The Error Analysis of Students’ Descriptive Texts at the Tenth Grade of SMKN 1 Ambal in the Academic Year of 2015/2016

Abstract

The research is qualitative research. The aims of this research are to find out the types of students’ errors, to find out the dominant error, and to describe the possible causes of errors in students’ descriptive texts made by the tenth grade students of SMKN 1 Ambal in the academic year of 2015/2016. The researcher uses purposive sampling to gain the data of the research because the researcher takes the sample of one class to be observed. It consists of 36 students. In collecting the data, the researcher uses test method. By using test method, the researcher takes essay writing with questions sheet and answer sheets in the paper that is given. In analyzing the data, the researcher identifies the students’ errors, and then classifies the students’ errors, and identifies the students’ questionnaire result to find out the possible causes of errors. The result shows there are four types of errors. They are omission, addition, substitution, and permutation. The total error of omission is 138 (41%), the total error of addition is 49 (15%), the total error of substitution is 125 (37%), while the total error of permutation is 24 (7%). From the calculation of the data, error of omission is the dominant error with the percentage 41%. Furthermore, there are some possible causes of errors made by the students based on questionnaire result: 1) unconducive class makes the students cannot study well, 2) the students are lazy to study English if they are tired, 3) the students do not like studying English, 4) English grammar is more complicated than Indonesian grammar, 5) the students have difficulty in using verb tense in making sentence, 6) the students do not understand the use of tenses in English, and 7) the students have difficulty in arranging English sentence because they are still influenced by arranging Indonesian sentence.