Inflectional Verb Errors in Narrative Text Produced by Eighth-Grade Students at SMP Islam Sidoarjo

Abstract

This research attempts to determine the types of inflectional verb errors found in narrative texts written by Grade 8-1 students at SMP Islam Sidoarjo, and to identify the most dominant error type. A qualitative research approach using document analysis was employed in this study. The data consisted of 22 narrative texts produced by students and were analyzed based on the Surface Strategy Taxonomy proposed by Dulay, Burt, and Krashen (1982). The analysis focused on four categories of errors: omission, addition, misformation, and misordering. The findings revealed 47 inflectional verb errors, consisting of 14 omission errors (29.79%), 11 addition errors (23.40%), and 22 misformation errors (46.81%), while no misordering errors were identified. Misformation was found to be the most dominant error type, showing that students had greater challenges in implementing correct past tense verb forms, especially irregular verbs, than in constructing sentence structures. These findings suggest that students possess basic knowledge of English grammar but still face challenges in applying inflectional verb forms accurately in narrative writing. Therefore, teachers need to provide more focused practice on verb inflections, particularly irregular past tense forms, to improve students’ difficulties in English language learning contexts.