequate competence in writing. They had taken several writing classes in the previous semesters. Besides, they also had acquired advanced English structure during their study in ELESP since structure classes in ELESP were taught until the fifth semester. With this consideration, they were supposed to have been acquainted with prepositional verbs. Hence, the result of this research could give an overview about the English accuracy of the students during their study in ELESP.
To answer the second research question, the writer interviewed three ELESP lecturers who were teaching Academic Essay Writing class in the academic year 2009/2010. The lecturers were chosen as participants because they had experienced in teaching fifth semester students in Academic Essay Writing class. They knew the characteristics and problems of their students so that they could know the most appropriate solutions to minimize their students’ prepositional verb errors.
C. Research Instruments
human instrument. Additionally, the writer used supporting references as the secondary data.
1. Documents
In relation to the first research problem, the instrument was documents. Borg and Gall (1983: 806) classified documents in several ways: handwritten or printed, published or unpublished, public or private use, and unpremeditated documents, those intended for immediate purpose, or intentional documents, those prepared as historical records. However, the documents must serve valid sources, such as: records, reports, printed forms, letters, autobiographies, diaries, compositions, themes or other academic works, books, periodicals, bulletins or catalogues, syllabi, court decisions, pictures, films, and cartoons (Best, 1981: 107).
In this research, the documents analyzed were students’ writing assignments. Based on the classifications of documents, the students’ writing assignments were included in printed, unpublished, private use, unpremeditated documents. The writer chose students’ assignments as data because the prepositional verb errors could be naturally written in the form of assignments. Thus, it could reflect the actual participants’ mastery of prepositional verbs in their level.
process took three weeks before the final writing submission. Therefore, the students’ assignments which became the data of this research were considered to be the students’ best works. They were taken on 30 September 2009.
2. Interview Guide
The writer also used an interview guide as an instrument to solve the second research problem. Interview is an oral questionnaire in which the respondent gives the needed information verbally in a face-to-face conversation (Best, 1981: 164). Interview is beneficial in collecting descriptive data because the interviewees use their own words so that the interviewer could develop insight into how the interviewees interpret some information (Bogdan and Biklen, 2003: 95). In this research, the writer interviewed three ELESP lecturers who taught Academic Essay Writing class in the academic year 2009/2010 about their recommendation to minimize the problem of prepositional verb errors based on their experiences. The purpose of the interview aimed to investigate three points as follows.
1. The importance of prepositional verbs
2. The experience in dealing with the cases of prepositional verb errors 3. The efforts to minimize prepositional verb errors
November 2009. The second and the third interviews were carried out on 11 November 2009.
3. Human Instrument
According to Ary, et al (1990: 447), a researcher is a data gathering instrument because he or she interviews the participants, observes them, reads their documents, and records the information on journals. Therefore, in this research, the writer was also an instrument of this research.
D. Data Gathering Technique
students of ELESP. After processing the data, the writer described the prepositional verb errors which were made by the students.
Second, to solve the second research problem, the efforts which should be done to minimize prepositional verb errors, the writer interviewed three ELESP lecturers teaching Academic Essay Writing class in the academic year 2009/2010 and used recommended references from supporting references.
E. Data Analysis Technique
In analyzing the data from the students’ assignments, the writer applied error analysis. Conducting error analysis, according to Corder (1974) as stated by Ellis and Barkhuizen (2005: 57), consists of several steps: Collection of a sample of learner language, Identification of errors, Description of errors, Explanation of errors, and Error evaluation. Based on the data of prepositional verbs in the students’ writing collected in the Academic Essay Writing class, she identified errors in the usage of prepositional verbs. Then, she described the category of the errors made by the students using surface structure taxonomy. Surface structure taxonomy applied in this research consists of five categories: omission, addition, misinformation, misordering, and blends.
university students of ELESP. Finally, the writer proposed efforts which should be done minimize prepositional verb errors based on the results of interviewing three ELESP lecturers who were teaching Academic Essay Writing class and recommended references.
F. Research Procedure
All in all, the data collection of this research was started in the sixth meeting of the Academic Essay Writing class, which took place on 30 September 2009. The data collection aimed at solving the first problem of this research. After obtaining permission from the lecturer, the writer collected the students’ assignments as the primary data. The writer borrowed them from the lecturer after they were submitted on the submission date. In order to obtain more in depth data and avoid intruding the lecturer’s corrections on the assignments, the writer had the assignments copied. Based on the students’ writings, the writer listed all prepositional verb errors which were found there and classified them using surface structure taxonomy. Then, the writer described the prepositional verb errors made by the students.
Finally, the writer drew conclusions from the analysis results of the problem formulations and suggested recommendations for future researches.
48 CHAPTER IV
RESEARCH FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
This chapter discusses the answers tothe two research questions. The answers are presented in the form of data presentation and discussion of the results. Therefore, based on the research questions, this chapter is divided into two sections: (A) The prepositional verb errors and (B) The efforts should be done to minimize the students’ prepositional verbs errors.
A. The Prepositional Verb Errors
1. Data Presentation
In order to gather prepositional verb errors produced by Academic Essay Writing students, the writer analyzed 30 assignments submitted as the first final project of the class. The assignments consisted of around 6 pages. However, the writer did not regard sentences which were direct quotations as data with a consideration that prepositional verbs found in direct quotations, either they were correct or incorrect, were not produced by the students themselves.
types of the Surface Structure Taxonomy related to prepositional verbs found in the students’ writing assignments: (1) Omission, (2) Addition, and (3) Misinformation. The more detailed explanation is shown in Table 1.1.
Table 1.1. The Types of Prepositional Verb Errors
No. Type of Error Frequency Percentage (%) Examples
1. Addition 102 68,5 *Discuss about,
1]*This essay is going to discuss about extensive reading which is… 2]*This essay is going to discuss about the benefits of extensive reading…
*Discuss about, as seen in sentence 1] and 2], is an addition error of prepositional verbs because the use of the preposition about is redundant. Based on Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (Quirk, 2001: 384), the verb discuss does not need any prepositions. It is used to talk about something with another person or a group in order to exchange ideas or decide something. The example of the correct usage of this verb is: Sandy won’t ever discuss money. The verb discuss could be followed by preposition with after a noun if it means somebody discusses something to somebody. For example: I’d like to discuss my contract with you. Therefore, the addition of preposition about after the verb creates the incorrect form of prepositional verb.
Based on this research results, among the addition types of error, preposition about was mostly used after the verbs. Other examples are: *understand about, *study about, *teach about, *compare about, *comprehend about, *articulate about,
*explain about, *present about, and *share about.
Another example of addition error is *consider as. The examples of the usages of this erroneous prepositional verb are shown in sentences 3] and 4], as follows.
4]*The other reason is because Extensive Reading can be considered as a deep reading.
Sentence 3] and 4] are incorrect because the verb consider could not be followed by prepositional as. The intended meaning of the verb consider in sentence 3] and 4], based on Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (2001: 286), is having an opinion. In the other meanings, the verb consider could only be followed by nouns, verb-ing forms, or question words. For example:
1) He paused to consider his options. 2) I’m considering applying for that job. 3)We’re still considering where to move to.
In addition, consider could be optionally followed by to be if it means having an opinion. For example: A further increase is now considered (to be) unlikely.
The example of the first classification is *focus in instead of focus on. It occurred in sentences 5], 6], and 7].
5]*Actually not only intensive reading that is focus in vocabulary, but… 6]*It is because intensive reading focuses in grammar and vocabulary. 7]*It is because they focus in the meaning.
Then, the example of the second classification of misinformation error is that the students used prepositional verb look on instead of look at. Look on is a correct prepositional verb which means “to watch something happening, without being involved in it or trying to stop it” (Quirk, 2001:847). The more obvious example is shown in the sentence: Only one man tried to help us, the rest just look on in silence. Nevertheless, students used prepositional verb look on in sentences as follows.
8]*The explanation above tells that intensive reading, for it looks on the very little detail,…
9]*Intensive reading, also known as slow reading, is looking on the details of the reading passage.
The third type of the error was omission. It occurred 3 times (2%) in the assignments. There were three examples of omission error of prepositional verb found in the assignments. The verbs *base, *focus, and *impact occurred without their prepositions which should co-occur with them.
10] *They can read any kind of passage; article or books base their own choice.
11] *They also will remember the grammar, although they did not focus and analyze the grammar from the text but…
12] *So, extensive reading impacts writing, listening, and speaking because students know more vocabulary.
In sentence 10], the verb base should co-occur with on to create a meaning “to use particular information or facts a point from which to develop an idea, plan, etc” (Quirk, 2001: 91). In sentence 11], focus should co-occur with on to create a meaning “to pay special attention to a particular person or thing instead of others” (Quirk, 2001: 544). Then, in sentence 12], impact should co-occur with on to create a meaning “to have an important or noticeable effect on someone or something” (Quirk, 2001: 711).
B. The Efforts Should be Done to Minimize the Students’ Prepositional Verb
Errors
After classifying and describing the errors produced by the participants, the writerwould present the efforts should be done to minimize prepositional verb errors. Hence, dealing with the second research question, the writer carried out a semi-structured interview as the instrument to discover the efforts should be done to minimize the errors. There were ten questions addressed to the respondents. In order to obtain thorough data, the questions were arranged into three items to investigate: (1) the importance of prepositional verbs, (2) the experience in dealing with the cases of prepositional verb errors, and (3) the suggestions to minimize prepositional verb errors.
The respondents interviewed in this research were three ELESP lecturers who were teaching Academic Essay Writing class in the academic year 2009/2010. In addition, the writer used supporting references as the secondary data. The interviews were recorded and transcribed in order to help the writer analyze the findings more easily. The complete interview result could be seen in appendix E.
verbs, but not to the common ones. The third lecturer tolerated prepositional verb errors as long as the students could convey their ideas clearly.
In fact, the main concern of academic writing was the content of the writing. It weighed about 60%. Dealing with prepositional verbs, each Academic Essay Writing lecturer included them in different rubrics of scoring. The first lecturer included them in mechanics although they were regarded as a grammar case. It was because grammar itself was included in mechanics. The second lecturer included them in grammar because prepositional verb errors would result in grammar errors. The third lecturer included prepositional verbs in mechanics because he did not include grammar rubric in his scoring. He was mainly concerned with the writing content. In general, the lecturers weighed prepositional verbs 5%-20% in students’ score.
