ERROR ANALYSIS IN WRITING RECOUNT TEXT

Abstract

The study aims to identify the types of morphological, syntactic, discourse error in writing recount text. In
addition, it is to know the frequency of each type of errors, to know the dominant type of error and to
know the sources of the errors, to identify the errors made by the learners, to correct the errors which have
been made, to improve the teaching quality which is appropriate with the curriculum and the syllabus and
to get the data and the explanation about the difficulties in studying English especially in writing the
English narrative composition.Writing is chosen because writing is the most difficult part in learning
English as what it said is different with what it is written. The method used in this research is descriptive
method. Descriptive method means the method which tries to give the data and the explanation about the
recent symptoms.

Key words: error analysis, linguistic category taxonomy, recount text,

surface strategy

INTRODUCTION

Language is an instrument of communication used by many people in the world. English is particularly
important to integrate one country with other countries, in politics, economy, and education. Language
makes many countries are close one another. There are some kinds in learning English such as; listening,
speaking,writing and reading. Writing is the most difficult part in learning English as what we say is
different with writing. In Indonesian context, the government places English as a foreign language. They
come into existence, are being used and then replaced. This is a sketch of changing winds and shifting
sands of foreign language teaching over the years (Fauziati, 2014). So, method of language teaching can
change because it influences the era. Most of the students’ skills are far away from their learning target.
According to McWhorter (2012) Some students know or have the ideas what they are going to write, but
they do not know how to put them into word. Bayat (2014) mentions that writing expression is a difficult
skill for the students. It is true that the students in junior high school still have difficulties in writing since
they lack vocabulary, spelling, and grammar. According to Saragih, Silalahi, and Pardede (2014),
“Writing is difficult for the students because they lack vocabulary, spelling, and grammar” (p. 56). They
found out that most of the students’ writing showed students’ misunderstanding about rules and grammar
applied in English writing (as cited in Joan, 2016, p. 62). Similar research was also done by Sama-Ae,
who conducted a descriptive qualitative research on the writings of Bandar School Patani Junior High
School in Thailand, found 73 errors in linguistic items (as cited in Hidayat, 2011, p. 3). Furthermore, in a
study disclosed by Megaiab (2014), in 140 writings made by the junior high school students that she
examined, there were 1654 grammatical errors found. Those were related to spelling, plural nouns, tenses,
uses of prepositions, articles, and punctuation.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Error analysis in recount text is very necessary. Because, there are advantages of error analysis in writing
recount. First, the writer can help teachers to find the dominant error made by students based on linguistic
errors. Second, the writer can help students to solve theirproblems in learning second language, especially
in writing recount text. SMP Muhammadiyah 4 Surakarta uses 2006 curriculum (KTSP), there are many
subjects in this school, for example science, guiding counseling, religion, etc. Addition, the 2006
curriculum has texts type in teaching learning in classroom activity, namely descriptive, procedures,
recount, narrative, and report text. However, the writer focuses on writing the recount text made by
students of SMP Muhammadiyah 4 Surakarta. This research focused on writing skill of the eighth grade
student of SMP Muhammadiyah 4 Surakarta. The researcher got data from the eighth grade students of
SMP Muhammadiyah 4 Surakarta, so, the researcher found errors in writing recount text made by the
eighth grade students. The following sentences are examples of the errors made by the student:

1) “I wake up late”. 2) “We rode our bike”. 3) “Last Monday was busy day for me”. From the errors
sentence made by students, the researcher explains the errors of each sentence. In the first sentence “I
wake up late”, the sentence is incorrect, because it is simple present tense but recount text must use past
tense. So, the word of wake is wrong, it should be replaced into woke . Second sentence “We rode our
bike”, the sentence is also wrong, because before the word bike should be preceded byour (plural). Thus,
the word bike must be addeds, this errors is called omission of suffix (-s). Last sentence “Last Monday
was busy day for me”, is wrong, because it is omission of article a. The correct sentences should be as
follows: 1) “I woke up late”. 2) “We rode our bikes”. 3) “Last Monday was a busy day for me”. After the
researcher classifies the error based on the language component, the next discussion is remedial teaching.
The important of the remedial teaching is to help learners’ progress in writing recount text and they do
not make errors again in the other times. Most of students still make the errors, or they do not understand
the elements of writing recount text. This research positions itself based on the comparison with previous
research. First, Perdana’s work (2015), The research from Hestuningtyas Maharani Perdana (2015) in her
study entitled “Comparative Errors Analysis in Writing Recount Text Made by the First and the Third
Semester Students of English Department UMS 2014/2015 Academic Year”. She classified the errors into
morphological error (bound morpheme [-s] s plural and wrong spelling) and syntactical error (article,
omission of introductory, there as subject, the use of verb as past tense, be as full verb, be as modal
auxiliary, conjunction, omission of phrasal verb, omission of preposition in the sentence, and wrong
arrangement of phrase). Secondly, she compared with Cholipah’s works (2014)in her study entitled “An
Analysis of Students’ Error in Writing Recount Text (A Case Study in Second Grade Students of SMP
Trimulia Jakarta Selatan)”. She classified the errors into grammatical error included capitalization, word
choice, verb tense, add a word, spelling, run-on sentence, word order, punctuation, omit a word, word
form, article, singular-plural, meaning not clear, incomplete sentence. Third, the current study is
compared with Ramli’s work (2013) in his study entitled “An Analysis on the Students’ Error in Writing
Recount Text”. He classified error into four errors, namely error at content: orientation, event and
reorientation, error at vocabulary, error at grammar, and error at mechanics. Fourth, the current is study
compared with Nurohmah (2013)in her study entitled “An Analysis of Students’ Recount Text by Using
Systemic Functional Grammar”.She classified error into text organization, linguistic features (the use of
specific participants, simple past tense, circumstances of time, temporal and additive conjunction,
material processes), ungrammatical structures (ungrammatical structure or error, intralingual, false
concept hypothesized). The difference between the previous research with current study is the writer
discuses surface structure taxonomy. This is related with Emmaryana’s research (2010) entitled “An
Analysis on the Grammatical Errors in the Students’ Writing (A Case Study of the First Year Students of
“SMA Negeri 1 Cigudeg Bogor”)”. She classified error into sentence pattern, tenses, pronoun, preposition
and spelling and punctuation. The differentiation with current study is the writer also discusses lexical
error and discourse error.

A. The Concept Of Recount Text

1. The Definition Of Recount Text

The definition of text that is learned by junior High School students is recoun text. Recount text is one of
text that retell past event. A recount is the most common type of non-fiction writing and includes regular
‗news‘ or diary writing; accounts of outings and holiday activities ;true stories of events in story.6 On the
other word, recount text is a text that tells the reader about the writers‘ story, action or activity. A recount
reconstructs past events in the time order in which they occurred. It involves telling what happened and
interpreting or evaluating the experience in some way.7 It means that, a recount text reconstructs past
events in the time order in which the writer occurred. It involves telling what happened and interpreting
or evaluating the experience in the past. Its goal is to entertain or inform the reader. In this text, the writer
can give more information to the reader about the experiences and event. Besides, it can entertain the
readers. In order word, recount text is one type of texts that retells some event in the past in order to
inform and entertain the reader. Recount text includes eyewitness account, newspaper report, letter,
conversation, television interview and speeches. So, in this text the writer can describe the experience or
chronological order to the readers. Recount Text is a text which retells events or experiences in the past
chronologically. This text describes about the writer's personal experience which truly happens in his or
her life. It means that recount text is a text used to tell the writers‘ experiences or events in the past to the
readers. From the definition above, the writer concludes that recount text is a text that retells events or
experiences in the past. The text is used to inform or to entertain the reader.

2. Generic Structure of Recount Text

A recount focuses on a sequence of events relating to a particular activity. The recount follows three
steps. Those are orientation, series of events, re-orientation.8 a. Orientation The orientation forms the first
paragraph of the written recount. It establishes the time, setting and who or what is participating. It is
important to include the when, who, what, and where, and sometimes why, to help the audience know
what is we want to retell.

B. The Concept of Error Analysis

1. Definition of Error Analysis

Richards says that error analysis is the study of errors made by the second and foreign language learners.
Error analysis may be carried out in order to (a) identify strategies which learner use in language learning,
(b) try to identify the causes of learners error, and (c) obtain information on common difficulties in
language learning, as an aid in teaching or in the preparation of teaching materials.11 Its mean that error
analysis is a tehnique for identifying, classifying, and systematicaly interpreting the unacceptable forms
produced by someone learning a foreign language.

2. Sources Of Error

The sources of error due of transfering rules from the mother tongue to the target language sometimes
called ―interlingual errors‖. As e have already seen, interlingual error is a significant source of error.
While it is not always clear that an error is the result of transfer from the mother tongue to the target
language, learners also also make many errors, which show they are processing the second language in its
own terms. Error of this second type often called ―intralingual errors‖. This type is often similar to those
produced by the child in the mother tongue and suggest that the second interference is employing similiar
strategies, notably generalization or simplication. Another source of error is developmental errors occur
when the learner attempts to built up hypotheses about the target language on the basic of limited
experience.

RESEACH METHODOLOGY

Descriptive method is used to do the research. There are 3 types of descriptive method, they are
observational method, case study method and survey method. Observational method, as a part of
descriptive method, was used to take the data. The learners’ English narrative compositions were used as
the research instrument. The data were taken from 20 learners and it was taken by asking the learners to
make English narrative composition. After that, identifying, classifying, analyzing and correcting were
done in order to minimize and avoid the same errors if they are asked to make another English narrative
composition. Error analysis is considered as qualitative research. Qualitative research is an inquiry
approach useful for exploring and understanding a central phenomenon. To learn about this phenomenon,
the inquirer asks participants 24 broad and general questions, collects the detailed views of participants in
the form of words or images, and analyzes the information for description and themes. From this data the
researcher interpret the meaning of information, drawing on personal reflection and past research. The
final report is flexible, and it displays the researcher’s . Moleong (2013) adds that qualitative research
aims to understand something specifically, not always looking for the cause and effect of something, and
to deepen comprehension about something that is being studied. In interpreting the findings of qualitative
research the writer employs descriptive analysis design.

A. Research procedure

In collecting the data of the research, the writer used a document analysis technique. Some procedures or
steps are explained as follow;

1. The writer observed two classes (A and B) to determine the subject of

research. He chose class A to collect the data because this class has criteria

that are predetermined by the writer.

2. Came to school to ask the principle’s permission who has the authority to allow the writer in collecting
the data. After getting the permission, the writer was allowed to meet the English teacher to consult about
recount text materials and to make sure that the teacher teaches the recount text in teaching.

3. The writer conducted his research in the class by collecting the students assignment sheets (personal
document) from the English teacher of the class.
4. After collecting the students’ assignment sheets, the writer checked the texts by circling the wrong
words or sentences.

5. The writer returned the texts to the students. He commanded students to revise the words or sentences
in the classroom that were circled.

6. Then, the texts were collected and the writer checked them to find whether the students could correct
the words or not, if students could correct it that means he/she did a mistake and vice versa means he/she
did an error and then the writer identified the errors.

7. Next, the writer analyzed the students’ errors to find the most common types of errors made by
students based on Betty S. Azar’s classification of errors.

8. The writer calculated the total errors by drawing them up in a table based on the classification of errors
then he made the result of total errors into percentages and charts.

9. The writer analyzed and classifies the sources of errors based on Richard’s theory and then he
explained the sources of errors that made by the students. The total number of the sources of errors were
drawn up in a table and converted into percentages and chart.

10. Then he interpreted all of the data descriptively.

11. The last step, the writer made conclusion of his research.

B. The Technique of Data Analysis

The writer use qualitative research in his study which the method is conveyed in descriptive analysis way
to describe and to interpret the result of qualitative data. To present the percentage number of the
findings, the data are calculated and drawn up in the table of percentage which the formula as follows; P
= 𝐹 𝑁 𝑥100%

P= Percentages F= Frequency of errors N= Number of cases (total frequent, total individual)

This formula is used to calculate the types of errors and sources of errors that students made in writing
recount texts into percentages. Before using this formula, the writer has to classify student errors into
Thirteen categories that suggested by Betty S. Azar.

FINDINGS
In this chapter the writer describes the learner’s error that was the composition of erroneous in writing
recount text made by the eighth grade students. The research finding consists of five steps. They include
the type of lexical errors, the type of syntactical errors, the type of discourse errors, the frequency of each
error, and the sources of error.

a. The Type of Lexical Errors From the data of the students, the researcher found many errors in lexical
form that made by the students.Lexical errors are learners error in word and which is ungrammatical.
There are wrong spelling, false friend and code switching. 1) Wrong Spelling Spelling is forming words
with the correct letters in the correct order. Spelling error or misspelling is the miss-election of a
grapheme to represent a syllable or morpheme in forming part of a word. In wrong spelling the researcher
finds 39 errors. For example: I and beat friend felt happy because I and my friend wen to Jurug zoo. In
this case, the students was using a letter to represent a sound which identical to the sound of name of that
letter. The student’s still use Indonesian language into English language and/or the students do not
understand about what they heard. The correct sentence is went. 2) False Friend (Similar in Form): False
friends are the words that are similar in spelling and/or pronunciations in two languages but have different
meanings. The researcher finds 18 errors. For example: We depart blowed 07.00 to climb motorcycle and
arrived 08:00 o’clock. From the sentence, the word depart has meaning for went. The correct word is
“went”. Then, the word to climb has same meaning with rode, but climb is used to rock climbing. The
correct word is rode.

3) The Use Indonesian Word/ Code Switching The students have used Indonesian word to switch cultural
bound words which untranslatable. The students are difficult to find equivalent words to switch them. For
example: I visited in Tlatar untuk swiming. The sentence clearly shows that the students used Indonesian
word in their sentences. It is student’s error because the target language that they produce still uses
Indonesian word. The correct word is for.

DISCUSSION

After presenting the types of error and the sources of errors, the writer intends to discuss the findings and
how they answer the research questions proposed in the first chapter. There are two research questions
that are concerned respectively with the common types of errors and the sources of errors that student
made in writing recount texts. The first question is about the common types of errors that the students
made in writing recount texts. The findings of the analysis suggested that the 44 thirteen classifications
proposed by Betty S. 9 Azar were found in the students’ recount texts. The thirteen types are respectively
singular-plural, word form, word choice, verb tense, add or omit a word, word order, incomplete
sentence, spelling punctuation, capitalization, article, meaning not clear and runon sentence.
The second source of error is Interference Error. This kind of error is caused by the influence of students’
first language. Its number is highly different from the first one; it is only 127 errors or 29% of the total
errors. According to the findings, the students tended to translate their ideas into the second language
word by word, and they created the unclear meanings due to the different structure of the two languages.
Also, the words they used are out of the context.

The last one of error that the students made in their recount texts is Developmental Error. This is the
lowest number of sources of errors. Its number is only 113 or 26% out of 436 errors. This source of error
is caused by students’ hypotheses about the English language from his limited experience of it in the
classroom or the text-book. Most of this error laid in the used of comma in writing, along with use of
capitalization in mentioning the name of the specific things such as the names of places and people.

In conclusion, the two most common types of errors in students’ recount texts are Verb Tense and Word
Choice. Regarding the sources of errors, the findings of the analysis suggest respectively that there are
three sources of errors made by students in writing recount texts namely Intralingual Error, Interference
Error and Developmental Error.

IMPLICATION

The main aim of this study was to find empirical evidence of the most common types of grammatical
errors and the sources of errors that made by students in writing recount texts. The results from this study
suggested that verb tense and word choice error are the frequent errors, and intralingual error, interference
error and developmental error were found in students’ recount texts. Accordingly, some important
implication of this study derives from the findings of the present and the previous study. The first
implication pointed out that the appropriate strategy and techniques in teaching recount text should be
applied, past tense in particular. This implication leads the teacher to be aware of the students’ errors in
writing to anticipate the errors to be made by students, either in types of errors or in sources of errors.
Applying affective strategies and techniques in teaching writing texts guides the students to be a good
writer with minimal errors they make. Consequently, the aim of learning writing texts is possible to be
achieved by the teacher. In addition to implication of the research, further research on Error Analysis is
suggested by the writer in other specific areas of writing and grammar. Also, the writer recommends the
quantitative researcher to test these findings with certain theories as an attempt to increase learning and
teaching quality for the students.

CONCLUSION
The writer shows the summary of the research finding which discussed before. The result of the research
found 284 sentenses made by 60 students of eighth grade in SMP Muhammadiyah 4 Surakarta. From the
research finding, the writer got the percentage of the data. To make the readers understand the findings
easily, the percentage recapitulation of errors is converted into a pie chart. The chart shows the highest
number of errors until the lowest one.

Finally, the total of errors and sources of errors are calculated by using the formula. The writer draws the
numerical results in terms of percentages in charts and interprets them descriptively.

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