Grammatical Errors on Writing Recount Text by Junior High School Students

This study was aimed to analyze the types of grammatical errors on recount text
written by junior high school students and find the factors driving the errors. This
study employed a qualitative research design that taken from two different grades
students of junior high school namely grade eight and nine at SMP Dharma
Pancasila. The data were collected by assigning the students to write recount text
with the same topic and interviewing the sample to find out the factors why they
do grammatical errors. The technique used to collect the data was elicitation
technique by Walsh, 2002. Based on the research the result of the study were the
students of ninth grade were more capable in writing recount text with the correct
sentence patterns, The eight grade led the verb sentence error than the ninth grade,
while the contrary occured in sentence structure error. The ninth grade did more
errors than the eighth grade. The factors underlying the grammatical error in
recount text written by eighth and ninth students were careless, first language
interference, and language as a part of language creativity. The main factor of
grammatical error written by the students was language interference.