Abstract:
Grammar is one of the most important components of a language. It is impossible
to learn or use a language without knowing the grammatical rules of the language.
Indonesian students get difficulties in writing English dialogue because the
structure of both languages are different. The different structures between two
languages cause negative transfer. Negative transfer is usually due to the influence
of the learners’ native language. Learners need to know the grammatical rules of a
language so that they can minimize the interference of their native grammatical
rules.
The researcher chooses the tenth grade students of MAN Purworejo as the object
of the research because their writing is still much interfered by Indonesian
grammar. Hence, it is important to know what kinds of Indonesian grammatical
interference that students make and their efforts to minimize the interference.
There are 192 students of the tenth grade which are devided into six classes. The
data consists of 32 students’ writing of English dialogue which were randomly
selected from the three classes of the total data of 93 students’.
The purpose of this research is to find out the types of grammatical errors as the
result of the interference of Indonesian grammar which are found in students’
writing of English dialogue and the students’ efforts to minimize the interference.
In this research the researcher uses a descriptive qualitative approach.
The result of this study shows that there are eight types of errors as the result of
Indonesian grammar interference, they are errors in the use of: tenses (13.33%),
word order (13.33%), articles (11.11%), pronouns (13.33%), linking verbs
(26.68%), plurality (4.44%), prepositions (8.89%), and subject-verb agreement
(8.89%). The most dominant error the students made is in the use of linking verb
(26.68%). From the questionnaire given to the students, there are some efforts that
the students do to minimize the interference of Indonesian grammar such as
reading English novels, articles, short stories, and textbooks; memorizing English
vocabularies; chatting with a native English speaker on Facebook or Twitter;
writing a diary in English; speaking English in daily conversation; watching
English films; translating English texts into Indonesian; using dictionaries to study
English; translating English song lyric; speak to a native speaker; joining English
course; and setting electronic tools using English.
