A. TITLE
THE NEGATIVE TRANSFER OF INDONESIAN AS L1 INTO ENGLISH AS FOREIGN LANGUAGE:
ANALYSIS OF TEXT WRITTEN BY ENGLISH DEPARTMENT STUDENTS OF FKIP UNTAN
B. RESEARCH BACKGROUND
Many experts believe that in acquiring a foreign language, a learner is influenced by his/her first language. Learners generally bring their previous competence of language in performing the foreign language (FL). The clearest support for this hypothesis is the finding of "foreign" accents in the foreign language speech of the learners (Ellis, 1985: 19). For example, when a Frenchman speaks English, his English may sound French. In addition, when a Malay person speaks Indonesian, the Indonesian sound may be influenced by Malay accents.
In paragraph writing, the students may use the properties of their first language like grammatical and lexical patterns in the foreign language. For example, grammatically the students may express “We wrote the letter with easy” in translating “Kami menulis surat itu dengan mudah”. This sentence is incorrect. It should be “We wrote the letter easily”. It happens because Indonesian adverbial of manner rule is used by the students in constructing the English sentences. In Indonesian, adverbial of manner may be expressed by preposition phrase ‘dengan mudah’. It is lexically transferred into English. Unfortunately, it is wrong. Such adverbial of manner in English is expressed by adjective ‘easy’ plus suffix –ly.
The process that is responsible for this is called language transfer. When the previous item is correctly applied to present subject matter in the foreign language, the process is known as positive transfer, and the transfer is considered negative (interference) when the first language rule causes mistake if it is applied in performing the foreign language.
This research is conducted in order to find out the grammatical aspects that the English department students of FKIP Untan whose L1 is Indonesian transfer negatively from Indonesian into English. Based on the purpose of the research above, the researcher would select descriptive method to be applied in this research.
The researcher chooses the grammar because it has important role in learning language. People may have difficulty in understanding the foreign language especially the ungrammatical structure. The investigation of the negative transfer of Indonesian as L1 into English as the foreign language in paragraph writing is very important for both the foreign language learners and the teachers who teach the foreign language.
Teachers can benefit from the findings of error in many ways. Errors tell the teacher how far towards the goal the learner has progressed and what remains for him
to learn. Following the student’s progress, the teacher is able to carry on his studies in accordance with what the learner needs to know and what part of the teaching strategy to chance or reconstruct. Errors are a means of feedback for the teacher reflecting how effective he is in his teaching style and what changes he has to make to get higher performance from his students. Furthermore, errors indicate the teacher the points that needs further attention. Additionally, errors show the way to be treated when their sources are identified correctly. Also, as what (Ellis, 1997) states that classifying errors is also able to help us to diagnose learners’ learning problems at any stage of their development and to plot how changes in error patterns occur over time.
Besides, after knowing the Indonesian grammatical aspects that is transferred negatively into English, the teacher will be able to prepare a more systematical material when they teach Foreign Language. Therefore, the students’ errors can be minimized.
For the students, after knowing the Indonesian grammatical aspects that interfere with the English grammatical aspects in writing, they will be able to be more careful and give more attention to the grammatical aspects which are often transferred negatively from Indonesian into English; therefore the mistake can be minimized.
Beside for the teachers and students, this study is also benefit for the syllabus designer Syllabus design of an English teaching course is a very important component of teaching-learning process. There are many factors to be considered to decide on what to teach to what level and age group. At this point, errors are significant data for syllabus designers as they show what items are important to be included or which items needs to be recycled in the syllabus. Keshavarz (1997) cited in Erdogan (2005: 267) maintains that an error-based analysis can give reliable results upon which remedial materials can be constructed. In other words, analysis of second language learners’ errors can help identify learners’ linguistic difficulties and needs at a particular stage of language learning. It is essential for a syllabus to provide with the needs for learning appropriately and errors are important evidence for that.
C. RESEARCH PROBLEM
The problem of this research is “What grammatical aspects do the English department students of FKIP Untan whose first language is Indonesian transfer negatively from Indonesian as L1 into English as Foreign Language?"
D. RESEARCH PURPOSE
To find out the grammatical aspects that is transferred negatively from Indonesian as L1 into English as Foreign Language in writing text by the English department students of FKIP Untan whose L1 is Indonesian.
E. FRAME OF THEORY
1. Foreign Language Acquisition
In Indonesia, there are many languages which are used by Indonesian people as their first languages such as Malay, Madurese, and Javanese. They use Indonesian or the other language as their second language. Besides, there are also some Indonesians people who use Indonesian as their first language. In line with the globalization era, the interaction of people comes larger. English as an international language for communication and as an introduction language of science and technology books becomes one of the chosen foreign language by Indonesian people to be lingua franca.
In defining the term of “foreign language acquisition”, we would better to firstly understand the definition of the first language or the mother tongue and also the second language. Saville and Troike (2006: 1) define the first language or L1 as the first language a person acquires. In line with Saville and Troike, Gass and Selinker (2008: 7) define “the first language is the first language that a child first learns, it is also known as primary language or mother tongue or L1.”
In this study, the term of “first language” means the first language one learn, and the language that one mostly use as his/her mother tongue, this language is used in communicating with his/her family. It is also mastered mostly by acquiring process and the first language acquisition is the process of acquiring the first language. The researcher in this study included the grammatical aspect of L1 only as His focus.
Meanwhile, second language according to Barbara F. Freed (1991: 4) is applied to non-native language or language use, which takes place within one of the speech community where that language is traditionally used. Besides, Smith (1993: 7) explains that second language cover term for any languages other than the first language learned by a given learner or group of learners irrespective of the type of learning environment and irrespective of the number of other non-native language processed by the learner.
Second language acquisition is the study of how learners learn an additional language after they have acquired their mother tongue (Ellis 1985: 5). Gass and Selinker (2008: 7) explain, “Second language acquisition refers to the process of learning another language after the native language has been learned”. In line with Gass and Selinker, Saville and Troike (2006: 1) state that ”Second Language Acquisition (SLA) refers to both the study of individuals and groups who are learning a language subsequent to learning their first one as young children, and to the process of learning that language”.
Furthermore, foreign language according to Stern as cited in Freed (1991:4) as the term which is usually used to refer to the teaching or learning of non-native language outside of country or speech community where it is commonly spoken.
Second language acquisition is different from foreign language acquisition.. Ellis, (1985: 5) explains that SLA is not intended to contrast with foreign language acquisition. SLA is used as a general term that embraces both untutored (and “naturalistic”) acquisition and tutored (or “classroom”) acquisition. Ellis also explains that it is, however an open question whether the way in which acquisition proceeds in these different situations is the some or different. Meanwhile, foreign language learning does not refer to the massive amount of language learning and teaching that takes place worldwide in what are known as natural or untutored learning situations, which arise by virtue of language in contact in various bilingual and multilingual situation”. (Freed, 1991: 4)
Foreign language acquisition itself is a phrase used to describe the process that people go through when confronted by a need to use a language other than their native language. The term of “language acquisition” become commonly used after the linguist Steven D. Krashen contrasted the formal and non-contrastive “learning’. It requires meaningful interaction in the target language in natural communication, in which speakers concerned not with the form of their utterances but with the comprehensible message or input that they are conveying and understanding.
There are differences between language learning and language acquisition. Ellis (1985) explains that the term “acquisition” is used to refer to picking up a second language through exposure, whereas the term “learning” is used to refer to the conscious study of a second language.
The term acquisition is more similar to a child’s first language acquisition. In contrast, the term “learning” refers to the formal knowledge of language. The difference between language acquisition and learning can be summarized as follows (Krashen, 1981: 27):
Table 1: The differences between Language Acquisition and Language Learning
Acquisition Learning
similar to child first language acquisition formal knowledge of language
“picking” up a language “knowing about’ a language
Subconscious Conscious
Implicit knowledge Explicit knowledge
Formal teaching does not help Formal teaching helps
Moreover, Ellis (1985: 6) defined that the second language acquisition refers to the subconscious or conscious process by which a language other than the mother tongue is learnt in a natural or tutored setting.
English as Foreign Language can be described that Foreign Language is learned by people who already use at least one other language and who live in a community in which English in not normally used. This community is inevitably influenced by norms that are not those of English–speaking countries and those norms influence the teachers’ and students’ expectations of the language learning process. (Brian, 2005: 137).
2. Language transfer
The term ‘transfer’ especially as used in the 1960s and 1970s, refers to the influence of the mother tongue (L1) on the learner’s performance in and/or development of a given target language. (Smith,1993:13). In acquiring a foreign language, many experts believe that a learner is influenced by his/her first language. Learners generally bring their previous competence of language in performing the foreign language (FL). It is able to cause mistake or error in the Target language. The influence can be either the positive or negative. The positive influence is more frequently recognized as positive transfer, and negative influence as negative transfer or interference. Savile and Troike (2006: 25) explained, “There is general agreement that cross-linguistic influence, or transfer of prior knowledge from L1 to L2, is one of the processes that is involved in inter-language development. Lado (1957) cited in Krasen (2002:64) added that for many years, it had been presumed that the only major source of syntactic errors in adult second language performance was the performer's first language.
Two major types of transfer which occur are: positive transfer, when an L1 structure or rule is used in an L2 utterance and that use is appropriate or “correct” in the L2; and Negative transfer (interference), when an L1 structure or rule is used in an L2 utterance and that use is inappropriate and considered an “error.”
The positive transfer is assumed happen when there is similarity between the first and the foreign language. It actively aids the learners in performing the second or foreign language correctly. In contrast, the first language will actively interfere with the second or foreign language if the first and the second language are different, called negative transfer or interference as cited in Ellis: 1985.
Newmark (1966) cited in Krashen (1981) argued that “interference” is not the first language “getting in the way” of second language skills, rather, it is the result of the performer “falling back” on old knowledge when he or she has not yet acquired enough of the second language.
The interference of first language in second or foreign language learning is inevitable. Many learners and teachers found the difficulties in second language learning that are caused by the first language or previous language. One of the aspects which can be affected is in the grammar aspect.
3. Grammatical Interference
The mastery of a foreign language rule may lead to understanding of the language. Learning the terminology of traditional grammar can help the learners to identify and correct sentence fragments and run on sentences. Grammar is a theory of language, of how language is put together and how it works. Grammar is the rules in a language for changing the form of words and joining them into sentences. Grammatical interference is the one, which is in the area of grammar.
The grammatical aspects are the focus of this research. It is because when learning a language, one faces a set of rules which should be mastered. The rules are such as how to pronounce a sound, how to attach a morpheme into its root, how to combine words to be phrase and so on. The errors others make in English differ according to the characteristics of their first languages. Speakers of others languages tend to make some specific errors that are uncommon among native speakers.
According to inter-language theory, the language of language learners is systematic from the very beginning. Learners' language may be full of mistakes, but many of these mistakes show regularities and indicate a developing grammar. To treat acquisitional processes adequately in language teaching and testing, research needs to understand the circumstances under which the language of the learners emerges. (Gardner and Wagner, 2004: 14).
Lane, J. & Lange, E. (1993) explains some frequent errors made by the ESL students in grammar, such as: article (a mistake with article a, an, the, and zero article), verb tense, subject verb agreement, singular-plural, word class (the word in the wrong class), and the sentence structure (The sentence is not complete or perhaps is too long and needs to be reorganized).
Besides, Ellis (1997) also explains some categories can be exemplified, that is:
a. Omission
- Morphological omission e.g. A strange thing happen to me yesterday.
- Syntactical omission. e.g. Must say also the names?
b. Addition:
- In morphology e.g. The books is here.
- In syntax e.g. The London
- In lexicon e.g. I stayed there during five years ago.
c. Selection:
- In morphology e.g. My friend is oldest than me.
- In syntax e.g. I want that he comes here.
d. Ordering:
- In morphology e.g. get upping for ‘getting up’
- In syntax e.g. He is a dear to me friend.
- In lexicon e.g. key car for ‘car key’
The mastery of a foreign language rule may lead to understanding of the language. Learning the terminology of traditional grammar can help the learners to identify and correct sentence fragments and run on sentences. Grammar is a theory of language, of how language is put together and how it works. Grammar is the rules in a language for changing the form of words and joining them into sentences. Grammatical interference is the one, which is in the area of grammar.
4. Interference in Writing
When writing the target language (L2), second language learners tend to rely on their native language (L1) structures to produce a response. The ability of a writer is not similar as other writers. In line with that, Kroll (1991) cited in Nurhaya (2007:40) has pointed out that some writers seems to depend more on first language use that the other writers.
Why does negative transfer occur in writing? Still according to Kroll (1991) writers use the first language strategies and knowledge to aid their second language writing. They apply their knowledge in writing from the first language to writing in the second language. Then the process of transferring structure and vocabulary from the first language into the second language occurred.
Interference occurs due to the unfamiliarity with the second language. If the structures of the two languages are distinctly different, then one could expect a relatively high frequency of errors to occur in L2, thus indicating an interference of L1 and L2.
Kroll (1999) cited in Nurhaya (2007: 40) claims the use of first language strategies and knowledge is a meant to form hypothesis about writing in the second language. They transfer both good and weak writing skill from their first language to English. They do any of their work in their first language. This will inhibit acquisition of the second language and will interfere with the generation of second language structure, due to transfer of structure and vocabularies from the first in an incorrect way.
Writing as one of four language skills is chosen here as the research area. It is considered to what Hoch says: “for a second language learner, writing is an extension of listening and speaking”. When students have opportunities to build and to refine their oral language, their writing also improves. More over, Hudelson as cited in Nurhaya (2007: 40) explains: “all the language process are interrelated, and students become more able language users when they make use of all the processes in classroom activities, when they are asked to use both oral and written language in varied ways and for varied purposes”.
A paragraph as a basic unit of organization in writing in which a group of relates sentences develops one main idea, should be written in correct grammar to create a good writing. It can be as short as one sentence or as long as ten sentences. The number of sentences is unimportant; but the paragraph should be long enough to develop the main idea clearly.
Moreover, a paragraph has three major structural parts: a topic sentence, supporting sentences, and a concluding sentence. However, these three parts of paragraph will be neglected in this research, because the focus of this research is not how to arrange the paragraph sentences well, but to investigate whether the English paragraph writing is influenced by the Indonesian grammatical rules or not.
There are certain characteristic of paragraph writing categorized as the research area as follows:
e. The paragraph written by the English department students of FKIP Untan in the academic year of 2008/2009.
f. The paragraph –from the beginning until the end of the paragraph- is written by the students them selves and using their own words. It is not as the result of jumble sentences, blank paragraph or the copy of the example given.
5. Error and Mistake
In investigating the interference of Indonesian grammatical aspects into English, it is important to be aware of the distinction between error and mistake.
a. Definition of Errors
An error is usually yielded by the deficiency in competence. Errors are not the same thing as mistakes. An error is the difference between what a quantity really is and what it was measured to be. Thus, it is committed because a learner is lacking in competence (Brown, 1980: 165).
Moreover, Ellis (1997) agrees that errors reflect gaps in the learner’s knowledge; this occurs because the learner does not know what the correct one is, the learner has not learnt the correct form of what they are learning.
Lee cited in Ellis (1985:3) argues that the main cause or the only cause of errors and difficulty in learning foreign language is interference coming from the learner’s native language.
Meanwhile, Byrne (1990: 123) divides errors into two sources namely false generalization or transfer from the target language and transfer from the mother tongue.
Gess and Selinker (2008: 102) explain that error is systematic. That is, it is likely to occur repeatedly and is not recognized by the learner as an error. The learner in this case has incorporated a particular erroneous form (from the perspective of the TL) into his or her system.
b. Definition of Mistake
Corder as cited in Gess and Selinker (2008:102) explains that Mistakes are a kind of slips of the tongue. That is, they are generally one-time-only events. The speaker who makes a mistake is able to recognize it as a mistake and correct it if necessary. Moreover, Farooq (1998:3) adds that mistake is also caused by the lack of attention, carelessness and some aspects of performance. Gess and Selinker (2008: 519) states that mistake is nonsystematic errors that learners produce. These are “correctable” by the learner.
6. Contrastive Analysis
To identify the area of difficulty, a procedure called Contrastive Analysis was developed since the late 1960s. It examines errors resulting from the negative transfer from the L1, by establishing the linguistic differences between the learners’ L1 and L2. To be aware of the term contrastive analysis, below is what the experts view about it.
Ellis (1985) provides two hypotheses of contrastive analysis; strong form and the weak form. The strong version states that it is possible to contrast the system of one language (the grammar, phonology, and lexicon) with a system of a second language in order to predict the difficulties which a speaker of second language will have in learning a first language, and to construct a reading material to help her to learn that language. The weak version is the linguist uses the best linguistic knowledge available to him in order to account for the observed difficulties in second language learning. This approach makes fewer demands of contrastive theory than the strong version. The starting point of this approach is provided by real evidence from such phenomena as faulty translation, learning difficulties and residual foreign accents.
The former hypothesis states that mistakes in using the target language can be predicted by identifying the differences of both the native and the target language of the learner. The later hypothesis states that the contrastive analysis and error analysis need to support each other. Contrastive analysis not only identifies the language error made by the students, but also establishes and classifies the language mistakes due to the differences of both languages.
Moreover, Gess and Selinker (2008: 98) explains that contrastive analysis is a way of comparing languages in order to determine potential errors for the ultimate purpose of isolating what needs to be learned and what does not need to be learned in a second-language-learning situation.
In summary, contrastive analysis describes the structural differences and similarities of two or more languages. This hypothesis claims that difficulties in language learning derived from the distinction between the new language with the learners’ first language. Interference as the term used to express the error caused by the distinction of learners’ L1 and FL. Interference as the term used to express the error caused by the distinction of the leaner’s L1 and FL can be predicted and remedied by the use of Contrastive Analysis. The contrastive Hypothesis needs to be recognized due to the role in language learning.
7. Error Analysis
Error analysis and contrastive analysis have been regarded as the main pillars in the domain of second or target language acquisition. With the knowledge about errors of language, kinds and degree of differences between languages on a number of linguistic aspects, errors analysis and contrastive analysis have contributed a lot to the general methodology and theory of language teaching.
Here lies the difference between contrastive analysis and errors analysis. Contrastive analysis examines errors resulting from the negative transfer from the L1 , while error analysis examines errors resulting from all possible sources, including interlingua errors.
Error analysis is the analysis of errors made by the students. This analysis contributes for analyzing the corpus language of the performance, discovering the errors and occurs not only because of the interference, but it resembles the developmental errors for the child learning the first language.
Brown (1980: 166) claims, ‘the learners do make errors, and that these errors can be observed, analyzed, and classified to reveal something of the system operating within the learner, led to surge of study of learners’ errors, called Error Analysis. “
There are advantages of error analysis. In teaching and learning foreign language, error analysis tells the teacher about the types of difficulties that are faced by the learners, as a feedback which tells the teacher something about the effectiveness of the teaching materials and their technique and it is also necessary for designing a remedial teaching syllabus.
In addition, studying learners’ errors serves two major purposes. First, it provides data from which interference about the nature of the language learning process can be made. Second, it indicates to teachers and the curriculum developers the most difficult part of the target language and error types which most detract from a learner’s ability to communicate effectively.” Said Erdogan (2005: 267).
In order to confirm and to know the advantages of error analysis, Norrish (1983: 80) states that the use of error analysis in learning and teaching a foreign language is giving the information to the teachers about the student’s difficulties whether problems common to all learners, individual or particular groups. It is also to show the teacher what parts of the curriculum adequately learned or taught and need further attention.
In contrast, error analysis has also disadvantages. This analysis describes incomplete picture of second language acquisition, because it only focuses on part of the language L2 learners produce. Ellis (1985: 68) summarizes that error analysis is a limited tool for investigating SLA. It can provide only a particular picture, due to it focuses on part of the language that L2 learners produce, e.g. the idiosyncratic forms and also it examines language learners and a single point in time, it does not cast much light on the developmental route learners take.
Saville and Troike (2006:40) explains that Error analysis, offered as an alternative to Contrastive Analysis, has its value in the classroom research. Whereas contrastive analysis, which may be least predictive at the syntactic level and at early stages of language learning (Brown 1994: 214); error analysis emphasizing “the significance of errors in learners’ interlingua system” (Brown 1994: 204) may be carried out directly for pedagogic purposes (Ellis 1995: 51).
Ellis 1994 cited in Saville and Troike (2005: 41) explains the procedure for analyzing learner errors includes the following steps:
The first is identification of errors. This first step in the analysis requires determination of elements in the sample of learner language which deviate from the target L2 in some way. Corder (1967) distinguishes between systematic errors (which result from learners’ lack of L2 knowledge) and mistakes (the results from some kind of processing failure such as a lapse in memory), which he excludes from the analysis.
Second is description of errors for purposes of analysis, errors are usually classified according to language level (whether an error is phonological, morphological, syntactic, etc.), general linguistic category (e.g. auxiliary system, passive sentences, negative constructions), or more specific linguistic elements (e.g. articles, prepositions, verb forms).
The third is explanation of errors. Accounting for why an error was made is the most important step in trying to understand the processes of SLA. Two of the most likely causes of L2 errors are interlingual (“between languages”) factors, resulting from negative transfer or interference from L1 and intralingual (“within language”) factors, not attributable to cross-linguistic influence. Intralingual errors are also considered developmental errors and often represent incomplete learning of L2 rules or overgeneralization of them. Distinguishing between interlingual and intralingual errors implicitly builds upon CA procedures, since the distinction requires comparative knowledge of L1 and L2.
Erdogan (2005:265) add that there are many descriptions for different kinds of errors; it is inevitable to move further and ask for the sources of errors. It has been indicated in the fist part of the study that errors were assumed as being the only result of interference of the first language habits to the learning of second language. However, with the field of error analysis, it has been understood that the nature of errors implicates the existence of other reasons for errors to occur. Then, the sources of errors can be categorized within two domains: (i) interlingual transfer, and (ii) intralingual transfer. (Erdogan 2005: 265).
Interlingual transfer is a significant source for language learners. Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics (1992) defines interlingual errors as being the result of language transfer, which is caused by the learner’s first language. Interlingual errors may occur at different levels such as transfer of phonological, morphological, grammatical and lexica-semantic elements of the native language into the target language.
Intralingual errors result from faulty or partial learning of the target language rather than language transfer. They may be caused by the influence of one target language item upon another. For example, learners attempt to use two tense markers at the same time in one sentence since they have not mastered the language yet. When they say: * “He is comes here”, it is because the singularity of the third person requires “is” in present continuous, and “-s” at the end of a verb in simple present tense. In short, intralingual errors occur as a result of learners’ attempt to build up concepts and hypotheses about the target language from their limited experience with it.
F. SCOPE OF RESEARCH
In conducting the research, the scope of the problem is stated in order to acquire the clarity of the research as well as to avoid ambiguity and misinterpretation. The scope of this research is the grammatical aspects.
1. Research Variable
Wolf (2005:6) defined variable as A variable is a characteristic that can take on a number of values which are able to be measured, and the values or the result can be assumed fluctuate. Therefore, Variable can also be defined as the logical grouping of each attribute. In this research the researcher used a single variable that is the Negative transfer of Indonesian as L1 into English as FL in written text.
I. METHOD OF RESEARCH
Silverman (2000: 79) defined “methodology defines how one will go about studying a phenomenon . . . and method of research is a specific research technique”.
1. Form of Research
In line with the purpose of the research that is to describe the grammatical aspects which is transferred negatively from Indonesian into English in writing text by the English department students of FKIP Untan, descriptive method is considered as the most appropriate method to be applied. According to Ary et al. (1982: 415), descriptive research aims at describing and interpreting the situation which exists now. It is designed to get information about the status of an indication when the research is being conducted. It is directed to decide the characteristic of a situation while the experiment is being conducted.
2. Population and Sample
a. Population
According to Banister (2009: 11) the definition of population is a larger group to which results are applied. In this study, the population is the English department students of FKIP Untan in the semester of second, fourth, sixth, and eight; in the academic year 2008/2009 whose first language is Indonesian.
b. Sample
Wiersma (1986: 263) defined a sample as a subset of the population to which the researcher intends to generalize the result. Meanwhile, Dawson (2002: 47) explains, “For many qualitative researchers however, the ability to generalize their work to the whole research population is not the goal. Instead, they might seek to describe or explain what is happening within a smaller group of people. This, they believe, might provide insights into the behavior of the wider research population, but they accept that everyone is different and that if the research were to be conducted with another group of people the results might not be the same”.
There are two types of sample, probability, and purposive. (Dawson, 2002: 48).
In this study, the researcher uses purposive sampling that is the English department students of FKIP Untan who use Indonesian as L1 in the semester of 2nd, 4th, 6th, and 8th in the academic year 2008/2009.
3. Technique and Tools of Data Collecting
a. Technique of data collecting
Silverman explains that in collecting the data, there are some techniques that we can use such as observation, texts and documents study, Interviews, and audio and video recording.
Postlethwaite (2005: 23) adds that we can also use indirect communication technique and the measurement technique in collecting the data.
Indirect communication technique is applied in form of questionnaire. It aims at knowing the English department students whose first language is Indonesian. The ones whose first language is Indonesian will be used as the sample. In every semester, the researcher will take two students as the representative of each semester. If within a semester there are more than two students who use Indonesian as their first language, the researcher will use random sampling technique in selecting the two students that will be used as the representative of the semester.
In measurement technique, the samples that have been chosen are asked to write a text -at least a page of A4 paper- about a certain topic. In writing the text, the samples are free to write anything they want related to the topic. Therefore, there will be no any control of the researcher toward the samples when they are writing. In this study, the researcher will give some options of topic; each student may choose one of the topics that they like. The topics are:
- My daily activity
- My future resolution
- My family
In this step, the researcher uses the guidelines offered by Ellis (1995: 51-52), a sample of written work was collected from 15 students. The students were provided with the topic ‘My English Language Learning History’, and were asked to write on it in detail. They were also given sufficient time to write (Ellis 1997-a: 114) and were allowed to consult a dictionary if required.
In order to make sure that the sample contained mainly errors, each student was asked to review, to correct error(s) and subsequently have his/her written work checked by a partner. The sentences were then identified by comparing the students’ sentences with those of the reconstructed target-language ones.
b. Tools of data Collecting
In collecting the data, the researcher following what Ellis (1995: 51-52) offered to do that is using the text written by the students. Besides, the questionnaire is also used in order to gather the information about the students’ backgrounds.
4. Technique of Data Analysis
In this study, the researcher uses errors analysis and contrastive analysis. After collecting the students’ writing, the researcher will identify the sentences those contain the mistakes and errors. The mistakes and errors are underlined. Every mistake and error will be put code. The code is in form of numbering.
For example:
Student one
The student writes: “She like eating apple”.
The researcher’s identification: “She like eating apple”1.
The word ‘like’ is incorrect it should be ‘likes’, because the subject is the third singular person, the verb must be added ‘s’. That is way it is underlined. The numbering code ‘1’ in subscribe is the number for the identified error.
After that, the errors and mistakes will be analyzed in order to find the errors or mistakes which are caused by the L1 (Indonesian). To make this process easier, the researcher will make the table 2:
Table 2: Error identification of students 1
No Errors identification code A B Note
1
2
… ……
Total …. …..
Note: A = the errors is caused by L1 (Indonesian)
B = the errors is not caused by L1 (Indonesian)
And then the errors that are caused by L1 will be classified on the type of grammatical aspects. For this step, the researcher will make the following table.
Table 3: Grammatical aspect type of student 1
No Errors identification number Type of grammatical aspect
1
2
3
99 ….. ……
From the classification the researcher will make the percentage of each grammar aspects. Therefore the grammatical aspect that student one mostly transfers negatively from Indonesian into English can be shown.
This process will be conducted to the whole of the sample. After calculating each sample, the researcher will calculate the grammatical aspect that the whole students mostly transfer negatively from Indonesian into English. The researcher will use the following table below.
Table 4: Number of Negative Transfer of the Whole Students
No Student’s code Number of negative transfer Total
The verb agreement Degrees of Comparison Adjective Correlative conjunction ……
1
2
…
Total
From the step, the researcher will know the Indonesians grammatical aspect that the whole students transfer negatively into English.
The last step is calculating the negative transfer in each year. This step aims at knowing in what year the negative transfer of grammatical aspect from Indonesian into English often happen and what grammatical aspect that each year mostly transfer negatively. It will be conducted by using the table below.
Table 5: Number of Negative Transfer per- Year
No Year Number of Negative Transfer TOTAL
The verb agreement Degrees of Comp. Adj. Correlative conjunction Redundancy ….
1 2005 ….
2 2006 ….
3 2007 ….
4 2008 ….
TOTAL
REFERENCES
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