AN ANALYSIS OF GRAMMATICAL ERRORS IN WRITING

NARRATIVE TEXT AT THE FOURTH SEMESTER STUDENTS IN

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT BORNEO UNIVERSITY OF TARAKAN

THESIS

Presented to
Borneo University of Tarakan in partial
fulfillment of the requirements for degree of
Sarjana in English Education

BY:

MAKSI
15.601010.073

ENGLISH EDUCATION DEPARTMENT

FACULTY OF TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION
BORNEO UNIVERSITY OF TARAKAN
TARAKAN
2021

i
 PERNYATAAN ORISINALITAS

Dengan ini menyatakan bahwa Skripsi dengan Judul “An Analisys of Grammatical

Errors in Writing Narrative Text at The Fourth Semester Students in English

Department Borneo University” adalah karya saya dengan arahan dari dosen

pembimbing dan belum diajukan dalam bentuk apapun kepada perguruan tinggi

mana pun. Sumber informasi yang berasal atau dikutip dari karya yang diterbitkan

maupun tidak diterbitkan dari penulis lain telah disebutkan dalam teks dan

dicantumkan dalam daftar pustaka di bagian akhir Skripsi ini. Penelitian ini ditulis

dengan mengikuti kaidah penulisan ilmiah.

ii
 PAGE APPROVAL

The Tittle : An Analysis of Grammatical Errors in Writing Narrative

Text at The Forth Semester Students in English

Department Borneo University of Tarakan

Name : Maksi

NPM : 15.601010.073

Faculty : Teacher Training and Education

Department : English Education

Date of Graduation :

Thesis Score :

*)Filled by Head of Department

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 AN ANALISYS OF GRAMMATICAL ERRORS IN WRITING NARRATIVE
TEXT AT THE FOURTH SEMESTER STUDENTS IN ENGLISH
DEPARTMENT BORNEO UNIVERSITY

Abstrak

Penelitian ini dilakukan untuk (1) mengidentifikasi dan mendeskripsikan tipe-tipe

kesalahan yang dilakukan oleh mahasiswa semester empat jurusan pendidikan bahasa
inggris universitas Borneo Tarakan dalam teks naraitif, (2) mengetahui frekuensi tipe-
tipe kesalahan yang dilakukan oleh mahasiswa semester empat jurusan pendidikan
bahasa inggris universitas Borneo Tarakan (3) mengidentifikasi dan mendeskripsikan
sumber kesalahan yang mempengaruhi mahasiswa untuk melakukan kesalahan yang
dituliskan dalam tulisan mereka. Subyek penelitian ini adalah 29 mahasiswa semester
empat. Dalam mengumpulkan data, peneliti meminta mahasiswa untuk menulis teks
naratif dengan topik yang telah diberikan. Peneliti juga mewawancarai 6 mahasiswa
untuk mendapatkan informasi mengenai kemungkinan penyebab yang mempengaruhi
mereka melakukan kesalahan. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa terdapat 140
kesalahan yang ditemukan pada tulisan mahasiswa, yang dianalisis dengan
menggunakan Surface Strategy Taxonomy. Ditemukan 55 kesalahan penghilangan, 62
kesalahan penambahan, 17 kesalahan pembentukan dan 6 kesalahan penempatan.
Sementara itu, menurut Comparative Analysis Taxonomy kesalahan-kesalahan tersebut
dipengaruhi oleh beberapa faktor seperti kesalahan perkembangan, kesalahan
interlingual, kesalahan ambigu dan kesalahan oleh lainnya. Maka, ditemukan 77
kesalahan yang disebabkan oleh perkembangan, 25 kesalahan oleh interlingual, 29
kesalahan oleh ambigu dan 9 kesalahan oleh faktor lainnya. Kesimpulannya,
kesalahan-kesalahan gramatikal yang terjadi pada tulisan mahasiswa karena kurangnya
pemahaman mahasiswa mengenai grammar, dan pengaruh struktur bahasa Indonesia
dalam proses pembelajaran bahasa target (English).

Kata Kunci : Gramatikal Eror Analisis, Gramatikal Eror, teks naratif.

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 ACKNOWLEDGMENT

In the name of Allah, The Most Gracious and The Most Merciful, all praises to

Allah, Lord of the Universe, who has given the writer a lot of grace of strength, health,

patience and life in finishing this research paper. Peace and blessing be upon our

prophet Muhammad SAW who leads us the bright life, his family, companions, and his

followers.

First of all, the writer would like to thank and express his greatest gratitude to his

beloved parents (Nurdin Kasim and Aisyah Abdullah) who always pray, support and

motivate him in every single pace he made since he was a little baby until today,

especially in doing and finishing this study. Also, the greatest gratitude is given to the

writer’s sister (Maryani Nurdin, Tiku, and Herlina) and also brothers (Nofri and

Mazlan) who always support, motivate, and make his life full of joy and happiness.

Second, the researcher also would like to give his best appreciation and his

respect to people who always help, support, advice, guide and give so much

encouragement individually or in institutions to him to finish this study. Because the

writer realizes that this study cannot be finished without their helps, so the writer wants

to deliver his deepest gratitude to:

1. Prof. Dr. Drs. Adri Patton, M. Si, as the rector of Borneo University of Tarakan

2. Dr. Suyadi, S.S., M.Ed, as the Dean of Faculty of Teacher Training and

Education of Borneo University Tarakan

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3. Dr. Arifin, S.Pd.,M.Pd, as the head of English Department of Borneo University

Tarakan.

4. Romlah Ulfaika, M.Pd, as the advisor in thesis writing who always supports,

motives, advices, helps and guides the researcher.

5. Dr. Woro Kusmaryani and Jhoni Eppendi, M.Pd, as the examiners of this thesis

who have given valuable advices, suggestions and comments in composing this

research paper.

6. All the lectures in English Department of Borneo University Tarakan for precious

knowledge and experiences.

7. All the subjects of this study who were the fourth semester students of English

Department Borneo University of Tarakan.

8. My beloved friends, Adrian Leonardo, S.Pd, Teodorus Bethoni, S.Pd, Ardi

Alexander, Fadillah Weah Soekarno S.Pd, and Sanu who always support, motivate

and help the writer from the beginning he becomes an English department student

until the end he composes this thesis.

9. All his friends in English department, who always give their kindness, share their

ideas, and also support in every situation.

May Allah always guide them to the right path.

Finally, this thesis is expected to be able to provide beneficial knowledge and

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Information to the readers. The researcher is pleased to accept more suggestion,

comments and contribution from the readers for the improvement of the thesis.

Tarakan, December 16th 2021

Maksi

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

COVER PAGE ......................................................................................... i

PAGE OF TITLE ..................................................................................... i

PERNYATAAN ORISINILITAS ............................................................ ii

PAGE OF APPROVAL ............................................................................ iii

ABSTRACT .............................................................................................. v

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ........................................................................ vii

TABLE OF CONTENTS ......................................................................... x

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

A. Background of The Study .............................................................. 1

B. Problem Statement of The Study ................................................... 4

C. The Objective of The Study ........................................................... 4

D. The Significances of The Study ..................................................... 4

E. Limitation of The Study ................................................................. 5

F. Definition of Key Terms ................................................................. 6

CHAPTER II REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURES

A. Literature Review ........................................................................... 7

1. The Concept of Writing ........................................................... 7

2. The Process of Writing............................................................. 9

3. The Sources of Error ............................................................... 10

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 4. The Significance of Error ........................................................ 18

5. The Errors Taxonomies ........................................................... 12

B. Previous Research Finding ............................................................. 44

CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHOD

A. Research Design .............................................................................. 45

B. Setting and Participants ................................................................. 46

C. Research Instrument ........................................................................ 46

D. Instruments of Collecting Data ...................................................... 46

E. Technique of Analysis Data .......................................................... 47

CHAPTER IV FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

A. Findings .......................................................................................... 51

B. Discussion ...................................................................................... 62

CHAPTER V

A. Conclusions .................................................................................... 70

B. Suggestions .................................................................................... 71

REFERENCES ......................................................................................... 74

APPENDICES .......................................................................................... 76

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 LIST OF TABLE

Appendix

Table 1. Correction Symbol .............................................................................. 41

Table 4.0 The Distribution of Grammatical Errors in Students’ Writing ......................... 54

Table 4.1 The Distribution of Grammatical Errors ...................................................... 55

Table 4.2 The Distribution of Grammatical Errors ...................................................... 56

Table 4.3 Example of Grammatical Erros ......................................................... 64

Table 4.4 Distribution of Sources Error ............................................................ 68

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 LIST OF APPENDICES

Appendix

Appendix 1. Students’ Written Test ................................................................... 76

Appendix 2. Interview Script ............................................................................ 113

Appendix 3. Amount of Grammatical Error ...................................................... 116

Appendix 4. Interview Documentation .............................................................. 117

Appendix 5. Curriculum Vitae ........................................................................... 121

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 CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

This Chapter consists of background of the research, research problem,

Objectives of the research, significance of the research, scope and limitation and

definition of key terms

A. Background of The Research

Writing is a form of communication, where the writer produce language to

delivers ideas, feeling, thought, or any information to others using written form.

Writing is one of four English skills that have many important roles in many aspects

of life. Idea, desires, and everything to explain, writing can be used as an instrument

that makes somebody else understand what to explain. In short, that writing pays an

important role in our life. Writing is an activity that need creativity to combine the

words become sentences even become a paragraph. According to Bacha in Sukarno

(2016), the skills presented in writing will also developed the students’ skills in

acquiring the needed strategies to present the data, to analyze, to interpret, and to

make inference from the data collected from their researchers.

The unsuccessful condition when students fail applying grammatical rules in

writing activity is called as a grammatical error. According to Ellis (2000) errors

reflect gaps in a learners’ knowledge. It means that errors happen in grammatical

because of the students’ lack of knowledge or they are less attention in learning

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grammar rules of the target language. Errors in grammatical rules can be committed

by all grades of the students, even for university students in English Education

Department. Committing errors are not always bad in language learning, because it

is a result of learning activity and it is a proof that learning activity keeps going.

Based on the problem above, a study of students’ error is needed to be

conducted by the researcher, in order to identify how far students committed errors

in writing. Corder (1981) said that study of students’ error will give a significance

contribution in second language acquisition, because it helps students, teachers and

researchers to understand about the sources of any kind of committed errors to

improve the language competence by constructing correction technique.

Conducting a study about errors in English Education Department students’ writing

automatically helps the students to resolve their problem in writing activity. English

Department students are generally expected to have less mistake and errors in

mastering English language skill, especially in writing. As the goal of English

Education Department soon every graduated students will be a candidate of future

teacher that teach English for the next generation. They have to be a good teacher

candidate and they must be someone who is good in English language skills. They

should not only become good listeners and speakers, but also good readers and

writers. It is impossible to teach effectively if their English ability is poor. They will

teach writing and other language skill. In attempting master aspects of writing skills,

it is necessary to analyze errors in written text to find out how much their acquisition

are obtained in teaching process. So they can share their knowledge properly.
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Considering writing skills are important, this research try to investigate

possible linguistic problems by analyzing the errors of the students of Writing

Course at English Education Department especially made by the forth semester

students’. The researcher will apply error analysis on surface strategy taxonomy due

to this category related to students’ writing skill on grammatical structure. As

Corder states ‘surface strategy taxonomy is a superficial of error classification used

as a starting point for systematic analysis’ (Corder, 1981), thus the researcher will

use surface strategy taxonomy as a starting point in the description of errors. Surface

strategy taxonomy concentrates on the ways in which surface structures are altered.

Using this taxonomy Dulay et al. (1982) divide errors into the following categories;

they are omission, addition, misformation, and misordering errors. The students’

grammatical errors are analyzed and classified into those taxonomies. In order to be

more useful for language teachers and students, error classifications are extended to

a deeper level by inferring the causes or sources of the errors according to

comparative taxonomy. It involves developmental, interlingual, ambiguous and

other errors.

Based on the researcher’s observation the researcher find out that in writing

narrative text the students still make some errors that’s why the researcher wants to

find out the source of errors and the reason why the students make those errors.

B. Problem of the Study

Based on the background of the study above, the problems of this study were:
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1. What types of grammatical errors in writing are made by the fourth semester

students in English Education Department Borneo University of Tarakan?

2. How is the frequency of errors made by the fourth semester students in English

Education Department Borneo University of Tarakan?

3. What are the sources of errors which influence English Education Department

students to commit grammatical errors in English writing activity?

C. Objectives of the Study

The objectives of the study are:

1. To identify and describe the common types of grammatical errors made by the

fourth semester students in English Education Department of Borneo University

of Tarakan.

2. To find out the frequency of errors made by the fourth semester students in

English Education Department Borneo University of Tarakan.

3. To identify and describe the sources of errors made by the fourth semester

English Education Department students Borneo University of Tarakan.

D. Significance of the Study

The research will be useful for students, lecturer of English department and

Future Researchers:
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1. Students

This research is expected to give a significant of practical contribution in helping

English Education Department students especially to who becomes the subject of this

study to be aware of their error and the sources of their error, and also help them to

improve their writing ability.

2. Lecturer of English Department

The result of this study will provide the information as a practical contribution

about students’ error in writing course. It can help the lecturer to give more attention

to students’ error and find the best method and the material in teaching writing.

3. Future Researchers

This study is expected to give a significant of theoretical contribution to the future

researchers to add more insight which deals with second or foreign language

acquisition. This study can be used as the reference for the next researchers that are

interested to study about error analysis.

E. Scope and Limitation

It is important to limit of scope of this research. This study took an analysis of

students’ errors in writing which was focused on grammatical error or the error of the

structure construction. Therefore, the scope of this study was the grammatical errors

made by the fourth semester English Education Department students in Borneo

University on writing narrative text in writing course, while the limitation of this study

will automatically limited to other kinds of errors apart from grammatical errors.
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F. Definition of Key Term

There are three specific definition of Key Term on this research:

1. Writing is a process done by people when they want to perform the idea in their

mind into written language.

2. Error analysis is a study about learning, recognizing, and examining students’

errors in target language that happens because L1 interference, teaching learning

strategies or other related factors.

3. Grammatical error is an unsuccessful condition when students fail in applying

good grammar in writing.

 CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

This chapter presents the review of related literature of the study and it

consists of writing, error analysis, grammatical error and previous study. These

reviews are expected to provide the theoretical foundation to support the study.

A. The Concept of Writing

There are four skills that must be mastered in English, they are listening,

speaking, reading and writing. But, during the process of learning English, students

are not far from facing some difficulties, especially in writing skill. This part

presented about definition of writing and writing process.

1. Definition of Writing

Writing is the symbolic representation of language through the use of graphic

signs which not has simply system and takes conscious effort to be learned Yule

(2010: 212), Brown (2001: 335) defines writing as a simply graphic representation

of spoken language where writers put their idea and thought into words as the result

of thinking and experience. Based on the explanation above we know that writing

is the result of our thinking into the written for

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2. Writing Process

There are several process that already mentioned by the expert in composing

good paragraph of writing. The purpose of this process are to help writers rearrange

their idea structurally and enrich the content of writing and help the writers to make

their writing to be readable, acceptable, and understandable. According to Harmer

(2004), he mentioned four steps of writing process, such as:

a. Planning

Before starting to write paragraphs in writing, writers need to plan and decide

what they are going to write because a good writing is started by a good planning.

In the process of planning, sometimes writers may have note as the first take or they

just have memorizing idea in their minds.

When planning, writers have to think about three main issue, they are purpose,

audience, and content structure. Writers need to consider the purpose of their

writing and the benefit for the reader or audience, because it will influence amongst

other things beside the type of test soon to be produced, the language use, and the

information included. Next, writers need to consider the audience needs and

condition. This includes the way writers use the choice of language (formal or

informal), the shape of writing (how the paragraph is I laid out, how paragraphs are

structured, etc.).
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In considering to content structure, writers need to arrange the best way to

sequence the facts, ideas, or arguments which they have decided to be included with

purpose to make the content of paragraph becoming acceptable and understandable.

b. Drafting

The first version of a piece of writing refers as a draft. Drafting can be defined

as a process of making framework of idea into paragraph and it will be amended

later and it will be proceed to editing process.

c. Editing (Reflecting and Revising)

Usually, after writers have produced a draft of writing, they will read though

what they have written. This activity purpose to make sure the part of paragraph is

working or not. Perhaps, in a draft of paragraph, there are some unclear information,

or perhaps, something had been written is confusing or ambiguous. While the

process of reading draft. It may have correcting for each paragraph.

d. Final version (Draft)

Final draft of writing is a draft which already passed the process of editing

and revising. The final draft will be different with the original plan and the first draft

and it will be already necessary to show to audience.

B. Error Analysis

According to Crystal (2003), language is learnt in two ways. First, language

is learnt as first or mother language, and second is as target language. Learning

language as target language is not as easy as learning first or mother language,

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because target language is not language that grows with learners. It is often learnt

by learners in particular occasions such as education, works, immigration need and

so on.

In the process of learning language as target language, students face many

difficulties and found make errors and mistake. That is proper condition to students

to make errors and mistake in their learning. It means that they have already learnt

and keep learning something. The opinion above is supported according to Dulay

(1982) states that making error is an inevitable part of learning and there nobody

learns language without first systematically committing errors. So, it is impossible

to students to not making such an errors or mistake in learning language.

Making errors and mistake always happen in learning target language,

because students learn many kinds of new things that are different with their first

language. It will be new rules of language, vocabulary, grammatical pattern,

pronouncing, word spelling and also new culture. When learning language, they

cannot avoid those things. Some people define error and mistake as the same things.

But, in fact mistake and error are different. According to Corder (1981), mistake is

an error performance of students where there is no any significance process

language learning. While, error is systematic error of learners’ language knowledge

which still can be able to reconstruct by the instructor.

According to Brown (2000), mistake refers to a performance error that is

either a random guess or a “slip”. In this case, students are able to notice and correct
 11

their failure, it happens because their lack of knowledge or just because the

imperfection of producing speech. In other words, error refers to noticeable

deviation from learners which reflect to their language competence. When students

make errors, they cannot notice or correct their failure and they do not have idea

what failure they made.

On the other hand, to distinguish the difference between error and mistake,

Ellis (2000) suggests two ways, such as check the consistency of learners’

performance and asked learners to correct their own deviant utterance. It will be a

mistake if learners sometimes use correct form and sometimes the wrong one, and

when they are success to correct their own deviant.

Based on explanation above, it can be concluded that error is related to the

students’ deficiency competence, means that students do not know about the

language knowledge at all because they have not mastered it yet which it cannot be

self-corrected. While, mistake is related to the students’ quality performance and it

can be self-corrected because actually the students know the rule language.

1. Definition of Error Analysis

Error analysis is a branch of applied linguistics which describes about

comparison between interlanguage with target language of learners, James (1998),

Target language is language that learnt as the second or foreign language by the

students, and interlanguage is a term suggesting the half-way position between

knowing and not knowing target language. Still in James (1998) defines that error
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analysis is a methodology for dealing with data, rather than a theory of acquisition.

So, that means that people want to do a study about error analysis, people also need

a written data and documentation from the subject to support the theory.

According to Brown (2000), error can be observed, analyzed, and classified

to reveal something of the system operating within the learner, led to a surge of

study of learners’ errors, called error analysis. According to Corder (1981) error

analysis refers to a study of erroneous utterance that is produced by group of

learners.

Based on the explanation above, it can be concluded that error analysis is a branch

of applied linguistics to compare between interlanguage with target language of

learners to demonstrate those learners’ error were not only because of learners’ native

language but it reflects to the learning strategies.

2. Procedure of Error Analysis

In analyzing students’ errors, it will need some steps to be followed as

guidance. These steps will help to describe students’ error structurally. In the study

of error analysis, there are some procedures stated by linguists. But, in this study,

the researcher followed the procedure stated by Corder (1981:36) that suggests five

steps in analyzing students errors, such as: collection sample of learner language,

identification the errors, description of errors, explanation of errors and evaluation

of errors.
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a. Collection of sample learner language

In collecting sample of learner language, researcher needs to decide a number

of students to be the sample for the study. Then researcher will give them a control

writing in order to take the data.

b. Identification of errors

After collecting data from students, the researcher will identify the errors from

data collection. In identifying errors, researcher needs to compare the sentence

produced by students to the correct sentence in target language. In identifying

students’ error, the researcher of this research will use the correction symbols

adapted and modified from Oshima and Hogue (2007).

c. Description of errors

In description of errors, the researcher needs to classify errors that are already

being identified into the type of errors. While, the researcher of this research

classifies the errors based on the error classification suggested by Dulay (1982)

which is surface strategy taxonomy that consists of omission, addition,

misformation, and misordering.

d. Explanation of errors

This step explains about the sources of errors made by the learners. Ellis

(2000) mention two factors as sources of errors, they are: 1) Developmental

Patterns: this factor includes the way students commit omission, overgeneralization

and a transfer error of target language. 2) Variability in learner language: this factor
 14

happens when students involve their native language in constructing sentence

structure of the target language.

e. Evaluation of errors

In this step the researcher will draw a conclusion and evaluated the result of

identified errors. The aim of evaluating error is to distinguish which error should get

more of attention and be taught in class. Because errors perhaps can become more

serious if it does not get well attention.

3. Sources of Error

In learning language, there will be some sources that influence in making

errors. It is mentioned by many linguists in some journals and books. For instance,

the sources of errors according to Dulay (1982) and Brown (2000), and each them

mention four sources as followed below. According to Dulay (1982), the sources of

errors are developmental errors, interlingual errors, ambiguous errors, and other

errors.

a. Developmental Errors

Developmental errors are errors similar to those made by students learning the

target language as their first language. In addition, developmental errors illustrate

the limited experience of students in learning and applying the rules of English,

hence this error can be the faulty generalization, incomplete application of rules,

and failure to learn conditions under which rules apply. For example, Indonesian

students may produce “My mother cook rice”.

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b. Interlingual Errors

Interlingual errors are similar in structure to a semantically equivalent phrase

or sentence in learners’ native language. So, in this error students will translate the

target language as their native language in similar meaning of context (mother-

tongue interference) or in other words, it is called as a negative transfer.

c. Ambiguous Errors

Ambiguous errors are those that could be classified equally well as

developmental or interlingual. These errors reflect the learners’ native language

structure. For example, Indonesian learners may produce sentence “I no have any

money” in target language which means “saya tidak punya uang sama sekali” in native

language.

d. Other errors

Other errors are the errors which not fit either in developmental or interlingual

category. This kind error can be classified as an error which happens neither from

students’ native language structure nor from target language developmental form.

So, this error will be included to the other errors because the uniqueness.

In other hand, Brown (2008:289) mentions that sources of errors are interlingual

transfer, intralingual transfer, context learning, and communication strategy.

a) Interlingual Transfer

Interlingual transfer is an error that can happen because of the interference of

mother or native language. In this case, students use their native language as
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previous linguistic system to translate the target language, because they are not

familiar with second or target language and also the linguistic system.

b) Intralingual Transfer

Intralingual transfer is interference between native languages with target

language. In the context of intralingual, students use their previous knowledge to

facilitate them in learning target language. By the process of their learning, students

receive many target language transfers and students’ knowledge will combine both

native and target language. So, this interference will help students to rearrange target

language sentence in their version. In short, intralingual transfer is about

overgeneralization in arranging target language sentence structure.

c) Context of Learning

This source of errors happens from the learning context. Context here refers

to teacher, instructor, learning class, learning material, or the learners itself. In the

context of learning in classroom, teacher and text book can make students

committing wrong hypothesis about language, what Richard (1971) called as “false

concept” and what Stenson (1974) termed as “induced errors” in Brown (2008).

Students often make errors because of a misleading explanation from teacher, faulty

presentation of structure or word in a textbook, or even because of an improperly

contextualized in memorizing word that influenced by incorrect information,

misleading definition, word, or grammatical generalization, or students’ confusing.

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Errors can also happen in untutored language learning context. Usually when

students learn language without a tutor, they may make errors in dialect or

pronouncing. This happens because they are not taught how to pronounce words and

how to say it correctly.

d) Communication Strategy

This source of error is related to learning style or model. Students use many

kinds of strategy production to convey their message in language to have better

communication with other. But, the way they use their strategy, they are often found

to make the strategy becoming the sources of errors, such as word coinage,

circumlocution, false cognates, and prefabricated patterns.

These all sources of errors mentioned above, it can be concluded that errors come from

the interference of mother/native language (interlingual), students’ transfer in target

language or the interference of students’ previous knowledge (intralingual), and the

influenced of teacher or class instructor or learning material (textbook) and students’

learning style which can make the ambiguous or uniqueness in students’ errors.

4. Significance of Errors

Since people were born in this world, they are never absent from the cycle of

learning process, because life is about learning and doing. Indeed a baby can make

his first step by taking learning process and it continues until the baby can walk

properly. The process of learning is also never absent from making failure, it simply
 18

means that nobody can achieve their goals in first try or succeed without making

any errors and mistakes. The process of learning language as first language, second

language or even foreign language likewise is never apart from making errors and

mistake.

Errors are natural phenomenon where it is an evidence that learning is taking

and keep progressing. Errors give significant influence in language learning process,

by making errors usually students will be given feedback in order to improve their

language competence. Corder (1981) mentioned in his book about three different

ways why errors are significant in language learning process, such as:

a. Errors tell teacher if he undertakes a systematic analysis, how far towards the

goal the learner has progressed and, consequently, what remains for him to learn.

In other words, errors provide information to the teacher about how far students

achieve the goals of learning activity and tell about the progress of the students.

They show the points that students are weak at to understand about teaching

material. So, teacher can evaluate his learning strategy and teaching material he

uses which can continually be used or must adopt the new one. Errors can also

help teacher to find the best ways to teach language properly by using suitable

strategies and appropriate teaching material.

b. Errors provide evidence to the researcher about how language is learnt or

required, what strategies or procedures the learner is employing in his discovery

of the language. This point helps the researcher to get information about how
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language is successfully learnt by the students and how proficient the students in

applying the learned language. Also errors show the excess and the lack of

teaching and learning activity that were conducted by the teacher and the

students.

c. Errors are indispensable to the learner himself as a device that is used in process

of learning to learn. It is a way the students have of testing their hypothesis about

the nature of language he is learning. This point helps students reflect to their

errors in order to make a better correction themselves in order to perfect their

language comprehension.

Actually, focusing on students’ errors is good for some reasons like mentioned

by Ellis (2000), she mentions that students’ errors are good to be focused because,

first they are conspicuous feature of learner language that will describe about the

reason why students commit errors. Second, it is useful for teachers to know what

errors students make. This point helps teacher to get picture about kinds or types of

errors his students made. Third, paradoxically, it is possible that making error

actually help students learn by doing selfcorrectness among the errors they make.

Although it seems odd to focus on how students get errors rather than how they get

right but a study that focused on students’ errors is always interesting for other

researcher to study. In other words, errors are something interesting to be focused on

especially in language learning process.

 20

5. Error Taxonomies

In classifying error taxonomies, Dulay (1982) classify errors into errors

taxonomies, and they divide it into four taxonomies, they are Linguistic Category

Taxonomy (LCT), Surface Strategy Taxonomy (SST), Comparative Taxonomy

(CT), and Communicative Effect Taxonomy (CET).

a. Linguistic Category Taxonomy (LCT)

According to Dulay (1982) states that linguistic category taxonomies classify

errors according to either or both language component and the particular linguistic

constituent the error affects.

Language components include phonology (pronunciation, syntax and

morphology (grammar), semantic and lexicon (meaning and vocabulary), and

discourse (style). Then, the constituents include the elements that comprise each

language component. For example within syntax one may ask whether the error is in

the main or subordinate clause; within a clause, which constituents is affected, e.g. the

noun phrase, the auxiliary, the verb phrase, the preposition, the adverb, the adjective

and so forth.

b. Surface Strategy Taxonomy (SST)

In surface strategy taxonomy, errors are classified into omission, addition,

misformation, and misordering. Dulay (1982) states that learners may omit

necessary items or add unnecessary one; they may misform items or misorder them.
 21

By using the surface strategy taxonomy, it will be a good option in classifying

students’ errors, because it gives clear description about cognitive process that

underlie the learners’ reconstruction of the new language. Moreover, it can make

the researcher or teacher aware that students’ occurs as the result of the way they

use principle to produce new language.

This is the detail description about omission, addition, misformation, and

misordering as followed below:

1) Omission

According to Dulay (1982), omission errors are characterized by the absence

of an item that must appear in well-formed utterance.

For example:

My father is teacher

When in target language sentence it should be: My father is a teacher.

2) Addition

According to Dulay (1982:156) addition is an opposite of omission. In

addition errors context, there is an item that must not appear in well-formed

utterance. Addition is divided in three kinds of errors, they are:

a) Double marking

Double marking means the failure to delete certain items which are required

in language structure sentence.

For example:
 22

She didn’t goes to school yesterday.

When in target language it should be: She didn’t go to school yesterday.

b) Regularization

Regularization means the failure to manage some language rules application.

This still related with overgeneralization where students still have an error in verb

usage, the application of irregular and regular and the application of singular and

plural.

The example of regularization can be shown below:

There are many mouses in that house.

When, in target language, it should be: There are many mice in that old house.

c) Simple addition

Simple addition appears when the addition is not either double marking or

regularization.

For example:

The dog is on above the table.

When in target language, it should be: The dog is on the table.

3) Misformation

According to Dulay (1982: 158), misformation errors are characterized by the

use of the wrong form of the morpheme or structure. For example, Lisa eated cake,

this will wrong structure of sentence. Misformation again divided into three parts,

such as:
 23

a) Regularization

Regularization is a category which concern about the application of regular and

irregular rules. This category will be used in categorizing errors when there is a case

where an irregular is replaced by regular form.

For example:

He drinked a glass of milk.

When the target language, it should be: He drunk a glass of milk.

b) Achi-form

Achi-form is the selection of one number of class of forms to represent other in

class.

For example:

Erroneous : That cats

Correctness : Those cats

c) Alternating Forms

Alternating form is a free alternation of various members of a word class with

each other.

For example:

Erroneous : These car

I seen him yesterday

Correctness : This car

 24

I saw him yesterday

4) Misordering

According to Dulay (1982: 162), misordering errors are characterized by the

incorrect placement of a morpheme or group of morphemes in an utterance.

For example:

Erroneous : You are sad ?

I don’t know what is that.

Correctness : Are you happy?

I don’t know what that is.

c. Comparative Taxonomy

According to Dulay (1982: 163), the classification of errors in a comparative

taxonomy is based on comparisons between the structure of L2 errors and certain

other types of constructions. In this taxonomy of errors, the second language errors

will be compared with errors made by students in target language as first language.

These comparative have yielded the two major error categories in this taxonomy:

developmental errors and interlingual errors. While the two other categories that

have been used in comparative taxonomy are derived from the first two: ambiguous

errors and other errors.

1) Developmental Errors

According to Dulay (1982: 165), developmental errors are errors similar to

those made by children learning the target language as their first language. In
 25

addition, developmental errors illustrate the limited experience of students in

learning and applying the rules of English, hence this error can be the faulty

generalization, incomplete application of rules, and failure to learn conditions under

which rules apply. For example, Indonesia students may produce a sentence “My

mother cook rice”. The omission of the article and the past tense marker will be

classified as a developmental error because these are also found in speech of

students learning target language as their first language. This is caused by students’

lack of knowledge and understanding about the verb tense in grammatical rules of

the target language.

2) Interlingual Errors

According to Dulay (1982), interlingual errors are similar in structure a

semantically equivalent phrase or sentence in the learner’s native language. So, in

this error students will translate the target language as their native language in

similar meaning of context (mother-tongue interference) or in other words, it is

called as a negative transfer.

For example:

Erroneous : The car blue

Correctness : The blue car

 26

3) Ambiguous Errors

According to Dulay (1982) ambiguous errors are those that could be classified

equally well as developmental or interlingual. These errors reflect the learner’s

native language structure.

For example, Indonesian learners may produce a sentence “I angry” in target

language which means “Saya marah” in native language. There is nothing wrong if

people look it from the side of meaning, but it will be incorrect if the sentence is

interpreted to the correct grammatical structure of target language.

4) Other Errors

Other errors are the errors which not fit either in developmental or

interlingual category.

For example, Indonesian learners may produce a sentence “She do fast”.

This kind of errors can be classified as an error which happens neither from

students’ native language structure nor from target language developmental form.

So, this error will be included to the other errors because the uniqueness.

d. Communicative Effect Taxonomy (CET)

According to Dulay (1982), communicative effect classification deals with

error from the perspective of their effect on the listener or reader. This taxonomy

focuses on distinguishing between errors that seem to cause miscommunication and

those that do not on listener and reader.

 27

While in other words, communicative effect taxonomy is a taxonomy which

focuses about semantic rather than syntactical. This taxonomy is not suitable with

any researchers who want to study in syntactical area (grammatical aspect).

C. Grammatical Errors

Grammar is being an important aspect in composing a good writing. A draft of

writing composed without applying good grammar will has less possibility to be

comprehensible, readable, and acceptable for the readers. According to Brown

(2001:362), he defines grammar as the system of rules governing the conventional

arrangement and relationship of words in sentence. While, Harmer (2001:12) states that

grammar of a language is the description of the ways in which words can change their

forms and can be combined into sentences in that language (target language). From the

statement above, researcher can conclude the grammar is a sentence rule which

concerned about how words and phrases are combined in sentences and how sentences

are formed into a good structure by arranging rules of language sentence structure.

Applying good grammar in order to have well-structured writing is completely difficult

and it still becomes a task in language teaching and learning process. But essentially a

language without grammar will give suffered communication to communicate others.

So it is not surprising issue if in the process of applying good grammar in composing

writing there will be found some students who committed errors.

Grammatical errors happen because students are lack of grammar knowledge

or pay less attention and careless in learning grammar. A study about students’

grammatical error is still interesting for other researchers including the researcher
 28

of this study. Thus, since there were some kinds of errors in grammatical that were

found in the students’ writings, thus in this research the researcher concluded the

common grammatical errors were found in students’ writing by using grammatical

error list composed by Turton (1995:393) in the following below :

1. Verb Tense

English language has sixteen kinds of tenses in grammar which consists of

four kinds of simple tenses, four kinds of progressive tenses, four kinds of perfect

tenses, and four kinds of future tenses. All of these tenses have their own rules to be

applied and they will be used differently in different time, situation and condition,

and context.

The example of verb tense error:

We visit our grandmather last week.

This will be an erroneous because in English language structure, because the

sentence above discussed about past situation when the activity happened. So, the

correct sentence should be “We visited our grandmather last week”.

2. Subject-Verb Agreement

According to Salmaweh (2013:11), subjects and verbs must agree with one

another in number (singular or plural). Thus, if a subject (the person or thingdoing

the action) is singular, its verb (the word representing the action) must also be

singular; if a subject is plural, its verb must also be plural.

 29

According explanation above, it can be concluded that subject-verb agreement

error occurs when the subject does not agree with the verb in person or number. In

other hand, the verb that will be used in accordance with the subject who does the

action, singular verb for singular subject and vice versa.

The example of Subject-Verb Agreement error:

My sister and his friend goes to school by bus together.

From the example above, it can be seen that there is an error occurred in the

sentence. The subject who does the action is plural subject but the verb that used in

sentence above is a singular verb. So this will make a subject-verb agreement error.

The correct sentence from the example above must be “My sister and his friend go

to school by bus together”.

3. Subject-Compliment Agreement

According to Turton (1995), subject compliment is normally a word or a

phrase which describes the subject. Thus, subject-compliment agreement means that

subject and its compliment must agree one another in number (singular or plural).

According to Cambridge dictionary, subject compliment can be adjective phrases,

noun phrases, or prepositional phrases.

The example of Subject-Compliment Agreement:

My two English teachers are also a good friend of mine.

The correct sentence:

My two English teachers are also good friends of mine.

 30

4. Verb be

Verb be is a kind of verbs which consists of nominal verbs such as am, is are

or be. The error of verb “to be” commonly occurs in simple tense or progressive

tense.

The example of Verb “to be” error: The teachers is applying cooperative

learning method in their classes.

The correct sentence: The teachers are applying cooperative learning method

in their classes.

5. Determiner

According to English British Council Website, determiners are the words

which come at the beginning of the noun phrase. They tell about the noun or noun

phrase in specific or general. The example of determiner is a/an, the, this, my, each,

every, etc.

The example of determiner error: That gees are swimming elegantly until

someone threw a stone near them.

6. Plural

According to Zenius (2014:122), nouns are defined as the word of thing which

include of person, animals, plants, happiness and so on. There are so many kinds of

noun in English such as countable and uncountable noun, and singular and plural

nouns. Plural definition in Zenius (2014:127) is the things that counted more than
 31

one while singular is the thing that counted just one. The example of plural nouns

can be mentioned such as glasses, mice, geese, teeth, feet, pajamas, and so on.

The example of plural error:

She treats her employees like slave.

This sentence will be incorrect as the well-formed sentence structure because it has

already been stated that object of the sentence is plural so the word of “slave” must

be replaced with slaves.

7. Pronoun

According to Benner (2000) in Towson Edu Website, every pronoun is written

should refer clearly and mistakably to one particular noun (antecedent) which means

antecedent is the noun to which the pronoun refers.

According to Simmons (2017) in Rules for Finding and Fixing Pronoun

Agreement Errors, the pronoun must agree with its antecedent and the general rule

for pronoun agreement simply can be mentioned such as a singula antecedent

requires a singular pronoun while a plural antecedent needs a plural pronoun. There

is a possibility for the students to commit pronoun error. This error occurs when

students place the incorrect antecedent of the pronoun in sentences of writing.

The example of pronoun error:

The Hospital’s specialty is duck. They are always fresh.

 32

The erroneous comes from the word “they”. It has already mentioned above is a

singular antecedent needs a singular pronoun, so that the pronoun they which is

plural must be replaced with the singular one (it).

8. Word Order

According to Niece and Masruchin (2016:37), word order is an arrangement

or a placement of word in one phrase or sentence to ease in determining main word

or main phrase.

This error probably happens in students’ writing. It occurs when students are

just wrong ordering the word in sentence. Mostly the word order error is influenced

by interlingual transfer and intralingual transfer. Interlingual transfer affects

ordering of the well-formed sentence when students combine the sentence structure

of English rules with their native language.

For example, a wrong word order error influenced by interlingual transfer:

Gedo bought a hat red.

This sentence will be correct in meaning but in the side of sentence structure

it is not close to correct. The correct sentence should be “Gedo bought a red hat”.

9. Verb

According to Niece and Masruchin (2016:18), verb is the word that is used to

describe about action, condition, or experience. Kind of verbs in English are

transitive and intransitive verb, finite and infinite verb, regular and irregular verb.

This kind of verb error probably happens in students’ writing. Verb error
 33

occurs when students ignore the verb rules and get confused with kind of verb.

Commonly they always over generalize that rules to make a correct sentence or they

are less knowledge of verb list vocabulary or less knowledge about the rules. The

example of error:

Children try to beauty their classroom with new decoration.

This sentence is literally incorrect because the word “beauty” is not a verb

but a noun. Thus the correct verb will be used to complete the sentence is “beautify”.

10. Preposition

According to Niece and Masruchin (2016:33), preposition is the word which

is used before noun and it can be a noun phrase or pronoun which connects the other

word. Preposition in English consists of the word about, after, against, at, down,

for, from, in, on, during, while, and so on. Commonly preposition in English is used

as time or place signal and to use the preposition properly, the rules are needed.

When students commit preposition error commonly caused by the interlingual

interference or students are confused with the rules of preposition use.

The example of preposition error : We start serving dinner 6.00 P.M

The correct sentence : We start serving dinner at 6.00 P.M

11. Conjunction

According to Niece and Masruchin (2016:28), conjunction is the word which

is used to connect word, phrase, or clause in a sentence. The example of conjunction

such as and, but, while, also, besides, so, and so on.

 34

Conjunction error commonly occurs because students misuse or students

ignore the rules of sentence structure.

The example of conjunction error: The garlic shrimp, fried clams, broiled lobster

are the most favorite dishes.

The correct sentence is: The garlic shrimp, fried clams and broiled lobster are the

most favorite dishes.

12. Article

Article in English consists of a, an, and the. The word “a” and “an” is basically

used to describe the quantity of singular noun or unspecific noun. While the word

“the” basically used for showing the specific noun that meant by the speaker. Article

error probably happens in students’ writing because of the interlingual interference

or students are lack of knowledge about the use of article.

The example of article error: My brother is mechanic.

The correct sentence is: My broher is a mechanic.

13. Auxiliary

According to Jauhar in Putri (2017), auxiliary is a verb that is used with

another verb to describe about the difference of time, person and voice (active or

passive) or to provide supplementary or additional help and support. The common

auxiliary words in English are be, have and do. Committing auxiliary usually occurs

because of the lack of knowledge, less attention in auxiliary use, or over

generalization.
 35

The example of auxiliary error : It can’t been said that smoking is good.

The correct sentence is : It can,t be said that smoking is good.

14. Adverb

According to Niece and Masruchin (2016:28), adverb is the word that is used

to describe or give more information about verb, adjective, adverb, or phrase. The

example of adverb such as now, yesterday, between, beside, cheerfully, terribly,

very, rarely, maybe, likely, etc.

The adverb error probably happens in students’ writing. The factor in

committing error in adverb is commonly caused by the ignorance or the lack of

knowledge of adverb vocabularies and rules.

The example of adverb error : I put some pens above the table.

The correct sentence : I put some pens on the table.

15. Adjective

According to Niece and Masruchin (2016:12), adjective is the word that is

used to describe or explain about noun or pronoun. Usually in English sentence

structure, adjective is always put before the noun and Indonesian structure rule does

the opposite. The example of adjectives in English such as well-known, beautiful,

bad, lucky, bored, expensive, and so on.

When adjective error occurs in students’ writing, it is clearly because of

the interlanguage interference or intralingual transfer.

The example of adjective error : Teo bought a new beauty hat yesterday.
 36

The correct sentence : Teo bought a new beautiful hat yesterday.

16. Possessive

Possessive in English means the word that is used to shows about a possession

on something. It is divided into three forms, they are possessive adjective (my, her,

his, etc.), possessive determiner (whose) and possessive pronoun (mine, yours, hers,

etc.). to classify the type of error in possessive, the researcher only used only one

symbol to symbolize it which is “Poss”. When a possessive error happens in

students’ writing, it probably occurs because of the intralingual transfer, or

misconcept of possessive rules or over generalization.

The example of possessive error : This is mine drawing book.

The correct sentence : This is my drawing book.

17. Noun

According to Zenius (2014:22), noun is the word that is used to show the name

of person, place, animal, day, plant, concept, or the name of thing and so on.

The erroneous of noun can commonly occur because of the intralingual

transfer or the lack of knowledge of the students.

The example of noun error : Ardi Alex is so meant to me because he puts ten

mouses in my bag.

The sentence above is incorrect because the plural of mouse is “mice” not

“mouses”. So, the correct sentence must be “Ardi Alex is so meant to me because
 37

he puts ten mice in my bag” and this is a kind of overgeneralization commonly

happen in students’ writing.

18. Infinitives

According to Niece and Masruchin (2016:57), infinitives are the basic forms

of verb which is not modified or commonly known as V1. Grammatical, infinitives

are divided into two kinds such as infinitives with “to” and infinitives without “to”.

The example of infinitives with “to”: to go, to eat, to see, to listen, to hear, to speak,

etc. while the example of infinitives without “to”: go, eat, see, listen, hear, speak,

etc.

The example of infinitives error : They don’t have any idea about how solving

this problem.

The correct sentence : They don’t have any idea about how to solve

this problem.

19. Gerund

According to Niece and Masruchin (2016:48), gerund is verb which is

changed into noun by adding suffix –ing or simply it is called as a noun with the

form –ing. The example of gerund is sleeping, swimming, reading, writing,

listening, speaking, etc.

Gerund in the sentence structure of English can be used as a subject, as a

complement of the subject, complement of the object, gerund after verb, gerund

after preposition, and so on.

 38

The example of gerund error : Play basketball is my hobby.

The correct sentence : Playing basketball is my hobby.

20. Modals

According to Niece and Masruchin (2016:42), modals are part of auxiliary

which gives additional meaning to a sentence in order to stress the meaning.

Commonly modals are used to express a particular idea which cannot be expressed

by using verbs. There are some kinds of modals in English grammar such as can,

could, may, might, must, ought to, shall, should, will, would, etc.

The example of modals error : He would not asked her for anything.

The correct sentence : He would not ask her for anything.

21. Quantifiers

According to English British Council Website, quantifiers are the words or

phrases which show about “how many” or “how much” noun discussed. Quantifiers

include all, any, many, a few, a little, less, much, most, more, several, some, etc. the

use of quantifier related with the number of noun (singular or plural).

The example of quantifier error : My sister gave me so much fruits

yesterday.

The correct sentence : My sister gave me so many fruits

yesterday.

22. Comparative and Superlative

 39

According to Zenius (2014:176), comparative is a form of word phrase which

is used to compare something (characteristic, shape, behavior, etc.), or it is a form

word which shows about comparison of adverb or adjective. Comparative form

explains about comparing the quality or degree of something by adding the word

“er” or “more”. While superlative is a word form of adjective or adverb which

expresses about the highest degree or quality of something by adding the word “est”

or “most”.

The example of comparative: “Christine is more beautiful than Daisy”.

The example of superlative: “Angela is the most beautiful girl in this class”.

Sometimes students commit error in the use of comparative or superlative form in

their writing. The lack of knowledge and the ignorance of rules is always becoming

the main factor of committing error.

The example of comparative and superlative error : My brother is elder than me.

The correct sentence : My brother is older than me.

23. Question Tags

According to Niece and Masruchin (2016:89), question tags are the question

expression that is used as confirmation or statement which is being expressed to

other speaker in order to ask an agreement confirmation or disagreement

confirmation. For example, our mother is the best mother, isn’t she?.

The example of question tag error : You are not a bad girl, do you?

The correct sentence : You are not a bad girl, are you?
 40

Those explanations above are about common grammatical error found in

students’ writing. In other hand, the erroneous that will find in this research will be

corrected by using correction symbol modified from Oshima and Hogue (2007).

Table 1. Error Correction Symbols Adapted and modified from Oshima and

Hogue (2007)

Simple Meaning Incorrect Correct

Symbol
V.be Verb “to be” V.be The teachers are
The teachers is applying
applying cooperative cooperative
learning method in their learning method
classes. in their classes.
Det. Determiner Det. Those geese are
That geese are swimming
swimming elegantly elegantly until
until someone threw a someone threw a
stone near them. stone near them.
Aux. Auxiliaries Aux. It can be
It can be seen that said
smoking is bad. that
smoking is bad.
v.t. Verb tense v.t I had never
I never work as a v.t worked as a
cashier until I get job cashier until I got
there job there.
S. agr. S.agr.
The manager work hard
Subject-verb
S.agr. The manager works
agreement
There is five hard. There are five
employees. employees.
C. agr My two English teachers My two English
Subject-
are C. agr. teachers are also
complement
alsoa good friends of good friends of
agreement
mine. mine.
 41

pl. Plural She treats her She treats her

employees pl. employees like
likeslave. slaves.
Uncess. Unnecessary Uncess. My boss watches
My boss she watches everyone all the
everyone all the time. time.
Adv. Adverb Adv.
I put some pens above I put some pens on
the table. the table.
Adj. Adjective Adj. Teo bought a
Teo bought a beauty hat beautiful hat
yesterday. yesterday.
Pron. Pronoun The Hospital’s
specialty is duck. The hospital’s
Pron. specialty is duck.
They are always fresh. It is always fresh.
w.o Word order w.o
Friday always is our Friday is always
busiest our
Night busiest night.

Poss. Possessive Poss.

This is mine drawing This is my
book. drawing book.
Nn. Noun Ardi Alex is so meant Ardi Alex is so
to me Nn. meant to me because
because he puts ten he puts ten mice in
mouses in my bag. my birthday gift box.
Inft. Infinitive They don’t have any
idea Inft. They don’t have any
About how to solving idea about how to
this problem. solve this problem.
V. Verb V. The employees
The employees _ on are on time and
time and work hard. work hard.
Prep. Preposition Prep. We start serving
We start serving dinner dinner at 06.00
_ P.M.
 42

06.00 P.M.

Conj. Conjunction The garlic shrimp, fried The garlic shrimp,

Conj. fried clams, and
clams, ___ broiled broiled lobster are
lobster are the most the most popular
popular dishes.. dishes.
art. Article art. Diners expect a glass
Diners expect _ glass of of water when they
water when they first sit first sit down at the
art. down at _ table. table.
Mod. Modals Mod.
She would not asked She would not ask
him for anything. him for anything.
Quant. Quantifiers My sister gave me so My sister gave me
Quant. so many fruits
much fruits yesterday yesterday.
Q.tag Question tags Q.tag You are not a bad You are not a bad
girl, don’t you? girl, are you?
sp. Spelling sp.
The maneger is a The manager is a
woman. woman.
W.miss Word missing W.miss
I _ working in a I am working in
restaurant. a restaurant.
Com. Comparative
Com.
and
My brother is elder than
superlative My brother is
me.
form older than me.
Ger. Gerund Ger.
Play basketball is my Playing basketball
hobby. is my hobby
 43

D. Review of Previous Study

There are some researchers who have conducted research similar to this study.

The first was conducted by Sukarno at 2016 with title “An Analysis of Grammatical

Errors of First Year Students’ Essays”. This study investigates the grammatical

errors made by the first year students of the English Department, Faculty of Letters,

Jember University. Data were collected from 30 participants’ essays of Writing 01

class (documentary data) conducted from August to December 2014. The errors

were classified into various categorizations, and analyzed based on descriptive-

interpretative method to find the possible sources of the errors.

The second was conducted by Hamzah at 2012 with the title “An Analysis of

the Written Grammatical Errors Produced by Freshmen Students in English

Writing”. The purpose of this study was aimed at providing explanation on the

taxonomy of the grammatical errors made by the university in written production of

English. Twenty Indonesian students studying Writing I were chosen as the subjects

for the study. Data were collected from the writing assignment written by students

at home. The findings of the study reveal that the errors can be grouped into fifteen

categories ranging from severe errors to mild errors. The categories for severe errors

are word choice, verb group, article, preposition, plurality and spelling.

Based on the studies of grammatical errors above there are the similarities and

differences between those previous studies and this study. The similarities of this

study and previous study are the researchers took similar topic they have
 44

investigated about grammatical errors in writing and the participants also students

in university level. The differences of this study with previous study are about the

location of collecting data and also the participants.

 CHAPTER III

RESEARCH METHOD

This chapter discuss the research method. It included research design, setting

and participants, research instrument, data collection technique and data analysis

technique.

A. Research Design

In this research, the researcher used descriptive mix method. According to

Cresswell (2012), mix method is as a method, it focuses on collecting, analyzing,

and mixing both quantitative and qualitative data in single study or series of study.

The researcher will use mix method because the researcher present the result of the

data in the forms of percentage and words.

According to Arikunto (2013), descriptive study is a study in which the

researcher wants to create description of situation or event. This is a type of research

that describes and interprets the result of research as the way it is. In descriptive

research there are no variables to be controlled and manipulated by the researcher.

The researcher used descriptive method in this research to describe and to classify

errors made by the fourth semester students in English education department Borneo

university of Tarakan.

46
 47

B. Setting and Participants

The setting means where the researcher conducted the research. This research

conducted in Writing Course in English Education Department in Borneo

University Tarakan. The subject of this research was the fourth semester of English

Department students in academic year 2020/2021. There are two classes of the

fourth semester they are, A and B. However, the researcher was collected students

randomly as the sample of this study which was with the total number 29 students.

C. Research instruments

According to Creswell (2009), the researcher is the key of research

instrument. That means in qualitative research, the researcher is the human

instrument who is the key of instrument that decides the focus of the research,

collects the data, analyzes the data and concludes the data. In other hand, this

research also used two other instruments as the sources of the data, they are written

test and interview guide. While, in written test students composed narrative text in

English based on the topic given, and the researcher conducted the interview to the

students in order to accomplish the data reduction. Moreover, this research includes

the correction symbols and also relevant grammar books that use as the guideline in

determining the errors.

D. Technique of Data Collection

In this study, there were two techniques in collecting the data, there were:
 48

1. Written Test

The researcher gave instruction and asked the students to write narrative text

based on the topic given. The topics that were given to the students were About

Yourself, Your School, Your Dreams, Your Idols and A place you love the most.

The students required to choose one topic to construct narrative text and make it

into a good paragraph writing based on topic. The students will be given 60 minutes

to write and finish the narrative text writing. After conducting and collecting the

written test, as the written data, the researcher didn’t give any score in students’

writing because in this research, the researcher only collected the data, then identify

the errors, and classify the errors.

2. Interview

After collecting the data from students’ writing, the researcher interviewed

the students in order to identify whether the students were doing mistake or error in

their writing paper and also the sources of errors that they committed. The data

analyzed in this research only on the grammatical error aspects.

E. Data Analysis Technique

According Miles and Huberman in Sugiyono (2014), there are three activities

in analyzing the data, they are data reduction, data display and conclusion

drawing/verification.
 49

1. Data reduction

Data reduction is the first step that was taken by the researcher in analyzing

the data. Data reduction can be meant as summarizing, choosing main points,

focusing on important aspects, finding theme and line in subject of research and

trashing something useless (Sugiyono, 2014: 338). In other hands, data reduction

will give clear illustration to the researcher, and then help the researcher to conduct

another collecting data activity.

In data reduction, every researcher will be guided by the achieved purpose.

The main purpose of descriptive research is to figure out the finding. So, related to

this case, the researcher will find out if the students of English Education

Department students make some errors in writings by conducting an interview to

determine where students make mistake or errors then the researcher took the errors

and analyze it to get information from the students about the possible factors

influenced them to commit errors.

2. Data Display

According to Sugiyono (2014), in qualitative research, data display can be

done in short explanation form, chart, categories relation, flowchart, and so on. This

study display the data by using three steps, they are identifying the students’ error,

classifying the students’ errors and prediction the causes of errors.

 50

a. Identifying students’ errors

In this step, the researcher identified the students’ errors by analyzing the

students’ narrative text writing. After that, the researcher gave a description of

students’ error by using the identification of errors suggested by Corder (1981)

which compare the erroneous with the correct utterance from the target language.

In identifying the errors that was committed by the students, the researcher was

helped by experts that have good skills in English grammar.

b. Classifying students’ errors

In classifying students’ errors, the researcher used the classification of errors

suggested by Dulay, Burt, and Krashen (1982). The kind of classification of errors

were used in this research is Surface Strategy Taxonomy which divided into four

kinds of errors taxonomy. They were addition, omission, misordering, and

misformation.

c. Prediction the sources of errors

In predicting the sources of students’ errors, the researcher looked for the

source of errors that suggested by Dulay, Burt, and Krashen (1982) which divided

the possible causes of errors into four types, they are: developmental errors,

interlingual errors, ambiguous errors, and other errors.

 51

3. Conclusion Drawing/Verification

The last step conclusion drawing or verification, according to Miles and

Huberman in Sugiyono (2014) the third step in qualitative analyzing data is by

drawing conclusions of findings are drawn by:

a. Counting the total number of students’ errors

The researcher counted the total number of students’ errors after the errors

had been classified. The purpose of totaling the number of students’ errors was to

determine the frequency and the percentage of each type of errors.

b. Determining the frequency and the percentage of students’ errors

Finding out the frequency and the percentage of students’ errors were done by

using the formula as followed (adopted from Marthen, 2015):

𝐹
P = 𝑁 x 100%

Where:

P = Percentage

F = Frequency of each type of errors

N = Total number types of errors

Based on the formula above, the researcher got the frequency and the

percentage result of types of errors, and the researcher will identify the most types

of errors that made by the students by looking the frequency and the percentage.
 CHAPTER IV
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

This chapter provided the findings of the research which included the

classification of errors and the description of identified errors based on the types of

errors occurred at the third semester and the possible causes influence students' Error.

The data was presented through description and percentage of each subheading

presented below.

A. Findings

This subheading described about the classification of errors, the categorization of

errors and also the percentage of errors that were found in students’ writing.

1. Classification of Errors

The researcher collected the data from 29 students at the forth semester of English

department Borneo university of Tarakan. The researcher collected the data in writing

form which is narrative writing. It is consists of five topics such as everything about

yourself, your school, your dreams, your Idol, and A place you love the most. After the

data has been collected then the researcher determined the classification of errors that

is found in students writing.

In classifying the kind of errors in students’ writing the researcher used the

Surface Strategy Taxonomy which is one of error taxonomies that is used to determine

the kind of errors in students’ writing. The taxonomy is adopted from Dulay’s (1982)

theory about second language acquisition. Based on the data found the grammatical

errors which occurred in the students’ sentences in writing were grouped into four

52
 53

types, they were: Omission Error, Addition Error, Misformation Error and Misordering

Error.

Below are the samples of each error types taken from the students’ writting.

a. Omission Error

Table 4.1 The Example of Omission Error

No Source Erroneous of Sentence Suggestion of Correct Sentence

1 S16 Adi purwanto __ born in Adi purwanto was born on 11

Sebuku 11 August 2000 August 2000

W.miss
Sentence: Adi purwanto __ born in Sebuku 11 August 2000 (student 16)

Based on the sentence above, the student omitted the past tense which very

important to be put. Because the sentence will be said as complete when it has the

subject, verb and object. But the sentence above cannot be said as complete because

it loses the past tense. The correct construction of the sentence should be Adi

purwanto was born on 11 August 1965.

b. Addition Error

Table 4.2 The Example of Addition Error

No Source Erroneous of Sentence Suggestion of Correct Sentence

1 S17 Sebatik is the border Sebatik is the border between

between Malaysia countries Malaysia
 54

Uncess
Sentence: Sebatik is the border between Malaysia countries (student 17)

Based on the sentence above, the student added the word countries to the

sentence. The word is not necessary to be put in that sentence because we know

Malaysia as a country.

c. Misformation Error

Table 4.3 The Example of Misformation Error

No Source Erroneous of Sentence Suggestion of Correct Sentence

1 S7 He become to awesome He becomes to awesome father

father

S.agr
Sentence: He become to awesome father (student 7)

According to the sentence above, there is one word of sentence which is

wrongly formed, it is the verb become. Since the subject He is the third person of

pronoun, so the verb word followed should be added s/es after the verb itself

(verb+s/es). For example, Become→Becomes. The correct construction of the

sentence should be He becomes to awesome father

 55

d. Misordering Error
Table 4.4 The Example of Misordering Error
No Source Erroneous of Sentence Suggestion of Correct Sentence

1 S4 We arrived at about 09:00 we arrived about at 09:00 o’clock

o’clock

W.o
Sentence: We arrived at about 09:00 o’clock (student 4)

In the sentence above, it contains a misordering error. Those words should be

written “about at 09:00 o’clock”. So, the correct construction of the sentence should

be we arrived about at 09:00 o’clock

2. Sub Categorization of Errors

In this section, the researcher categorized the errors into 16 categories. The

researcher found 140 errors. The distribution of grammatical errors occurred by

the third semester students have been show in the table and figures below.
 56

Table 4.1 the Distribution of Grammatical Errors in Students’ Writing

Types

No Sub Omission Addit Misforma Misorderi Total Percent

categories ion tion ng age
(%)

1 Unnecessary 0 36 0 0 36 25.7%
2 Spelling 24 5 0 0 29 20.7%
3 Word missing 13 0 0 0 13 9.2%
4 Verb tense 6 0 5 0 11 7.8%
5 Conjunction 4 5 1 0 10 7.1%
6 Plural 3 5 0 0 8 5.7%
7 Word order 0 1 1 6 8 5.7%
8 Pronoun 1 1 5 0 7 5%
9 Subject-verb 1 2 0 0 3 2.1%
agreement
10 Adverb 0 2 1 0 3 2.1%
11 Adjective 0 3 0 0 3 2.1%
12 Preposition 3 0 0 0 3 2.1%
13 Infinitive 0 1 1 0 2 1.4%
14 Gerund 0 0 2 0 2 1.4%
15 Verb “to be” 0 1 0 0 1 0.7%
16 Possessive 0 0 1 0 1 0.7%
Total 55 62 17 6 140 100%

Based on the table above, it can be concluded that among 16 sub

categories, the highest of errors was occurred in unnecessary sub categories, it

was 36 or 25.7% errors, the second mostly types of errors was occurred in

spelling sub categories, it was 29 or 20.7% errors, the third mostly types of

errors occurred in word missing sub categories, it was found 13 or 9.2% errors.

Meanwhile, the fewest of errors was occurred in the gerund sub categories, it
 57

was 1 or 0.7% errors, verb “to be” was 1 or 0.7% errors, and possessive was 1

or 0.7% errors.

Figure 4.1 the Distribution of Grammatical Errors in Students’ Writing Sub

Categories Unnecessary-Pronoun

40
35
30
25
20 Omision
15 Addition
10 Misformation
5 Misordering

0
Word missing

Word order
Verb tense
Conjunction

Pronoun
Unnecessary

Spelling

Plural

Based on the figure 4.1, the highest types of errors was occurred in

addition of unnecessary, while the fewest types of errors was occurred in

misformation and misordering of unnecessary, spelling and plural and also in

misordering of conjunction, verb tense, and pronoun.

 58

Figure 4.2 the Distribution of Grammatical Errors in Students’ Writing Sub

Categories Subject-verb agr - Possessive

3.5

2.5

1.5 Ommition

1 Addition
Misformation
0.5
Misordering
0
Gerund
Adjective

Preposition

Verb "to be"

Adverb

Infinitive

Possessive
Subject-verb agr

Based on the figure 4.2, the highest types of errors was occurred in

omission and addition of adjective and preposition. While, the fewest types of

errors was occurred in omission of adverb, adjective, infinitive, gerund, verb

“to be” and possessive, in addition of preposition, gerund and possessive, in

misformation of subject-verb agr,, adjective, preposition and verb “to be” and

in misordering of subject-verb agr, adverb, adjective, preposition, infinitive,

gerund, verb “to be” and possessive.

 59

Figure 4.3 the Distribution of Grammatical Errors in Students’ Writing Sub Categories
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0

Adjective
Word order
Word missing

Gerund
Preposition
Verb tense

Subject-verb agreement
Conjunction

Verb “to be”

Adverb

Infinitive
Spelling

Pronoun
Unnecessary

Plural

Possessive
On the figure 4.3 above, the researcher can conclude that among 16

categories, the highest of errors was occurred in unnecessary sub categories,

it was 36 or 25.7% errors, the second mostly types of errors was occurred in

spelling sub categories, it was 29 or 20.7% errors, the third mostly types of

errors occurred in word missing sub categories, it was found 13 or 9.2% errors.

Meanwhile, the fewest of errors was occurred in the gerund sub categories, it

was 2 or 1.4% errors, verb “to be” was 1 or 0.7% errors, and possessive 1 or

0.7% errors.
 60

3. Frequency of Errors

In this part, the researcher lists the total of each type error. There are four

types of errors such as omission, addition, misformation, and misordering error.

The errors were totaled in the table below.

Chart 4.1 the Frequency of Grammatical Errors in Students’ Writing

5%
12%
39%

44%

Ommision Addition Misformation Misordering

Based on the table shown above, the researcher can conclude that in the
fourth semester, it had been found that 39.3% error of omission, 44.3% error
of Addition, 12.1% error of Misformation, and 4.3% error of Misordering.
In line with the table 4.1 about the distribution of grammatical errors, the

researcher gives detail description related with the distribution of subcategories of

grammatical errors that were found in students’ writings including the student who

committed errors. In addition, students were kept anonymous by coding them with

the students’ number (i, e student 1, 2, 3 and etc.).

 61

a. Unnecessary

In the fourth semester students, the number of addition errors of

unnecessary were occurred in students’ writings. It was found 36 errors and

was committed by 11 students, they are students 4, 8, 12, 13, 15, 17, 18, 19,

22, 24 and 28.

b. Spelling

In this subcategory, omission error occurred 24 errors. This error was

committed by 6 students. They are students 5, 6, 7, 16, 24 and 25.

The addition error occurred 5 errors. This error was committed by 2 students.

They are students 24 and 26.

c. Word missing

In this subcategory, omission error occurred 13 errors and this error was

committed by 5 students. They are students 15, 16, 21, 24 and 28

d. Verb tense

In this subcategory, omission error occurred 11 errors and this error was

committed by 4 students. They are students 17, 23, 24 and 28

e. Conjunction
In this subcategory, omission error occurred 10 errors and this error was

committed by 3 students. They are students 10, 12 and 21

f. Plural

In this subcategory, omission error occurred 3 error and this error was

committed by student 24.

 62

The addition error occurred 5 errors and this error was committed by 3

students. They are student 13, 18 and 25.

g. Word order

In this subcategory, addition error occurred 2 errors and this error was

committed by 1 students. This error was committed by student 10.

The misordering error occurred 1 error and this error was committed by 1

student. This error was committed by student 4.

The misformation error also occurred 5 errors in the students’ writing.

This errors was committed by students 2 and 6.

h. Pronoun

In this subcategory, omission error occurred 1 error and this error was

committed by students 18

The addition error occurred 2 errors and this error was committed by students

5.

The misformation error also occurred in the students’ writing and it was

found 5 errors. This error was committed by 2 students. They are students 21 and

25.

i. Subject-verb agr

In this subcategory, omission error occurred 1 error and this error was

committed by students 16

The addition error occurred 2 errors and this error was committed by 2

students. They are students 7 and 8.

 63

j. Adverb

In this subcategory, addition error occurred 2 errors and this error was

committed by 2 students. They are students 10 and 13.

The misformation error also happened in the students’ writing and it was

found errors. This error was committed by students 13.

k. Adjective

The addition error occurred 3 errors and this error was committed by 2

students. They are students 13 and 25.

l. Preposition

In this subcategory, omission error occurred 3 errors and this error was

committed by student 24.

m. Infinitive

In this subcategory, addition error occurred 1 error and this error was

committed by students 14.

The misformation error also occurred in the students’ writing and it was

found 1 error. This error was committed by students 23.

n. Gerund

In this subcategory, misformation error occurred 2 errors and this error was

committed by student 24.

o. Verb “to be”

In this subcategory, omission error occurred 1 error and this error was

committed by students 3.
 64

p. Possessive

In this subcategory, addition error occurred 1 error and it was committed by

students 12.

B. Discussion

In this part, the researcher discussed about the types of error occurred in

students’ writings.

1. Analysis the types of errors occurred by the fourth Semester

In this step of analysis, the researcher used the error identification suggested

by Corder (1981) whereas the researcher described the error of students by

comparing the erroneous with the correct utterance from the target language then

the researcher gave her simple and short explanation to support the recommendation

of correct sentence of erroneous in students’ writing.

While analyzing the erroneous in student’ writings, the researcher selected

some sentences of students to be examples. So, the errors analyzed in this part were

fewer than the actual number of errors in each student’s writing. The errors were

marked by using symbols adapted and modified from Oshima and Hogue

correction symbols (2007).

In this part the researcher only selected the types of errors which have

the occurrence higher than thirty times or more than 7%. They are errors in

unnecessary (36 or 25.7%), spelling (29 or 20.7%), word missing (13 or 9.2%),

verb tense (11 or 7.8%), conjunction (10 or 7.1%), and plural (8 or 5.7%).

Likely with the previous descriptions, the student who was chosen to be
 65

example in the analysis below was keep anonymous (S24 means student

number 24).

a. Unnecessary

The majority of error that was made by the students in their descriptive

paragraph was error in the unnecessary. Most of them committed unnecessary

errors by omitting unnecessary that must be added to make a nominal sentence.

There was 36 errors only in addition.

Table 4.5 The Example of Grammatical Error of Verb be

No Source Erroneous of Sentence Suggestion of Correct
Sentence
1 S24 Uncess My school also provides a
At my school also provides a special lab..
special lab.

There was one error of unnecessary found in the sentence above which

was addition error.

b. Spelling

The second mostly sub categories of error that was made by the students

in their descriptive paragraph was error in the spelling. Most of them

committed omission errors of spelling. It was found, 24 omission errors, 5

addition errors.

Table 4.6 The Example of Grammatical Error of Spelling

No Source Erroneous of Sentence Suggestion of Correct
Sentence
S24 SP White and grey clothes
White and grey clothes speficially especially for female.
for female.
 66

There was the misformation error of Spelling in the sentence above. The

student was incorrectly using the spelling of words. In the sentence above, the

spelling of word “speficially” should be the word “especially”.

c. The fourth mostly sub categories of error that was made by the students in

their narrative paragraph was error in the word missing. It was found 13 omission

errors.

Table 4.7 The Example of Grammatical Error of

No Source Erroneous of Sentence Suggestion of Correct

Sentence
S16 W.Miss Purwanto was born in Sebuku.
Purwanto born in Sebuku.

There is omission error of word missing found in the sentence above. The

misformation occurred by the student is “to be”. The misformation error

occurred because the student wrote the sentence that’s not complete. So, those

sentence must be the complete form. The “to be” was supposed to be added is

“was”. So the sentence would be “ Purwanto was born in Sebuku.

 67

2. Analysis the Causes of Error

In this step of analysis, the researcher aimed to find out the possible causes of

errors made by the fourth semester students in their writings. Thus, the sources of

errors which influenced the fourth semester students to commit errors were

developmental errors which was because the influence of language competence of

English language knowledge, interlingual errors which was because the influence of

mother language, ambiguous errors which was the combination of influence between

language competence and mother language and other errors which was influenced by

the faulty of learning strategies of student.

In order to explain the causes of errors influenced the students’ writings, the

researcher took 4 sentences as the sample of errors in students’ writings, the samples

were chosen according to the sentence which obviously could be the sample to show

the source of error. So, the samples were showed as follows.

a. Developmental Errors

This point described about the samples of sentence that were included as errors

were caused by developmental process. According to Dulay (1982), developmental

occurs when students learn and apply their target language like their first language that

means that students already can adapt with their target language but sometimes they

just do not notice about their target language grammar (English). Moreover, according

to Ellis (2000:20), developmental occurs when students attempt to make the task of
 68

learning and using their second language simpler or as the result of transfer errors, so

researcher gave two samples of sentences that reflected to developmental error.

My name is Dwi Adi Purwanto born in Sebuku eleven august year two thousand.

There was misformation error in that sentence was the student wrote the

sentence by all letters not using numbers. When it supposed to be using number

because he stated the date of birth.

This can be concluded that those erroneous sentences above occurred because

of the developmental. It commonly occurs when the students are lack in understanding

grammar rules of their target language and less practice in applying good grammar in

their writing.

b. Interlingual Errors

Another source of errors is interlingual error. According to Ellis (2000),

interlingual error can occur when students construct a linguistic system in students’

native language which is different from their target language linguistic system. It

means that students exactly arrange sentences in their native patterns and rules. So, in

this point the researcher described about the samples of sentence that occurred because

of the interlingual errors.

Pray Sunnah Duhah and prayer duhur during school hours except for women.

This sentence reflected Indonesia sentence structure where there was an omission

of noun “during school hours” that should be “during School time”. That sentence

structure was correct in Indonesia sentence structure, but when it was translated in
 69

English sentence structure, it was incorrect because the student didn’t understand the

word order. This error happened because of the difference of sentence structure

between students’ native language with students’ target language (English).

c. Ambiguous Errors

This point described about the samples of sentence which reflected

ambiguous errors. According to Dulay (1982), ambiguous is a source of errors

that can be classified as developmental and interlingual, because this source of

errors reflects to the students’ knowledge of target language and the influence of

students’ native language. So, the researcher gave a sample of sentences that show

erroneous caused by ambiguous.

Tasya is also one of Indonesian artist.

The student put the article which was not necessary to be put. Student probably

do not know how to use the article “also” appropriately. This missordering supposed

to be “Tasya is one of Indonesian artist”. Used the sentence without “also”.

d. Other Errors

The last source of errors was other. Kind of errors occurred by other is

commonly caused by students who arrange a sentence structure that not reflect to

developmental or interlingual. It means that students create their own language as

the uniqueness. So, in this point decribed about the samples of sentences that was

occur because of the other error.

Among there we enjoyed the scannary araund th waterfall.

 70

The erroneous of sentence above could not be classified as developmental

error or interlingual error or even ambiguous error because they did not reflect

Indonesian structure, not reflect with the language that is produced by students as

the result of learning English as their foreign language and not reflect with the

confusion of students in applying good sentence structure of English. In line with

the Dulay’s statement (1982), other errors are the errors which not fit either in

developmental or interlingual. They were categorized to the unique language

which was created by the students spontaneously and sometimes. It did not have

any meaning. So, they were considered as other errors.

After analyzing and predicting the causes of errors, the researcher could fine

140 sources of errors. The researcher distributes those errors on the table shown

below.

Table 4.4 the Distribution of Sources of Errors

No Categories of Error Total Percentage

1 Developmental Error 77 54.9%
2 Interlingual Error 25 12.8%
3 Ambigous Error 29 18.4%
4 Other Error 9 12.1%
Total 140 100%

Based on the shown table above the researcher can conclude the most cause of

error was caused by developmental error. It happened because the lack of

students’ knowledge about English rules. It was also supported by the result of
 71

the interview of six students that most of them still have the difficulty in learning

grammar. They faced the difficulties because there is the different structure of

language (grammar) between the native language (Indonesia) and target language

(English) which make them difficult to write in English.

 CHAPTER V
CONLUSION AND SUGGESTION

In this chapter, the researcher would like to give the conclusion and the

suggestion based on the research findings and discussion, which were related to

research result.

A. Conclusion

After the researcher did a research to the students’ writings of the fourth

semester students, the researcher found so many errors occurred to their writings.

They were found still complicated in using English as their target language although

they are English department students. The researcher also found the different level

of ability of students in applying good grammar of English and in composing good

paragraph. So, in this part the researcher described the numbers of errors found in

students’ writings. There were 140 total of errors found in the fourth semester

students of English education department with the percentages of types of errors

were 39.3% error of omission, 44.3% errors of addition, 12.1% errors of

misformation and 4.3% errors of misordering. These types of errors were found in

16 subcategories of grammatical aspects of English.

Meanwhile, in describing the possible causes of errors based on the comparative

analysis taxonomy, there was found that 54.9% of errors was caused by

developmental, 12.8% of errors was caused by interlingual, 18.4% of errors was

caused by ambiguous, and 12.1% of errors was caused by other. These sources of

errors could influence the sources of students’ in writing when the students were

72
 73

lack in understanding grammar rules of their target language and less practice in

applying good English grammar in their writing. Moreover, there were so many

aspects influenced the students’ learning process and took deal on their failure. But

from those errors and failures, they can learn and practice better to fulfill their

weakness in learning their target language (English).

B. Suggestions

Based on the conclusion, the researcher would like to propose some

suggestions, which would be useful for the students, English department lecturers

and future researchers.

1. Based on the conclusion, as the candidate of English teacher, English

department students need to have a lot of practice in improving their English

skill, especially in mastering English grammar in writing activity. They also

need to learn more and be more competent to enrich their knowledge about

English and always create an English environment in their learning process.

2. The result of this research are expected to give the information for lecturers

of English department Borneo University that they should to perform more in

teaching and learning process especially in writing. They need to help their

students to enrich their knowledge of English, then facilitate them to improve

their English skill.

3. It is expected to the future researchers to do further investigations, so they can

find other new research findings related to this problem. The researcher
 74

believes that there are still many phenomena that can be reveled in this

research study.
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 77

Appendix 1 : students’ written test

student 1
78
79
80
 81

Student 2
 82

Student 3
83
 84

Student 4
 85

Student 5
 86

Student 6
 87

Student 7
 88

Student 8
 89

Student 9
 90

Student 10
 91

Student 11
 92

Student 12
 93

Student 13
 94

Student 14
 95

Student 15
 96

Student 16
 97

Student 17
98
 99

Student 18
 101

Student 20
 102

Student 21
 103

Student 22
105
 110

Student 27
111
 112

Student 28
 113

Student
 114

Appendix 2 : Interview Script

Researcher’s Question Student’s Answer
1. Apakah menurut kamu kalimat- S8 : Iya
kalimat ini secara gramatikal
S10 : Belum tepat, tapi saya akan
Bahasa inggris sudah tepat?
terus tingkatkan pengetahuan tentang
grammar

S11: Iya

S16: Tidak

S24: Tidak

S29: terkadang ya, terkadang tidak.

Tergantung kondisi teksnya.
2. Apakah dalam menulis Bahasa S8 : terkadang saya melakukan
inggris kamu menerjemahkan dulu keduanya
dari Bahasa pertama/Indonesia
S10 : Bahasa Indonesia dulu, saya
atau langsung ke dalam Bahasa kesulitan mencari kata-kata jika
inggris? langsung ke dalam Bahasa inggris.

S11 : Terkadang diterjemahkan dulu

jika ada vocabulary yang tidak saya
tau.

S16: Iya

S24: Benar

S29 : Tergantung teksnya, jika saya

merasa sulit barulah saya
menggunakan penerjemah.
 115

3. Apakah kamu mengerti S8 : Tidak sepenuhnya

kaedah/tata Bahasa (grammar)
S10: Saya tau, tapi tidak terlalu
dalam Bahasa inggris?
mengerti
(Developmental Error)
S11 : Sedang

S16 : Iya

S24 : Benar

S29 : Tidak semua

4. Menurut kamu, apakah Bahasa S8 : Tidak berpengaruh
pertama/Bahasa ibu
S10 : iya, karena L1 saya Bahasa
mempengaruhi kamu dalam
Indonesia jadi harus belajar extra
menulis bahsa inggris? untuk menulis dalam Bahasa inggris
(Interlingual Error)
S11 : Iya

S16 : Tidak

S24 : Benar

S29 : Tidak
5. Faktor apa saja yang membuatmu S8 : Vocabulary saya masih kurang
mengalami kesulitan dalam
S10 : Grammar dan vocabulary
menulis Bahasa inggris?
(Others Error) S11 : kurangnya dalam vocabulary
dan grammar
S16 : kurang kosa kata

S24 : Faktor grammar dan vocabulary

 116

S29 : Lebih kearah grammar dan

penyusunan struktur teks.
6. Apa yang kamu lakukan ketika S8 : Searching di youtube atau
mengalami kesulitan dalam bertanya kepada teman
menulis Bahasa inggris?
S10 : Bertanya kepada teman yang
lebih mengerti

S11 : Belajar lagi dan mencari

informasi di internet

S16 : Mencari bantuan kepada dosen

atau senior

S24 : Mencari informasi yang lebih

detail dari sumber-sumber yang
relevan
S29 : Dari segi kosa kata
 117

Appendix 3 : Amount of Grammatical Error Analysis Committed By Student

Code Omission Addition Misformation Misordering Total
Student 1 0 0 0 0 0
Student 2 3 2 1 0 6
Student 3 1 4 1 0 6
Student 4 0 0 0 0 0
Student 5 0 1 2 0 3
Student 6 13 4 1 3 21
Student 7 1 4 0 0 5
Student 8 0 2 0 0 2
Student 9 1 2 0 0 3
Student 10 5 5 1 1 12
Student 11 0 0 0 0 0
Student 12 2 5 1 1 9
Student 13 1 2 1 1 5
Student 14 5 1 1 0 7
Student 15 1 1 0 0 2
Student 16 8 6 1 0 15
Student 17 0 5 1 0 6
Student 18 0 4 1 0 5
Student 19 0 0 0 0 0
Student 20 0 0 0 0 0
Student 21 1 2 1 0 4
Student 22 1 3 1 0 5
Student 23 0 2 1 0 3
Student 24 8 4 1 0 13
Student 25 2 2 1 0 5
Student 26 0 0 0 0 0
Student 27 0 0 0 0 0
Student 28 2 1 0 0 3
Student 29 0 0 0 0 0
TOTAL 55 62 17 6 140
 118

Appendix 4 Interview Documentation

119
120
 121

Appendix 5 Curriculum

CURRICULUM VITAE

MAKSI was born on April 7th 1994 in KG. Kawang Papar, Kota
Kinabalu. He is the fifth child of six children of Nurdin Kasim
and Aisyah Abdullah, sister of Maryani Nurdin, Tiku and
Herlina and brothers of Nofri and Mazlan. He started his first
education at Tadika Kemas Kampong Kawang Papar and
graduated in 2000. Afterwards, he continued his study at
Sekolah Kebangsaan Kawang Papar Sabah in 2001 until 2005 and continued his study
at SDN. 010 Nunukan and graduated in 2008. Then, he continued his study at SMP
Negeri 1Nunukan and graduated in 2011. In the same year, he continued his study at
SMA Negeri 1 Nunukan by taken a Science major and graduated in 2014. In 2015, he
officially continued his high education at Borneo Tarakan University in the Faculty of
Teacher Training and Education by taking English Education Department. In July
2018, he held KKN (Kuliah Kerja Nyata) program in Desa Lidung Kemenci,
Kecamatan Mentarang Baru, Kabupaten Malinau. In October 2018, he took and started
the PPL (Praktik Pengalaman Lapangan) program at SMK Negeri 2 Tarakan and
finished it on January 2019.