An Analysis of Grammatical Errors in Writing Narrative Text (Study at the Eleventh Year Students of Madrasah Aliyah Ma’arif 7 Banjarwati Paciran Lamongan)

By Ahmad Afan Zaini

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to know both the types of error and the most dominant error made by the students in using grammar in writing narrative text at the eleventh year students of Madrasah Aliyah Ma’arif  7 Banjarwati Paciran Lamongan. The sample was 35 students from eleventh year students of Madrasah Aliyah Ma’arif  7 Banjarwati Paciran Lamongan. The data was collected by using writing test. The result showed that the errors made by the students can be categorized into four types of errors. Those were errors of omission, errors of addition, errors of misformation, and errors of misordering. Another result showed that the most dominant error on using grammar in writing narrative text made by the students was errors of misinformation.

Keywords: grammar, error, writing, narrative text

Language is many things—a system communication, a medium for thought, a vehicle for literary expression, a social institution, a matter for political controversy, a factor in nation building (O’Gady, et. al., 1989, p. 1).  According to Nasr (1984, p. 1) language is a part of culture, it is a part of human behavior. By using a language people can communicate with each other.

Using a language is not as simply as we thought because there is a set of rules that must be followed, which is called Grammar. Actually grammar is used to mean the structure of a language. It is essential part of the use of language process, both in spoken and written language.

The grammar of a language is a description of the ways in which the language uses patterns of structure to convey the meaning. It would be impossible to learn language effectively without knowing the grammar, because grammar helps learners to identify grammatical forms, which serve to enhance and sharpen the expression of meaning.

Having a good grammar system of a language, learners will be helpful in delivering their ideas, messages feelings either to the listeners or readers. Language without grammar would be disorganized and causes some communicative problems, like grammatical errors in writing. Hence, learners need to know the grammatical system of language they can communicate with others in order to transfer the message properly.

Teachers of English as a foreign language have known that the objective of learning language is to get competencies. That is why; they realize that the learners of English should study a number of skills, including listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Besides, they should also learn the language component such as vocabulary, grammar, and phonology (Haris, 1970, p. 10).

The process of teaching and learning English often faces many obstacles. Although the school has good skilled English teachers, great teaching methods, having any facilities, it does not guarantee that the school will achieve the expected result. It is reasonable, since Senior High School students who have just learned English for few years consider English as a different subject. This condition happens because English has many vocabularies and sentence patterns different from Indonesian. Therefore, the students find some difficulties in understanding the teacher’s explanation in the class.

In order to use a language well, learners should learn the rules of the language or to know how they work. They cannot avoid errors because errors mostly occur in learning process. It happens because they use different forms to delivers their ideas, felling or message so they need considerable amount of time to be able to master the target language well. Beside, by making errors, learners build their new knowledge to use the target language, and making errors during studying the second language can be considered as a means of building learners’ abilities because they can learn something from making errors.

The errors usually occur in the productive skill, speaking and writing, but to analyze the errors in productive skill in short time is not easy. It takes much time, money, and requires a high ability of an analyst. Therefore, the researcher decides to analyze only the errors in using grammar in the students’ writing.

Writing is considered to the most difficult skills, because its requires grammatical mastery. One of the difficulties the students found is in using grammar. The use of grammar in writing Narrative is not easy to apply it, because the students have to understand the grammatical correct, syntax, etc. Students must memorize and open dictionary. Unfortunately many students of Madrasah Aliyah Ma’arif 7 Banjarwati Paciran Lamongan are not good yet in their writing Narrative, they are not able to express their writing ideas well.

Dealing with the description stated in the background, the researcher formulates the research question as follows: (1) what types of error are made by the students in using grammar in writing narrative text at the eleventh year students of Madrasah Aliyah Ma’arif 7 Banjarwati Paciran Lamongan? (2) What is the most dominant error in writing narrative text made by students of the eleventh year students at Madrasah Aliyah Ma’arif 7 Banjarwati Paciran Lamongan?

Based on the problems above, so the aim that want to be reached is to know the types of error made by the students in using grammar and to know the most dominant error in writing narrative text made by the eleventh year students of Madrasah Aliyah Ma’arif 7 Banjarwati Paciran Lamongan.

The result of this research is useful for the English teacher as information an input to improve the students' achievement in understanding the grammar. Moreover, the information might be able to be used in consideration to develop the English teaching method, mainly in writing narrative text.

And another advantage from the result of this research is can be useful for the students to recognize various errors, and the grammar is very important to write the writing narrative text. By knowing the causes of their errors, students can avoid them in order that the errors can be minimized.

The Nature of Writing

There are four basic skills in learning language, i.e. listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Writing is one of the skills which have to be mastered by the learners in order to master the language. According to Nunan (2003, p. 88) writing is the mental work of inventing ideas, thinking about how to express them, and organizing them into statements and paragraphs that will be clear. It means that the learners need to know how to write well just as they need to know to a reader.

According to Harmer (2007, p. 112) writing is used as an aide-memoire or practice tool to help students practise and work with language they have been studying. While Nunan (1991, p. 91) states that writing is clearly a complex process. It needs a lot of practice in order to master this skill well.

Hilliday in Nunan (1991, p. 84) suggests that writing has evolved in societies as a result of cultural change creating communicative needs which cannot be readily met by spoken language. It means that writing is a process of communicating what a writer thinks which is going to be told on paper to readers who are not physically present. Writing makes us have to find the best possible way of stating what we mean.

Based on the opinions above the writer can conclude that writing is a system of arranging words to be meaningful phrases and sentences in written form. This system needs requirements; a certain skill of grammatical writing, practice, and the right time to write.

The Writing Skill

Nunan’s statement (1989, p. 37) which says that successful writing involves; (1) Mastering the mechanic of letter formation; (2) Mastering and obeying convention of spelling and punctuation; (3) Using the grammatical system to convey one’s intended meaning; (4) Organizing content at level of paragraph and complete text to reflect given/new information and topic/comment structures; (5) Polishing a revising one’s initial efforts; (6) Selecting an appropriate style for one’s audience.

More meaning of writing skills can be seen in the following descriptions. Writing is not simply arranging words into phrases, phrases into sentences, and sentences into paragraphs; it involves organization of thought, usage of the English language rules, and imagination.

Writing skills are very complex. Writing can be done through a process that requires a series of interaction with words and ideas. When people do writing, they must understand what topic is going to be built up, and they must combine between their intelligence and ability in expressing their ideas. Therefore, the writers must be able to arrange their writing clearly, coherently, and perfectly in order that the readers can understand the information easily and surely. This can be achieved by making some writing practices.

Types of Classroom Writing Performance

While various genres of written texts abound, classroom writing performance is, by comparison, limited. The followings are types of classroom writing performance according to Brown (2007, p. 399). (a) Imitative, or writing down. At the beginning level of learning to write, students will simply “write down” English letters, words, and possibly sentences in order to learn the conversations of the orthographic code. Some factors of dictation fall into this category, although dictations can serve to teach and test higher-order processing as well. (b) Intensive, or controlled writing. A common form of controlled writing is to present a paragraph to students in which they have to alter a given structure throughout. Another form of controlled writing is a dicto-comp. Here, a paragraph is read at normal speech, usually two or three times; then the teacher asks students to rewrite the paragraph to the best of their recollection of the reading. In one of several variations of dicto-comp technique, the teacher, after reading the passage, puts key words from the paragraph, in sequence, on the chalkboard as cues for the students. (c) Self-writing. It is only the self in mind as an audience. The most silent instance of this category in classroom is note taking, where students take notes during a lecture for the purpose of later recall. Diary and journal writing also falls into this category. However, in many circumstances a dialogue journal, in which a student records thoughts, feelings, and reactions and which an instructor reads and responds to. (d) Display writing. It was noted earlier that writing within the school curricular context is a way of life. For all language students, short-answer exercises, essay examinations, and even research reports will involve an element of display.

The Definision of Error

Brown (2000, p. 216) states that in process of learning a target language, the learners cannot avoid of making errors. The erroneous of assumption-mistake, misjudgment and miscalculation form an important aspect of learning virtually any skill or acquiring information.

According to Corder in Richards, error is the result of the interference the learning of the second language from the habits of the first language. In addition, it is explained that error is breaches of the meaning (1981, p. 19).

 They are against the grammatical rules of the language and result in acceptable utterance.

Corder in Richard (1981, p. 24) stated that errors divided into two that are systematic and nonsystematic errors. The systematic error is causes by lack of knowledge of the rule of the language being studied. While nonsystematic errors are the errors caused by memory lapses and physical states, such as: tired ness, fatigue and psychological condition, such as; emotion and anxiety. Another name of systematic error is competence error for they are related to the competence of language learners in understanding a language system or rule of the language being studied and they are usually known as errors. While another name of nonsystematic error is performance error for they are related to the performance of the language learners' which is influenced by physical study state and they are usually known as mistakes.

The Steps of Error Analysis

According to Corder (1974) in Ellis (1994, p. 48) there are many steps in error analysis research: (a) Collection of a sample of learner language. The starting point in error analysis is deciding what samples of learner language to use for the analysis and how to collect three samples. There are three board types of error analysis according to the size of the sample. (1) A massive sample involves collecting several samples of language use from a large number of learners in order to compile a comprehensive list of errors, representative of the entire population. (2) A specific sample consists of one sample of language use collected from a limited number of learners, and (3) an incidental sample involves only one sample of language use produced by a single learner. Clearly an error analysis based on a massive sample is a major undertaking and it is not surprising that most published error analysis have employed specific or incidental samples. (b) Identification of errors. Once a corpus of learner language has been collected, the errors in the corpus have to be identified. It is necessary to decide, therefore, what constitutes an ‘error’ and to establish a procedure for recognizing one. An error can be defined as a deviation from the norms of the target language. An error takes place when the deviation arises as a result of lack of knowledge. (c) Description of errors. The description of learner errors involves a comparison of the learner’s idiosyncratic utterances with a reconstruction of those utterances in the target language. (d) Explanation of errors. Explanation error is concerned with establishing the source of the error—accounting for why it was made. This stage is the most important for SLA research as it involves an attempt to establish the processes responsible for L2 acquisition. (e) Evaluation of errors. Whereas all the preceding stages of error analysis have involved an examination of errors from the point of view of the learner who makes them, error evaluation involves a consideration of the effect that errors have on the person(s) addressed. This effect can be gauged either in terms of the addressee’s comprehension of the learner’s meaning or in terms of the addressee’s affective response to the errors.

Error Analysis

Human learning is fundamentally a process that involves the making of mistakes. Mistakes, misjudgments, miscalculations, and erroneous assumptions form an important aspect of learning virtually any skill or acquiring information.

Language learning, in this sense, is likely any other human learning. Many of these mistakes are logical in the limited linguistics system within which people operate, but, by carefully processing feedback from others, people slowly but surely learn to produce what is acceptable speech in their language. Second language learning is a process that is clearly not unlike first language learning in its trial-and-error nature. Inevitably learners will make mistakes in the process of acquisition, and that process will be impeded if they do not commit errors and then benefit from various forms of feedback on those errors (Brown, 2000, pp. 216-217).

The study of the learner's error has two mayor purposes. First, the study can be used to get the data from which interference about the nature of the language learning can be made. Second, the study shows the teacher and curriculum designer in what part of the target language that the students have errors and which error type they are weak (Dulay, et. al., 1982, p. 138).

Brown (2000, p. 218) said that error analysis is the study of learner's errors that can be observed, analyzed and classified to reveal something of the system operating within the learner, led to a surge of study of learner's errors. Meanwhile, Tarigan and Tarigan (1988, p. 67) define error analysis as a series of method to analyze students' language error to make language teaching run more effectively and efficiently.     

According Tarigan and Tarigan (1988, p. 70) the methodology of error analysis consists of the following steps such as: (1) identifying the errors of data; (2) classifying the data; (3) counting the errors of data; and (4) interpreting errors.

The error analysis steps applied in this research are identifying each error types, classifying the errors types, counting the errors types, analyzing the error types and interpreting the errors types.

The Category of Error

It is difficult to classified error precisely, or error can be classified a number of possible ways. Up to now there is no error categorization which is simple and agreed upon by all analysis. Every analysis seems to have its own approach. This may make the research have different finding for the same data, because of the different ways, in categorizing error.

Dulay, et. al. (1982, p. 146) classify errors into four categories, these are: linguistic category, surface strategy, comparative analysis, and communicative effect. But the common based used for descriptive classification of the error is linguistic category (focused on morphology and syntax) and surface taxonomy (focused on errors of omission, errors of additions, errors of misformations, and errors of misordering).

Explaining about surface strategy taxonomy, the types of error, which belong to surface strategy taxonomy, are: error of omission, error of addition, error of misformation, and error of misordering (Dulay, et. al., 1982, pp. 138-171).

a)   Errors of omission, these errors are characterized by the absence of an item that must appear in a well-formed utterance. For example: There life a little girl called a Snow White. In this sentence the learner omits "ed" the sentence should be reconstructed as There lived a little girl called a Snow White; b) Errors of addition, this type of errors are characterized by the presence of an item which must not appear in a well-formed utterance. There are three types of addition errors, those are:

1) Double markings, marking the same feature which two causes, these types of addition errors. This type is described as the failure to delete certain items which are required in some linguistic constructions but not in others. For example: You did not visited him at school yesterday. It should be: You did not visit him at school yesterday. This sentence shows the failure of deleting past form marker "ed" where the auxiliary "did" is required.

2) Regularization, a rule typically applies to a class of linguistic items, such as the class of main verbs or the class of nouns. In most languages, however, some members of a class are exceptions to the rule.

Both regular and irregular forms in learners cause this type of addition error, student sometime gets confused to apply the correct form. In this certain construction sometimes they apply the rule used to produce regular into irregular form. For example:  My step mother had two childs. The world "childs" in the example of regularization in which the regular plural marker (s) has been added to item which does not need the (s). The word should be written "children". So, the correct sentence is: My step mother had two children. And 3) Simple addition,

if an addition error is not a double marking nor a regularization, and the use of an item which should not appear in a well-formed utterance. For example: Snow White called a handsome dwarfs.

                 The addition of plural marker is not appropriate used in this sentence, because there is an article "a" that shows singular thing. Therefore, the correct one is "Snow White called a handsome dwarf"; c) Errors of misformation, misformation errors are characterized by the use of the wrong form of the morpheme or structure (omit, add, and change any grammatical morpheme). There are three kinds of misformation error, those are: 1) Regularization, error that use a regular characteristics in irregular place.

For example :  He stealed a magic mirror yesterday. The correct one is :  He stole a magic mirror yesterday. 2) Archi-forms, the selection of one member of a class of forms to represent or to describe the others in the class in general feature of all the second learner's steps. We call the form that is chosen by the learner"Archios-form". For example :  Tell me the truth. (true) - Tell I the truth. (false) The words "I" is for subject not for objecting the sentence. 3) Alternating forms, as the learner’s vocabulary and grammar grow, the use of archi -forms often gives way to the apparently fairly free alternation of various members of a class with each other. For example    : She gone to the heaven. It should be: She went to the heaven. And 4) Errors of misordering, misordering errors are characterized by the incorrect placement of a morpheme or group of morphemes in an utterance. For example:  She asked me where you were from? It should be: She asked me where were you from?

In this research, the researcher was focused on the only surface strategy taxonomy.

The Nature of Narrative Text

Narrative is one of the text types that exist in English culture; generally, the purpose of narrative is to entertain and to deal with actual or sensational experience in different ways. This form can both imaginary and factual. Additionally, the most important of this text is that always focuses on the sequences of action or events (Derewianka, 2000, p. 40). The events are usually problematic and lead into crisis or decisive moment of some kinds. This makes narrative tend to be amusing and interesting to be read.

Technique in Teaching Narrative

The writing of narrative as an activity can be down into four separate parts. Each of these four parts will be single paragraph. The paragraph should be arranged as follows: a) The first paragraph should tell something about job; b) The second paragraph should describe the conflict; c) The third paragraph should tell how the conflict was resolved; and d) The fourth paragraph should give the moral of the story.

Research Design

In this research, the researcher used descriptive qualitative. According to Ary, et.al. state that descriptive qualitative research deals with data that are in the form of words, rather than numbers and statistics. The data collected are the subjects’ experiences and perspectives; the qualitative researcher attempts to arrive at a rich description of the people, objects, events, places, conversations, and so on (2002, p. 425).

In this research, the researcher analyzed the students’ writing to find the errors that made by the students and put the errors into table analysis, so the researcher knew the type of errors and the percentage of errors. And the researcher also counted the percentage of errors with all of sentences that made by the students.

Subject of the Study

A population is any group of individuals that have one or more characteristics in common that are of the interest to the researcher, where as a sample is small proportion selected for observation and analysis. In this research, the population was the 2013/2014 eleventh grade students of Madrasah Aliyah Ma’arif 7 Banjarwati Paciran Lamongan. The total number of the students was 312 students.

This subject of this research was taken purposively from 10 classes. At the end the samples of the research were 35 students, all from XI-B class.

Research Instrument

In this research, the instrument for collecting data was writing test. The students were required to make narrative text. Before writing narrative text, the students were given certain topics or titles to guide them more easily in writing narrative text.

In analyzing and performing the data, it was helped by using the table as follow.

Table 1 Identification of errors

No	Students Sentences	Error Category	Correction
1	There live a little girl called a Snow White.	Errors of omission	There lived a little girl called a Snow White.
2	My step mother had two childs.	Errors of addition	My step mother had two children.
3	He stealed a magic mirror yesterday.	Errors of misformation	He stole a magic mirror yesterday.
4	She gone to the heaven.	Errors of misformation	She went to the heaven.

Precedure of Data Collection

The researcher got the data from students’ writing as the result of the students’ test that given. As Ary, et.al. state that the data collected are the subjects’ experiences and perspectives (2002, p. 425).

In this case, the students were required to make narrative text. Before writing narrative text, the students were given certain topics or titles to guide them more easier in writing narrative text. The time allocated 90 minutes. The test was conducted during the school hour.  The test was open book or dictionary, so they felt enjoy writing the text.

The researcher just observed the students during the test. When the test was finished, the researcher collected all the students’ work. From the students’ writing of narrative text, the researcher analyzed to identify, classify, count, and interpret of errors that made by the students based on surface strategy taxonomy.

Data Analysis

The procedure of data analysis was accumulated in the following data. The researcher read toughly all the paragraphs of narrative text made by the students. The researcher also read the paragraphs intensively. After that, the data analysis will be done by collecting errors, identifying errors, classifying errors, evaluating errors, and counting the distribution of the errors.

Based on Tarigan and Tarigan (1988, p. 70) stated that in analyzing the data the researcher used some steps as follow:

1.   Collecting errors means collecting grammatical errors made by the students in their writing composition.

2.   Identifying the errors means classify the errors by coding the errors. They were classified based on the eight indicators of the surface strategy taxonomy.

3.   After classifying the grammatical errors based on the eight indicators, those errors were evaluated by counting the number of grammatical errors of each indicator made by students in their composition writing.

4.    In counting the number of grammatical errors made by students the formula used was: 

                               n

E =  --------  x 100%

            N

The explanation:

E = The percentage of each errors component

n = The number of each errors component

N = The number of the whole errors.

5.    Interpreting the errors means the researcher gave the percentage of errors made by the students. It was interpreted by using the interpretation table as follow:

Table 2 Grade of Error and Interpretation

Grade of Error	Interpretation
0%   -  20%	Very Low
21%  -  40%	Low
41%  -  60%	Enough
61%  -  80%	High
81%  - 100%	Very High

6.    Discussing the errors means discussed the research findings and shown the distribution or the percentage of each errors made by the students in writing narrative text.

7.    Concluding the errors means made a conclusion based on the research findings whether the students’ errors caused by interference as a result of the use of elements from one language while speaking another; or intralingual errors reflect the general of rule learning such as faulty generalization, incomplete application of rules and failure to learn conditions under which rules apply.

Research Finding and Discussion

After identifying the students’ writing narrative text, the researcher found the total number of sentences were 892 sentences that made by 35 students. And after classifying all sentences that found 372 errors for all the types of the surface strategy taxonomy.

Classifying of the Errors

The researcher was conducted the classification based on the Dulay’s (1982, p. 146) classification, they were errors of omission, errors of addition, errors of misformation, and errors of misordering. (1) Errors of Omission. Errors of omission are identified by the absence of one or more items that must appear in a well-formed utterance. They are indicated by the absence of many grammatical morphemes in certain contraction. From the identifying the data showed that the total number errors of omission that made by the students were 53 items. (2) Errors of Addition. Errors of addition are characterized by the presence of an item which must not appear in a well-formed utterance. They are indicated by the presence of many grammatical morphemes in certain contraction.

From the data identifying, it showed that the total number errors of addition that made by the students were 74 items. (3) Errors of Misformation. Errors of misformation are characterized by the use of mistakes from of morphemes or stuctures (omit, add, and change any grammatical morphemes). There are three kinds of misformation errors; regularization, archi-forms, and alternating forms.

From the data identifying, it showed that the total number errors of misformation that made by the students were 239 items. (4) Errors of Misordering. Errors of misordering are characterized by the incorrect placement of a morpheme or group of morphemes in an utterance.

From the data identifying, it showed that the total number errors of misordering that made by the students were 6 items.

Counting of the Errors

The following step was counting the errors. Based on the classification, it was counted the total number of errors was 372 errors. And those consisted of omission errors were 53 items, addition errors were 74 items, misformation errors were 239 items, and misordering errors were 6 items.

Table 3 The Summary of All the Type Errors Made by the Students

Type of Errors	Number of Errors
Omission	53
Addition	74
Misformation	239
Misordering	6
Total	372

  From the table above, it could found that the highest error was errors of misformation.

The following step was analyzing the data. To analyze the data, the researcher found the errors in the test by using this pattern:

                                        53   

 1. Omission                : ------ x 100% = 14.24%

                                       372

    75   

 2. Addition                 : ------ x 100% = 19.89%

                                       372

    239 

 3. Misformation         : ------ x 100% = 64.24%

                                       372

     6    

 4. Misordering           : ------ x 100% = 1.61%

                                       372

Table 4 The Type and Number of Errors in Each Category Made by the

       Students

Type of Errors	Number of Errors	Percentage
Omission	53	14.24%
Addition	74	19.89%
Misformation	239	64.24%
Misordering	6	1.61%
Total	372	99,98%

Interpreting of the Errors

Firstly, the percentage of errors made by the students that errors of omission was very low, it was shown by 14.24%. Secondly, errors of addition was very low, it was shown only 19.89%. Thirdly, errors of misformation were high. It could be seen 64.24%. And last, errors of misordering were very low, it shown by 1.61%.

To make the result clearly understanding, the following table showed the interpretation of the students’ errors in each type.

Table 5 The Interpreting of Errors Made by the students

Type of Errors	Percentage	Grade of Errors	Category
Omission	14.24%	0% - 20%	Very Low
Addition	19.89%	0% - 20%	Very Low
Misformation	64.24%	61% - 80%	High
Misordering	1.61%	0% - 20%	Very Low

Discussion

The researcher discussed about the research finding with the theories that related to the research. (1) Omission. According to Dulay, et. al. (1982, p. 154) stated that errors of omission are characterized by the absence of an item that must appear in a well-formed utterance.

Based on the research finding that errors of omission made by the students in writing narrative text were found 53 items or 14.24%. It meant that the students were lack of knowledge about the rules of using tenses especially in simple past tense, related to the many errors that made by the students in forming Verb II (verb past forms). Examples: verb “live” to “lived”, “remarry” to “remarried”, “enter” to “entered”, “ask” to “asked”, “end” to “ended”, “believe” to “believed”, etc. (2) Addition. Dulay, et. al. (1982, pp. 156-158) stated that this type of errors are characterized by the presence of an item which must not appear in a well-formed utterance. There are three types of addition errors, those are: double markings, regularization, and simple addition.

Based on the research finding that errors of addition made by the students in writing narrative text were found 74 items or 19.89%. It meant that the students were also lack of knowledge about the rules of grammatical in making good sentences based on the grammatical correct.  Examples: Snow White is entered the little house. (The correct sentence: Snow White entered the little house.), She is started to clean it up. (The correct sentence: She started to clean it up.), She is opened her eyes and sat up with a smile. (The correct sentence: She opened her eyes and sat up with a smile.), The queen is discovered where Snow White was living. (The correct sentence: The queen discovered where Snow White was living.), etc. (3) Misformation. According to Dulay, et. al. (1982, pp. 158-162) stated that errors of misformation are characterized by the use of the wrong form of the morpheme or structure (omit, add, and change any grammatical morpheme). There are three kinds of misformation error, those are: regularization, archi-forms, and alternating forms.

Based on the research finding that errors of misformation made by the students in writing narrative text were found 239 items or 64.24%. It meant that the students were also lack of knowledge of regulations or rules of structures or grammar in composing the righ sentences. The students still confused about the form of Verb II (past forms) both regular and irregular verbs. They also didn’t understand yet about the use of possessive pronoun. Examples: He make the fish free. (The correct sentence: He made the fish free.), She attractes Batara Guru so much. (The correct sentence: She attracted  Batara Guru so much.), He name was Batara Guru Sahala. (The correct sentence: His name was Batara Guru Sahala.), Snow White growd to be very beautiful girl. (The correct sentence: Snow White grew to be very beautiful girl.), The queen is beautiful too. (The correct sentence: The queen was beautiful too.), One day, the father took his son to go hunt for a deer using bow and arrow. (The correct sentence: One day, the father took his son to go hunting for a deer using bow and arrow.), etc. (4) Misordering. Dulay, et. al. (1982, pp. 162-163)  stated that misordering erros are characterized by the incorrect placement of a morpheme or group of morphemes in an utterance.

Based on the research finding that errors of misordering that made by the students in writing narrative text were found 6 items or 1.61%. It meant that the students still didn’t comprehend yet about the structures or patterns. But it was more better than the other categories. Because the errors that made by the students in this category was very least than the others. Examples: So he told Snow White run to away. (The correct sentence: So he told Snow White to run away.), The earth formed a very hole big. (The correct sentence: The earth formed a very big hole.). As conclusion, this lake was known as Toba Lake and now to be one of famous place tourism. (The correct sentence: As conclusion, this lake was known as Toba lake and now to be one of famous tourism place.), She started clean it to up. (The correct sentence: She started to clean it up.), They were married and lived after happily ever. (The correct sentence: They were married and lived happily ever after.). Finally, the lake as known was Toba Lake. (The correct sentence: Finally, the lake was known as Toba Lake.

From the result of discussion above, it showed that the students made errors for all the types of the surface strategy taxonomy, both omission errors, addition errors, misformation errors, and misordering errors. And the most dominant error made by the eleventh year students of Madrasah Aliyah Ma’arif 7 Banjarwati Paciran Lamongan was errors of misformation. It was caused that the students used of the wrong form of the morpheme or structure in a well utterance. It meant that they were some problems which were still faced by the students in learning target of forming Verb II or simple past tense. It was clear that the errors were made by the students was lack of knowledge about the rules of using tenses especially in simple past tense.

Beside all the errors mentioned above, many students still made mistakes in their writing narrative text. They sometimes still used simple present tense that the really forbidden in writing narrative text. Other errors made by the students were sometimes put “he” in possessive pronoun “his” and they still confused to change Verb I into Verb II. So it could be concluded that they were still confused of using pronoun correctly.

In writing narrative text, the focus of tenses that must be used was simple past tense. But the students still made many mistakes. In this case, they sometimes used to be present in nominal sentences, modal auxiliarly in present forms, and also sometimes wrote incorrect form of Verb II.

To overcome the problems in learning as the target language, it was importance for the students to pay attention of how the rules to write in the target language, and also for the English teacher should more pay attention in teaching and learning process especially in writing narrative text using the rules, structures, patterns or grammatical correct, and the correct form of Verb II. 

Conclusion 

After identifying and analyzing the errors made by the eleventh year students of Madrasah Aliyah Ma’arif 7 Banjarwati Paciran Lamongan in writing narrative text, then the researcher concluded. Based on the test given, it consisted of some paragraphs or texts that written by 35 students as the sample of this research.

From the result of analysis, it could be concluded that the errors made by the students could be categorized into four types of errors, those were: errors of omission, errors of addition, errors of misformation, and errors of misordering. And the most dominant error was errors of misformation. It happened 239 items or 64.24% the most highest than the other categories. It caused that the students used of the mistake form of the morpheme or structure in a well utterance. The students often omitted, added, and changed any grammatical morpheme in simple past in writing narrative text contraction.

Considering the result of the research, the researcher hoped that the result of this research could make the teachers pay any attention in teaching their students about the rules, grammars, structures, patterns, and the correct form of Verb II or tenses especially simple past tense in writing narrative text. So the teachers should organize the material from the easier to the most difficult items. They have to provide the students with more exercises and remedial items. By knowing the result of the exercises given, the teachers can make conclusion about what the problems that still faced by the students in writing narrative text.

Based on the percentage of errors made by the students, the English teachers should apply good methods and better techniques in teaching learning process. The teachers were hoped to be able to act as a facilitator and participant beside as a teacher. Of course, this could be done as the facilitator the teacher can build the students’ motivation in their studying, the teacher can create the condition of teaching and learning process more interested and friendly.

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