AN ANALYSIS OF GRAMMATICAL ERRORS IN WRITING DESCRIPTIVE PARAGRAPH AT THE THIRD SEMESTER STUDENTS IN ENGLISH DEPARTMENT BORNEO UNIVERSITY OF TARAKAN
This research was conducted to (1) identify and describe the types of errors in descriptive paragraph made by the third semester students majoring in English education at the Borneo Tarakan University (UBT); (2) find out the frequency of types of the errors; (3) identify and describe the sources of the errors. The subjects of this study were 37 third semester students. Data were collected by asking the students to write descriptive paragraphs with the given topics. To get information about possible causes of the errors, 6 students were interviewed. The results showed that there were totally 401 errors found in students’ writings which were analyzed using Surface Strategy Taxonomy. They consisted of 98 omission errors, 58 addition errors, 226 formation errors, and 19 placement errors. Meanwhile, based on the comparative analysis taxonomy, 150 errors were caused by developmental factor, 21 errors by interlingual factor, 72 errors by ambiguous factor, and 3 errors by other factors. In conclusion, the students’ grammatical errors were due to their lack of grammar understanding and the influence of indonesian structure in the process of learning English.