An Analysis on the Second Year Students’ Grammatical Errors in Writing Narrative Paragraph at English Deparment of Bung Hatta University”

Abstrak

In this country where English is a foreign language, writing in English is difficult for students. Having ability in using appropriate grammar in writing is important. In writing paragraph, we should be pay attention to grammar. According to Ur (2007:4), grammar may be defined as the way a language manipulates and combines words (or bits of words) in order to form longer units of meaning.

The purpose of this research was to describe the second year students grammatical errors in writing narrative paragraph at English Department of Bung Hatta University. The design of this research was descriptive. In selecting the sample, the researcher used total sampling technique. The sample of this research was 20 students. The instrument used to get the data was the writing test.The reliability index of the test was .99. It means that the test was reliable. Then, the test was valid in terms of content validity.

From the result of the research, generally the second year students at English Department of Bung Hatta University made grammatical error in writing narrative paragraph. It was proved by the fact 17(85%) students made grammatical errors in writing narrative paragraph. There were 6 (30%) students made grammatical errors in the form of omission, 0(0%) in addition, 16 (80%) in misformation, 0 (0%) in misordering. Specifically the fact there were 6(30%) students made grammatical errors in the form omission of plurality, 0(0%) in omission of article and 0(0%) in omission of be. 0(0%) did not errors in addition. 9 (37,5%) in misformation of be, 15 (62,5%) in misformation of verb, 0(0%) in misformation of plural form. 0(0%) did not errors in misordering.

In conclusion, the highest percentage of misformation errors made by the students in writing narrative paragraph was misformation of verb 15 (62,5%) errors of the total omission errors, and the researcher suggest the lecturers to give more emphasis and exercise in grammatical errors in writing narrative paragraph especially in misformation. For the students, they are suggested to learn more and do the exercises in writing narrative paragraph. They also sholud know about grammatical errors especially in misformation. For the next  researchers are expected to find out and analyze the factors which cause the students’ errors in writing narrative paragraph.

Keywords : Writing, Narrative Paragraph, Grammatical Errors