An Analysis of Students’ Grammatical Errors in Writing Descriptive Text: A Case Study in Madrasah Aliyah Model Zainul Hasan Genggong, Probolinggo

Abstract

Writing in English is very important for every student who learns English as a foreign language (EFL). EFL students often find difficulties in learning writing by using English as a target language. Errors in grammar as one of writing aspect are unavoidable while students are trying to develop their writing skills. There have been several studies on identifying grammatical errors in students’ writing. It is believed that identifying students’ written tasks is an effective tool to explore the difficulties involved in learning language. This helps teachers’ awareness of the serious problems which occur in students’ writing and allows them to pay closer attention to their errors. This study aims (I) to analyze the types of errors made by the high and low achiever students in writing descriptive text (II) to analyze the cause of errors made by the high and low achiever students in writing descriptive text. The design of the study is a case study. The instruments were documents and questionnaires. The subjects of the study were 30 high achiever students and 20 achiever students of MA Model Zainul Hasan Genggong. The researcher classifies the high and low achiever by the students score on writing descriptive text. The researcher found out some errors made by the high and low achiever students, where the low achiever students often made errors while the high achiever students made errors in little frequency. Both those two categories made errors in same types with different number and percentage. The types of errors they made are, addition, misformation, misordering, and spelling. The low achiever students have spelling as the highest frequent of error. Spelling errors happen because of carelessness where students have low motivation to learn. They have no good will to know more about new knowledge. Here can be either English is not something interesting or situation of teaching class comfortable for their tendency. The high achiever students have omission as the highest frequent of error. The omission happens due to the language interference, especially first language. Its interference of them occurs when they learn English as a new language for them. As a foreign language, English may be difficult for them. Their native language (Bahasa Indonesia) interferes the process of understanding English. The implication of this study is beneficial for the teachers to find out the difficult area of English subject in which students find difficulty in learning a language and it also assists teachers, learners and syllabus designers in discovering beneficial remedial material for solving the errors.