An Error Analysis on the Use of Simple Present Tense in Writing Descriptive Text

Abstract

This research was conducted to (1) describe the types of errors made by the second health analysis students of SMK Semesta Bumiayu in the academic year 2015/2016 in writing descriptive text, and (2) describe the causes of the errors. The participants of this research were 22 students. The descriptive qualitative method was used in this research. To collect the data the writer used writing assignment. The collected data were identified, classified, and analyzed based on the types of error using Dulay’s theory. The result of this research showed that based on the surface strategy taxonomy, the students tended to make errors in the form of omission (28 errors = 20%), in the form of misformation (23 errors = 21%), in the form of addition (5 error = 5%), and in the form of misordering (37 errors =34%) out of the total errors were 93 errors. The reasons why they made errors because of the students lacked English grammatical rules mastery and different language rules between Indonesia and English language.