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COHESIVE ERRORS ON STUDENTS’ WRITING PARAGRAPH: A DESCRIPTIVE STUDY AT ELEVENTH GRADE STUDENTS OF SMA N 7 PADANG
Oleh:
Irawati *)
***)Imron Hadi dan **) Hevriani Sevrika di Staff Pengajar Program Studi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris STKIP PGRI Sumatera Barat
ABSTRAK
Skripsi ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui kemampuan siswa SMA N 7 Padang kelas XI dalam menulis paragraph dari Analitikal eksposisi teks. Jenis penelitian ini adalah kelas XI MIA1 XI MIA 3 XI MIA 5. Dari ke tiga kelas ini dipilih secara acak sebanyak 40 orang siswa. Data diambil melalui penulisan sebuah analytical eksposisi teks yang dibuat oleh siswa. Siswa di minta untuk membuat sebuah Analitikal Eksposisi teks berdasarkan 6 topik yang diberikan oleh peneliti. Mereka hanya boleh memilih salah satu dari 6 topik yang di persiapkan oleh peneliti.
Topic yang mereka pilih antara lain: Junk Food, The Danger of Smoking, The benefit of Drinking Water, The benefit of Drinking Milk, The Benefit of Eating Fruit. Dari hasil penelitian, peneliti menemukan bahwa banyak dari siswa yang melakukan error dalam penulisan kata-kata kohesif pada teks yang mereka buat. Secara umum, siswa kelas XI dari siswa SMA N 7 Padang telah mampu menulis teks analitikal eksposisi dengan baik. Berdasarkan kata kohesif yang digunakan siswa, peneliti menjelaskan secara jelas bahwa tidak ada siswa yang menggunakan kata substitution di dalam tulisan mereka. Namun ditemukan error dari hasil tulisan siswa pada kata ellipsis, error pada kata reference (personal), error pada kata reference (demonstrative), error pada penggunaan kata reference (comparative).
Selanjutnya, juga ditemukan juga pada tulisan siswa yang membuat error pada penggunaan kata conjunction words (for), pada penggunaan kata conjunction words (but), pada kata lexical (collocation), dan pada kata lexical ( repetition).
Keywords: Descriptif, Kohesi, Paragraf
*) Penulis
**) Pembimbing II
***) Pembimbing I
INTRODUCTION
Writing is one of four language skills that is important to be learned. This skill helps the writer to communicate with other people
who are not in front of him/her. Writing also enables writer to communicate cross generation.
In learning writing, the students are able to express ideas in the written form such as
2 functional text and essays in written form of simple materials likes; recount, hortatory exposition, analytical exposition, argumentative and others in the context of everyday life.
Sakolik and Linse (2005) explain that writing is a process and product which refers to the act of gathering ideas and working with them until they are presented in a manner that is polished and comprehensible to the readers. It means that writing is a process when the students want to write their ideas in written form and produce a paragraph that can be read by readers. It must present ideas logically and clearly by implementing cohesive and coherent tools through appropriate grammatical words.
Based on the researcher’s experience when she practiced teaching at SMAN 7 Padang, there were some problems faced by the students in writing. The students could not produce a good idea in writing to explore their ideas. It was found that the students had lack of vocabulary, and then they did not know the rules in writing English texts. Sometimes, students do not pay attention to the structure of writing. One of them is dealing with connecting words like cohesive. Cohesive is a certain word or phrase or grammatical element and also is one factor which binds the sentences in a paragraph. In fact, parts of cohesive are reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunction, and lexical cohesion.
Based on the parts of the cohesive groups generally discuss about classification words and class of word. In writing, students should know the class of words to use and the
appropriate group words in order to produce good writings. It means that, to make a phrase or sentence the students really need to know the classification of the word to be used. Besides that, the students should have sufficient knowledge about the elements in writing paragraphs such as; topic, main idea, supporting sentence, coherence and cohesion or intersentence in order to get better achievement in writing paragraphs. Arrangement of words to form words is better known cohesion.
In fact, cohesion is always found in any types of text like narrative, recount, spoof, exposition, report and so on. Cohesion is one of the important aspects in writing to develop or inform the idea, opinion, and other in the written form. Cohesion enhances the writer to share idea clearly, briefly, and smoothly to the readers, but cohesion also becomes a serious problem in students’ writing. The students often put their idea in written form as they share spoken. As a result, the idea is hardly to be understood, and the use of grammar looks like their first language. In other word, they use cohesive tools in writing English texts are the same with those they usually use in their first language.
But based on the researcher’s observation, there were some students who found difficulties in using the cohesive words in the writing. In short, the using of the same word with the purpose in cohesive make the students difficult and confused to determine the appropriate word in creating paragraphs. Some of them use repetition word to write the sentence
3 in the text. They did not use kinds of cohesion word like reference words when they write the similar word in the text. The researcher does this research because the researcher wants to give information for the students to use cohesive word in writing paragraph or essay to make their writing be good. Thus, they do not use repetition word in writing paragraph
REVIEW OF THE RELATED
Writing skill is a language skill that needs to be taught to the students because it is the important component in learning language.
The students should always consider the choice of words, the sentence structure, and the sequence of words. Leo (2007:1) adds writing is as a process of expressing ideas or thoughts in words should be done at our leisure. It means that writing can be very enjoyable as long as have the ideas and the means to achieve it.
Writing is the process of thinking and how to express ideas in written form. If the students want to express their ideas about something, they can write in a paper and share it to the others. And then, writing about experience can be easy, if we have much vocabulary. But if we have lack of vocabulary, writing can be difficult for us. If we want to have a good skill in writing, so we should practice and practice writing every day. So that, there will be different ideas, and form of each writing result from different writers.
Teaching writing is not easy, because in teaching writing the students are required to know about ideas that will they write. If they do
not have idea and much vocabulary so, they can not write well. Linse (2005:99) mentions that teaching writing is physical act of forming letter as well as the act of expressing oneself in written form are both challenging for young learners.
Depending upon their development, learners may find it very frustrating to try to physically form letters, and they may not be able to put their thoughts together in coherent whole.
Therefore as their teacher, the students face the considerable task of teaching them how to actually print letters, write words, and capture their ideas to put on paper.
Writing process help the students make a writing. So, students can easy to write about something. The students have outlining of writing, and students understand about the writing. Moreover Harmer (2004:85) discusses that the process of writing has four steps. As a teacher of writing, we must know the process begins by thinking about what is going to be written and collecting some ideas. He says that writing teacher do not only focus on the final product but also focus on the process of writing to develop of writing skill. In process of writing, consists of four steps: First is planning. When planning, writers have to think about three main issues. Second is drafting. Writer can refer to the first version of a piece of writing as a draft.
Third is editing (reflecting and revising). Once writers have produced a draft they then, usually read through what they have written to see where it works and where it does not. Finally is final version. Once writers have edited their
4 draft, making the changes they consider to be necessary, they produce their final version.
Cohesion is often used by a writer in writing. It often appears at the beginnings of sentences and paragraphs to give a clear and immediate clue to what’s coming in the next.
Cohesion is employed either through certain words or phrases (vocabulary) or grammatical element and also is one factor which binds the sentences in a paragraph, and one paragraph.
According to Paper (2001:2), cohesion is described as a textual phenomenon whereas coherence is a mental one. It means that as a genereal between cohesion and coheren have relation, but they have a little different. The important difference between of them is the fact that coherence can be worked without cohesion, but is not to the other way around. Besides that a speech or a text with a large amount of cohesive features must not necessarily.
In writing, sometimes some writers did errors in their writing. Error is the condition of deviating from accuracy or correctness, as in belief, action, or speech. Edge (2000:11) states that errors are wrong forms that the pupil could not correct even if their wrongness were to be pointed out. On the other hand, the learner is unable or in any way disinclined to make the correction, it is assumed that the form of the learner used was the one intended and that is and error.
According to Ellis (2003:51) errors are the flawed side of learner speech or writing.
They are those parts of conversation or
composition that deviate from some selected norm or mature language performance. It means that, when the learner produces a sentence, they should be careful in using English or they should use rule how to make it good.
Furthermore, Klasen in Mishra (2006:37) mentions that errors is a form or structure that a native speaker deems unacceptable because of its used unappropriate structure. A form or structure of performance in language should have a rule to make the meaning acceptable, which one make the audience or the reader can understand. On the other hand, the learner is unable or in any way disinclined to make the correction, we assume that the form the learner used was the one intended and that is an error.
Meanwhile, Idris and Akbar (2010: 467) say that error can be classified as interlingual or intraligual. Interlingual errors can be identified as transfer errors which result from a learner’s first language features, for example, grammatical, lexical or pragmatic errors. In words other, intralingual errors are over generalizations, in the target language, resulting from ignorance of rule restriction refers to the application of rule inappropriate context.
Incomplete applications of rules occur when learners fail to develop a structure fully.
Based on all of experts’ opinion about the definition of errors above, the researcher concludes an error is the false made by foreign language learners, in producing process that gives bad effect for both writing and speaking.
Thus, the learner should be careful in using
5 English and try to avoid all of language aspects.
Because errors and mistakes are different. Error as being and instance of language that is unintentionally deviant and is not self corrigible by its author. Mistake is either intentionally or unintentionally deviant and self corrigible.
RESEARCH METHODELOGY
The design of this research was descriptive qualitative. It is to describe and analyze students writing in which focus on cohesive errors that many are made by the students of the eleven grade of SMA N 7 Padang. According to Gay and Airasian (2000:275), descriptive study determines and describes the way things are. It means that qualitative research only focus on describing the phenomenon without giving treatment to the students. It is also supported by Parse (2001:57), descriptive qualitative research is to study intensely a phenomenon to discover pattern and themes about live events, social sciences and discipline-specific theoretical perspective in education. In other word, by conducting this descriptive research, the researcher is going to descriptive deeply and factual information about cohesive errors that many are made by the students of the eleventh grade of SMA N 7 Padang
RESEARCH FINDINGS
Based on cohesive word that the students used, the researcher can give the description of cohesion error is made by the students in their writing. Some of them used conjunction words in their writing.
Based on the researcher’s interpretation, there were found many errors in students’
writing that used cohesion. From the findings to answer the first question, it can be interpreted that the types of cohesion in students’ writing. In student writing there were many errors that found here in which can be assumed that the students were lack of writing. The inability of these students can be improve the skill of writing then presenting forms of words and also by giving assignments related to the use of words in appropriate class. The most of students did error in using some kinds of cohesion, such as used reference and conjunction. The students did know about used appropriate word, and then the sentence were wrong.
Then, the error was also found in addition which can be caused by lack of attention, so the students made many errors in constructing good grammatical form. According to Corder in Rusminto (2011:141) states that mistakes is a failure to utilize known system correctly, and mistakes are done in unsystematically (competence) and it also result from carelessness, a slip of tongue or momentary.
Whereas an error reflects the incompetence of the learners. An error may be have because deeply fixed that a students may not event have realized it as such and it thus recommended to repeat it until proficient. And then, error refers to deviation done systematically (performance)
Based on the statement of Sarada (2008:8) cohesive is a kind of device that joins sentences together logically and argumentatively
6 by using appropriate connectives words. In other words, it is a factor responsible to bind or join one sentence with another without being loose.
Actually, some of the students didn’t understand how to use cohesive word well. They used inappropriate cohesive word in their writing.
Some of the students thought that the reader would understand the absence item refers to, even thought the sentences were not found well.
The errors are made by the students it caused from some factors like; their first language, lack of grammar, and they didn’t know how to use appropriate connector in sentence.
CONCLUSION
From finding in chapter IV, the researcher concludes that the most of the students were disable to use appropriate cohesive words in the writing analytical exposition text, because they still difficult how to use each words of cohesive word correctly.
Furthermore, most of the students were able to arrange good sentence in the paragraph because they have understood the good pattern in writing. Then, the rest of the students who could arrange good sentence in paragraph, caused by there were background knowledge about using the cohesive word correctly.
From the result of this research that some of them contained with the errors and misunderstanding of the students when they used appropriate cohesive word in writing analytical exposition word. The researcher suggested that it was better for the students to be an active and effective reader in order to enrich
their background knowledge that was useful when they started to write.
Finally the researcher hoped that this research can be useful for the researcher as a candidate of English teacher, for the English teachers and all of the students that it was important for them to understand how to use cohesive word appropriately in making good analytical exposition text. The researcher suggested to the students to learn more about cohesive word and how to use it appropriately in writing paragraph or text. For others researcher who will do the research is expected to continue and do deeply research about this cohesive error.
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