AN ANALYSIS OF THE STUDENTS’ ERRORS
IN CHANGING ACTIVE TO PASSIVE VOICE THE SECOND YEAR
OF SMP NEGERI 3 BOJONG PURWAKARTA
RATIH AGUSTINI
dhera_muth@yahoo.com
English Education Study Program Language and Arts Department
Sekolah Tinggi Keguruan dan Ilmu Pendidikan (STKIP) Siliwangi Bandung
ABSTRACT
The objective of this research entitled “An Analysis of The Students Errors In Changing Active To Passive Voice the
Second Year of SMP Negeri 3 Bojong Purwakarta” at the were to find out how many errors that the students’made,
to find out tyfe of errors most frequently appeared,to find out tyfe of errors least frequently appeared. In this research
the writer used qualitative method . The subjects of this research were 20 of second grade students’ at SMP N 3
Bojong Purwakarta 2012-2013. The instrument of the research was writing test on changing active to passive voice,
the data were collected by giving writing test on changing active to passive voice to the students’ sample. The
collected data was identified, classified, analysed and interpreted based on the types of errors using Dulay’s errors
were 134 sentences. The frequency of errors were omission type = 37 or 22.6 %, misformation type = 79 or 58.9 %,
addition type = 8 or 5.9% and miscordering type = 10 or 7.4%. Based on the data analysis above, the most of
students’ errors was misformation, and the least of students’errors was addition.
Key words: An Analysisof The students Problem in Changing Active to Passive Voice
fance a writing test like changing active to passive
voice.
In this study when the writer visited Sekolah
Menengah Pertama Negeri 3 Bojong Purwakarta she
found some errors done by many students’. Therefore
the writing is interesed to analyze the students’ errors
because most of the secound grede students’ used
passive sentence so that when they are going to
change into their active sentence they confused and
finally errors i changing active to passive poice
The purposes of this study were to find out how
many errors that the students’ made, to find out type
of errors most frequently appeared.
B. Literature Review
1. Definition of Errors and Mistakes
Making errors is the most natural thing in the world
and it is evidently attached to the human being. But
how do we define error? There are different
definitions of the word and as Ellis explains “
learners make errors in both comprehension and
production, the first being rather scantly
investigated”. Children learning their first language
(L1), adult native speakers, and second learners; they
all make errors that have a different name according
to the group committing the errors.
Consequently, it is impossible for someone to learn
without committing any errors. Before analy
2. Definition of Passive Voice
Qodir (2006: 10-13) defines basically in English
there are only two voices namely active voice and
A. Background
English and indonesian are broadly known as
languages which are being used by milions of people.
Based on Hamura ( 20011 ) English developments
cannot be separated from the economic developments
of the world. However, Indonesian develpments are
caused by its similarity with the malaya languagr.
English has tenses for verb while bahasa indonesia
has no similar concep. The English grammar has
many elements, one of them there are Verbs in
English divited into two voices : active and passive.
Both language have passive & active voice – bahasa
indonesia uses “ di-“ prefix to indicate the passive
voice while English uses the “-ed” siffix.
Englisg is much different from Indonesian, for
example in functional skills, especiallty in passive
sentence. Students’ should master some elements of
languages, like tenses. In changing active to passive
sentences, students’ should know the tenses, because
passive sentences depend on each of the tenses.
In changing active inti passive voice sentences, many
people and students’still make errors because lack of
ability in changing it and it and all indonesian people
speak Bahasa Indonesia. The use of passive sentence
in Bahasa Indonesia is very pften. But English often
use active sentence in many expressions. Especially
students’, they do not understand how to change it
and when they try to make a sentence they also got a
problems because they do not know how to make a
good sentence and they often got a trouble when they
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passive voice. The active voice of the verb simply
means the form of the verb used when the subject is
the doer of the action. Many active voice sentences
are transitive sentences. A transitive sentence is a
sentence with a subject that performs the verbal
action and an object that receives the verbal, active
voice is stemming from which the passive voice is
produced and The passive voice in general is formed
by putting the verbs "to be" before the main verb, and
the main verb of the active sentence must be changed
into past participle.
C. Research Method
In a qualitative study research design should be a
reflexive process operating through every stage of a
project. Brns (1995 : 2) stage that “reasearch is a
systematic investigation to find answer to proble”. It
is neccesary for collecting the data of the research.
The researcher used a qualitative descriptive
research, it is used toexplain, analyze, and clasify
something trough various techniques, survey,
interview, questionnaire, observation, and test. The
goal of descriptive study is to systematically factually
and accurately describe or illustrate the fact,
characteristic and relationship of the researched
elements.
Qualitative methodology is the metodhology in
which researchers do not set out to test hypothesis,
but to observe what is present with a focus, and
consequently the data, free to vary during the course
of the observation.
This study employed qualitative methode using the
main instruments to collect data by observing the
natural setting of the clssroom interaction. In
qualitative research, there are several methods which
are prevalently use :”enthography, phenomenologhy,
grounded, theory and case study method
(Alwasilah,2008)”
D. Research Finding and discussions
The writer showed the data collected by
students’ writing test in the following tables. There
are tables expressing the total errors made by
students’
Table 1 The Score of Students’ writing test
No
Name
Correct
Answers
Incorrect
Answers
Scores
1
2
3
4
A
F
FD
LD
7
4
4
2
3
6
6
8
70
40
40
20
Persentag
e of
Errors
30%
60%
60%
70%
The table above shows the percentage of the
students’ in changing active to passive voice. After
taking the test the percentage of the students’
changing active to passive voice 4 students (15%) got
good, 12 students (60%) got fairly good, 4 students
(20%) got fair, and one student (5%) got poor
The kinds of the problem of the students in
changing active to passive voice
No.
The Problem
Frequency Percentage
1
Miss information
11
39.28%
2
Omission error
10
35.71%
3
Miss ordering
7
25%
Total
28
100%
The data above can also be shown from the
chart below
100,00
80,00
60,00
40,00
20,00
0,00
39.28%
35.71%
25%
The students'
Problem in Changing
Active to Passive
Voice
Miss
Inform
ation
The table and chart above shown the result of
this research in this case the problem of the students
in changing active to passive voice after give the test
instrument as a way to get the data the research found
that the students’ problem classify in 3 kinds of
problem there are miss information, omission error
and miss ordering. In the miss information the
researcher found 11 (39.28%), omission error 10
(35.71%) and miss ordering 7 (25%)
E. Conclusions and Suggestions
a. Conlusions
After processing and analyzing the data, the writer
concludes as follow:
Based on the result of the research from writing test,
the students’ made errors in changing active to
passive voice with amount of errors are 134 or 67 %,
She can indentifywhwt type of erros was made by the
students’, those errors were: omission with amounth
of errors are 37 or 27.6%, Addition is the type of
errors least frequently made by the students’ with
amounth of errors are 8 or 5.9%, mispormation is the
type of errors most frequiently appears with amount
of errora are 79 or 58.9%, and misordering with
amount of errors are 10 or 7.4%. The students’made
errors in omission, it means they leave out an item
that is required for an utterance to be considered
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grammatical. The students’ were mising verb
auxiliary “be” in the sentence.
1. For the Teacher
a. The writer really hopes that the teachers
can increase their teaching methods and
not only gives explanation abouth active
to passive voice but also he or she could
explain more detail on how in changing
active to passive voice and the
differences between them.
b. The English teacher need to conduct
remedial or tuturial teaching for passive
voice, because the findings showed that
they are very weak in this material. For
example, the teacher can assign the
students’ to make list of verbs and write
complete in sentences and tries to change
it to passive voice.
2. For the Students’
a. The writer really hopes that students’
will increase more their English study. It
is impotant especially for second grade
students’ in SMPN because they have to
use and speak English, they were
considered in the tourism department.
Beside that, they will feel the advantages
of their success in the future.
b. The students’should memori the form of
verb
c. The students’should be aware of their
errors and avoid repeating the same
errors in their further learning.
3. For the Next Researcher
The following research my open to other
researchers to decrearse the students’ errors.
b. Suggestion
After involving in research process, analyzing
findings and discussions, the researcher can suggest
students of English still have problems in changing
active voice into passive voice, so the teacher should
give more attention in specific rules in changing
active voice into passive, the students should not
worry about making errors. They should use the
errors as device in order to learn more about English
grammar especially passive voice.
F. Bibliography
Brown, H. D. 1980. Principles of Language and
Teaching. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, inc
Alice, Oslima and Hogue,Ana. 1983. Writing
Academi English. London: Addison-Wesley
Publishing Company
Cored, S.P. 1975. Error analysis, interlanguage
and second language acquisition. Language
teaching and linguistics: Abstracts, 8, 201-218
Depdikbud. 1985. Petunjuk Pelaksanaan Proses
Belajar Mengajar dan Petunjuk Pelaksanaan
Sistem Penilitian. Depdikbud: Jakarta
Dulay, H., Burt. M. & Krashen S. 1982. Language
Two, Oxford : Oxford University Press.
Frank, M., 1972: 55 active and passive voice.
James, C. 1998. Errors in Language Learning and
Use Exploring Error Analysis, London :
Longman Group Ltd
Qodir 2006 An Error Analysis on Changing Active
Voice Into Passive Voice. HIMMAH
Vol.VIINo. 18 Januari-April 2006
Swan, Michael. 1996. Practical English Usage. New
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Richards, J.C. (ed). (1973)errors Analysis. London:
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Jeffries, Lesley. (2006). The Strukture Of Modern
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James, Carl. (1998). Errors in Language Learning
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Hamura, (2011). English and Indonesian the
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[online]. Available at: http://www.
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Ellis, R. (1994). The of Second Language
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Press
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Creswell, John W. (2012). Education Research.
University of Nebraska- Lincoln : Pearshon
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