TOP TEN MOST PROBLEMATIC GRAMMATICAL ITEMS FOR INDONESIAN TERTIARY EFL LEARNER WRITERS

Errors are almost inseparable from learning process, including learning new languages. Though, it is not always considered as negative, instead, it is a part of learning process. This study was conducted to assess students’ mastery of grammar in writing, to find what grammatical errors they make, to be an evaluation to overcome the problem in the future. In this study, samples were taken from EFL students of English Education Department of Universitas Muhammadiyah Purwokerto. The grammatical errors were identified under the theory of Politzer-Ramirez which classify errors into two types: morphological and syntactic error. In the end of the study, ten types of grammatical errors were identified as the most common grammatical errors made by the students. Three of them belong to morphological error, while the remaining fall into syntactic error. Those ten errors are: The use of prepositions (75 %), redundancy (75 %), simple past tense incorrect (62.5 %), determiners (58.3 %), number confusion (45.8 %), omission of verb (45.8 %), verb construction (41.67 %), derivatives/wrong part of speech (41.67 %), nominalization (33.3 %), and errors in the use of pronoun (29.2 %).


INTRODUCTION
Learning English as a foreign language can be a big problem for some learners. As a foreign language, it means that learning English is just like learning a language which is completely Writing is one of four main skills of language beside listening, speaking and reading. It belongs into productive skill. As a productive skill, writing is not like speaking skill or the other receptive skills. Writing, which is one of the most complicated skills to be mastered, does not only need lots of vocabulary in arranging a paragraph, but also grammatically correct in order to be comprehensible besides other writing rules (Tarigan, et. al, 2019).
Writing needs broad knowledge and deep thinking process to produce words, sentences, and paragraphs at the same with good English grammar (Kumala et al, 2018). This is in accordance with Suwarni et al (2016) who said that writing needs complex process, involves the mastery of all elements in the target language: as grammar, content, organization, vocabulary, punctuation, spelling and mechanics. Compared to the other English skills, writing skill requires a lot of sub-skills and sub-competences which are not easy to learnt and acquired. (Huda and Wuda, 2019).
In order to write clearly and efficiently, learner should pay attention to grammar as it is important to construct meaningful sentences. This is supported by Nurrohmah (2011) who said that in term of skill to produce a good rhetoric, a good writer must have good ideas, grammar competence, and language skills. Besides, in writing skill, grammar is also one of the most important role in producing the sentences (Kharmilah and Narius, 2019).
Thus, it is clear that writing and grammar are close in its relation. It connects between what people write and how they write it (Jones, et. al, 2012). From this statement, it can be inferred that grammar and writing is inseparable.
Wilcox (as cited in Ariyani, 2019) stated that grammar is a component of a language and it cannot be separated from it. Through learning grammar, the learners will construct the produced due to the lack of knowledge about the grammar which causes 'deviation' from produce selected norm of mature language performance as stated by Dulay, Burt and Krashen (as cited in Suwartono, 2006). However, it leads to a more fatal error when being produced in writing instead of speaking due to the absence of the speaker to clarify. In Indonesian English learner case, the errors are even greater because of the different structure between Indonesian and English (Asni and Susanti, 2018). Due to their first language grammatical structure interference, Indonesian students tend to produce the grammatical errors in almost all of English grammatical aspects (Wahyono and Yuliasri, 2019).
Writing itself, based on the previous explanation, is clearly revealed as a complex process and closely related to grammar which is also difficult especially for the non-English native speaker. No wonder that Phuket and Othman (as cited in Latupeirissa and Sayd, 2019) stated that in EFL writing, students' mastery of EFL is so poor that writing teachers call it "a crisis." In a higher education level grammar mastery become more important since higher education usually use English in writing their literature work and project. This is in accordance with Ulijn and Strother (as cited in de La Cruz, 2019) who stated that writing, which is the focus of this research work, is one of the macro skills of language usage. Writing apart from the other macro skills is an essential skill in student's academic study in all colleges and universities, as it is needed for writing researches, writing essays, making reports, making letters, taking notes and the like. This is why grammar mastery is important and thus grammar evaluation should be done.
In order to evaluate the use of grammar, there are some procedures that can be used to analyse error. Error analysis is an activity to identify, classify and interpret or describe the errors made by someone in speaking or in writing and it is carried out to obtain information on common difficulties faced by someone in speaking or in writing English sentences (Kharmilah and Narius, 2019). Generally, there are four most useful and common taxonomies that can be used i.e.
In Surface Strategy Taxonomy, the error analysis focuses on the errors occurred in the surface structure. Dulay, Burt and Krashen (as cited in Puspitasari, 2013) divide the errors into 4 types i.e. omission, addition, misformation, and misordering. a. Omission means the elimination of certain elements e.g. the elimination of morpheme in a word. For example, in the sentence "I hungry" (the morpheme 'am' is omitted).
b. Addition, in opposite with omission, means adding items that should not actually be exist in proper use. Dulay, Burt and Krashen (as cited in Puspitasari, 2013) further classify the addition into three types i.e. double markings (e.g. "Did you went there?"), regularization (e.g. cutted) and simple addition.
c. Misformation means the use of the wrong form of morpheme or structure (Puspitasari, 2013).
For example, the use of 'this' in a situation when 'these' or 'those' should be used.  The last, in Linguistic Category Taxonomy, Politzer-Ramirez (1973) identify grammatical errors using linguistics terms and classify the errors into two kinds: morphological and syntactic errors with more specific classification for each kind of error.

Design
This research was a descriptive-quantitative research. By using survey method, a description about ten types of grammatical errors that are mostly made by 7 th semester students of English Education Department of Purwokerto Muhammadiyah University academic year 2018/2019 can be obtained. This is in accordance with Nunan (2005) who stated that the aim of survey is generally to obtain the snapshot of condition, attitudes, and/or events at a single point in time.

Participant
The subjects involved in this research was the whole 7 th semester students of English Education Department Purwokerto Muhammadiyah University, academic year 2018/2019. In this 7 th semester, there are around 100 students who come from 3 classes; class A, B, and C.
According to Suwartono (2014), the minimum number of sample that has to be taken in a descriptive research is 10 % from the population (20 % for such a big population). Thus, with the such amount of population, the sample amount of this research were 24 students (more than 10 %).
In order to get the valid data, simple random sampling technique was used in this research. The simple random technique was used to avoid bias because the population was already homogeneous. The random sampling in this research was done by randomly choosing 8 students from each class.

Data Collecting Technique
The collecting data method in this research used a written test as the instrument because the variable that was analysed here was about the grammatical errors. The written test seemed to be the most necessary because it was considered to be most effective and efficient rather than using questionnaire or interview to get any information about the grammatical errors.
In this research, students who were chosen as samples were required to do a test; writing a text about their experience studying in English Education Department of UMP. Later, their writings were analysed to find what grammatical errors they made.

Data Analysis Technique
The data analysis method that was used in this research was descriptive quantitative method under the Linguistic Category Taxonomy theory; which is the theory of Politzer-Ramirez. This theory was preferred to be chosen because it is considered to be most useful and practical of all (Suwartono, 2006).
The data analysis will be following on a procedure as follows (Suwartono, 2006). a. Identifying grammatical errors that occurred in each students' writing b. Classifying errors in accordance with the error types listed in the classification scheme referred to (errors of the same types will be tallied just once) c. Listing types of error across students writing d. Counting number of students writing that contain each type of error e. Applying the following formula. This formula is called as Gass and Selinker theory (Arniatika, 2019) ℎ ℎ x 100 % f. Ranking the types of errors in order of percentage rate obtained

Result
The research result shows ten types of grammatical error that were mostly made by the students. However, three of them do not belong to the taxonomy used in the analysis. Two of them belong to morphological error while the remaining fall into syntactic error.

Discussion
A. Morphological Error

Simple Past Tense Incorrect
Errors in this type are generally in a form of the use of simple non past instead of using verb 2.
Error Examples: • When I was the first semester I learning ….
• I registered and I choose … Corrected Versions: • When I was in the first semester, I learned …  1, April 2020, e-ISSN: 2442-482x, p-ISSN: 2089-3345, page 1- In example number 1, the use of the word 'deeply' is not suitable with the context. In that kind of sentence, the use of adjective 'deep' is more suitable and effective than the use of adverb 'deeply.' Besides, the use of adverb 'deeply' is incorrect because it doesn't explain the way how things done, while the word 'deeply' itself belongs to adverb of manner.
The use of word spirit in example number 3 and 4 is also not suitable since it is not an adjective, but is used as an adjective. Both 'spirit' and 'success,' are nouns, and cannot be applied in sentence as adjectives B. Syntactic Error

Use of Preposition
Errors in this type are mostly in a form of omission and misuse of the prepositions.

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• I have been studying in UMP almost … • One thing that made me happy that time was ….
• … joining KKL program, KKN program and met with new friends • Studying on UMP, … Corrected Version: • I have been studying in UMP for almost … • One thing that made me happy at that time was.… • … joining KKL program, KKN program and meeting new friends Error Examples: • During there, I enjoyed my life especially...
• In our class is PBI-A, we have different ….

Corrected Versions
• There, I enjoyed my life especially … • In our class, PBI-A, we have different ….

Determiners
Omission of articles as determiners is frequently found in the samples.
Error Examples: • I have friend, her name is Teta.
• In 7 th semester … • When I was in 5 th semester …

Corrected Versions
• I have a friend, her name is Teta • In the 7 th semester … • When I was in the 5 th semester …

Number Confusion
Substitution of plural form for singular and vice versa are often found in the samples.
Error Examples: • It was a fun days • They have beautiful story Corrected Versions: • It was a fun day • They have beautiful stories

Omission of Verb
Omitted verbs are causing incomplete structure of verb phrase in a sentence.
Error Examples: • One of them is I less confident.
• I also shy, maybe until now Corrected Versions: • One of them is I feel less confident.
• I am also shy, maybe until now

Verb Construction
Failure to construct verb as predicate also become a big problem for students.

Error Examples
• I can followed the lesson well Error Examples:

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• I have wonderful experiences about that, like join in KKL program … • …. such as religion, have a good akhlak and attitude ....

• Study on UMP …
Corrected Versions: • I have wonderful experiences about that, like joining KKL program ….
• … such as religion, having a good akhlak and attitude ….

Use of Pronoun
The use of pronoun in some samples are less effective. In fact, it caused redundancy.
But in certain case, the pronoun was omitted. Some of the examples are shown below.
Error Examples: • I got some experiences since studied here • but alright after one semester.
• During I studying … Corrected Versions: • I have got some experiences since I studied here… • … but it is alright after one semester.

Conclusion
Based on the discussion above, we are able to identify what types of grammatical errors that were commonly made by the students in their writings. The types of error were varying.

Suggestions
The researcher would like to propose some suggestions for some parties as written below. First it is addressed to lecturers. Students' errors can be a consideration for lecturers to identify the problematic areas of students' grammar. The lecturers may try to find any other technique in teaching grammar to make the students' grammar better. Secondly it is addressed to students. Students had better improve their grammar especially in the most problematic areas.
As an English teacher soon to be, they are expected to have a good mastery of grammar to be a good teacher. Hence, they should learn English more to improve their grammar mastery.
Finally, it is addressed to other researchers. The researcher believes that there are still many aspects that can be revealed and improved in this study. Hopefully, in the future the other researchers who conduct similar research can do some improvement whether in the method, data analysis or the other aspects to have a better research.