Students’ Subject Verb Agreement Errors in Writing Recount Text Made by Senior High School Students

Abstract

This study is aimed to examine the written subject and verb agreement errors made by the eleventh grade students of SMA Al Istiqamah Simpang Ampek, West Pasaman when they were writing a recount text. Error analysis technique was carried out in this research in order to find the proportion of each type of error made by students. The research is a descriptive study with 30 students participating in the study. The instrument used is writing test about recount text. All subject verb agreement errors that appear in students writing are analyzed using Surface Strategy Taxonomy introduced by Dulay et.al. The findings showed that (1) the students constributed the three types of errors in term of subject verb agreement in their recount writing, those were (a) omission (45 error / 26%), (b) addition (10 error/ 6%), (c) misformation (118 error / 68 %), then there was no error in misordering found in this study. (2) The sources of the errors are inter-lingual transfer (45/ 26%) and intra-lingual transfer (128/ 74%). The research reveals that the students are still having difficulties in using correct patterns of subject and verb agreement in their writing.