A. Data Description
1. Error Identification
The description of data that was made based on grammatical errors, types of errors, and causes of errors. In grammatical of errors were classified into six areas, namely; tense, subject-verb, word choice, spelling, capitalize, and noun phrase.
Grammatical errors were taken from Betty Schampfer Azar.1 She divides into some areas, they are; singular-plural, word choice, verb tense, spelling, punctuation, add a word, omit a word, word order, capitalization, and article. All of them are not taken all; it will be taken four categories in grammatical errors, namely; verb tense, word choice, spelling, and capitalization. There are two kinds of errors that does not exist in Azar‟s theory, they are, noun phrase, and subject-verb.
Table 4.1
Recapitulation Students’ Grammatical Areas
Students Grammatical Area
Tense S-V Word Choice Sp Cap NP
1 5 1 2 1 2
1 Betty Schampfer Azar, English Grammar: Understanding and Using 2nd ed, (Englewood Cliffs, Prentice Hall, 1989), p. 29
2 3 2 3 1
3 3 2 4 2 1 1
4 3 2 3 1
5 1 1 2
6 6 2 2 5 2
7 3 1 1 1
8 6 3 3
9 6 1
10 5 1 4 1
11 4 2 2 1
12 3 1 2 2 1
13 3 1 2 2 1
14 3 1
15 3 1 2 2 1
16 3 1 2 2 1
17 5 3 5 2 1 1
18 5 1 2 2 1
19 8 1 1
Total 78 19 23 21 30 15
From the table of recapitulation the students‟ grammatical errors above (see table 4. 1), it could be seen that there were a lot of errors from students‟ writing. The students commit the errors in the substance and text level especially in grammar which were classified into grammatical types.
After knowing that there were errors made by the students‟ writing, the students‟ grammatical errors were classified based on the six categories as follows:
a. Tense
Tense could be shown whether it is happened in the past, present, or future.2 In narrative writing, the students should use past tense for their writing because they told something that happening in the past. For example:
Her friends come back
Bella‟s friends give thanks to her
She has big party
Bella give food and drink to her friends
All is over
The students should write as follows:
Her friends came back
Bella‟s friends gave thanks to her
She had big party
Bella gave food and drink to her friends
All was over
From those examples above, the students did not change the main verb that show the past time because the students write a narrative writing, it means that they should wrote in the past time. The main verb should be changed into the second verb.
b. Subject-Verb
It means that a phrase or clause separates a subject from the verb.3 The students did not put the correct verb after the noun. They might omit the auxiliary verb, it usually showed in the nominal sentence. For example:
The party very happy
Bella very happy
2 Nasrun Mahmud, English for Muslim University Students 4th Ed, (Jakarta: PT. Siwibakti
Darma), p. 66
3 Betty Schrampfer Azar, Understanding and Using English Grammar 3rd Ed, (Longman:
Pearson Education), p. 88
She very happy
Bella‟s mom angry
She direct
The correct sentences are:
The party was very happy
Bella was very happy
She was very happy
Bella‟s mom was angry
She was direct
c. Word Choice
Word choice is choosing the right word in a sentence. Sometimes, one word has the same meaning, but has different usage in the sentence.4 This error happens because of overgeneralization (interlingual transfer). The students generalized the meaning of the word although it has different usage in the sentence. For examples of this error are follows:
at 18.00 p.m night
Pass so party finish
Pass Bella open the door
Friends gave a present
Some present
The sentences above should have been:
at 18.00 p.m
party finished
Bella opened the door
Her friends gave a present
Some presents
4 A Raimes, Technique in Teaching Writing, (Oxford: Oxford University Press), p. 124
d. Spelling
Spelling is how to write word correctly, spelling errors can be caused by lack of knowledge and the influence of the native language.5 The examples are:
Frieds
Fiends
She hass
The party begain
Frends
The examples above should have been:
Friends
Friends
She has
The party began
Friends
e. Capitalizing
A capital letter is used at the beginning of all keywords in proper noun (names of person and their title, names of countries, and other geographical location, names of nationalities, races and language names of religion, deities, and so on).6 In this case, the students make errors in the name of someone, in the beginning of sentence. Some illustrated as follows:
at the party
the party took place
at
the
The correct sentences are:
5 Rita Wong, Pronunciation Myths and Facts. Teacher Development, (Washington, D. C:
English Language Program Division), p. 118
6 A Meyers, Gateways to academic Writing, (New York: Pearson Education), p. 67
At the party
The party took place
At
The
f. Noun Phrase
A noun phrase most commonly functions as a subject, object, or complement.7 The students face difficulties when they applied the structure in English because in their mother tongue does not have the changing of relative pronoun. For examples are:
Bella not all of her friends came
Mom‟s Bella was angry
Mom Bella
All friends Bella were angry
Therefore, the students should write as follows:
Bella not all of her friends came
Mom‟s Bella was angry
Mom Bella
All friends Bella were angry
In this study, there were some grammatical errors that found in students‟ writing. They might forget or did not really pay attention when the teacher was explaining the material. So, the students did not put the correct words or sentences in their assignment. They made the errors in grammatical area in six categories, namely; tense, subject-verb agreement, word choice, spelling, capitalize, and noun phrase.
After classifying the students‟ errors based on the grammatical errors, the next step is calculated the number of each error types to know the
7 Mas‟ud Mada. English Syntax, (Jakarta: 1995), p. 6
frequency of occurrence of each error. This calculation used the formulae of descriptive analysis technique as can be seen as below:
P = x 100%
Explanation: P = Percentage
f = frequency of each error type (frequency of wrong answer)
n = sum of the errors
Furthermore, to make it easier to read, the following table below is presented:
Table 4. 2
The Frequency of Grammatical Errors No Grammatical
Errors
The Number of Grammatical Errors
Frequency of Each Error
1 Tense 78 41.93%
2 Subject-Verb 19 10.21%
3 Word Choice 23 12.36%
3 Spelling 21 11.29%
4 Capitalize 30 16.12%
5 Noun Phrase 15 8.06%
Total Number of Errors
186 100 %
From the result above, it showed that the highest frequency of grammatical errors was tense, by frequency 41.93%. It means that students in second grade of SMP YMJ still face difficulty in choosing the correct structure that showed in the past. The second was capitalization, students made 16.12% errors. It showed that most students did not apply the rule that name of person should be written by capitalizing. The third level of grammatical error was word-choice, in this error, students made 12.36%
errors. It indicates that they still face difficulties in selecting the correct word.
They wrote English like they wrote in Indonesian. So they still have difficulties in applying the correct word. The next was spelling, it had 11.29%. It means that they still have difficulties in writing English; they omit a word because they wrote as in the utterance. The fifth level was subject- verb agreement, it had 10.21%. It shown that most of students still face difficulties in selecting a subject from the verb in their writing, and the last levels was noun phrase, about 8.06%. Most of the students still face difficulty to translate form their mother tongue into English,
From the previous studies that were taken from Hayatinupus and Diajeng, there were found the same errors in students‟ writing. Tense was found as the highest frequency, and noun phrase as the lowest frequency in students‟ grammatical errors. As Betty Azzar8 says that most students make error in tense because in their language do not have the changing verb, so they have difficulties in applying tense in their assignment.