CHAPTER
I
INTRODUCTION
1.1.
Background of the Study
English as an
international language has an important role to develop science and
technologies many countries in the world use English as a medium of
communication among people in different countries, and also of writing many
kinds of books in which those are spread in different countries. In Indonesia
there are many kinds of foreign books written in English, whether they are
medical, Economical, Botanical, or other books, they claim Indonesian students
to be able to learn and to use English in schools or in society in order that
the books they read can be applied in various fields so that the development of
science and technologies in Indonesia can be obtained.
For many
years, English has been the most important foreign language in Indonesia,
Which is taught from elementary school to university. However, in senior high
school, English is taught as main subject in which the government has changed
the curriculum into Curriculum Based on Competence 2004 to be KTSP in 2008.
According to Departemen Pendidikan Nasional (2003: 36).
“The competence-basing language curriculum
is a systematic draft and strategy which build the communicative competence or
the competence of contextual. It means that it builds all the basis of
competences themselves. They are like linguistics competences, social culture
and strategies to make the benefit context.”
From the statement above, it is
clear that Curriculum Based on competence 2004-2009 tries to develop and
achieve the communicative competence or discourse competence and has perspective
that is comprehensive to the discourse. The learners must be able to master the
four skills, they are: listening, speaking, reading, and writing, also English
components such as: grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, etc.
Among the
four skills above, writing is the most difficult one. Because it requires
demonstrating the control of a number of variables simultaneously; they are
control of content, format, sentence structure, vocabulary, punctuation
spelling, etc. Nunan (1989: 35) points out, “It has been argued that that
learning to write fluently and expressively is the most difficult of the macro
skills for all language users regardless of whether the language in question is
first, second, or foreign language.” Another opinion comes from Heaton (1989:
138). He explain that the writing skills are complex and sometimes difficult to
teach, requiring mastery not only of grammatical and rhetorical devices but
also of conceptual and judgment elements. It means that ability to write needs
a special skill and process in organizing language material by using learners’
own words and ideas and to be a good composition.
According to
the results of the research done by the students of IKIP Budi Utomo Malang show
that in learning English, most of the students find difficulties, especially in
applying grammar in their speaking and writing. So, they will make mistakes and
errors. It describes that learners’ ability in English is still poor and they
need to be taught more effectively.
The learners
often make mistakes and even errors in learning English, especially when they
try to arrange sentences or use tenses in their writing. As a result, they will
write sentences ungrammatically. Actually, ungrammatical sentences have great
influence when the learners are writing sentences. That can be influenced by
the first language which is different from the second language in written form.
Therefore, the first language can interfere learners in the process of the
second language. Abbort (1981: 216) wrote,
“For pedagogic purposes, teachers and others
more likely to be concerned with the performances of whole groups and
especially with the problems they have in commons. For these purposes, we need
to ensure that the data comes from fairly homogeneous groups as regards mother
tongue, age, previous teaching, and if possible, intelligence. Perhaps the most
important of these factors is the mother tongue, particularly if phonological
errors arte being studied
From the statement above, it can
be seen that errors in learning a second language are caused by the
interference of the learners’ mother tongue. In other words, errors made by the
learners sometimes are caused by use of the first language.
Making Errors
are a natural and unavoidable part of the process of learning English. Many kinds
of errors arise when the learners write because they do not master the English
structure well. Also, errors are the inability of the students in using rules
of the components and elements of the second language. Brown (1987: 170) Said
that ”second language learning is a process that is clearly not unlike first
language learning in its trial and errors nature”. It means that the learners
cannot avoid errors in learning second language. That statement is supported by
Wiganti (2000: 11)
“Many linguist and researcher have found out
that learners’ errors may account the process of learning a target language, in
other words, making errors is considered to be natural to the learners. More
extremely, they hypothesize that errors should not be viewed as problems to be
overcome, but rather as normal and inevitable features indicating the
strategies that learners use.”
So almost all learners must make
errors when they are learning English because it is difficult to separate error
in the process of learning English.
Students’
errors are very useful ways of showing what they have and have not learnt.
Dubin F. and Olshtain E. (1986: 74) reported,:
… , today errors are viewed as
an integral part of the language-learning process from which we can gain very
significant insight.” It tells that errors are important to study in order to
understand the process of learning. A study of learners’ errors describes what
problems the learners are having now and help the teacher to plan remedial
work. In addition, the teacher should not see negatively as a sign of failure
but see them positively as an indication of what the teacher still needs to
teach. So, if the teacher tries to prevent students; errors, he/she never finds
out what they do not know.
There are
four standard competences in curriculum based on competences in Curriculum
Based on Competence 2004-2009. One of them is writing. In writing students are
hoped to be able to express many written meanings that have purposes in
communicative, text structure etc. They can develop their writing in the forms
of genre (kinds of text) such as: narrative, descriptive, recount, news items,
etc as a means of communications.
One of genres
is recount. Non-continuous tells something happening in the present time, like:
brochure, label, biography, diary, report, personal letter, etc. As it tells
some events, it usually uses sequence words such as: If, while, after, before,
until, etc. Then, tense used in recount text is simple present tense, because
it tells present events.
To make a good
composition, the students must be able to master and apply the structure
correctly, especially about tense used. In this case, the tense used is simple
present tense. If they cannot do that, of course, errors will arise.
Automatically their writing will cause misunderstanding for the readers,
because the readers cannot receive the massage or expression of their idea
well. Most of the students still find problems in using it, because of their
limited mastery, especially the differences between regular and irregular verb.
Therefore the writer wants to analyze the errors made by the students and tries
to give solutions to overcome their problems. He chooses the title “An Error
Analysis on the Use of Simple present Tense among the Ninth Year Students of
SMPN 3 Pare.”
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