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INTRODUCTION
This chapter explains several points which covers (1) background of the study, (2)
reason for choosing the topic, (3) research questions, (4) purpose of the study, (5)
communicate each other to deliver their purposes in life. People use itto interact
with surroundings in daily routine. In order to communicate each other, they need
his ideas and wishes. Thus, language is a tool for human beings in achieving their
languages used by most people around the world. The general truth that English is
able to use English as a communication medium. There are four basic skills in
learning English that should mastered by Indonesian student, they are speaking,
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writing, reading, and listening. Speaking and writing are productive skills while
listening and reading are receiving skills. Basically Indonesian students will find
of the sentence more accurate, clearly deliver and easy to understand. Moreover,
to create a good English written text needs many aspects to fulfill. We have to pay
development, diction, spelling, word order and punctuation is also key factor to be
a good writer.
English aspect. Thus, the writer want to examine a common errors made by 4th
report text itself can be achieved when the writer is able to describe natural,
artificial and social things after getting careful observation, as stated in ‘Making
are, with reference to a range of natural, man-made and social phenomena in our
environment ”. In short, report text describes the way of certain things and
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produce a good report text, the writer must aware on the use of structure of the
text, grammar, word diction and punctuation. Thus, the reader has the clear
To talk about creating a good report text, Indonesian learners often have
issue facing the grammatical structure in written form. Douglas (1980:264) once
stated “In learning a language we must know the grammar rules for forming
also one of many aspects that Indonesian English language learner should master.
in Genre Based Writing Class student. They said that creating a good writing text
is almost impossible for them. Most of the students were having difficulties in
the language features and generic structure of the text confused them in the
process of writing. The common error that appear in student written text is the use
of tenses. In creating report text, simple present tense is the exact tense they
should put it on. They might have known the pattern of simple present tense, but
The student has difficulty in putting the right to be as relating verb. Altough he
know the verb to be of present tense, he misplaces it. He should put is not are as
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relating verb. Hence we can draw a conclusion that the student made a verb tense
error.
From the example above, we can draw that English learners may form
many errors in writing process. Truthfully, the errors they make is natural in
Adi Jaya Putra 2008;13), stated that “It means that errrors contain a lot of
information about which part of students Difficulties that are hard to produce
correctly.”
Focusing on errors made by the students will help not only the students
themselves but also the teacher to overcome the problem into a solution.
According to Ellis (1997:15), there are good reasons for focusing on errors, first
they are conspicuous feature of learner language, raising the important question of
“Why do learners make errors?” Second, it is useful for teachers to know what
errors learners make. Third, paradoxically, it is possible that making errors will
actually help learners to learn when they do self-correction to the errors they
make. It will be very useful for teacher to know what kind of errors that might be
produced by students. The teacher can give more attention in subjects that cause
the errors.
method and approach. In this case, the researcher uses genre based approach as
studied subject. This reasearch is going to use a report text as student written
task.All the students were asked to create report text of their interest and should
meet the language features of the report text. It could be hand written text or typed
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text. After all, the main focus of this research is on the error of the grammatical
patterns made by the student. Those errors are classified into five categories of
errors.
errors which made by 4th semester English Education students In Genre Based
Some reasons why the writer chooses the topic “A Grammatical Error Analysis of
Report Texts (A Case Study of 4th Semester English Education Students in Genre
Based Writing Class of English Department Academic Year 2013 Semarang State
University)” are:
writing. The errors that they made indicating which grammatical aspects they
c. The researcher wants to know causes students’ errors in writing report text.
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a. What kind of the grammatical errors that occur on writing report text on
a. To find out kind of grammatical errors those occur on writing report text on
b. To find out possible causes of errorson writing report text on 4th Semester
After doing the research, the result of the study is expected to give the reader
thesefollowing advantages:
a. Theoretically, the findings of this study will give additional information about
b. This research can motivate the student to improve their writing ability.
topic, resesarch questions, purposes of the study, significances of the study, and
Method, Subject of the Study, Data Sources, Research Intrument, Data Collection,
This chapter consists of review of the previous study, review of the theoretical
to be as auxiliary and linking verb in the students’ recount text (the case of the 8th
grade students of SMP N 19 Semarang). The objective of this study is to find out
errors students made in their writings, and to find out the causes of the errors. The
research used writing test as the instruments to assess the ability of the students in
result of the study showed that the most frequent errors occurred is on the use of
linking verb and mostly happened in the misinformation type. This study gives the
students of SMU N 8 Semarang into two categories. Those were grammatical and
written work. These errors could not be classified into one of the grammatical and
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semantic errors. It could happen when the students used their first language
asEnglish words. They also wrote some words based on the way they pronounce
it. The grammatical errors that she found in her research have similarity in the
and analyze writing errors made by the students. The research shows that there are
5 types of errors made by students, which are; error about the absence of ‘be’, an
error about the addition of ‘be’, error on the application of ‘be’, error about the
result of Mulyoko’s research was there are 7 error categories made by 8 grade
students of SMPN 3 Ungaran. The errors he found are; errors in the production of
verb group, errors in the agreement between subject and verb, errors in the use of
article, errors in the use of preposition, errors in the pluralisation, errors in the use
descriptive text, it gives the writer a look of how to use same approach but in
Kariadi (2008) in his final project analyze errors in using finite verbs in
recount text written by 8th grade students of SMP N 1 Semarang the academic
year of 2007/2008. The objectives are to identify the errors in using finite verb
and the dominant errors made by students. As a result, he found 107 finite errors
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One of similarities that the writer can draw to those previous studies is
we all use descriptive qualitative research. Besides, the writer would like to focus
using prepositions; rules of simple present tense, mistyped, or any other possible
In this section, the writer would like to explore aboutreport text, grammar, errors
systematic observation and analysis. Mary and Kathy Anderson (1997; 1-3) state
(1) Literary texts are texts which explore and interpret human experience in such
response. Literary texts include narrative, dramatic, poetic texts, and many
combinations of these.
(2) Factual facts are texts which present information, ideas or opinions in such a
way as to inform. Enlighten or persuade the reader or listener. The main text types
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way. Often it is non-chronological and written in the present tense. This theory
implies that report text refers to kind of text that describes the information by
constructed in present tense. Report text must include important information that
Based on the statements above, the writer can conclude that generic
structure of report text consists of two main points, they are; General
2.2.2 Grammar
students have to master to able to use it. There are a lot of definitions
words can change their forms and can be combined into sentences in that
cannot be separated. Someone can be said mastering one language untill he is able
to put the grammar rule of that language. As I mentionedit before that every
language has its own grammar, Indonesian language surely has one. The
as I, me, my, mine, myself. It is used based on its function in sentence, namely as
differences about it. We use “Saya” in all part of sentence. Examples of this case
are:
coffee
Indonesian language, we use repetitionof its singular word, namely in the nouns to
show the reader that the noun is more than one, i.e.“murid – murid” and “buku–
bukuitu”. When we use plural nouns in English, some of nouns only add s/es in
Based on the illustration above, the writer draws a conclusion that every
language comes with its grammar. This opinion is supported by Cook and Sutter
(1980). They said “Grammar is a written description of the rules by speaking and
learn the language”. Since there are so complex and many differences of English
Errors are considered to be the product of learning since they are involved in the
learning process. Moreover, Error is one of indicators that students still do not
The study of errors is called Error Analysis. James (1998:7) states that
error analysis is a methodology for dealing with data rather than a theory of
The fact that learners do make errors and that these errors can be
observed, analyzed, and classified to reveal something of the system
operating within the learner, led to a surge of learner’s error called error
analysis.
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Error analysis is a sequence of scientific steps, starting from collecting the data,
methodology for dealing with the datataken byconductinga test with the students
Through the error analysis, researcher expects to reveal the causes behind
the students’ errors in learning language. Ellis (1994:48) notes that analyzing
errors has three advantageous. First, they provided the teacher with information
about how much the learners had learned. Second, they provided the researcher
with the evidence of how language was learned. Eventually, they served as
devices by which the learner discovered the rules of the target language.
The use of error analysis is to show some problems faced by students. The
language. When students learn a foreign language, usually they tend to transfer
their first language habits of their native language. Relating to the error translation
made by students, Littlewood(1989) divides the causes of errors into two groups.
Firstly, they are errors because of transferring rules from the mother tongue or the
so-called inter lingual errors and secondly, errors which show that the learners are
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processing the second language in its own terms. Errors of this second type are
but the study of error anlysis helps the teacher and the students in the process of
learning. Through the study of error analysis, teacher can evaluate whether
students succeed in learning the language or not. Then, for the students
themselvesmaking errors may help them to get self-correct to the errors they
make.
Acquisition distinguished between errors and mistakes. Ellis stated “Errors reflect
gaps in a learner’s knowledge; they occur because the learner does not know what
to perform what he or she knows. To be able to use the correct form, learners have
learners’ performance. If they consistently substitute ‘go’ for ‘went’ this would
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produce ‘go’ and sometimes ‘went’, this would suggest that they have knowledge
utterances. If they success to do it, it is mistake. If they cannot correct the deviant
it is considered as error.
In many cases, there are several types of errors made by Indonesian students in
and sentence structure error . Most students made errors in those items when they
write. These items mostly will impact the reader when they read the writing
product. In this sub-chapter, those types of errors that are possibly made by
It occurs when the subject does not agree with the verb in person or number.
Another Example: Every teenager knows how to choose clothes that flatters
her.
Another Example: Even though this is my first day on the job, I have already
It often occurs when there is confusion about which nouns are countable and
which aren’t.
Another Example: I set up six more desk for the afternoon class.
It occurs when a word (often a to be verb) is left out; an extra word (often a
Correction: Although the result of the study was inconclusive, the committee
Another Example: If the result of the study confirmed the writer’s hypothesis.
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Many experts of error analysis classifiy the learners’ errors into two
catagories.Littlewood (1989) divides the causes of errors into two groups. Firstly,
they are errors because of transferring rules from the mother tongue or the so-
called inter lingual errors and secondly, errors which show that the learners are
processing the second language in its own terms. Errors of this second type are
According to Touchie (1986: 77), “Errors are generally divided into two
categories. The first category is interference from the native language which is
intralingual.” Based on those theories about errors categories, there are two kinds
of errors. The first one emerges from the native language itself (interlingual) and
the second comes from the target language (intralingual). The theory will be
explained below.
language. Errors due to the influence of the native language are called interlingual
errors. These kinds of errors are influenced by the native languages which
interfere with target language learning.There are interlingual errors when the
some extent, from acquiring the rules and patterns of a second language.As stated
primarily from the learner’s assumption that the second language forms are
aspect that shapes language. Different languages will create different limitations,
therefore a people who share a culture but speak different languages, will have
different world views. Still, language is rooted in culture and culture is reflected
and passed on by language from one generation to the next. From this, one can see
1989). Language teachers must instruct their students on the cultural background
The errors due to the aspect of culture in Indonesian students mostly come
copula in English. Copula is a word used to link the subject of a sentence with
a predicate, such as the word is in the sentence "The sky is blue." In many
called as zero copula language. This state tends to confuse Indonesia students.
Hence, they usually produce errors in creating English sentences which requires to
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be as linking verb. For example, when Indonesian students are asked to write Budi
murid yang pandai in English they write “Budi clever student.” It is clearly seen
that Indonesian students made a grammatical error by dropping the linking verb.
They should write “Budi is clever students.” Whereas the word isconsiders as
at a stage when the learners have not really acquired the knowledge. According to
Richards (1976) they are "items produced by the learner which reflect not the
the target language. The learner in this case, tries to "drive the rules behind the
data to which he/ she has been exposed, and may develop hypotheses that
correspond neither to the mother tongue nor to the target language." Therefore the
Their Types, Causes, and Treatment.JALT JournaL Volume 8, No. I. 77.States that
(1) Simplification: Learners often choose simple forms and constructions instead
(2) Overgeneralization: This is the use of one form or construction in one context
and extending its application to other contexts where it should not apply.
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Examples of overgeneralization include the use of corned and goes as the past
tense forms of come and go and the omission of the third person singular s.
students' errors induce the students to make errors in otherwise correct forms.
Stenson (1978) calls this type of error "induced errors." For example, the
teacher's insistence that Indonesian ESL learners produce the phoneme IpI
correctly prompts them to always produce IpI where the phoneme Ibl is
required. Thus learners say pird and pattie instead of bird and battle.
(4) Faulty teaching: Sometimes it happens that learners' errors are teacher-
induced ones, i.e., caused by the teacher, teaching materials, or the order of
is interesting to note that some teachers are even influenced by their pupils'
(5) Fossilization: Some errors, especially errors in pronunciation, persist for long
periods and become quite difficult to get rid of. Examples of fossilized errors
in ESL learners are the lack of distinction between IpI and Ibl in English and
by these learners.
learners. Consequently, these learners avoid these structures and use instead
simpler structures. Some ESL learners avoid the passive voice and some
The theoretical review presented in the previous subchapter assumes that students
have some problems in writing report text. As we know, the major problem in
writing is the tendency of creating errors. Those errors made by learners will help
us to breakdown the problem of English Learner and create a tool to overcome it.
In conducting this research, I will use a written test to collect the data of
Students' Works
Error Analysis
collecting the data. Then, the researcher analyses and classifies the data. They are
classified into 6 types of errors, namely subject-verb agreement, verb tense errors,
structure errors. Most students made errors in those items when they write
descriptive. The data that have been classified will be calculated to get the
percentage of each error. Next step is the interpretation of data. Here the
researcher will explain each type of errors made. Supporting the explanation, the
researcher will present some real examples of errors made by students. The result
Interlingual errors and Intralingual errors covered Subject verb Agreement Errors,
Verbs Tense Errors, Verb Form Errors, Singular/Plural Noun Endings Errors,
METHODS OF INVESTIGATION
This chapter deals with the research methodologies. It consists of six sub-
chapters. They are (1) research design, (2) setting and participant, (3) role of the
researcher, (4) type of data, (5) instrument for collecting data, (6) procedures of
data that describe events and then organizes, tabulates, depicts, and describes the
is written production made by the subject of the study. In this case, the situation is
kind of errors that might appear in students’ writing text. Those errors are main
The researcher observes the students’ errors in writing English report text
by checking grammatical errors made by the subject of the study in their writings.
Research instrument employed in this study was written test. In order to acquire
the data needed, students had to write report texts about their interest. The text
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This study was conducted at genre based writting class of English Department of
Semarang State University in academic year 2013. There are total 5 classes of
Genre-based Writing in which there are 25-30 students for each class. Thus the
for observation and analysis.” In other word, participant is the source of the data
in the research where the data can be obtained. The researcher, therefore, chose
class 303 of Genre-based Writing as the setting in this research. The research
setting refers to the place where the data are collected. The research setting can be
seen as the physical, social, and cultural site in which the researcher conducts the
study in which research is carried out. Moreover, the reason for choosing them to
be the subject of the research is that because they have been taught report text and
In this research,the writer was the data collector. Therefore,the writer collected
the data from the Genre-based Writing class as the participants of the study. In the
process of preparation for collecting the data, the writer decided report text as the
genre of the text that would be written by students and let them freely chose the
topic to write. To make it easy to be analysed, the writer compiled the data on the
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table. Then, the collected data were analyzed and classified into 5 groups of
errors. Analyzing the data will help the writer to find out the errors of the texts
and its causes. Lastly, the writer calculated the classified errors to get the
Data are plain facts. When data are processed, organized, structured or presented
intimately related to each other. All quantitative data is based upon qualitative
judgments, and all qualitative data can be described and manipulated numerically.
errors and kind of grammatical errors that occur on writing report text. The
qualitative data in this research are in the form of report texts written by 4th
Department Academic Year 2013 Semarang State University. There are total26
research are the total number of errors which were found in the descriptive texts
explains that there are 6 types of instruments. They are test, questionnaire,
equipment for collecting the data. According to Saleh (2001, 9:31), the word
In this research, I use the written test to collect the data. The students will
be asked to write report texts which consists at least ten sentences for each text.
Once the data are gathered, the data are examined closely to find out what errors
made by students and then classified the errors into five categories. The researcher
could conclude the causes of errors made by students by analysing and classifying
the errors.
The researcher uses qualitative and quantitative method while doing the
analysis. The combained method is a tool for analysing and classifying the errors,
so we could conclude the causes of errors made by students. There are five steps
Deciding what participants of learner language to use for the analysis and how
Studying the acquired data and finding out the errors by underlying the errors
Describing the errors that have been found by classifying errors made by
participant; they are subject-verb agreement, verb tense errors, verb form
Explaining the errors by establishing the source of the errors and calculating
how often the errors appear. In this step, the writer calculated the errors to
n1 ×100%
P=
∑N
In which:
The researcheris able to identify the most frequently errors and the least
There are two steps in evaluating the errors. The first step istabelizing the
errors and second step is drawing conclusion. The writer tabelized the result of
the analysis once after the errors are calculated and arranged.The use of
error. The last step is drawing conclusion. In this step, the researcher has to
the errors.
All the result of the research would be reported in a form of journal, quantitative
data and further explanations in qualitative data. To state it clearly all the results
are reported in the form of calculation, description and interpretation. To know the
Further, the table will be used to make iteasy for the researcher and
reader in getting the authentic information of the research result. The table is in
the form of percentage of each error.Moreover, the research results are also
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reported in the form of description. The real examples which are taken from the
students writing are provided in each classification of explained errors. The last,
interpretation of the research results will bring the conclusion of what influence
students and cause them to make errors in the production of their writings. Due to
This chapter deals with the research results. It consists of two sub-chapters, (1)
This chapter describes the result of data analysis, which is expected to be the
answer of problems in this research. This analysis will answer the question of
Based on the analysis, there are five errors found in the data. Those are subject-
verb agreement errors, verb tense errors, singular or plural noun ending errors,
word form errors, and sentence structure errors. The findings can be seen as
follows.
found in the data. The subject verb agreement errors have the highest number with
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countable and uncountable noun; so the verbs are not suitable with the subject.
The verb tense errorsbecome the second with 24 errors. Then, singular/plural
noun Ending Errors is the third. It has 19errors. Next, the fourth is structure
sentence errors with 7 errors. The last isword formerrors with 5 errors. It becomes
the least number of errors because the students sometimes make errors in using
passive voice.In order to calculate the percentage of each error category, the
n1 ×100%
P= ∑N
In which:
The formula above was applied to know the frequency of each error. Therefore, it
led the researcher to find what the most and the least frequent errors made by
students.
It shows in the table that almost 39.81% errors made by student is subject
verb agreement errors. The second most frequent errors are in the verb tense
errors with 25%. The next is the errors in the singular/plural noun ending errors
with total of 18.2% of the whole errors. Errors in the word form takes the fourth
place with 16.6 % of the whole errors. Then, the fifth place belongs to errors in
The analysis is used to answer the statement of the problem in chapter I. First, it is
to find out kind of grammatical errors that occur on writing report text on 4th
Academic Year 2013 Semarang State University. Further explanation can be seen
as follows.
In the data, there are 43 errors which are categorized as subject verb agreement
found in the data. As stated in Chapter II, agreement between subject and verb is
influenced by the subject of a sentence. A verb must agree with its subject in
number (singular and plural) and in person (first, second, or third). When subject
and verb are correctly matched, it can be said that they are grammatically agree.
is singular or plural will cause students to make errors in the production of verb.
Excerpt 1:
Student 1
From the excerpt 1 above, it is seen that the student makes an error in the
verb. The sentence is “Instant noodles are dry food products made from dough of
flour or other flour as the main ingredient with or without an addition of other
be “Instant noodles is dry food products made from dough of flour or other flour
as the main ingredient with or without an addition of other materials.” So, the to
be ‘are’ should be changing into‘s’. However, the subject can be plural if the
student gives a container such as ‘two packs of instant noodles’. As the result, this
student’s error is because the student directly translated the sentence without
giving any concern to the subject and the predicate of the sentence. So, student 1
did not put the correct pattern in the sentence. In the end, the subject and the verb
as the predicator are not synchronized. Furthermore, the researcher considers this
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error happens due to interlingual error. Student 1 doesn’t know about countable
Excerpt 2:
Student 3
The example above shows that there is a subject verb agreement error in
the student 3’s writing. The sentence is “There is over 100 species.” Moreover,
the word ‘is’ is categorized asto singular word. However, the verb should be in
plural form. It happens because the subject ‘there’ is categorized as the plural
noun since the object of the sentence is plural noun. The sentence should be
“There are over 100 species.” Based on thatreason, this is categorized as the
subject agreement verb error. Moreover, there is a reason why the student 3 does
error in writing because s/he directly translated from Bahasa Indonesia into
English language without giving consideration into the verb that becomes the
predicator.
made student 3 was failing to put the right to be as relating verb in the sentence.
As the result, the subject and the verb are not synchronized. Student 3
Excerpt 3:
Student 5
The next example is found in the writing of the student 5. Here, it is seen
that the error sentence is “A bee colony consistof one queen, a lot of worker bees
and some drones, stingless male bee in a colony of social bees (especially honey
bee) whose sole function is to mate with the queen.” From the sentence, it is
clearly seen that the subject is a singular noun. It is indicated by the using of
article a- that is only followed by the singular noun. However, the student 5
creates an error by not using singular verb. It means that the verb ‘consist’ should
agreement error. Furthermore, the cause of this error is because student 5’s mother
tongue is not English. So, it influences the student’s writing. This interfere by
Excerpt 4:
Student 7
The next example can be seen in the sentence, “After so many years,
smartphone not only provide us with simple cell phone tasks but also give us more
choice in using its features.” Here, the student tries to explain about smartphone
and its development. From the sentence, it is clearly seen that the subject of the
writer does not use singular verb for the sentence. The verb ‘provide’ and ‘give’
should be used for the plural noun. The verb should be ‘provides’ and ‘gives’.
Based on that reason, the student’s writing has a grammatical error that is subject
verb-agreement.
Moreover, the researcher tries to find out the cause of that error. It can be
the student is miswriting because the other sentences of the text use the
appropriate verb or the subject verb agreement is followed the rule of English
tense. This conclusion comes after the researcher finds that in the next sentences,
the writer are able to create correct sentences using the verb ‘provides’. Though
Excerpt 5:
Student 9
The next example is seen in the table above. Here, the student tries to
explain about the most orang utan’s activities. The error sentence is “Most of the
days is spent by feeding, resting and travelling.” The bold underlined word is an
because the student is wrong in using the ‘to be’. Actually, the student wants to
use passive voice. The passive voice form in that sentence is correct, but the
student does not use an appropriate ‘to be’. The passive form ‘is spent’ should be
‘are spent’ since the subject of the sentence is the plural form.
Furthermore, the researcher tries to find out the cause of this error. It
happens because the student directly translates the sentence from Bahasa
the singular and plural noun is not influenced by the verb. In addition, the passive
voice can be made by just putting prefix di-. On the other hand, in English the rule
of making passive voice is by using to be + V3. The use of ‘to be’ depends on the
subject of the sentence. So, the explanation above shows the cause of the error
Excerpt 6:
Student 11
From the excerpt 6 above, it is seen that there is an error. Here, the word
because the student does not use a right verb for singular noun. Furthermore, the
word ‘liver’ means an organ of human and it is only one. However, the student
does not put sufix –s to show that the verb is for singular noun. So, the sentence
“And the most bad disease of liver is cancer, because liver absorb all “bad things”
from blood, so it can accidentally absorb cancer and grow in the liver” should
become “And the most bad disease of liver is cancer, because liver absorbs all
“bad things” from blood, so it can accidentally absorbs cancer and grows in the
liver.”
Then, the researcher finds the cause of the error. It is because the student
does not know the rule of the simple present tense. He does not aware of the verb
for simple tense. Besides, when the student tries to translate the sentence from
that he made. So, the student thinks that his sentence is already correct. This
Excerpt 7:
Student 13
If the outfield player touch the ball If the outfield player touches the ball
with their hands, it will be a handball with their hands, it will be a handball
foul. foul.
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The next example can be seen in the table above. There is an error found
in the data. The Error sentence is “If the outfield player touch the ball with their
hands, it will be a handball foul.” The word ‘touch’ is included in the subject verb
agreement error. It happens because the subject of the sentence is singular but the
verb as the predicator does not use the singular verb by adding sufix -es. The
sentence can be constructed into “If the outfield player touches the ball with their
hands, it will be a handball foul.”Moreover, the researcher finds the cause of the
student does the error. It happens because the student is mistyping. It is proven by
seeing the other sentences in the text. They used correct verbs related with the
error. Though student 13 knows the rule of simple present tense, but sometimes
s/he are mistyping it because the addition of suffix –s/es doesn’t exist in student
Excerpt 8:
Student 20
The example above shows that there is a grammatical error found in the
to eat and give good luck’. Moreover, the error is categorized as the subject verb
agreement. In addition, this error happens because the student does not use
singular verb. From the sentence, it is clearly seen that the subject is ‘it’. It is
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must use simple present tense; so, the infinitive verb must be added with suffix -
s/-es. As the result, the sentence should become “It is celebrated through families
Moreover, the student does the error because she is not careful in recheck
the sentence. Besides, she also directly translated the sentence from Bahasa
Indonesia into English language; so, the verb has actually similar meaning but the
The error of extending one context to other where it should not apply.
Excerpt 9:
Student 23
KucingKampung which are from Indonesia usually live only between 2 until 5
years”, are found two errors in verb. First is the verb ‘are’ and second is the verb
‘live’. Basically, both verbs have similar subject that is ‘KucingKampung’. Here,
the subject is singular because even it used Bahasa Indonesia, but the form of the
noun is also singular in Bahasa Indonesia. As the result, as the writer, the student
must use singular verb since noun is singular too. So, the correct sentence should
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Then, the researcher tries to identify the cause of the error. It happens
because the writer has similar problem with the previous students that she directly
translated Bahasa Indonesia into English. Then, she denied the rules of simple
tense because in dictionary the word is always in infinitive form. So, the suffix –s
as the singular verb marker and to be ‘is’ not in the singular form. This is also
but fail to perform it correctly due to overgeneralize the meaning of his sentence.
Excerpt 10:
Student 2
The example of the verb tense error is seen in the excerpt 10. It is seen
that the Error sentence is “It is built on an archipelago of 117 island formed by
about 150 canals in a shallow lagoon since a hundred years ago.” However, it
should be revised as “It was built on an archipelago of 117 island formed by about
43
150 canals in a shallow lagoon since a hundred years ago.” Here, it is clearly seen
that the passive voice of the sentence must be in the past form since there is a time
maker ‘a hundred years ago’. It means that the event happened in the past. As the
role of the passive voice that past tense’s pattern is ‘to be (was/were) + V3’. In the
Furthermore, the cause of that error is because the student is avoided the
time marker. The student is too focusing in language feature of the report; so, s/he
thinks that it always uses present tense. So, it creates an error in her sentence. This
Excerpt 11:
Student 9
They start the day feeding for 2-3 hours They are starting the day feeding for 2-
in the morning. 3 hours in the morning.
The excerpt 11 shows that there is a verb tense error. The sentence is
“They start the day feeding for 2-3 hours in the morning.” This shows that the
student is not aware in the time marker. The adverb of time, ‘in the morning’, is to
indicate present continuous tense or present progressive. So, the sentence should
be “They are starting the day feeding for 2-3 hours in the morning.” The sentence
should not use present tense because it does not show a schedule of the turtle but
it shows the turtle activity during the morning in 2-3 hours. In the end, this
sentence is included into the verb tense error.Moreover, the researcher finds the
cause of the error. It appears because the student could not differentiate the adverb
44
of time. She is confused to recognize the time maker, as the result she is failed to
use a correct verb. This is error shows that student 9 performed simplification of
the text by using present tense which is simpler than present continuous tense
Excerpt 12:
Student 23
In this time the student tells about a cat. In paragraph two, he explains
about the condition of the cat when it was born. The first sentence uses past tense
because the adverb of time is when the cats were born. However, the next
sentence as in the table above has inconsistent of the use of the tense. The Error
sentence is “Then they opened the eyes when they have aged 8 – 10 days.” It
should become “Then they opened the eyes when they had aged 8 – 10 days.”The
reason is because there are two clauses in a sentence. Then, the first clause uses
simple past tense. As the result, the second clause must be parallel. So, it should
be use the past perfect tense not the present perfect. However, it gives different
the time of the event. The adverb of time also has shown that the time is in the
past. Moreover, the cause of this error is the student is not aware in the time
marker. In the end, it creates inconsistency of the student as the writer. The
parallel sentences have been categorized as grammar rule. Hence, this error is
Excerpt 13:
Student 26
The last example is written by student 26. From the table above, it is
found that there is an error. The sentence “She is produces 2-3 liters/year” should
be “She produces 2-3 liters/year.” Here, the student puts two verbs in the
sentence. Since the sentence must apply present verb. So, the sentence is the verb
tense error. She wanted to use a verb but she uses two verbs.
sentence. Though the error above is mistyping, the researcher still categorizes it as
interlingual error that is error due to the influence of native language. It is clearly
seen that student 26 doesn’t know the use of to be and verb as relating verb in
There are 19 errors recognized as singular or plural noun ending errors. Often
occurs when there is confusion about which nouns are countable and which are
Excerpt 14:
Student 6
14. From the example above, it is seen that there is anerror, ‘turtle’ in the error
writer does not put any suffix –s as the plural marker. The noun ‘turtle’ should be
‘turtles’; so. The other identification is the cause of the error. The researcher finds
that the error is caused by mistyping. So, the writer does not type the morpheme –
s in the sentence.
Excerpt 15:
Student 11
The function of liver are to turns The functions of liver are to turns
protein and fat into glucose, and spread protein and fat into glucose, and spread
the glucose to the blood when it the glucose to the blood when it
glucose less (when we not eat yet). glucose less (when we not eat yet).
or plural noun ending errors. The word in the bold shows that the subject in the
noun should be in the plural form because based on the sentence that the function
is more than one. So, the sentence “The function of liver are to turns protein and
fat into glucose, and spread the glucose to the blood when it glucose less (when
we not eat yet)” should become “The functions of liver are to turns protein and
fat into glucose, and spread the glucose to the blood when it glucose less (when
we not eat yet).” Because of the missing morpheme –s, the error is categorized as
singular or plural noun ending. Furthermore, the student’s has a reason why she
Excerpt 16:
Student 12
the noun ‘sandals’ is always in the plural form because ‘sandals’ are always in
pair. The word ‘sandals’ can become singular by adding ‘a pair of’. However, if
the student wants to make ‘sandal’ as the singular word, she must change the
sentence into “Sandal is different with shoes.” On the other hand, the cause of the
error is the student does not know if sandals are always pairing.
the rules and patterns of English, in this case is plural and singular form. Bahasa
Indonesia doesn’t recognize singular and plural noun form, whereas English
recognize it as one of their culture as one of language aspects. This leads the
language.
The next error is structure sentence errors. It is 7 errors found in the data. The
structure sentence errors occur when a word (often a ‘to be’ verb) is left out; an
48
that do not belong together are punctuated as one sentence. Some explanations are
seen below.
Excerpt 19:
Student 13
From the excerpt 19 above, it is seen that the student does a structure
error. It happens because the student omits ‘to be’ as the passive voice marker.
The Error sentence “It held on every four years” should be “It is held on every
four years.”The researcher can classify the errors in sentence pattern as the errors
in omission because the student sometimes forgets to put the subject or the verb
interlingual error due to the native language of the learner. Student 13 dropped to
be as related verb in passive form due to the absence of relating verb in his native
Excerpt 20:
Student 14
The next example is seen above. Here, the student explains about batik.
The sentence, “Based on the techniques, Batik divided into three kinds; they are
write, stamp and printing” should change into “Based on the techniques, Batik is
divided into three kinds; they are writing, stamping and printing.” It is clearly seen
that the writer dropped the verb ‘to be’ in the sentence. However, if the ‘to be’ is
not dropped the structure of the passive form in the sentence will be obviously
seen. In addition, the cause of this error is because certain linguistic forms may be
could write passive form in another sentence. This error is mainly caused by
Excerpt 21:
Student 15
The other example is seen in excerpt 21. The student drops the verb ‘to
be’. The sentence “They called Tabloids which have a lot of pictures and
sometimes entertaining” should become “They are called Tabloids which have a
called structure errors. On the other hand, the student sometimes forgets to put the
by inadequate learning. It is like the finding in excerpt 19. The student know the
rule of passive sentence but isn’t able to construct it correctly due to the omission
of to be.
Excerpt 22:
Student 18
The last example is seen above. The sentence “It could reach 70
km/hour” should be changing into “It can reach 70 km/hour”. It means that there
is an error of sentence structure. Here, the writer uses the past form of the
auxiliary verb that should be in the infinitive form. Furthermore, the student does
the error because s/he tries to use politeness by using ‘could’. Here, the sentence
is categorized as statement that is usually found in the report text must use simple
present tense. The context between his/her understanding and the sentence
structure are totally different. Consequently, this disability of creating content and
The last is word form errors. They are5 errors found in the data. In addition, the
word form errors occur when a verb is incorrectly formed.One of the examples is
seen below.
51
Excerpt 23:
Student 11
The last example is seen in excerpt 23. The student uses the wrong word
order. The sentence “Because of the many important function of liver, so its
important to keep our liver health.” should become “Because of the many
important function of liver, so it’s important to keep our liver health.” Here, the
error sentence uses possessive adjective word. The word must be in form of
Based on that explanation, this error is called word form errors. On the
other hand, the student sometimes forgets to put the punctuation single quotation
the meaning of the sentence will be different with the context. This error purely is
5.1 Conclusions
After analyzing the data, the objectives of the research were achieved. The results
of the data analysis shows that the fourth semester English students in Genre
Based Writing class of English Department Academic Year 2013 made errors
dealing with five categories which were used by the researcher to classify the
The result of the study shows that there were 91 errors made by students.
The most frequent errors made by students are errors in the subject verb
agreement errors have the highest number with 43.87% of errors. The second
most frequent errors are in the verb tense errors with 24.49%. The next is the
errors in the singular/plural noun ending errors with total of 19.39% of the whole
errors. Errors in the sentence structure takes the fourth place with 7.14 % of the
whole errors. Then, the fifth place belongs to errors in the word form which is
equal to 5.1%.
tongue which is called interlingual errors. It was also influenced by the target
language cause which is called intralingual errors. The intralingual errors occurred
when students overextends one rule which actually does not exist
(overgeneralization), some students also construct the simple form of the language
52
53
5.2 Suggestions
Having analyzed the students' errors dealing with grammar and tense in their
writings production, the researcher would like to give some suggestions for both
The teachers should give more clear explanation about the tense and language
features which are used in the report texts. The more clear explanation will
give students a clear understanding about the tense and the language features
regular and irregular plural form of nouns. It is necessary for students so they
can avoid to over generalizing any words and it will enrich their vocabulary
mastery.
The students should read more English texts to enrich their vocabulary
mastery. They should also learn English grammar thus they will know how to
write a better English text and minimalize errors in their written production.
learnt by writing some simple sentences and asking of what they have not
BIBLIOGRAPHY
APPENDIX 1
KET
NAMA
NO. L/ P
1. P NurulKurnia
2. P LailatulNurulAniq
3. P MatsyaAvataraPrasetya
4. P IsmiSuciatiMaghfiroh
5. P RisydaItsna Sari
6. L Muhammad RozinMuhafidz
7. L SeptianPrawisuda Putra
9. P Selma HemasMahardika
10. Student 10
11. L YusakKristianSamosir
13. L GanangEki B.
14. P UlfaSafitriRizkiani
17. L DilisPriyuana H.
18. L InuHanendra
57
19. P NurulPuspitasari
20. P YunitaFatma K.
22. P RatriPamuji
23. L AndraSukmalahiSarasmara
25. P AnisaFitrianingtyas
26. P RilaFajarPangestika
58
APPENDIX 2
1.60 meters and weigh over 1.60 meters and weigh over
90 kilos. 90 kilos.
22. Student 11 The function of liver are to The function of liver is to
turns protein and fat into turns protein and fat into
glucose, and spread the glucose, and spread the
glucose to the blood when it glucose to the blood when it
is glucose less (when we not is glucose less (when we not
eat yet) eat yet)
23. Student 11 Liver also metabolize many Liver also metabolizes many
things in the blood such as things in the blood such as
hemoglobin, protein, insulin, hemoglobin, protein, insulin,
ammonia, and reduce toxins. ammonia, and reduce toxins.
24. Student 11 Cirrhosis also one of liver Cirrhosis also one of liver
disease like hepatitis disease likes hepatitis
25. Student 11 And the most bad disease of And the most bad disease of
liver is cancer, because liver liver is cancer, because liver
absorb all “bad things” from absorbs all “bad things” from
blood, so it can accidentally blood, so it can accidentally
absorb cancer cell and grow absorb cancer cell and grow
in the liver. in the liver.
26. Student 11 And the most bad disease of And the most bad disease of
liver is cancer, because liver liver is cancer, because liver
absorb all “bad things” from absorb all “bad things” from
blood, so it can accidentally blood, so it can accidentally
absorb cancer cell and (it) absorb cancer cell and (it)
grow in the liver. grows in the liver.
27. Student 12 Sandals is a footwear that Sandals area footwear that
used largely around the used largely around the
world, particularly in Asia. world, particularly in Asia.
28. Student 12 Sandals has many Sandals have many
advantages such as simple, advantages such as simple,
unique and cheap. unique and cheap.
29. Student 12 Sandals is different with Sandals are different with
shoes. shoes.
30. Student 12 Sandals protects our foot Sandals protect our foot from
from something on the something on the ground that
ground that can damage our can damage our foot and
foot and make our make our appearance better
appearance better or simpler. or simpler.
31. Student 12 Sandals is always available Sandals are always available
in anywhere even where we in anywhere even where we
can find a shop to make our can find a shop to make our
own sandals like our own sandals like our favorite.
favorite.
32. Student 13 If the outfield player If the outfield player
61
ago. ago.
2. Student 4 Our earth was sphere of Our earth is sphere of gases,
gases, which slowly cooled which slowly cooled off from
off from outside, forming a outside, forming a this crust
this crust of cold, solid of cold, solid materials
materials containing hot containing hot liquid, magma
liquid, magma and gases. and gases.
3. Student 5 The Holy Koran says that the The Holy Koran said that the
bee stomach produces some bee stomach produces some
liquid that is very beneficial liquid that is very beneficial
for human health. for human health.
4. Student 6 It is one of the oldest reptiles It is one of the oldest reptiles
in the earth because it has in the earth because it had
been around since 230 years been around since 230 years
ago. ago.
5. Student 7 Although basic compared to Although basic compares to
today’s standards “Simon” today’s standards “Simon”
had a touch screen that was had a touch screen that was
capable of accessing email capable of accessing email
and sending faxes. and sending faxes.
6. Student 7 Although basic compared to Although basic compared to
today’s standards “Simon” today’s standards “Simon”
had a touch screen that was has a touch screen that was
capable of accessing email capable of accessing email
and sending faxes. and sending faxes.
7. Student 7 Because of its rich features Because of its rich features
and is so easy to get, and is so easy to get,
smartphone’s usage will smartphone’s usage always
always rising overtime. rises overtime.
8. Student 9 They start the day feeding They are starting the day
for 2-3 hours in the morning. feeding for 2-3 hours in the
morning.
9. Student 11 Liver also can be Liver also can be
malfunction if the liver malfunction if the liver
owner didn’t have healthy owner doesn’t have healthy
life. life.
10. Student 11 Cirrhosis also one of liver Cirrhosis also one of liver
disease, it is caused by death disease, it is caused by death
of liver cells that happen of liver cells that happen
regularly, the liver structure regularly, the liver structure
is damages and liver not is damages and liver doesnot
work as well or may be not work as well or may be not
work at all. work at all.
11. Student 12 Sandals is only has the Sandals only have the bottom
bottom side and two or more side and two or more belts or
63
years. years.
23. Student 26 She is produces 2-3 She produces 2-3 liters/year.
liters/year.
24. Student 26 He has two wider ears that He has two wider ears that
used to hear clearer even areused to hear clearer even
some expert said that rabbit some expert said that rabbit
is more responsive to catch is more responsive to catch
the sound from external. the sound from external.
collected. iscollected.
2. Student 12 There are many forms of There are many forms of
sandals those used for sandals (that) those areused for
many activities such as many activities such as
mountaineering, daily use, mountaineering, daily use,
official, etc. official, etc.
3. Student 13 It held on every four years. It isheld on every four years.
4. Student 15 They called tabloids which They arecalled tabloids which
have a lot of pictures and have a lot of pictures and
sometimes entertaining. sometimes entertaining.
5. Student 18 It could reach 70 km/hour. It can reach 70 km/hour.
6. Student 26 The female rabbit called a The female rabbit iscalled a
doe. doe.
7. Student 26 He has two wider ears that He has two wider ears that
used to hear clearer even areused to hear clearer even
some expert said that some expert said that rabbit
rabbit more responsive to more responsive to catch the
catch the sound from sound from external.
external.
shoes