an error analysis of the english writing narrative text task

Journal E-Link 2 FKIP
AN ERROR ANALYSIS OF THE ENGLISH WRITING NARRATIVE TEXT
TASK
Lilik Uzlifatul Jannah
[email protected]
Universitas Islam Lamongan
Abstract: The objective of this research was to analyze the error on the use of simple past
tense in students’ writing narrative text. Error is a wrong way on the use of language which
is made or produce by a language learner. This analysis aimed at showing the types and the
most dominant errors made by the seventh year students at SMPN 1 Deket Lamongan in the
academic year 2012/2013. There were 25 students’ writing narrative text as the source of
data and used descriptive qualitative to describe the research finding. students. The result of
this research are, (1) The error made by the student can be categorized into four types of
error, namely: error of omission, error of addition, error of misformation and error of
misordering. (2) The total errors made by the students are 140 items. They consist of
omission 19 (13,57%), addition 22 (15,71%), misformation 92 (65,71%), and misordering 7
(5%). It shows that the most dominant error is error of misformation.
Key words : writing, error analysis, narrative text
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Journal E-Link 2 FKIP
means of foxing the vocabulary, spelling,
INTRODUCTION :
International English language as a
global
means
of
communication
in
numerous dialect, and also the movement
and sentence pattern. It becomes an
important aspect of students expression at
higher stage.
toward an international standar for the
It means that writing is a process of
language ( Patel and Jain:2008). English as
gathering ideas and do them until they are
global language used by people in the
presented in a manner that is polished and
world has an important role since it is used
comprehensible to readers. In teaching
in the science, technology, trade, education
learning process, the students’ writing
and art. English is also used for raising
concerned in academic writing especially
certain objective such as in economic,
in writing text. The five major texts taught
social
to the Junior High School students are
and
culture,
international
relationship education and career.
simple text in the forms of recount,
Learning process has a very close
relationship to the making of mistakes.
narrative,
procedure,
descriptive,
and
report text.
The same thing happens when someone
In writing a text, we need to know the
learns a language, either his first language
purpose and the generic structure of the
or second language. In Indonesia, English
text we are going to write. In addition,
as the first foreign language has an
with the title of this research, a narrative
important role. It can be used to help
text is a text, which says what a person or
students, to write the English writing.
a thing is like. Narrative is one kinds of
Writing is usefully described as a
process,
something
which
shows
written form of composition in Junior
High School. According to Reinfant
continuous change in time like growth in
(2012),
Narrative
is
the
recounting
nature, (McDDonald,2001:7). Language is
Referring to the explanation above, the
primarily speech and writing is a means to
researcher is going to analyze the errors
preserve it. Writing is a kind of linguistic
made by the eighth grade students of
behaviour a picture is not. Writing may be
Junior High Scholl. The analysis is
very important for one group of students
focused on the errors of using simple past
but much less important for others.
tense. In this research, the researcher tries
According to Patel and Jain (2008:125),
to identify and classify the error on the use
writing is essential features of learning a
of simple past tense made by the seventh
language because it provider very good
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year students in order to know the types of
error and the most dominant errors.
The error analysis steps applied in this
research are identifying each error types,
According to Richard in Hasyim
classifying the errors types, counting the
(2002:42), error analysis is the study of
error types, analyzing the error types and
errors made by the second and foreign
interpreting the error types.
language learners. Error analysis may be
carried out in order to (a) find out how
METHOD
well someone knows a language, (b), find
out how a person learns.
In this research, researcher uses
descriptive qualitative. Descriptive studies
Error analysis may be defined as
are
designed
to
collect
information
dealing with the differences between the
concerning with the current phenomenon.
way people learning a language speak, and
It means that descriptive studies are used
the way adult native speakers of the
to identify the nature of phenomenon that
language use the language. According to
exist at the time of study and investigate
Brown (2007), the fact that learners do
the causes of that phenomenon.
make errors, and that these errors can be
In descriptive qualitative a researcher
observed, analyzed, and classified to
intends
reveal something of the system operating
undergone by research subject such as:
within the learner, lad to a surge of study
behaviour, perception, action etc, by
of learners’ error, called error analysis. It
describing in the form of words and
means that error analysis is the study of ill-
languages to special natural context and by
formed which produced by language
using a variety of natural method.
learners
in
an
effort
to
discover
systematically.
to
understand
phenomena
The current study tries to identify,
classify and describe the error of the
According to Dulay (1982:138), the
writing narrative text. For this purpose, the
study of the learner’s error has two mayor
qualitative study is intended to analyze the
purposes, First, the study can be used to
errors. The procedures in this research are
get the data from which interference about
determining subject of the study, giving
the nature of the language learning can be
task to the respondent, analyzing the result
made.Second, the study shows the teacher
of the test, interpreting the result and
and curriculum designer in what pan of the
writing a report.
target language that the students have
errors and which error type they are weak.
In this research, the researcher uses
subjects as the source of data, to know the
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Journal E-Link 2 FKIP
types of error of the English writing
strategy taxonomy in which error can be
narrative text task made by the seventh
categorized
year student the at SMPN 1 Deket in the
misformation, and misordering (Dulay,
academic year 2012/2013. The researcher
1982).
uses one class in SMPN 1 Deket to collect
3.
as
omission,
addition,
Counting the error
the data, that is seventh G class, because
After classifying the errors into their
seventh G class is one of the seventh year
types, each type of the error is counted in
are good enough to be used as research
order to be analyze then.
subject. They consist of 25 students from
4.
Analyzing the error
seventh G class as the subject of this
After classifying and counting, they
research. In this research is also to know
are analyzing. Based on the error of
the most dominant error that has been
classification
made by the students.
occurrence of error previously identifying
This research is used to analyze the
above,
the
frequency
will be counting. Thus, each error type is
students’ errors on writing simple past
made
tense of text at the eighth grade students.
calculation is as follows :
in
form
of
percentage.
The
The types of errors which are used in this
research just limited to surface strategy
taxonomy
which
includes
omission,
addition, misformation, and misorderings
types of grammar. In analyzing the data
the researcher uses some steps as follows:
1.
Identifying error
After
collecting
the
data,
the
researcher identifies the students’ errors by
underlining the wrong sentences. The
researcher identifies the errors only on the
The researcher classifies the error in
each type of error to make the researcher
to
analyze
the
evaluates the findings and makes the
discussion of the prediction causes of the
errors. From the result of data analysis and
the discussion, the interpretation is made.
It is based on the number counting and
previous discussion.
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS
into four steps. They are identification of
Classifying error
easier
percentage of error type, the researcher
The result of data analysis is presented
use of simple present tense.
2.
After the researcher calculating the
data.
The
classification of error is based on surface
error, classification of error, counting the
error, and analyzing the error. Identifying
the error was focused on any deviation on
the use of simple present tense. The
writing text which appropriate with the
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Journal E-Link 2 FKIP
pattern
of
simple
past
tense
was
bear and rabbit. it could be inferred that
considered correct, while the writing text
the students add words (to be, preposition,
which inappropriate with the pattern of
or ed ). These errors made the sentences
simple past tense was considered an error.
can not be understood and translate well.
The researcher found 140 errors on
students’ writing narrative
text. The
Misformation errors are characterized
by the use of the wrong form of the
classification of error into types of error
morpheme
was conducted under the basic of surface
supplies something although it is incorrect.
strategy taxonomy, in which error can be
For example: Sangkuriang has traveled
divided into error of omission, error of
many places. In this sentence traveled
addition, error of misformation, and error
must be changed intotravel, because the
of misordering (Dulay, 1982).
sentence is past tense where there is
1.
usually as time signal of past tense.
Types of Error
or
structure,
the
learner
Omission errors are characterized by
The errors categorized as error of
the absence of an item that must appear in
misordering are characterized by the
a well-formed utterance. This theory is
incorrect placement of a morpheme or
appropriate with the finding of this
group of morphemes in an utterance. A
research, where the students writing omit
little poor boy come into village litte, as in
some item there must be adding in their
this sentence, the student placed object
sentence such as the verb be, the adding –s
before verb, while object sentence should
in the verb for the third singular person
be placed after the verb.
subject as in their writing: He very hungry,
2.
Counting the error
Many friends like her. Other omission
The following step is counting the
errors made by students as the omit of
errors. Based on the classification, the total
auxiliary
for
number of error are 140 erros. They
example: Many friends like her ,The bear
consist of omission 19 items, addition 22
was very gluttonous and not want the
items,
rabbit.
misordering 7 items.
and
subject
sentence,
misformation
92
items
and
Error categorized as errors of addition
From the table above, it can be see
occurs because of the presence of item
that the highest error made by students is
which must not appear in a well-formed
error misformation. To make clear, it can
utterance as can be found in following
be seen on the table of summary of all type
sentences:
of error made by the student below :
it change into a woman , a
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Journal E-Link 2 FKIP
Type of error
Omission
Addition
Misformation
Misordering
Total
Number of error
19
22
92
7
140
From the result, it is known that the
most dominant error made by the students
of SMPN 1 Deket is error of misformation,
it means there are problems which are still
faces by students in learning target in
Analyzing the error
simple past tense. It is clear that the errors
To analyze the data , the researcher
are made by the students is causes by lack
found the errors in the test by using
of knowledge about the rules of using
formula:
tenses especially simple past tense.
3.
Besides, all the errors mention above,
Types of error
Omission Addition Misformat Misorderi
ion
ng
many students still made mistakes in their
writing narrative text. They sometimes still
use simple past tense that really forbidden
in writing narrative text. Other errors made
by the students are they sometimes put
From the data it shows that the highest
“Him” in a subject of sentence and so do
errors is error of misformation, it happens
her, and they still confuse to change VI
92 errors (65,71%) as the most dominant
into V2. So it can be concluded that they
error made by the seventh students of
still confuse in using pronoun correctly.
SMPN 1 Deket in the academic year
2012/2013.
In writing narrative text, the tenses
focus on the simple past tense. But the
The data that are obtained from the
students still made mistakes. In this case,
students’ work are then analyzed by
they sometime uses "were" for the third
focusing on the error in writing narrative
singular person also sometimes wrote
text. After the data are analyzing based on
incorrect form of verb 2.
the linguistic category taxonomy and
To overcome the problems in learning
surface strategy taxonomy, they shows that
as the target language, it is important for
they
addition,
students to pay attention to the rule how to
misformation and misordering. Those are
write in the target language and also for
found that there are 140 errors and those
the English teacher should more pay
consisting of omission 19 errors (13,57%),
attention in teaching and learning process
error of addition 22 errors (15,71%), error
especially in writing narrative text using
of misformation 92 errors (65,71%) and
simple past tense. Finally, it is hopes that
consist
of
omission,
error of misordering 7 errors (5%).
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Journal E-Link 2 FKIP
they can write narrative text well and
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CONCLUSIONS
After identifying and analyzing the
error made by the seventh year students of
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2012/2013 in learning English tenses
especially in simple past tense in writing
assessment of the narrative text , the
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The errors that are made by the
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