GRAMMATICAL ERRORS OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS IN SPEAKING ENGLISH

Abstract

This research primarily deals with grammatical error analysis. It describes the grammatical errors in speaking skill made by the eighth grade students at second semester of SMPN 24 Bandar Lampung in 2016/2017 academic year. Data for the study are the conversation of students that are splitted into ten groups The grammatical errors are classified based on Comparative Taxonomy, they are; developmental errors, interlingual errors, ambiguous errors, and other errors. Besides classifying the errors, the research also investigates sources of the errors. This is qualitative approach in which the data are obtained from the students’ English conversation. The result of this study shows that the students committed errors in every type of Comparative Taxonomy. The most error that students made was interlingual errors. It means the students’ mother tongue interfered them in speaking English. Based on the observation and interview, the possible causes of students’ grammatical errors were interlingual transfer, intralingual transfer, context of learning and communication strategy.