AN ANALYSIS OF STUDENTS’ GRAMMATICALERRORS IN WRITING CONVERSATION TEXT
(A Descriptive Study at the Second Grade Students of SMK-SMTI Banda Aceh in Academic Year 2018/2019)
A THESIS
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Pendidikan in English Education Department of
STKIP Bina Bangsa Getsempena Banda Aceh
By:
MELIANA 1511060018
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION COLLEGE (STKIP) BINA BANGSA GETSEMPENA
BANDA ACEH 2019
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LIST OF CONTENT
Page DECLARATION ...
APPROVAL FORM ...
ABSTRACT ... i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ... ii
LIST OF CONTENT ... iv
LIST OF TABLES ... vi
LIST OF APPENDIXES ... vii
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION ... 1
1.1 The Background of Study ... 1
1.2 The Research Problem ... 7
1.3 The Objectives of Study ... 7
1.4 The Significance of Study ... 7
1.5 The Scope of Study ... 7
1.6 The Definition of Key Terms ... 8
CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW ... 10
2.1 The Definition of Grammar ... 10
2.2 Grammatical Errors in Writing ... 11
2.2.1 Category of Grammatical Errors ... 14
2.2.2 Source of Grammatical Errors ... 15
2.2.3 Causes of Grammatical Errors ... 17
2.2.4 Basic of English Grammar ... 19
2.2.5 The Importance of Grammar ... 20
2.3 The General Concept of Writing ... 21
2.3.1 The Definition of Writing ... 22
2.3.2 Types of Writing ... 23
2.3.3 Teaching Writing ... 24
2.3.4 The Aspects of Writing ... 25
2.3.5 The Strategy of Writing ... 26
2.3.6 The Criteria of Good Writing ... 27
2.3.7 The Advantages of Writing ... 28
2.3.8 The Purpose of Writing ... 28
2.3.9 The Process of Writing ... 29
CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ... 32
3.1 Research Design of study ... 32
3.2 The Subject of Study ... 34
3.3 Data Collecting Procedure ... 35
3.4 Technique of Data Analysis... 36
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CHAPTER IV RESEARCH FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ... 38
4.1 Research Findings ... 38
4.1.2 Grammatical Error in Using Verbs ... 42
4.1.3 Grammatical Error in Using Tenses ... 44
4.1.4 Grammatical Error in Using Singular/Plural ... 45
4.1.5 Grammatical Error in Using Adjectives ... 46
4.1.6 Grammatical Error in Using Prepositions ... 47
4.1.7 Grammatical Error in Using To Be ... 48
4.1.8 Grammatical Error in Using Articles ... 59
4.1.9 Grammatical Error in Using Modal/Auxiliary ... 50
4.1.10 Grammatical Error in Using Noun ... 51
4.1.11 Grammatical Error in Using Objective Pronoun ... 52
4.1.12 Grammatical Error in Using Phrasal Verb ... 53
4.2 Discussion ... 54
CHAPTER V CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS ... 60
5.1 Conclusion ... 60
5.2 Suggestion ... 61
REFERENCES ... 64
1 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
This chapter presented six point related to the study. There are the background of study, the research problem, the objective of study, the significant of study, the scope of study, and definition of key term.
1.1 The Background of Study
Teaching English in Senior High School consist of four language skills, speaking, writing, listening, and reading. As one of language skill that have to be mastered by the students, writing becomes the most important part of learning for students to understand English because writing is classified as a productive skill in learning English. According to Harmer (2007:54), productive skill is the language skill where the students produce the language themselves. The language skills that are categorized into productive skills are writing and speaking, while reading and listening are as receptive skills.
Both components of skills depict how language as means of communication works. These skill components are messages delivered through written and spoken that are produced by language learners. The messages produced by students through written form are writing. While the messages produced by students in spoken form are categorized as speaking. Therefore, the writer will focus on writing skill in Englsih subject in this research.
As a productive skill, writing is not like speaking or other receptive skills.
Writing skill not only needs a lot of vocabulary in composing a paragraph, but
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also correct grammar. Apart from other writing’s rules, in order to be comprehensible.
In the context of second language (L2) or foreign language (EFL) learning, the difficulties of writing do not only in creating and organizing the idea, but also in translating the idea into readable writing. Richard and Renandya (2002:12) explain that mastering writing skill is the most difficult for L2 learners. The learners have to get involved on higher-level skills of planning and organizing as well as lower level skills of spelling, punctuation, word choices, and so on. The different elements found between two languages are considered as the main problem. This leads students to make grammatical errors in a process of writing because most of the students tend to translate their ideas from L1 to L2.
According to Brown (2001:334) writing is a process of putting ideas down on paper to transform thoughts into words, to sharpen main ideas, and to give them structure and coherent organization. Writing should go through the process of pre-writing, drafting, revising, and editing, (Brown, 2001:337). Moreover, Meyers (2005:2) stated writing is a way to produce language you do naturally when someone write or speak. She added that writing is speaking to other on paper or on a computer screen.
In learning writing skill, the learners have to be able to identify all of usual items which include in writing. For example, the learners have to choose the correct vocabulary to describe the item that will be wrote. Other skill and knowledge that might address include the following; using grammatical structures accurately, producing the punctuation, word choice/correct words, appropiate
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spelling, using assessing characteristic of the target reader, including share knowledge or shared points of information, using a great central idea, and also choosing the good topic being wrote. All of the elements mentioned above, teaching grammatical is very important in improving students skill especially to compose a sentence or paragraph. Therefore, this research will analyze grammatical errors in writing.
Brown (2001:362) defined grammar is the system of rules governing the conventional arrangement and relationship of words in a sentence, in relation context, a speaker should consider who the speaker is, who the audience, where the communication takes place, what communication takes place before after a sentence in question, implied versus literal meaning, styles, and register.
Moreover, he also said that grammar competence as a major component of communication has an important position and tenses which are considered as the most difficult skill to be learnt for the Indonesian students.
In fact, grammar is actually something that’s begun being learned by every person in their first days and weeks of life, through interaction with others. All native writers or speakers when they are born and start learning it as they hear it spoken around them, such as how sentences are put together (syntax), and the pieces that make them up (morphology). Every language has its own grammar (Goh, 2009:19). It is crucial because it is needed to help in understanding the language. Grammar makes possible the production and comprehension of a potentially unlimited number of utterance, because no language can exist without grammar and none can use a language fluently without knowledge of it. A good
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language depends on the grammar (Goh, 2009:21). Therefore, grammar plays very important role as a bridge between speaker and reader in people communication in both speaking or writing.
ln learning grammatical, students often make mistakes in the rules of grammar called grammatical errors. According to Goh (2009:16), grammatical error is a term used in prescriptive grammar to describe an instance of faulty, unconventional, or controversial usage, such as a misplaced modifier or an inappropiate verb or tenses. This research studied errors analysis focusing on grammatical structure in writing. In arranging paragraph, many students still used incorrect grammatical patterns that will might cause confusion and miscommunication in student’s writing. Knowledge of good grammar will influence the coherence of the piece of writing. By using correct grammatical rule, students will have good writing.
Many researches have been conducted related to analysis students’
grammatical errors in writing. The first research comes from Qudwatin Nisak M.
Isa (2017) from Universitas Islam Negeri Ar-Raniry Banda Aceh with thetittle “ An Analysis Acehnese Students’Grammatical Errors in Writing Recount Text”.
This study aims at finding empirical evidence of the most common types of grammatical errors and sources of errors in recount text written by the first year students of SMAS Babul Makhfira, Aceh Besar. The finding showed that the total number of error are 436. Three frequent types of grammatical errors were verb, tense, and word choice. The major sources of error were Intralingual Error, Interference Error, and Developmental Error respectively. Furthermore, the
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findings suggest that it is necessary for EFL teachers to apply appropiate techniques and strategies in teaching recount text, which focus on past tense and language features of the text in order to reduce the possible errors to be made by the students.
The second research comes from Santi Noviyanti (2013) from Universitas Islam Tarbiyah Jakarta with the tittle “An Analysis of Students’ Grammatical Errors in Writing Descriptive Paragraph. The purpose of the research was carried out to analyze and classify the types of students’ grammatical errors in writing descriptive. Based on the findings, it is concluded that the types of errors that were made by the students of the second year of SMPN 3 Tangerang Selatan in their writing from the highest percentage to the lowest are error of selection, error of ommision, addition, and error of ordering. From the frequency of each error types, selection was the error which most frequently produced by the students.
Hence, the problem should be considered important to overcome by appropiate solution, for instance is determining a good appropiate teaching and learning technique to gain better comprehension.
The third research comes from Yosi Founisce putri (2016) from State University of Malang with the tittle Students Errors in using Simple Present Tense in Writing Descriptive Texts. This research is aimed to determine and to describe the errors in using simple present tenses in writing descriptive texts made by students, especially the eighth grade of acceleration class at SMPN 3 Malang. The data were obtained by conducting a test and using a checklist. Then, the writing products were analyzed using Surface Strategy Taxonomy by Dulay (1982). The
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result of this research was presented descriptively. From the result, the omission errors were found as the highest of occurence, which was about 47,05% which revealed that the eight graders of acceleration class still made errors in using simple present tense in writing descriptive text. The errors that are mostly made by students were errors of omission. It is in line with Dulay which stated that errors of omission are found in greater abudance during the early stages of second language acquisition.
In this study, the researcher took analysis of students grammatical error in writing conversation text because the researcher want to know what are types of error that they made in their written text. In the second grade of SMK-SMTI Banda Aceh especially in class XI-G, their writing lesson is about conversation text and it is based on a predetermined curriculum. Actually, they also learn about descriptive and argumentative in writing, but that only exists in the first and third grade while the researcher conducted this research in second grade.
Overall, this research will focus on analyzing students’ grammatical errors in writing English especially about conversation text at SMK-SMTI Banda Aceh.
Based on the author’s observation when teaching practice in November 11, 2018, and November 14, 2018, the problem in writing which concern about grammatical errors also occur in students at SMK SMTI Banda Aceh. They cannot write English accurately and correctly especially in using grammatical understanding.
They cannot write sentences or paragraphs according to the correct grammatical rules such as the use of preposition, articles, verb, tenses, conjuction, adjectives, noun, to be, and so on. As a result, it make them difficult and confused to make
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and to produce a good sentence and arranging a paragraph in their writing. Based on the explanation above, the researcher is interested in analyzing students’
writing especially about their grammatical errors. So, the writer would like to carry out a research with the title “An Analysis of Students’ Grammatical Errors in Writing Conversation Text at the Second Grade Students of SMK- SMTIBanda Aceh.”
1.2 The Research Problem
1. What types of grammatical errors that students produce when they are writing conversation text?
1.3 The Objective of Study
2. To categorize grammatical error types in writing conversation text.
1.4 The Significant of Study
There are some purpose of doing this research. It is expected that the research will be useful to the researcher, teachers, students, and other researchers.
The result of this research will be beneficial for students of SMK-SMTI Banda Aceh to know their errors when they use grammar in writing conversation text.
Therefore, the grammatical errors they made can be a benchmark for learning grammar in the future. For example when they make mistakes in using verbs and tenses, they got experience and knowledge to more focus on learning both.
1.5 The Scope of Study
The scope of this research summarized the research topic, identify, interpreted or describe, and analyzed the issues and result. So, this study focuses
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on describing and analyzing students’ grammatical errors in writing conversation text. The research will be conducted at second grade of SMK-SMTI Banda Aceh.
1.6 The Definition of Key Terms
It is important for the researcher to make an assumption clearly of the term used in this paper as the following;
1.6.1 Grammatical Error
Harmer (2001:34) said that the error are part of the learner interlingua that is the version of the language which a learner has at any one stage of development and which continually reshaped as he/she aims toward full mastery. The activity of analyzing errors is called “Error Analysis”. According to Kiser (2009:245) grammatical error is an error of pertaining to grammar. All in all, the researcher concluded grammatical error is error occured based on the wrong in using rule that show how word is combined and arranged.
This research will categorized the types of grammatical error that will be analyzed such as tenses, verb, preposition, article, singular/plural, modal/auxiliary, to be, adjectives, objective pronoun, and phrasal verb.
1.6.2 Writing
Harmer (2004:33) defined writing is integral part of a large activity where the focus is on something else such as language practice, acting out, or speaking.
Afterward, writing is a process to get product influenced by some elements such as the control of content, format, sentence, structure, vocabulary, punctuation, spelling and so on. He added that writing has its own set of trick, for instance dashes, exclamations marks, new paragraphs, commas, capital letters, and all of
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these can be used to create rhythm and effect. In addition, the researcher concluded that writing is an ability to create an idea to write something.
This research will analyze the students’ grammatical errors through students’ worksheet. The topic of the writing is about offering andsuggestion. So, the students are asked to write a conversation about offering and suggestion in their worksheet.
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