ABSTRACT
This final project mainly aims at determining the main error and finding out the causes or sources of the errors in using gerunds made by the students of the fourth semester of the English Department of UNNES in the academic year of 2006/2007. This study was conducted under the consideration that gerund has a number of types in the theory so that it is possible that the learners find it difficult to learn the grammatical structures.
A test method was used to gather data. The test used consisted of two kinds, i.e. completion test and translation test and had been tried out before it was used to collect the data. The main purpose of conducting the try out was to measure the validity and reliability of the instrument. The reliability of the test was 0.376 based on the Spearman- Brown formula. The test result was then analyzed by using percentage to determine the main error and find out the causes or sources of errors.
The errors were classified on the basis of six types of gerunds. After computing the percentages of errors of each heading of gerund, it was found that the dominant error most often made by the students of the fourth semester of the English Department of UNNES is the use of gerunds in the negative adjective ‘No’ which occurred 129 times (69.39%) caused by false concept hypothesized. This means that the mastery of using gerund in the negative adjective ‘No’ is still low because the errors were still high.
In conclusion, errors on the use of gerunds were still made by most students of the fourth semester of the English Department of UNNES in the academic year of 2006/2007. In relation to this, it is suggested that the English learners should be more careful in using grammar.
