A Study on Grammatical Errors Made by Semester Five Students of STIBA Saraswati Denpasar

Abstract

Learning a foreign language is partly a continuation of learning the first language, in a way that some of the sounds in the foreign language are already familiar to the learners while others may be totally unfamiliar. Differences in how the grammar of the foreign language patterned are often a major obstacle for the foreign language learners to master the language. At the English Study Program, STIBA Saraswati Denpasar, the mastery of English grammar is an indispensible part forthe students to be able to write well in that language. Thus, this study is conducted for the purpose of finding out whaterrorsshow in their written English performance. The data are taken from the essay test administered to 5th semester students during the mid-term exam on Introduction to Literature in November 2018. For the purpose of categorizing the types of grammatical errors found in this study the researchers make use of the surface strategy taxonomy introduced by Dulay et al. (1992) who classify errors into omission errors, addition errors, misformation errors, and misordering errors. Language learning is a complex undertaking that requires the learner to set up strategies. Hereupon we can trace what the sources of errors they have made. They are explained in terms of developmental, interlingual, ambiguous, and unique errors. By comparing the result of the surface taxonomy and the source of errors we hope to find out in what stage of development the student’s English proficiency is and what their strategies of learning are, and whether the errors they have made are traceable to the language of their mother tongue or not.