AN ERROR ANALYSIS ON THE USE OF GERUND TO THE FOURTH

SEMESTER STUDENTS OF ENGLISH DEPARTMENT FACULTY OF IAIN

LANGSA IN THE ACADEMIC YEAR OF 2017/2018

A. Background of the Study

Learning English needs some skills and components that should be mastered.
Among those skills, the most difficult ones for students is mastering tenses and grammar.
Grammar is important because people will not be able to communicate and understand
each other without it. According to Nasr, grammar is an important part of any language.
Just as there is no language without sounds (at least no live or oral language), so there is
no language without grammar (1985: 52). Based on this statement, grammar plays
important rules when learning English.

Moreover, Harmer in the Practice of English Language Teaching stated that

Grammar can thus be partly seen as knowledge of what words can go where and what
form these words should take. Studying grammar means knowing how different
grammatical elements can be strung together to make chains of words. From those
statements above, the writer concludes that grammar is knowledge of how to combine
and manipulates words together to make a good sentence or paragraph.

In addition, grammar is an essential part to be learned in the process of acquiring

language; it must be mastered to help someone in making a sentence or paragraph
grammatically and meaningfully. As Ur said that the knowledge of grammatical rules is
essential for the mastery of a language. If we study grammar, we will study verb, and if
we study verb, we will study present participle, past participle, infinitive, and gerund.
Past participle is ed form, infinitive is to- form and present participle also gerund have
the same form, -ing form.

A gerund is a verb form which ends in ing and is used in a sentence like a noun.
These verbal forms are often found in many sentences with different functions such as
subject, (direct) object, used after a preposition, and etc which often lead to some
confusion. To know how the verbals work, it is essential to understand their meaning and
purpose.

Verbals in gerund are derived from verbs but function as a noun by adding the
suffix-ing to verbs. According to Allen (1974:177) the part of the verb that ends in-ing
has two very important functions: (1) It can have the force of an adjective as well as that
of a verb. We call this the present participle, and (2) It can have the force of a noun as
well as that of a verb. We call this the gerund. Unfortunately, this actually causes errors
and problems due to not only the gerunds use verbs + ing in the sentence but also the
present participle.

Lack of understanding of the verb + ing form that can be used either as gerund or
as present participle may cause errors in its use. It will lead to a different understanding
of the meaning between the speaker and listener in a communication. This means that the
use of language and its message delivery is not achieved well. Sapir (1949:7) says that
language is purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions,
and desire by means of a system of voluntarily produced symbols.
Susan and Selinker (2008:517) say that error analysis is a procedure for analyzing
second language data that begins with the errors learners make and then attempts to
explain them. There is a close relationship between an error analysis on the use of gerund
and second language acquisition, that is gerund is one of English structure features and
English is the first foreign language (second language) in Indonesia that must be learned
by Indonesian students. In the process of learning gerund, many learners make errors and
it is a normal case because it is the process for the learners to acquire the second
language.

Here are the examples of the misunderstanding of using gerund. Hewill considers
go with you, read is good activity. From those examples, the writer concluded that most
of the students did not know how to use gerund. He tried to correct those sentences as
follows: He will consider going with you, reading is good activity. It is in line with the
statement of George E. Wishon and Julia M. Burks in Lets Write English that the
gerund is the ing form of the verb used as a noun. Notice that the gerund has the same
form as the present participle. However, it functions difference in the sentence. It is
always a noun and can function in any noun position.

Based on the discussion above, the writer considers the difficulties faced by
students in learning and using gerund. It is about getting students understanding of the
use of the gerund form and the difference from the present participle.

Based on the statement above, the researcher tries to present AN ERROR

ANALYSIS ON THE USE OF GERUND TO THE FOURTH SEMESTER STUDENTS
OF ENGLISH DEPARTMENT FACULTY OF IAIN LANGSA IN THE ACADEMIC
YEAR OF 2017/2018

1.2. Problem of the Study

Based on the description in the background of analysis above, the problem of the research
are as follow:
1. What kinds of error on the use of gerund are made by the 2017/2018 fourth semester
students of English Department of IAIN Langsa.
2. What are the causes and the sources of the errors on the use of gerund made by the
2017/2018 fourth semester students of English Department of IAIN Langsa.
3. What kind of error on the use of gerund is the most dominant made by the 2017/2018
fourth semester students of English Department of IAIN Langsa.

1.3. Objective of the Study

Based on the problem of the study, the objectives of the research are as follows:

1. To find out kinds of error on the use of gerund are made by the 2017/2018 fourth
semester students of English Department of IAIN Langsa.
2. To find out the causes and the sources of errors on the use of gerunds made by the
2017/2018 fourth semester students of English Department of IAIN Langsa.
3. To find out the kinds of error on the use of gerund is the most dominant made by the
2017/2018 fourth semester students of English Department of IAIN Langsa.

1.4. Scope of the Study

The writer limits the research related to the use of gerund. According to the explanation
above, the writer limits the research related to the use of gerund such as gerund as
subject, object of transitive verb, object of preposition, in apposition to a noun,
subjective complement, noun modifier, and after certain phrases in the forth semester
students of English Department Faculty of IAIN Langsa Academic Year of 2017/2018.

1.5. The Significance of the Study

The writter hopes that the result is useful to provide:

1. Input to the readers generally and especially for students of English Department in
order they become more careful in using gerund.
2. Information about the kinds of error on the use of gerund and as a consideration matery
in teaching and learning gerund especially in English Department.
3. Guidance on the use of gerund to motivate learners to be more seriously studying
gerund that it can reduce the mistakes in using it.