ABSTRACT

Rachma, Janna. 2019. An Analysis on the Sources of Errors Made by the Students in
the Production of Simple Present Tense in Descriptive Texts. Sarjana’s Thesis,
English Department, Faculty of Teacher Training and Education, Lambung
Mangkurat University, Banjarmasin. The first advisor: Moh. Yamin, S. Pd,
M.Pd., the second advisor: Nasrullah, M.PDBi
Keywords: Sources of error, surface strategy taxonomy, and descriptive text.
English is not a native language for Indonesia, so it may make the learners
produce mistake or error. It can be occurred due to some sources such as the
interference of first language, the complexity system of target language, or the
incomplete knowledge of the students. This study aims to find out the sources of
errors of the students of SMPN 2 Kahayan Kuala in writing descriptive texts.
This research used descriptive qualitative research study to answer the
research question of the study. Thus, the total sampling was used in order to gather
the samples of the study. There were 50 students who participated in this research. A
written test was used as the instrument. Finally, there were several steps taken by the
researcher to analyze the data, namely: identifying, classifying, and examining the
errors, and drawing conclusion of the sources of the errors in writing descriptive text.
The research findings showed that the source of errors in the omission type
was the incomplete knowledge of the students. The students omitted the important
item of language and it indicates the lack of knowledge of the students. Then, the
source of errors in the addition was the complexity of the language. It was indicated
by the addition of a verb after or before another verb, the addition of unimportant
prepositions and subject pronouns in a sentence. Last, the source of errors in the
misformation was the interference of the students’ first language. It was clearly seen
from the errors that the students actually used the system of their first language when
they used the target language.