An Analysis of Students’ Spelling Errors in Writing at the 8th grade of SMPN 2 Kamang Magek

The aim of the research was to find out students’ spelling errors and the causes of spelling errors in writing. Writing spelling correctly is important in order to not make misunderstanding for the reader and writer. In field, researcher found some problem at related to students’ spelling errors. Most of students were not interested when they wrote spell correctly. Then, most of students were doubt in the letter that have same sound. The last was most of students often wrote Indonesian spelling in writing English that have similiar sound. The purposes of this research based on three research questions were to find out the kinds of error in spelling, the most common spelling error, and the causes of spelling error were made by students in writing. In this research, the researcher used mix method research by using descriptive design. The mix method was the combination of qualitative research and quantitative research. Quantitative research was used to answer the kind of students’ spelling error in writing and most common of error in writing. Qualitative research was used to know the causes of students’ spelling error in writing. The informants of this research was the students of VIII-1 class in SMP N 2 Kamang Magek. The total was 22 students. The data was got through documentation and interview. Documentation was used to get quantitative data and interview was used to get qualitative data. The researcher asked the students’ writing to the teacher as a documentation. The interview was done directly and indirectly because of the pandemi. The result of the research showed that there were 184 spelling errors from 22 students. There were nine kinds of spelling error such as omission of letter, addition of letter, single letter instead of double letter, double letter instead of single letter, substitution of letter, interchange of two adjacent of letter, involving an apostrophe, multiple error. Therefore, the most common spelling error was substitution of letter which students changed letter incorrectly with 35,3% percentage. Moreover, there were some reasons why the students of SMP N 2 Kamang Magek made spelling error. The first was the difficulties between spoken and written form in English, it made students were not able to remember the spelling. Second was most of students were influenced by students’ first language when they wrote spelling. The last was lack of students’ desire to write correct spelling.

EFL Teachers' Evaluation on “Skillful-Teaching Writing and Reading 02”

In case that many reforms in learning and teaching English in Vietnam were implemented, exploring the effectiveness of different coursebooks was raised to be a sufficient need. This research is more qualitative than quantitative in its nature, aiming to investigate EFL teachers’ evaluation of the coursebook Skillful – Reading & Writing 02 in a specific educational institution in the Mekong Delta. Thirteen teacher participants using the books were invited to participate in this study. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected by using two instruments, questionnaires and semi-interviews. The study provided a new checklist for evaluating materials in teaching and learning reading and writing. The findings showed that (1) the merits of the coursebook Skillful – Reading & Writing 02: e.g. colorful illustrations, numerous online learning resources accompanying online accounts, suggestive topics, updated contents, and impressive study skills component; and (2) demerits of the book in terms of writing section which does not match the general objectives of the program. Likewise, (3) the cons are regarding quite small font size and long listening activities of the coursebook. Additionally, some implications were suggested in this study to enhance the effectiveness of using sufficient materials for higher educational institutions.

Designing LEEF (Learning English Easy and Fun) as Learning Media for the Seventh Grade of Junior High School

This research aims at designing a learning media which named LEEF (Learning English Easy and Fun) as English learning media for seventh grade students of Junior High School. This learning media consists of some materials and exercises which is appropriate and feasible to be studied for students. All materials in this media are based on junior high school syllabus of K13 curriculum. The research method used in this research is Research and Development. This development used ADDIE model which have several steps, those are; 1) Analysis, 2) Design, 3) Development, 4) Implementation, and 5) Evaluation. The result of this research shows that from the media validation result got 4.00 score it was in “fair and worth to use” category, and the material validation got 3.86 score. The students’ responses of try out result score 4.26 were in “fair and worth to use” category. By having those result, this LEEF (Learning English Easy and Fun) is feasible to be used as a learning media for seventh grade students of junior high school. Furthermore this research can be used as reference to other researchers in developing English learning media in different level of students.

Mother-Tongue Interference in Learning English in English Meeting Club

Interference is a phenomenon that occurs in a society when learning a new language and bilingualism is one of the causes why interference is. Interference occurs mostly because the speakers who have more than one language used to interact with one another. This study aimed to describe the kind of interference errors made by learners of English in English Meeting of disorders caused by the mother tongue. This study used qualitative method which its subject was taken from participants of English Meeting. The collecting of data used audio recording which was converted into transcription. The results showed that interference errors committed by English language learners' is generally influenced to phonetic refers to speech sounds, lexical interference to the level of words and grammar disorder refers to the rules of grammar in language. This is due to the fact that the speaker Indonesia experienced a huge obstacle when trying to use English as the target language as first language learners have mastered. The source of the difficulties is based on the level difference between the Indonesian system and the English systemKeywords – Interference, Bilingualism, Interference errors

The Correlation between the Teacher's Oral Feedback and the Students' Writing Motivation

This study aims to determine the correlation between the teacher’s oral feedback and the students’ writing motivation. This study is quantitative research with a correlation method. The researcher conducted this study at SMPN 2 Kasihan. The population of this study included all of the 8th graders. The sample of this study consists of 93 students. To gain the data, the researcher distributed the questionnaires to the students. The data analysis technique used in this research used Rank Spearman Correlation, with SPSS version 23 for the windows program. The result of the research showed that there is a correlation between the teacher’s oral feedback and the students’ writing motivation. It is evidenced by the Rank Spearman correlation test results with the significance value of 0.000, where it is <0.05.

“The Correlation Between Students’ Anxiety and Speaking Performance at The Second Grade In SMAN 1 Pantai Cermin Kabupaten Solok in Academic Years 2019/2020”

ABSTRACT The background of this research was the presence of anxiety among some students in their English Speaking activities in the school. In language learning, anxiety influenced speaking performance. Therefore, the researcher conducted observations and interviews to finding the real condition. In addition, some students had anxieties when speaking English because anxiety had an effect on performance while some other students had no problems. Relate to this condition, the researcher wanted to investigate the correlation between students’ anxiety and speaking performance at the second grade of SMAN 1 Pantai Cermin Kabupaten Solok Academic years 2020/2021. This research used quantitative approach in the type of the correlation design. The population of this research was all class of the second grade in SMAN 1 Pantai Cermin and all of them became sample because they were less than hundred. The data was got by questionnaire and documentation. The students fill the questionnaires directly relate to their anxiety in speaking. The questionnaires was adopted and adapted from foreign language classroom anxiety scale (FLCAS) developed by Horwitz (1986). The data of the documentation were taken from the students’ final scores in the speaking.To analyze the data, the researcher used the SPSS version 20 for windows. In analyzing the data, the researcher used Person Product Moment formula to find out the significant correlation, to find out the correlation direction and to find out the correlation magnitude of students’ anxiety and speaking performance. The results of the research showed that there was a correlation between students’ anxiety and speaking performance at the second grade of SMAN 1 Pantai Cermin academic years 2019/2020. The researcher found that the coefficient of correlation between students’ anxiety and speaking performance at the second grade of SMAN 1 Pantai Cermin was 0,146. The correlation was positive and significant. It means that Ho is rejected and Ha is accepted. Thus, there is a positive correlation between students’ anxiety and speaking performance at the second grade of SMAN 1 Pantai Cermin. Based on the result of the research, it can be conclude that if the students have high anxiety automatically she/he have low ability in speaking performance or when the students have low anxiety automatically she/he have high ability in speaking performance. Keywords - Correlation, anxiety, speaking performance. .

Online Peer Assessment in Nurturing Students Writing Skill

This study aims to investigate the process of online peer assessment implementation in a writing activity and to find out the students’ responses toward the implementation of online peer assessment in learning writing skills. This research uses a qualitative approach and case study as the research design. The data were collected with the triangulation data by observation, interview, and documentation. Observation checklist, in-depth interview, and documentation used as data retrieval instruments. The subject of this study is an English teacher and students of class XI TKJ 1 at SMKN 1 Rawamerta. The result of this study shows that the implementation of peer assessment in writing skills is very effective to help the students in learning writing and evaluating learning process. Before the implementation of peer assessment, the students were not able to recognize their mistakes in detail, they could only find out about the numerical score, and did not know about how to assess. Based on the result obtained, it is concluded that teaching writing to the students’ responses toward the use of peer assessment was positive. It can be seen from the attitude and enthusiasm. Students agreed that peer assessment is a very effective technique used in writing activities. It can be concluded that online peer assessment can be applied both in writing and speaking as well as an important part of the move towards more forms of participatory learning. There is a need to apply it in the schools and universities since it is more adaptable to modern developments in the assessment of learning outcomes.

PLEASE Strategy for Teaching Writing Viewed from Students' Self-Esteem

This research aims to investigate whether: (1) PLEASE strategy is more effective than RAFT strategy for writing; (2) Students having high self-esteem are better in writing than those having low self-esteem; and (3) There is an interaction between the strategies and the students’ self-esteem. This research was done at a state secondary school located in Sragen, Jawa Tengah, Indonesia. Cluster random sampling was employed to get the sample consisting of two classes. PLEASE strategy was used in the experimental class meanwhile RAFT strategy was employed in the control class. The students in each class were categorized into students having high self-esteem and low self-esteem. Writing test and self-esteem questionnaire were utilized to gather data. Multifactor Analysis of Variance ANOVA 2 x 2 test and Tukey test were employed to analyze the data after normality and homogeneity tests were undergone. The results indicate that: (1) PLEASE strategy is more effective than RAFT strategy for writing; (2) Students having high self-esteem are better in writing than those having low self-esteem; and (3) There is an interaction between the strategies and the students’ self-esteem. It suggests that PLEASE strategy is an effective strategy for writing compared to RAFT strategy. Further researches comparing PLEASE strategy to other strategies, techniques, or methods and collaborating it with media and innovative materials for writing are encouraged.

Students' Analyses toward Grammatical Errors on Social Media's Posts: Case Study in Politeknik Negeri Medan

Learning a second or foreign language is quite different from acquiring the first language or mother tongue. There are some differences found in different languages including the grammatical pattern. It tends to make the learners have errors in writing or speaking English. This study investigated the students’ analyses toward grammatical error on social media posts. The subject of research are 15 students of Politeknik Negeri Medan majoring computer engineering.There were 20 errors found by students which were further analyzed by using surface taxonomy theory. This study showed that the students’ analyses were dominantly on misformation analysis, followed by omission, addition, and misordering analysis. Misformation is the highest rate of errors found as it actually covers many grammar topics in english such as tenses, participle, verbal sentence, nominal sentence, part of speech, and others as analyzed by students on social media posts. Besides, no students found blends analysis, it might due to their lack of knowledge of blends itself. Key word: Grammatical error, social media, surface taxonomy theory

An Analysis of Students’ Problem in Writing a Personal Letter at 11th Grade of MAN 4 Agam

There were some students’ problems that the writer found at MAN 4 AGAM. First, some students could not develop their ideas when writing. Second, some students were confused about using tenses. Next, some students had limited vocabulary. The last, some students were wrong in diction. This research aimed to discover the students’ problems in writing personal letters and the causes of students’ problems in writing personal letters. In this research, the researcher used mix method by using descriptive design. The mixed-method was the combination of quantitative and qualitative research. The informants of this research were the students of the XI IS-1 class, which consisted of 19 students. The data were obtained through documentation and interview. This research found five aspects of students’ problems in writing a personal letter—the problems which percentage 18,2 % was content. The second was organization, with a percentage of 15,4 %. Next, the student's problem in grammar was 25,3 %. After that, the problem of vocabulary was 23,2 %. The last, mechanics’ problem was 17,7 %. Therefore, from the percentage, the most common of students’ problems was grammar. There were some causes why students got a problem in writing a personal letter. There was the psychological, linguistic, and cognitive problem. Thus, based on an interview with some students, the most cause of the problem was linguistic problems.