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E-ISSN: 2811-4264
Vol. 1 No. 1 Nov 2021, pp: 37-45
https://doi.org/10.35307/asiantj.v1i1.20
An Error Analysis of the Use of Prepositions in Students'
Descriptive Writing
Riska Nurhamidah*
State Islamic University of North Sumatera
Medan, Indonesia
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9624-4509
Received Revised Accepted
25 August 2021 29 October 2021 15 November 2021
Abstract. This research aims to identify the types of students’ errors in using
prepositional place in the descriptive text made by eighth grade (8) students to
identify the cause of errors made by students in using prepositional place. That most
of the students did not pay attention to use prepositional correctly in a sentence. This
research is qualitative research. The research object shows four types of the error
made by students, omission, addition, misordering, and misformation. Based on the
data, the frequency of students' error in using prepositional place mainly occurred
in prepositional in place in 35 errors. The second is prepositional on with 14 errors.
The third is the prepositional place at with 12 errors.
Keywords: Error Analysis, Prepositional Place, Descriptive Text
1. Introduction
“State that Language is a very important in human life for communication within each other
that makes it easy to get along. With language, we are able to express our feelings, our
thoughts, and our experiences with others.” (Zubaidah, 2015, p.21).
It means that language is a means of human effort to carry out their activities. Although
human beings process of speaking language, unfortunately, it has not been straightforward
for them to say what it is. “Writing is one of the main skills that play an important role.” (Harmer,
2000, p.16).
“Writing is one of the main skills that play an important role. Writing is a language skill that
language produces and is therefore often referred to as skill. Writing is one of the skills that
is considered to have an essential significance in the second language (L2) learning because
it serves as both a tool for communication and a means of learning, thinking, and organizing
knowledge or ideas.” (Fithriani, 2008).
Based on the previous explanation, it can be concluded that writing is critical because
students can express their ideas, thought, and arguments through a sentence. However,
many students have difficulty writing. Therefore, students in writing make some mistakes.
It is because of students' inaccuracies in their writing and also because of students’
inability. Error conducted by students mainly about prepositions.
* Corresponding author: Riska Nurhamidah, [email protected]
©Authors
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
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Students who learn a foreign language will undoubtedly find difficulty, such as they learn
English. Grammar is an essential aspect of learning language because grammar will help
learners write words and sentences correctly.
“Grammar is the natural inherent meaning-making system of the language, a system that
governs the way words come together to form meaning, grammar is also the study of that
system, the various theories or perspectives that attempt to understand and describe it."
Craig Hancock (2005;6)
In English lessons, especially about writing and understanding words and sentences,
students do not really understand it. Based on the observation in MTS Swasta AL-
Jumhuriyah North Sumatera, the researcher found placement errors of a preposition when
the students do exercises on prepositions material.
2. Literature Review
Error is one of the things that occur in the language learning process. As well as in learning
English, most students will make an error. For example, "When the children learn mother
tongue, sometimes the use improper pronouns, ambiguous words or incorrect word
formation." (Rido, 2000).
“Error analysis is a technique for identifying, classifying, and systematically interpreting
the unacceptable forms produced by someone learning a foreign language, using any of the
principles and procedures provided by linguistics.” (Brown, 2007)
Error analysis can be a useful device for a foreign language teaching program. Errors
provide feedback, and they tell the lecturers something about their teaching materials'
effectiveness and teaching techniques.
Dulay in Kuntjara (2013) divided error into five types; they are Omission, Addition, Mis-
formation, Mis-ordering, and Blends.
a. Omission
Omission is any deletion of certain necessary items in sentences. Omission is
indicated by the absence of a specific item that must appear in the sentence. This
usually happens in the early stages of second language acquisition. For example:
“My mother smart cooking.” It should be, “my mother is smart in cooking.”
b. Addition
Addition is any usage of unnecessary items in the sentences. The addition is
indicated by the presence of an 'unwanted' item in sentences. The unwanted items
do not appear in a well-formed utterance. This happens when the learners overuse
specific grammatical rules of the target language. For example: "He does not to
come." It should be "He does not come."
c. Mis-formation
Misinformation errors are characterized by the use of the wrong form of the
morpheme. It means that one or more sentence aspect has the wrong formation. It
can be caused by rule regularization. For example: "She have a tall body." It should
be "She has a tall body."
d. Mis-ordering
Mis-ordering is any incorrect placement of certain morphemes in a sentence. For
example: "she fights all the time her brother." It should be "she fights her brother all
the time.”
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e. Auxiliary Verb Forms
The use of simple present tense often makes students confused with its complexity. They
usually have some problems in finding out the verb form of simple present tense. For
example: “He walk to school every day.” It should be “He walks to school every day.”
In conducting an error analysis, there are some procedures as Corder (2008; 46-60)
distinguishes into five steps:
a. Collection a sample of learner language
b. Identification of errors
c. Description of errors
d. Explanation of errors
e. Error evaluation
The first step is collecting a sample of learner language. Then, it provides the data obtained
by giving and collecting a test containing prepositions of time and place to students. The
second step is the identification of errors—the process of identifying students" errors based
on the tested area. The third step is a description of errors. It involves describing or
specifying how errors form produced by students. Finally, the fourth is an explanation of
errors.
This step attempts to explain there as one of the students'" errors happened. It involves
determining their sources in order to account for why they were made. From the point of
view of second language acquisition research, this is the most crucial stage in error analysis.
The last step is error evaluation, evaluating the errors made by students. Error evaluation
is the analysis of learner errors as supplementary produce for applying the results of error
analysis. It involves determining the gravity of different errors to decide which ones
should receive instruction.
”Writing descriptive text is a process of writing text that describes people, place, object, or
thing. Descriptive is a text which says what a person's thing is like. Its purpose of describing
and revealing a particular person, place, or thing." (Boardman & Frydenberg,
2008;19)
“Descriptive text creates a clear and vivid impression of person, place, or thing. More often,
Descriptive text is a part of factual genres.” (Wiener, 2001, p.25)
“States that its social function is to describe a particular person, place or thing.”
(Wardman et el, 2008, p.122)
Writing is considered one of the problematic abilities for most students. That is why
students must produce a sentence or text using English correctly and in accordance with
the order of tenses grammatically. “Writing was the process of transferring the language
through letters, symbol, or words.” (Dewi, 2013, p.2)
This research will analyse qualitative research. First, the researcher will focus on one
variable. The variable focuses on types of student errors in using the preposition in, on, at.
The indicators are operationally conceptualized as follows: omission of a preposition in,
on, at; insertion of a preposition in, on, at; selection of incorrect of a preposition in, on, at;
preposition in, on, at to showplace. After identifying the students' writing errors, the
researcher categorizes them in their type to find the dominant error, which the students do.
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3. Methodology
This research was conducted at MTS Swasta Al-Jumhuriyah North Sumatra. The subjects
of this research were the students in the eighth grade of MTS Al-Jumhuriyah North
Sumatera.
3.1 Research Design
In this research, the writer uses descriptive qualitative research. The descriptive method is
the appropriate way to find the errors made by students in using prepositional places in
writing descriptive text. The purpose of qualitative is to help the writer find the solution to
the phenomenon that they studied. The writer analyses students writing tests in descriptive
text. The result of the test will use as the primary data of this research. The writer gives the
questioners to know the causes of the errors made by the students.
The test was set as the data collection tool. When the data were collected, they were being
classified based on its errors source. From those data, the writer will do an analysis, and
there will be data analysis to conclude.
3.2 Subject of The Study
The target of study, the writer selected students who study in MTS Swasta Al- Jumhuriyah
as an object. Moreover, the sample of the study was VIII-2.
To collect this research data, the writer will use an interview with an English teacher and
some students. The writer used document analysis as a technique in collecting the data.
Before giving the test, the writer would observe the teaching-learning process in the
classroom.
3.3 Technique of Collecting Data
The writer would take the students' last task in descriptive text using the preposition of
place. Then, data was collected through a test of descriptive text by using prepositional
place in, on, at. Furthermore, the last the writer gives the questionnaires as the instrument
to collect the data. Arikunto (2013;193) stated that “test is question or exercise use to
measure the knowledge and ability to understand individual or group."
Before the students do the test, the researcher would give instructions on doing the writing
test. Then, the writer will explain to remind the students about rules in using prepositional
place, especially in, on, at. Next, the students were given 30-40 minutes to write a
descriptive text using prepositional place in, on, at. After that, the writer would collect the
students' writing tests.
3.4 Technique of Data Analysis
According to James (1998), there are five procedures identification of errors, they are:
1) Error Detection
The data was collected to find out the errors by underlining the errors.
2) Locating Error
The error determines when students omitted necessary items or added necessary
ones, omission, addition, misinformation, or misordering.
3) Describing Error
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The writer made a table to describe all the students' errors. And then, the writer
made a table to describe errors in omission, errors, in addition, errors in
misinformation, and errors in misordering.
4) Classifying Error
The writer classified errors into the table to draw up the result of each error to
present the total of each error and the total of all errors.
5) Counting Error
After classifying the data, the writer calculates the percentage of each error type.
Then, to do the last step, which is quantifying each percentage of error. The formula
was used.
P=F/N X 100%
Note:
P= percentage of error
F= frequency of errors occurred
N= number of cases (total frequent/ total individual)
4. Results and Discussion
To explain the researcher's observations by making direct observations of the learning
activities carried out by class VIII-2 students at MTs Al-Jumhuriyah North Sumatera.
Furthermore, the researcher conducted interviews with several sources directly related to
this study by conducting direct and in-depth questions and answers, namely the English
teacher and some students (interview list attached). In the result observation, the
researcher found that the students of VIII-2 felt confused to understand using prepositional
place because they did not know the meaning of the words.
Moreover, the result of interviews with students of VIII-2 is that they were not confident
answering a question or finishing their assignment because they thought English was
complicated and did not know the meaning. For example, one of them said they did not
know the sentence's meaning, so they were confused about the used prepositional place in
the sentence. The result of the test is as follow:
Table 1: The Score Test Result
No Sample Score No Sample Score
1 AP 37.5 9 NM 75
2 CSR 50 10 NS 50
3 FA 50 11 RD 87.5
4 FM 50 12 RM 62.5
5 G 50 13 S 37.5
6 MA 50 14 TS 62.5
7 MH 37.5 15 W 62.5
8 MR 50 16 ZW 25
Average Score 52.3
Highest Score 87.5
Lowest Score 25
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Based on Table 1, the researcher found the students' scores of test results about the
prepositional place. The average score was 52,3. The highest score was 87,5 (RD), while the
lowest score was 25 (ZW).
From the data collected, the researcher breaks down the students’ error occurrence based on the
three areas: prepositional place In, On, At.
Table 2: The Identification of Students’ Error in Using Prepositional Place In
Original Sentence/Phrase Type of Error Cause of Error Correction
Maimun Palace is a tourist Mis-formation Ignorance of Rule Maimun Palace is a tourist
destination in North Restrictions destination in North
Sumatera Sumatera
Maimun Palace is a tourist Mis-formation Ignorance Maimun Palace is a tourist
destination on North of Rule destination in North
Sumatera Sumatera
Restrictions
It was designed by an Mis-formation Overgeneralizatio It was designed by an Italian
Italian architect and built- n architect and built-in 1888
in 1888 under the Rule of under the Rule of Sultan
Sultan Makmun Al Rasyid Makmun Al Rasyid Perkasa,
Perkasa, the Sultan of the Sultan of Deli.
Deli.
It was designed by an Mis-formation Ignorance of Rule It was designed by an Italian
Italian architect and built- Restrictions architect and built-in 1888
in 1888 under the Rule of under the Rule of Sultan
Sultan Makmun Al Rasyid Makmun Al Rasyid Perkasa,
Perkasa, the Sultan of the Sultan of Deli.
Deli.
Seven of which are at the Mis-formation Overgeneralizatio Seven of which are in the
main building, n main building,
Seven of which are on the Mis-formation Ignorance of Seven of which are in the
main building, Rule main building,
Three rooms on the left- Mis-formation Ignorance of Rule Three rooms in the left-wing
wing part Restrictions part
Three rooms at the left- Overgeneralizatio Three rooms in the left-wing
wing part n part
Three other rooms on the Mis-formation Ignorance of Rule Three other rooms in the
right-wing part Restrictions right-wing part
Three other rooms at the Mis-formation Overgeneralizatio Three other rooms in the
right-wing part n right-wing part
Based on Table 2, 6 students made errors in item number 1, 8 students who made errors in
item number 4, 10 students who made errors in item number 6, 6 students who made
errors in item number 7, 5 students who made errors in item number 8. Therefore, it
could be stated that most students’ errors in using prepositional place In occurred in
number.
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Table 3: The Identification of Student’s Error in Using Prepositional Place on
Original Sentence/Phrase Type of Error Cause of Error Correction
The building stands at an Mis-formation Ignorance of Rule The building stands on an
area of 2,772 square meters Restrictions area of 2,772 square
and is the heritage of the meters and is the heritage
Deli Sultanate. of the Deli Sultanate.
The building stands In an Mis-formation Ignorance of The building stands on an
area of 2,772 square meters Rule area of 2,772 square
and is the heritage of the Restrictions meters and is the heritage
Deli Sultanate. of the Deli Sultanate.
There are 13 rooms in the Mis-formation Ignorance of There are 13 rooms on the
second floor, Rule second floor,
Restrictions
There are 13 rooms at the Mis-formation Ignorance of There are 13 rooms on the
second floor, Rule second floor,
Restrictions
Based on Table 3, 12 students made errors in item number 3, 2 students made errors in item
number 5. Therefore, it could be stated that most of the students’ errors in using
prepositional place on occurred in number 12.
Table 4: The Identification of Student’s Error in Using Prepositional Place At
Original Sentence/Phrase Type of Error Cause of Error Correction
Located on Jalan Brigjen Mis-formation Ignorance of Rule Located at Jalan Brigjen
Katamso, Aur, Medan, this Restrictions Katamso, Aur, Medan,
palace is iconic to Medan. this palace is iconic to
Medan.
Based on Table 4, 12 students made errors using prepositional at. The researcher intends
to explain the error by finding out the sources of error. Two primary sources of error are
considered: overgeneralization and ignorance of rule restrictions.
Overgeneralization is one of the common causes of error in this research. It generally
happens when the students apply the previous Rule that they have learned before to
another pattern with a different rule. For examples:
▪ Julia was born on 1998.
▪ I usually study English in the night.
▪ There is a Post Office at Sudirman Street.
The sentences above show that the students make generalizations in using prepositions.
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For example, the student applies the preposition of time on in a sentence,” Julia was born
on 1998," due to the material being learned previously. The students assume that the use
of the preposition of time on, in this case, is the same as the rule of day or date of the
month. It is incorrect.
The researcher uses the types of errors based on surface strategy taxonomy to classify the
students" errors in using prepositions of time and place. The table is described as follows:
Table 5: The Classification of Students’ Error
No. Error Classification Frequency of Errors
1 Omission -
2 Addition -
3 Mis-formation 61
4 Mis-ordering -
Total 61
The table above shows that the students’ error is totally mis-formation. It is 61 errors found
of 16 students in using prepositional place. There is no error committed by students in
omission, addition, and misordering.
5. Conclusion
Based on the collecting data and discussion in the previous chapter, the researcher has
analyzed the students’ errors in using prepositional place. The collecting data shows that
the VIII-2 students of MTS Swata Al-Jumhuriyah North Sumatera still make some errors
in using prepositional places in descriptive text.
Based on the data, the frequency of students" errors in using prepositional places mainly
occurred in prepositional places in 35 errors. The second is prepositional on with 14 errors.
The third is prepositional place on with 12 errors.
The types of errors that the students made are misordering, omission, addition, and mis-
formation. From the classification of student errors, it is totally mis-formation with 61
errors. Students commit no error in omission, addition, or misordering.
Based on the occurrence of the errors, most of the errors are caused by ignorance of rule
restrictions which is influenced by the students" fail to apply the rules to where they do not
apply. Meanwhile, Overgeneralization generally happens when the students apply the
previous rule they learned before to another pattern with a different rule.
The solution for the students' using prepositional place is that the English teacher should
try to overcome the students’ problem by giving more explanations and exercises.
Moreover, giving the material as straightforward as possible and giving the students more
detail about the prepositional place, their function, differences, and different rules between
a prepositional place in English and Indonesia.
The English teachers should give more attention to deliver the materials of the preposition
of time and place. They should choose the best method and present the materials clearly
so that students understand materials easily. In the teaching-learning process, the students
must be active and ask something about using prepositional place. The researcher hopes
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the students increase their effort in learning grammar, and they have to be accustomed to
learning English writing skills when they are in the classroom or their house.
6. References
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Fithriani, R. (2018). Cultural influences on students’ perceptions of written feedback in L2
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Hancock, Craig. (2005). Meaning-Centered Grammar. London: Equinox
Harmer, J. (2007). The Practice of English Language Teaching, Harlow: Longman
Harvey S. Wiener. (2001). Creating Competition. Singapore: Mc Graw-Hill
James, C. (1998). Errors in language learning and use. Exploring error analysis. Longman,
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Kuntjara, E. (2013). Creating Identities through Facebook Online Comments: A
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Rido, V. (2000). Types Of Correction Supporting The Leaner-Centered Learning in English Classes.
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