Error analysis in the agreement of plural-noun pattern in a sentence made by the third year students of SMA Kristen PIRNGADI Surabaya

In the 1984 Enqlish curriculum for Senior High School. it is stated that "The Agreement of Plural-Nouns in a Sentence" is one of the sub topics of Enqlish that the third year students should master. Realizing the fact that the third year students of SMAK Pirngadi Surabaya still had difficulties in using the elements in the agreement -of plural-nouns in a sentence (the elements in the agreement between determiners and plural-nouns and the elements in the agreement between plural-nouns and verbs), I became interested in finding out the most troublesome element in the agreement of plural-nouns in a sentence made by these students. The aim of this study is to find out serious errors in the agreement of plural-nouns in a sentence (the agreement between determiners and plural-nouns and the agreement between plural-nouns and verbs) made by the third year students of SMA Kristen Pirngadi Surabaya. The reason is , a large number of students still made a lot of mistakes in the agreement of plural-nouns in a sentence in their test papers. To prove it, an attempt was made to present some amount of errors under discussion along with their predicted causes and some suggestions on how to overcome them. The method of this study was analyzing, classifying and counting the errors from the students' test papers to find out the most troublesome element in the agreement of plural-nouns in a sentence ( the agreement between determiners and plural-nouns and the agreement between plural-nouns and verbs) which had been misused by the students. The result was the misuse of the verbs in the agreement between plural-nouns and verbs (31.5 % ) , the misuse of the plural-nouns in the agreement between plural-nouns and verbs (29.8 % ) , the misuse of the plural-nouns i n the agreement between determiners and plural-nouns (19.6 %) and the misuse of the determiners i n the agreement between determiners and plural-nouns (19.1 %). Based on the findings, the conclusion of this study was the most difficult element in the agreement of plura- nouns in a sentence is the correct use of-verbs in the agreement between plural-nouns and verbs and the easiest element is the correct use of the determiners in the agreement between determiners and plural-nouns. Expectantly, the findings of this study will give us better information about how students learn the agreement of English plural-nouns in a sentence in their efforts to master English as a foreign language. Consequently, the findings are expected to be-applied by the English teachers as feedback to improve their ways of teaching the agreement of plural-nouns in a sentence. Hence, by so doing, the teachers will help their students decrease in makinq errors in the aqreement of plural-nouns in a sentence