The Error Analysis of Learners' Grammatical Errors in Paragraph and Narrative Writing Class.

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ABSTRACT

Dalam skripsi ini, saya menganalisis kesalahan-kesalahan yang dibuat oleh

mahasiswa/i ketika mereka membuat karangan bahasa Inggris di kelas Paragraph

and Narrative Writing di Universitas Kristen Maranatha. Kesalahan yang dianalisa

oleh saya adalah kesalahan-kesalahan pada tata bahasa. Kesalahan-kesalahan pada

tata bahasa terdiri dari tiga belas kategori. Dari tiga belas kategori kesalahan, ada

sepuluh kategori kesalahan yang dibuat oleh para mahasiswa/i. Tiap mahasiswa

sekurang-kurangnya melakukan kesalahan pada dua kategori kesalahan. Selain

kesalahan pada tata bahasa, saya juga menganalisis faktor-faktor yang

menyebabkan para mahasiswa/i membuat kesalahan. Ada tiga faktor yang

menyebabkan para mahasiswa/i membuat kesalahan ketika mereka sedang

membuat karangan.

Karangan-karangan yang saya analisis diperoleh dari delapan belas

mahasiswa/i di kelas tersebut. Dari kedelapan belas mahasiswa/i tersebut,

semuanya melakukan kesalahan-kesalahan pada tata bahasa ketika mereka sedang

membuat karangan bahasa Inggris. Kesalahan yang paling sering dibuat oleh

mahasiswa/i adalah kesalahan pada to be. Sementara, faktor yang paling sering

menyebabkan para mahasiswa/i melakukan kesalahan adalah faktor kemampuan

para mahasiswa/i yang kurang terhadap bahasa Inggris.

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APPENDICES

I. INTERVIEW

1. Do you like writing? Why?

Like Dislike

The number

of learners

11 Can express

their

feelings

7 Often find difficulty in elaborating

their ideas, expressing their words, or

have no idea to be elaborated

From eighteen learners, there are eleven learners who like writing as they

can express their feelings in their writing. There are seven learners who dislike

writing as they often find difficulty in elaborating their ideas, and expressing their

words. Besides, they have no idea to be elaborated in their writing.

2. What difficulties do you find in the Paragraph and Narrative Writing

Class?

Grammar Elaborating Ideas Both

The number of learners 11 4 3

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From the eighteen learners, there are eleven learners who find difficulty in

grammar. There are four learners who find difficulty in elaborating ideas.

Moreover, there are three learners who find difficulty in both the grammar and

elaborating their ideas.

3. Do you realize that you were making an error?

Yes No

The number of learners - 18

From the eighteen learners, there is no learner who realizes it when

making such errors. All of the learners do not realize it when making such errors.

4. In expressing your words, do you think in English or in Indonesian?

English Indonesia Sometimes English sometimes

Indonesian

The number of learners 12 6

From eighteen learners, there are twelve learners who think in Indonesian

when expressing their words. There are six learners who sometimes think in

Indonesian and sometimes in English when expressing their words.

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5. What causes you to make such errors?

(out of 73 errors totally)

28 4 41

From 73 errors, there are twenty eight errors which are caused by the

influence of the learners’ first language. Besides, there are four errors which are

caused by the lack of motivation of the learners. Furthermore, there are forty one

errors which are caused by the poor aptitude of the learners.

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II. SAMPLES

OF

ERRORS

A. Errors in tenses

Errors in the use of the simple present tense

a. Last Saturday…And I feel so scared.

b. Last month, I go to the Kotabaru Parahyangan.

c. When I…two months ago…they ask me to close my eyes.

d. I…surprised and that man fall down because...hit that man.

e. The famous people who can interest…Elizabeth

Blackwell…She study in Geneva Medical School….

f. Last year…he go...Jember city. B. Errors in determiners

1. Errors in the absence of the determiner ‘a’

a. We often go together to _ mall.

b. …when you…a ballad song or _ mellow song.

c. He is _ very handsome and clever boy.

d. We must choose _ comfortable place.

e. One reason that Bali is _ very dangerous place….

f. I love _ small house.

g. The colour is black, which is a colour for _ car.

h. There is _ kitchen.

i. … she can make _ common opinion….

2. Errors in the absence of the determiner ‘the’

a. They live without _ family around them.

b. She always helps my mother in _ shop.

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C. Errors in possessive structures

Errors in the absence of an apostrophe ‘-s’ in the possessive

structure

a. The right of my room is my parents_ room.

b. My friend_ name is Mila.

c. My first sister_ name is Silvia…. D. Errors in prepositions

1 Errors in the use of the preposition ‘to’:

a. It…depends to our economical to pay it.

b. …people…come to Bandung to shopping.

2 Errors in the absence of the preposition ‘for’:

a. I’ll wait _ him until….

b. It…from some people to make movie which…interesting _

many people.

3. Errors in the use of the preposition ‘in’:

a. It depends in yourself too.

b. …in the other side, games can….

4. Errors in the use of the preposition ‘with’:

a. ...your family is very proud with you.

b. There are so many reasons why I believe with Jesus Christ.

c. They…afraid with commitment.

5. Errors in the absence of the preposition ‘about’:

a. My opinion _ wearing sandals….

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b. I don’t care _ it because I just like him….

E. Errors in derivations

1. Errors in the use of the adjective

a. My imagination house is an interesting place.

b. She is very confidence when she sings in a concert.

c. I feel comfort with my family.

2. Errors in the use of the noun

a. For example, I can know…in technology, historical, etc.

b. They need to have adaptation in their surround.

c. …develop not only…right brain but also…left brain… It’s

not good without any balancing.

d. …don’t think if women…just a disturb and more.

3. Errors in the use of the adverb

a. When I appeared, the other friends direct appear too.

b. Fortunately, my motor-cycle was not broken serious.

F. Errors in pronouns

Errors in the use of pronoun

a. I always need he but he lives in Malaysia now.

b. …but their can be my friends.

c. They ask me to accompany she.

G. Errors in gerund or ‘to infinitive’

1. Errors in the use of the gerund

a. How to try being honest in everything you do.

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b. I want having companionship and someone to spend my

life with.

c. If I can speaking English well….

2. Errors in the use of the ‘to infinitive’

a. I will to tell you everything about my big house.

b. …after that, we must to do the Taraweh. H. Errors in participial phrases

Errors in the use of the past participle instead of present participle

a. We stayed in a hotel after reached Bali.

b. I don’t feel any scary feeling although some people think

that saw the ghost is very scary.

c. After recorded, he stopped to exist in music industries.

I. Errors in to be

1. Errors in the use of to be

a. In my house, there is a lots of rooms

b. His hobbies is basketball, swimming….

c. She is always gives me some advices….

d. My apartment is consists of many rooms….

e. Sandals is more various than shoes.

f. My father and my mother is good parents

2. Errors in the absence of to be

a. I _ looking many kinds of t-shirt, bag, and shoes at there.

b. Sometimes we _ bored with our work….

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c. We _ still friends until now.

d. Now she _ in Maranatha

e. She _ never angry….

f. … because it _ simple.

G. Errors in spelling

a. They are real and eksist.

b. I go to BTC if my friend us me to….

c. That’s a bad habbit.

d. We look like the wirld person.

e. You will find three bad rooms for me, my parents….

f. I got into Junior High School, my friends mostly are

christiant.

g. A man must think if women…usefull, not weak.

h. I have a lot of friends…helpfull.

i. She takes the faculty of manajemen.

j. I choose modern minimalis style.

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CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Background of the Study

As human beings, people need to interact with others because they cannot

live alone. They need to communicate with others. People use language to

communicate with others, either spoken or written. For example, a person uses

body language to communicate with others. It is still a language, although the

speaker uses body language to communicate. Without language, their lives would

be meaningless. If they cannot communicate with others, they have to live alone

and they have to do everything by themselves. Therefore, language is very useful

in their daily lives. Language also has an important role in people’s

communication owing to the fact that they can express their needs, their ideas,

and their feelings through language. As a result, there are many people who want

to learn a different language aside from their own language. Learning a foreign

language can give many advantages for people. It will make it easier for them in

getting a job, in getting opportunities to study abroad, in raising their level of

career, and in their social communication.

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Learning one's first language is quite different from learning a foreign

language because learning a foreign language normally begins after the learning

of one’s mother tongue, which is one’s first language. Making errors in learning a

foreign language is very common for the foreign language learners for the reason

that errors may occur anytime, even when the learners have already tried their best

to avoid making the errors (Corder 20). The foreign language learners also realize

that sometimes they commit errors even when they use their native language.

However, making errors can be avoided by the foreign language learners in order

to result in successful language learning.

Based on the theory that errors may occur anytime, even when the foreign

language learners have already tried their best to avoid making the errors, I am

interested in analyzing what kind of errors that the English learners produce and

the factors that lead them to make the errors. I choose to analyze the English

learners’ errors in an English writing class in Maranatha Christian University for

my thesis, considering that it will be easier for me to analyze the data from an

English writing class than from other English classes. For example, if I want to

analyze the errors in a conversation class, I would need to make a recording of

each student’s conversation, which means it would take a lot of time to record it.

And when analyzing the errors, I would need to listen to the recording while

writing down the errors at the same time. It will be better for me realistically to

analyze the errors in writing class because the data is in writing and therefore

easier for me to reread to analysis it.

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To be more specific, I choose to gather data from the Paragraph and

Narrative Writing class in the first semester at Maranatha Christian University for

the reason that the English learners in this class are new in composing paragraphs

in the English language. In most of the English writing classes, English learners

are given an example before writing and they only have to change some parts to

produce their own writing. For example, in making Curriculum Vitae, they do not

need to make many changes, they only have to change their profiles. However, it

is different with the Paragraph and Narrative Writing Class considering that most

of the topics being discussed in this class deal with their experiences, in which

they have to narrate their experiences using paragraphs. The topics are families,

journeys, favorite places, school, friends, and the like. Consequently, each learner

will create different compositions although they are given an example before

writing seeing that each learner has different experiences to be narrated into

paragraphs.

To support my thesis, I choose to use the psycholinguistics theory,

considering that psycholinguistics discusses about psychological factors of the

learners in the process of learning a foreign language, so it can be related to

factors that cause the learners to make errors when they produce English

paragraphs in the Paragraph and Narrative Writing Class. Furthermore, I use error

analysis as my approach because the topic of my thesis deals with the English

learners’ errors in writing in the Paragraph and Narrative Writing Class.

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Statement of the Problem

In this thesis I would like to discuss the following problems:

1. What kinds of errors do the learners make in the Paragraph and

Narrative Writing class?

2. What factors lead the learners to make such errors?

Purpose of the study

In this thesis I would like to identify:

1. The kinds of errors the learners make in the Paragraph and Narrative

Writing class.

2. The factors that lead the learners to make such errors.

Method of Research

The method of research used in this thesis follows this procedure. First, to

gather the data, I ask for permission from the lecturer of Paragraph and Narrative

Writing Class at Maranatha Christian University to use the learners’ writing as my

data. Second, with the lecturer’s permission, I collect and classify the learners’

writing. In this case, I gain the data from Paragraph and Narrative Writing class.

Third, I analyze the data by focusing on the grammatical errors the learners make

in their writing. Fourth, I interview the eighteen learners to get the factors that

lead the learners to make such errors. Finally, I draw a conclusion based on the

discussion of the data.

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Organization of the Thesis

This thesis consists of four chapters. Chapter one is the Introduction. It

contains the Background of the Study, Statement of the Problem, Purpose of the

Study, Method of Research, and Organization of the Thesis. Chapter two provides

the linguistic theories related to error analysis. Chapter three consists of the

discussion of the errors made by language learners in the Paragraph and Narrative

Writing class in the first semester. Chapter four is the Conclusion, which consists

of my personal opinion based on discussion of the data. The thesis ends with the

Bibliography and the Appendices. In Bibliography, I list the references that I use

to support my thesis. In Appendices, there are samples of the students’ writing

and the interview questions.

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CHAPTER FOUR

CONCLUSION

In this chapter, I would like to make a conclusion from my analysis of the

grammatical errors that the English learners in the Paragraph and Narrative

Writing Class produce and the factors that lead the learners to make the errors.

The eighteen learners make errors when they compose English paragraphs. The

learners make errors of various types, and the errors are caused by certain factors.

From the twelve types of grammatical errors enumerated by Norrish (83-85), there

are nine types of grammatical errors which the learners in the Paragraph and

Narrative Writing Class make when composing the English paragraphs. The

learners make errors in tenses, determiners, possessive structures, prepositions,

derivations, pronouns, gerund or ‘to infinitive’, spelling and participial phrases.

The learners do not make errors in the punctuation, capitalization, and

comparative & superlative construction. There is a type of grammatical errors,

which the learners make when composing the English paragraphs but it is not

enumerated by Norrish. The error is in to be. The factors that cause the learners to

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make such errors are the influence of the learners’ first language, the lack of

motivation of the learners, and the poor aptitude of the learners.

From eighteen learners, there are six learners who make errors in the verb

tenses. All of the learners make errors in the use of the simple present tense. The

factors that cause the learners to make such errors are the poor aptitude of the

learners and the lack of motivation of the learners. There are five learners who

make such errors because of their poor aptitude of English: they lack of

knowledge of the use of the verb tense (see Appendix II part A a – e). There is a

learner who makes such an error because of the lack of motivation of the learner

in writing. The lack of motivation makes the learner not pay attention to the

lecturer’s explanation in the class (see Appendix II part A f).

From eighteen learners, there are eleven learners who make errors in the

determiners. There are nine learners who make errors in the absence of the

determiner ‘a’ and two learners who make errors in the absence of the determiner

‘the’. All of the learners make such errors because of the influence of their first

language: they rarely uses determiners in Indonesian (see Appendix II part B).

From eighteen learners, there are three learners who make errors in the

possessive structures. The learners make the errors in the absence of an

apostrophe ‘-s’. The factor that causes the learners to make such errors is the poor

aptitude of the learners: the lack of knowledge of the learners in the use of an

apostrophe ‘-s’ (see Appendix II part C).

From eighteen learners, there are eleven learners who make errors in the

prepositions. There are two learners who make errors in the use of the preposition

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‘to’, two learners who make errors in the absence of the preposition ‘for’, two

learners who make errors in the use of the preposition ‘in’, three learners who

make errors in the use of the preposition ‘with’, and two learners who make errors

in the absence of the preposition ‘about’. The factors that cause the learners to

make such errors are the influence of the learners’ first language and the poor

aptitude of the learners. There are eight learners who make such errors because of

the influence of their first language: they make the English sentence using the

grammar in Indonesian (see Appendix II part D 1a, 2a, 3a, 4, and 5). There are

three learners who make such errors because of their poor aptitude of English

grammar: they lack knowledge of the use of the prepositions (see Appendix II part

D 1b, 2b, and 3b).

From eighteen learners, there are nine learners who make errors in the

derivations. There are three learners who make errors in the use of the adjective,

four learners who make errors in the use of the noun, and two learners who make

errors in the use of the adverb. The factors that cause the learners to make such

errors are the influence of the learners’ first language, the lack of motivation of

the learners, and the poor aptitude of the learners. There are two learners who

make such errors because they are influenced by their first language: they think in

Indonesian to express their ideas when composing English paragraphs (see

Appendix II part E 1a and 3a). There are three learners who make such errors

because of their lack of motivation. The lack of motivation causes the learners not

to pay attention to the lecturer’s explanation in the class (see Appendix II part E

1c, and 2a - b). There are four learners who make such errors because of their

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poor aptitude of English: they lack knowledge of derivations (see Appendix part E

1b, 2c -d, and 3b).

pronouns. The factor that causes the learners to make such errors is the poor

aptitude of the learners. All of the learners make such errors because of their poor

aptitude of English: they misunderstand the grammatical rules of the pronouns

(see Appendix II part F).

From eighteen learners, there are five learners who make errors in the

gerund or the ‘to infinitive’. There are three learners who make errors in the use of

the gerund, and two learners who make errors in the use of the ‘to infinitive’. The

factor that causes the learners to make such errors is the poor aptitude of the

learners. All of the learners make such errors because of their poor aptitude: they

are confused about the use of the gerund and the ‘to infinitive’ (see Appendix II

part G).

participial phrases. All of the learners make errors in the use of the past participle

instead of the present participle. The factor that causes the learners to make such

errors is the poor aptitude of the learners. All of the learners make such errors

because of their poor aptitude of English grammar. They lack knowledge of the

use of the participial phrases (see Appendix II part H).

From eighteen learners, there are twelve learners who make errors in to be.

There are six learners who make errors in the use of to be, and six learners who

make errors in the absence of to be. The factor that causes the learners to make

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such errors is the poor aptitude of the learners and the influence of the learners’

first language. There are seven learners who make such errors because of their

poor aptitude: they lack of knowledge of to be (see Appendix II part I 1a – e and

2a - b). There are five learners who make such errors because of the influence of

their first language: They are not accustomed to use English (see Appendix II part

I 1f and 2c - f).

From eighteen learners, there are ten learners who make errors in spelling.

The factors that cause the learners to make such errors are the poor aptitude of the

learners and the influence of the learners’ first language. There are eight learners

who make such errors because of their poor aptitude of English grammar: they

lack knowledge of spelling some English words (see Appendix II part J a - h).

There are two learners who make such errors because of the influence of their first

language: they express their words using Indonesian grammar when composing

English paragraphs (see Appendix II part J i and j).

After analyzing the data, I find that the most common error that the

learners make when composing English paragraphs is in to be. There are twelve

learners who make errors in to be. The most common factor that causes the

learners to make errors is the poor aptitude of the learners. There are forty one

errors which occurred because of their poor aptitude of English grammar.

I hope this thesis can give benefits for the readers. The learners need good

aptitude and good motivation when learning English. If the learners have good

aptitude of English grammar, they will better understand about the correct

grammar that they have to use in their writing. The learners need good aptitude

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when composing English paragraphs because composing paragraphs is not only

about narrating their own stories, but also about using appropriate grammar in

one’s writing. If the learners have good motivation in writing, the learners will

pay attention to what the lecturer says in the class. Furthermore, the learners have

to avoid interference of their first language because each language has its own

grammar. The learners should not consider that the Indonesian grammar is

identical with English grammar.

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Holden, Susan ed. Focus on the Learner. Great Britain: Modern English

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Jain, Mahavir. “Error Analysis: Source, Cause, and Significance.” 1969. in Jack

C. Richards ed. Error Analysis. London: Longman Group Limited, 1974.

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Norrish, John. Language Learners and Their Errors. London and Basingstoke: The

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“Psycholinguistics.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 13 December

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<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psycholinguistics>.

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