Error analysis in descriptive text writing made by the first-grade students of senior high school

Abstract

This research was aimed at finding out the types of errors made by the students in writing descriptive text. In conducting the research, the researcher used descriptive qualitative design. The researcher analyzed and described students' errors based on surface strategy taxonomy. The population of this research was the first-grade students of SMAN 14 Bandar Lampung in the academic year 2020/2021. The sample of this research was X science 2 which consisted of 32 students. The instrument of this research was a writing task. The writing task was used to collect data on errors committed by the students. The result of the analysis showed the students committed all types of errors in omission, addition, misformation, and misordering. It shows that the frequency of the errors from the students' descriptive writing based on surface strategy taxonomy that is an omission that consists of 65 or 25%, the second is an addition that consists of 52 or 20%, then the third is misformation that consists of 130 errors or 50%, and the last is misordering that consists of 13 or 5%. Based on the result of this research was most of the students still committed all four errors types of Surface Strategy Taxonomy. It means that although the students were taught English especially in the descriptive text in Junior High School, they still had problems in writing descriptive text.