An Analysis of Grammatical Mistakes in Written English Speeches of Eleventh Grade Students
Keywords:
Grammatical mistakes, written speech, intralingual, interlingualAbstract
This study aims to analyze the grammatical mistakes found in the written English speech texts of
11th-grade students. The research focuses on identifying the types of grammatical mistakes,
determining their possible causes, and interpreting their influence on meaning. A descriptive
qualitative method was employed, using Harmer (2001) classification to categorize the mistakes
into six types: tense mistakes, subject-verb agreement mistakes, article misuse, preposition
mistakes, auxiliary verb misuse, and word order problems. The causes of the mistakes were
examined using the framework of Yusuf et al. (2021) and Utami & Mahardika (2023), which
distinguishes between interlingual and intralingual factors. The data were collected from five
students’ written English speech texts. The findings show that the most frequently observed
mistakes were word order problems, followed by tense mistakes and article misuse. In contrast, no
subject-verb agreement mistakes appeared in the dataset. The results further indicate that
intralingual factors, such as overgeneralization and incomplete understanding of grammar rules,
were the primary sources of mistakes. Meanwhile, several mistakes related to article and
preposition use were influenced by interlingual interference from Bahasa Indonesia. Overall, the
study concludes that the students’ grammatical mistakes mainly stem from their developing
knowledge of English rather than direct translation from their first language. It is therefore
recommended that English teachers emphasize grammar instruction focusing on verb usage, word
order, and article application to enhance students’ writing accuracy.
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