The particular dialect or language that a person chooses to use on any occasion is called a code 1235 Copyright © 2024 The Author IDEAS is licensed under CC-BY-SA 4.0 License Issued by English study program of IAIN Palopo IDEAS Journal of Language Teaching and Learning, Linguistics and Literature ISSN 2338-4778 (Print) ISSN 2548-4192 (Online) Volume 12, Number 2, December 2024 pp. 1235 -1248 Analysis of Grammatical and Mechanical Errors in Writing Recount Texts Made by Students at Vocational High School Kardelius Giawa1, Sahlan Tampubolon2, Kammer Sipayung3 kardeliusgiawa1998@gmail.com sahlantampubolon@ymail.com kammer.sipayung@uhn.ac.id 1,2,3 Universitas HKBP Nommensen, Medan, Indonesia Received: 2024-04-22 Accepted:2024-09-19 DOI: 10.2456/ideas. v12i2.4989 Abstract In writing skills, learners would be able to put their feelings, ideas, arguments, willingness, and their minds into words, sentences, and even stories. The aims of this study are to identify the students’ grammatical, mechanical errors, dominant error and to figure out the factors that caused the grammatical and mechanical errors made by first grade students of SMK Negeri 1 Amandraya in writing recount text. The method of this research is qualitative descriptive text. The subject of research is first grade accounting of SMK Negeri 1 Amandraya and object was grammatical and mechanical errors. The samples in this study where be first-class accounting 24 students who are learning English subject at SMK Negeri 1 Amandraya. The result of this research based on grammatical error was 141 errors, based on the mechanical error were 9 errors, the dominant error in writing recount text were misinformation 48%. Some factors that lead to the error because of limited of vocabulary, lack interest of learning English subject, and not mastering tenses, using of punctuation. Keywords: Grammatical and Mechanical, Writing, Errors Introduction Writing is one of the language skills that learners should master in learning English. In writing skills, learners would be able to put their feelings, ideas, arguments, willingness, and their minds into words, sentences, and even stories. http://u.lipi.go.id/1457703302 mailto:kardeliusgiawa1998@gmail.com mailto:sahlantampubolon@ymail.com mailto:kammer.sipayung@uhn.ac.id Febi Putri Utami, Subyantoro, Tommi Yuniawan Developing Listening Skills for Speech Texts Using Articulate Storyline in Grade VIII of Junior High School 1236 However, writing skill needs good English knowledge because the level of writing skill is more complex. As a result, learners always make some errors when they write text, especially for EFL learners. According to Beniario & Saputra in Dewa et al., (2023:15) Writing is a very important skill for students to learn and master because writing is included in every language learning and teaching activity. Moreover, writing is a form of communication that uses visible symbols to represent spoken language. It is one of the most important tools that humans have developed, allowing us to share our thoughts, ideas, and stories with others across time and space. Dwihandini et al in Abrar et al., (2023:401) assert that writing is one of the most challenging language skills because it requires the writers to generate their writing ideas and develop them systematically. Grammar is an important aspect of forming words and building English sentences. Grammar is a model (systemic description) of the linguistic abilities of native speakers of a language that enables them to speak. Explanation, grammar is the most important aspect of communicating with other people, because grammar can show our meaning in communication so that other people can understand our message. Grammar includes phonological (sound), morphology (word composition), and syntax (sentence composition). Because grammar is important in communication, students should master it. Learning grammar is not easy for students. Most of the students find difficulties in learning grammar. Grammar is central to the teaching and learning of language which also becomes one of the more difficult aspects of language to teach as well as to learn well Sitanggang et al., (2023: Based on Merdeka’s curriculum for senior high school, writing is the one of important points that must be learned by students and able to create genres of text such as report, exposition, narrative text, and recount text. By knowing how to write these text genres, students are expected to be able to share their life experiences through writing works. Mechanical writing skills refer to the technical aspects of writing that ensure accuracy, clarity, and adherence to established conventions. These skills are essential for producing professional and effective written communication across various fields. According to Heaton, (1999:135) mechanical skills are the ability to use correctly those conventions peculiar to the written language focusing on punctuation and spelling. Additionally, grammar and mechanics aspect should be considered because they are the simplest and the first step in writing skills before going to the more complex skills. IDEAS, Vol. 12, No. 2, December 2024 ISSN 2338-4778 (Print) ISSN 2548-4192 (Online) 1237 For learners of EFL, writing a text in English is a very difficult thing, moreover for Indonesian learners. Here, learners should be able to write a text which in English is differentiated into four kinds of text. Those are narrative text, procedure text, report text, and recount text. In each of text has its structure that learners should know when they want to write. However, this study only discusses recount text. A recount text is a type of narrative text that recounts a past event or experience. It is commonly used to describe personal experiences, recount historical events, or share travel experiences. Recount texts are typically written in the simple past tense and use time connectives to link events together in chronological order. Recount text is a core concept in the English language curriculum under Merdeka’s curriculum. Indonesia's new education framework. It is taught across various grades, with students developing their ability to understand, write, and analyze recount texts. Writing recount text is not easy because some of the criteria that must be considered such as students must be able to master past tense and structure in Indonesia and English make students feel difficult in writing. According to Sianipar et al., in Dewa et al., (2023:16) a recount text is a kind of text that chronologically retells an event or past event. Recount text has the purpose of retelling or informing past events as well as entertaining the readers. While a lot of students still get errors in writing recount text. These kinds of errors usually happen when arranging ideas and grammatical sentences. Then, in writing recount text needs to pay attention to structure text such as orientation which means introducing the topic and setting the scene, events mean retelling the events of the story in chronological order and the last is reorientation means concluding the story and may summarize the main points. This research was be conducted at the first grade of SMK Negeri 1 Amandraya South Nias. This research was conducted based on my experience as a teacher at SMK Negeri 1 Amandraya where students are still confused and difficult to write recount text such as using grammatical and mechanical writing recount text and structure of recount text orientation, event, and reorientation. So, researchers try to find out the cause of student problems in writing recount text to solve the problems through English academic journals. Febi Putri Utami, Subyantoro, Tommi Yuniawan Developing Listening Skills for Speech Texts Using Articulate Storyline in Grade VIII of Junior High School 1238 Based on the explanation above, the researcher is interested in carrying out research dealing with the topic related to the problem. The writer is curious to know the students' errors in the recount text. This idea encourages the researcher to do this entitled: “Grammatical and Mechanical Errors Analysis in Writing Recount Text Made by First Grade Students of SMK Negeri 1 Amandraya”. Method In this study, the researcher was applied descriptive qualitative research. The researcher was use qualitative to find the result of the research. Additionally, it seeks to understand a given research or topic from the perspective of the local population it involves. Qualitative research is especially effective in obtaining culturally specific information about the values, opinions, behavior, and social context of particular populations. The subject of this study was be the first-grade students of SMK Negeri 1 Amandraya South Nias, there are 24 students and 22 are girls and 2 boys of first grade Accounting of SMK Negeri 1 Amandraya South Nias. The object is grammatical and mechanical errors namely: omission, addition, misinformation, mis ordering and using punctuation, capitalization in writing recount text at first grade of SMK Negeri 1 Amandraya. The instrument of this research was be a writing test, the type of writing is guiding writing, in which the topic is given by student activities in their last holiday and so on and the text is recount text. Then, the text is divided into three parts, orientation, series of events, re-orientation, or conclusion. The data of this study was be the grammatical and Mechanical errors in the Writing recount text, while the sources of the data are students works sheet the first Grade of SMK Negeri 1 Amandraya. In collecting the data in this study, the researcher was using some steps. Some steps taken by the researcher they are: First, the researcher was invited students to write a recount text based on their experiences; Second, the researcher submits the result of the student's paper as a source of the data research; Third, the researcher selects the data and analyze the data based on the background of the problems; Last, the researcher put the data from the sources in this research as a result of the study. IDEAS, Vol. 12, No. 2, December 2024 ISSN 2338-4778 (Print) ISSN 2548-4192 (Online) 1239 Result Grammatical and Mechanical Errors made by first grade of SMK Negeri 1 Amandraya The findings of this research are presented in the table below: Table 1. The Data Findings Respondents Types of Errors Total Error Omission 44 Addition 23 Misinformation 68 Misordering 6 Total of Errors 141 Based on the observation and the analysis on the 24 of students' writing papers of the first grade of SMK Negeri 1 Amandraya, it was found that there were many types of students' grammatical and mechanical errors. The types of errors were observed and analyzed based on the Dulay theory it can show on the table above, researcher can conclude that the findings about Grammatical and Mechanical Errors Made by First Grade Students of SMK Negeri 1 Amandraya was omission 44 errors, Addition 23 errors, misinformation 68 errors and the last is misordering 6 errors. The most common errors made by first grade students of SMK Negeri 1 Amandaya The most common errors made by first grade students of SMK Negeri 1 Amandraya can be seen on the table above. It means that a lot of students conduct the error in writing recount text is misinformation 48% errors. The example of the two highest errors made by the students in this level are as follows: Febi Putri Utami, Subyantoro, Tommi Yuniawan Developing Listening Skills for Speech Texts Using Articulate Storyline in Grade VIII of Junior High School 1240 (1) There we were invited to a dance competition and a quiz competition it should be There we were invited to a dance competition and a quiz competition. (2) Everything were beautiful and there I felt very happy it should be Everything was beautiful and there I felt very happy. Factors that caused the grammatical and mechanical errors made by first grade of SMK Negeri 1 Amandraya Additionally, the factors that caused the Grammatical and Mechanical errors made by first grade students of SMK Negeri 1 Amandraya, after researcher classifying the types of errors based on the Dulay et al., (1982:154-162). Researcher was found out the factors that caused the grammatical and mechanical errors made by first grade of SMK Negeri 1 Amandraya. Moreover, in getting the data researcher invite some respondents to write the reasons in one sheet of paper about their difficulties in writing recount text. Table 2. The Factors that caused errors No Factors That Caused Error 1 Limited of vocabulary 2 Lack interest of learning English subject 3 Not mastering tenses 4 Lack in using of punctuation Based on the students result of paper, researcher was applied it as follows: Misinformation This type of error was the most error made by the students at SMK Negeri 1 Amandraya with total 68 errors. For example: “My grandmother house” it should be “My grandmother’s house”. (possessive pronoun), “we went to the city of gunung sitoli” it should be “we went to the Gunung Sitoli city”. (Capitalization) and “In the morning I wake up and had a breakfast” it should be “In the morning I woke up and IDEAS, Vol. 12, No. 2, December 2024 ISSN 2338-4778 (Print) ISSN 2548-4192 (Online) 1241 had a breakfast” (verb). This error happened because the students didn’t know about irregular verb and regular verb. Then, the students didn’t know capitalization in every certain word such as city, person, so on and student cannot different between possessive pronoun and possessive adjective. Figure 1. the students result of paper Figure 2. the students result of paper It seems for the first figure that the student factors in grammatical and mechanical error is sentence structure and how use the punctuation well. It means that, students do not have knowledge in English structure. For the second figure researcher concluded that the student factors lack of vocabularies, using of verb. Omission This type of error was the most error made by the students at SMK Negeri 1 Amandraya with total 44 errors. For example: “go to school “it should be “go to the school” (article), “helping mother sweep floor” it should be “Helping my mother sweep the floor” (Possessive adjective) and “included me my older brother and 3 Febi Putri Utami, Subyantoro, Tommi Yuniawan Developing Listening Skills for Speech Texts Using Articulate Storyline in Grade VIII of Junior High School 1242 older cousins” it should be “included me, my older brother, and 3 older cousins” (Punctuation). This error happened because the students didn’t know about using of article. Then, the students didn’t know omit of using punctuation in every certain word and student cannot different between possessive pronoun and possessive adjective. Figure 3. the students result of paper Omission errors often occur because students do not understand English grammar rules. This can cause students not to know what words or phrases to use in a sentence, it seems in the picture above student do not have basic English such as tenses which exist is verbs, spelling and lack of vocabulary. Addition This type of error was the most error made by the students at SMK Negeri 1 Amandraya with total 23 errors. For example, “Bang fonti as the head of the student” it should be “Fonti as the head of the student “I am very-very happy in heart” it should be “I’m very happy in my heart”. This error happened because the students add the other language in sentence or code mixing. Then, the students double write the word it can be said wrong type. Figure 4. the students result of paper IDEAS, Vol. 12, No. 2, December 2024 ISSN 2338-4778 (Print) ISSN 2548-4192 (Online) 1243 Addition errors often occur because students do not understand English grammar rules. This can cause students not to know what words or phrases to use in a sentence structure, it seems in the picture above student do not have enough words in English, spelling words and lack of vocabulary. Miss ordering This type of error was the most error made by the students at SMK Negeri 1 Amandraya with total 23 errors. For example, “I can permit to my mother for meet to grandmother” it should be” I asked my mother permission to meet my grandmother”. This error happened because the students confused in using possessive adjective. Figure 5. the students result of paper Discussion Considering about the result, this section presented the discussion of the research findings. In this research, there were problem statements and the discussion only focused on it. As mentioned before, the objective of this research was to find out (1) the grammatical and mechanical error analysis in writing recount text by first grade of SMK Negeri 1 Amandraya, (2) to find out the most common errors made by first-grade students of SMK Negeri 1 Amandraya, and (3) the last is to find out the factors that caused grammatical and mechanical errors made by first grade students of SMK Negeri 1 Amandraya. Moreover, from the result of this research was found the grammatical and mechanical errors in writing recount text made by first grade of SMK Negeri 1 Amandraya as follow: Table 4. 4 Grammatical and Mechanical Errors which is Febi Putri Utami, Subyantoro, Tommi Yuniawan Developing Listening Skills for Speech Texts Using Articulate Storyline in Grade VIII of Junior High School 1244 applied the students writing in the piece of paper a then researcher analyses each sentence structure. Then, table 4. 5 the recapitulation of the students’ error in the table discussed about the recapitulation result of analyzing which conducted by researcher. From the recapitulation of researcher was conducted misinformation was 68 errors, omission was 44 errors, addition was 23 errors, and mis ordering was 6 errors. Then, from the result of the research can be conclude that, student factors in conduct the error because of limited of vocabulary, lack of interest in learning English, and not mastering English structure. Additionally, the result of this research is expected to be useful as an input for the teacher as information and references in teaching recount text and then, improve critical thinking skills, improve writing skills, improve presentation skills. Trustworthiness of the Study Trustworthiness is established to make sure whether the data of research is valid or reliable. The methodology used in the study is qualitative descriptive research Assigning the trustworthiness of this research, it showed the credibility, transferability, transferability, dependability and conformability. The researcher taken into accounts all the complexities in the study and show problem that are not easy to explained (credibility). The researcher included descriptive, context relevant, statement so that someone knowing 36 about or doing an experience of the study can identify with the setting (transferability). The researcher included as much detail as possible so others can see the setting for themselves. The researcher also addressed the stability of the data collected (expendability) and the neutrality and objectivity of the data (conformability). The trustworthiness of a qualitative study can be increased by maintaining high credibility and objectivity. It means that, this research can be used as source of study because the result of research was having been tested by compare another student writing text. Moreover, confirmability refers to how the findings and interpretations are a result of a dependable process of inquiry as well as data collection. The techniques for assessing confirmability are a triangulation and IDEAS, Vol. 12, No. 2, December 2024 ISSN 2338-4778 (Print) ISSN 2548-4192 (Online) 1245 reflexive journal. Thus, the result of this study should be similar to the theories or results of other studies which have the same objectives as this research. Conclusion Based on the description in preceded chapter, it concluded that the first-grade students of SMK Negeri 1 Amandraya still confused about choosing of word, changing of verb and word choice. Moreover, in irregular form some of the students are not accurate enough in changing the verb in their writing. However, from the result of the data the researcher found 4 types of grammatical errors, namely: Omission, Addition, miss’s formation and miss’s ordering. The first common errors made by the first-grade students of SMK Negeri 1 Amandraya first, misinformation was 68 errors. This error happened because the students didn’t know about irregular verb and regular verb. Then, the students didn’t know capitalization in every certain word such as city, person, so on and student cannot different between possessive pronoun and possessive adjective. Second, omission was 44 errors. This error happened because the students didn’t know about using of article. Then, the students didn’t know omit of using punctuation in every certain word and student cannot different between possessive pronoun and possessive adjective. Third, addition was 23 errors. This error happened because the students add the other language in sentence or code mixing. 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