ERROR ANALYSIS OF STUDENTS’ ESSAYS AT ENGLISH EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM OF TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION FACULTY

The objective of this research was to knowthe number of errors produced in students’ essay,the most frequent error,and the reason why the errors occurred. 37 students taken by using cluster sampling technique were the fourth semester students of the English Study Program, 2012 academic year, Teacher Training and Education Faculty, Tadulako University. Furthermore, the data collection was done through triangulation technique. 553 errors were found in this study covering 241 errors of grammar, 307 errors of mechanics, and 5 errors of organization. In her research, the researcher took students’ essays twice. At the first section (1st essay), the researcher found 41.9% errors in grammar, 56.7% errors in mechanics, and 1.4% errors in organization. Next, from the second section (2nd essay), she found 45.5% errors in grammar, 54.2% errors in mechanics, and 0.4% error in organization. The most frequent error was mechanics. The sources of students’ errors found in this research are inter-lingual, intra-lingual error, other errors (internal and external). Keywords: Error Analysis; Essay; Inter-lingual Error; Intra-lingual Erro