CONTOH PROPOSAL

THE ERRORS MADE BY THE EIGHTH GRADE STUDENTS OF SMP NEGERI 3 PALEMBANG IN USING PRESENT PARTICIPLES AND GERUNDS  

1.  Background

            In Indonesia, English is taught as a compulsory subject to high schools and college students.  At some elementary schools, English has even been introduced as a local content subject to their fourth-grade pupils.  The objective of teaching English to Indonesian students is that the students are able to communicate in English both orally and writing.  To achieve this objective, the students should have the four language skills, namely listening, speaking, reading and writing.  Besides, to support their language skills, the students should master the language components, such as pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary.

            Grammar is one of the language components that the students should master.  Grammar is a linguistic description of a particular language, a set of statements or rules that explain how the language works (Calderonnello, 1986:481).  It is important to master grammar because a person who has a good grammar mastery would be able to understand utterances/sentences produced by the other people and to produce grammatical utterances/sentences understood by other people.

             One grammatical item which the students may make errors is, in using Present Participle and Gerund.   Wren and martin (1985:126) say, “Present Participle is a word which is partly a verb and partly an adjective.”  It represents an action, or incomplete or imperfect, as:

1. We met a girl carrying a basket of flowers.
2. Loudly knocking at the gate, he demanded admission.
3. The child, thinking all was safe, attempted to cross the road.
4. He rushed into the field, and foremost fighting fell.

Richard et all, (1985:208) state that Present Participle is formed by adding –ing to a verb base.  It functions as an adjective, for examples:

a smiling girl

a self winding watch
1.2 Problems of the Study

            To make the problems clear, it is necessary to limit the problem in order to stay focused on the point of discussion, namely the analysis of errors made by the sample students in constructing sentences containing the present participles and gerunds.

1.2.1 Limitation of the Problems

            The problem of this study is only limited to the analysis of the students’ errors in using the present participles and gerunds. The errors that were analyzed were in terms of their combination pattern in sentence constructions.

1.2.2 Formulation of the Problem

            The problem of the study is formulated in the following question: “What errors are made by the eighth grade students of SMP Negeri 3 Penukal in using present participles and gerunds.”

1.3 Objective of the Study

            The objective of the study is to find out the errors made by the eighth grade students of SMP Negeri 3 Penukal in using present participles and gerund words.

1.4 Significance of the Study

            The result of this study would be useful for the following parties:

1)      The teachers of English, especially those who teach in SMP Negeri 3 Penukal recognize the errors made by their students in forming sentences containing the grammatical pattern: “Present Participles and Gerunds”. Then they could prepare a better remedial teaching for the students. 

2)      For the researcher herself, this study would improve her English and give her some experience in conducting a scientific task.

3)      For the students, the results of this study would be their remembrance of making errors in constructing English sentences, especially in using present participle and gerund s analyzed.