ABSTRACT

Abdullah Munawar Siregar. 110205019. The Students’ Ability in Identifying

The Fricative Sound. Skripsi. English Education Program of Teachers’
Training and Education University of Muhammadiyah Sumatera Utara.
Medan. 2015.

This research is intended to analyze the students ability in identifying the fricative
sound. The objective of this study was to find out the students’ ability in
identifying the fricative sound and their difficulties in identifying the fricative
sound especially for the fourth semester students. The population of this research
was the fourth semester students of English Department of FKIP UMSU. The
researcher used purposive sampling which mean the researcher chose his sample
based on some consideration. The sample of this research consisted of 72 students
from two classes. The data were acquired by giving the students an objective test.
The test was consisted of 60 words that was taken from the Oxford dictionary.
The data was analyzed by using descriptive qualitative and quantitative method.
The result of the study showed that there were 6 (8%) students got an excellent
level, 8 (11%) students achieved a very good level, 26 (36%) students gained a
good level, 6 (8%) got a poor level, and 26 (36%) students have a very poor level.
The researcher analyzed the student ability based on the students ability to
identify the fricative sound and he concluded that 40 (56%) students were
categorized able and 32 (44%) students were categorized unable. The researcher
found their difficulties by calculated their mistakes from each category of the
fricative sound and the total mistakes from all sample of each category was 409
(26%) mistakes occurred in fricative dental unvoiced, 463 (29%) mistakes
occurred in fricative dental voiced, 396 (24%) mistakes occurred in Fricative
alveolar voiced, and 332 (21%) mistakes occurred in Fricative alveolar unvoiced.
The reason could be they didn’t know or unfamiliar with the words or they still
lack of knowledge about determining the fricative sound. From the data obtained
above and the average score of all sample was 63, it means that the fourth
semester students of English Department of FKIP UMSU were unable to identify
the fricative sound.