OBSTACLES OF THE STUDENTS IN USING ENGLISH PLURAL NOUN AT SECOND YEAR OF SMAN 3 KAMPAR

OBSTACLES OF THE STUDENTS IN USING ENGLISH PLURAL NOUN AT SECOND YEAR OF SMAN 3 KAMPAR


A PROPOSAL








By

ARI SATRIA
NIM . 10614003481


EDUCATION AND TEACHER'S TRAINING FACULTY
OF THE ENGLISH EDUCATION DEPARTMENT
OF STATE ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY
OF SULTAN SYARIF KASIM
RIAU
1430 H/2009 M
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION

1. The Background
English is one of the main subjects at Senior High School. The students are expected to master language skills such as listening, speaking, reading, and writing. The primary goal of learning English for this level as the expectation of the Competency Based Curriculum (2003: 21) for students is to make students have knowledge and capability to use English in four language skills. The students hope to be able to change singular noun to be plural form. The students also hope to be able to know the kinds of plural noun whether regular or irregular plural noun.
In learning English, the students need to study about grammar. Their understanding of the rules of English helps them to form acceptable expressions in sentence. Hornby (1975: 6) states that the learners who wish to speak and write English concern with grammatical correctness.
According to J. E Eckersley and J. M Eckersley (1973: 3) say that there are eight classes of words in English that’s called The Eight Part of Speech, they are: Noun, adjective, Verb, Pronoun, Adverb, Preposition, Conjunction, and Interjection.
Noun is one of the word classes that refer to person, place, or thing. There are two kinds of noun if we see form the form of the noun; they are singular and plural nouns. Singular nouns which refer to one in number, for example: book, car, lamp, etc. plural noun is noun which refers to more than one in number which usually signed by adding “s” or “es” at the end of the word, for example: books, cars, lamps, etc.
Then, Plural noun is divided into two kinds; they are regular and irregular plural noun. Regular plural noun is noun which denotes more than one that has rules, for example:
book --- books
car --- cars
lamp --- lamps, etc.
Irregular plural noun is noun which denotes more than one that has special rules, for example:
child --- children
mouse --- mice
fish --- fish, etc.

As writer presents in the background, that noun can be classified basically into two categories, they are singular and plural noun. Singular noun is noun which refers to one in number, for example: book, car, lamp, etc. plural noun is noun which refers to more than one in number which usually signed by adding “s” or “es” at the end of the word, for example: book, cars, lamps, etc. then, Plural noun is divided into two kinds; they are regular and irregular plural noun.
Regular plural noun is noun which denotes more than one that has rules, for example: book --- books, car ---- cars, lamp --- lamps, etc. singular with end “y” and there is a consonant before it, so “y” is changed into “I” and added by “es”. Singular with end “y” and there is a vowel before it, so “y” is not changed but only added “s”. Irregular plural noun is noun which denotes more than one that has special rules, for example: child --- children, mouse --- mice, fish --- fish, etc. so we should know the in forming regular plural noun there are some rules whether by adding “s” or “es” at the end of the singular noun.
Then, in forming irregular nouns, there are several rules that different from regular noun such as noun that have vowels’ changes, the noun that end in – f or – fe only added with –s to form their plural, the noun that end in – f or – fe must be changed to –ves, etc.
The students also using plural nouns in their writing, plural nouns is one aspects of the sentence, so the students must mastering how to form plural nouns with correct grammar in their writing.
Senior High School 3 Kampar is one of Senior high schools in Kampar Regency. This school based on the curriculum from government and English is thought as one of main lessons. It is examined in National final test nationally. So the subject English especially grammar is thought in this school.
The plural nouns are taught for increasing ability of the students in forming plural nouns, differentiating plural nouns, and using plural nouns in the sentence.
Senior high school students have already studied about nouns; like using singular noun and plural nouns but sometimes most of them still make mistakes in form plural nouns. This happened because the students might not be able to form what the regular plural nouns and irregular plural nouns. When the writer did teaching practice before, the teacher said that the students do not know all the rules to form plural noun. Then, while doing teaching practice the writer found some students made mistakes in using plural noun.
For example:
There are many childs in the hall
Should be # There are many children in the hall
My uncles has 2 big companys in Kampar
Should be # My uncles has 2 big companies in Kampar

Therefore, the students might face a problem in forming and differentiation of plural nouns like regular plural nouns and irregular plural nouns. In this study, the students are expected to show their ability in using plural nouns. The writer thinks that it is necessary to carry out the research about it and to know how well are the students understand about using English plural nouns.
The weaknesses of the students can be seen from phenomena as follows:
1. Some of the students do not know what singular and plural nouns.
2. Some of the students do not know to forming regular plural nouns and irregular plural nouns.
3. The students’ seldom studying grammar especially plural noun in the classroom.
4. The students still make mistakes in forming plural nouns in sentence.
5. The students might not be able to using English plural nouns.
Based on the symptoms found by writer, the writer is motivated to investigate those problems with a title “OBSTACLES OF THE STUDENTS IN USING ENGLISH PLURAL NOUNS AT THE SECOND YEAR OF SMAN 3 KAMPAR”.

II. The Problem
A. The Identification of the Problems.
Based on the background above, it is clear that some of the students of Senior High School 3 Kampar still feel difficult in using English plural nouns. In order these problems are clear, the writer will identify the problems as follows:
1. How the students know to forming regular plural nouns and irregular plural nouns?
2. How good the students’ ability in using English plural nouns?
3. What are the factors make the second year students difficulty in using English plural nouns at SMAN 3 Kampar?
4. What are the obstacles of the second year students in using English plural nouns at SMAN 3 Kampar?
5. How the students are able to using English plural nouns?

B. The Limitation of the Problems.
To remember that limitation and ability of the writer. The problems in this research will be limited at :
1. "OBSTACLES OF THE STUDENTS IN USING PLURAL NOUNS AT SECOND YEAR OF SMAN 3 KAMPAR”.
C. The Formulation of the Problem.
Based on the limitation above, so, the problems in this research will be formulated into the following research questions as follows :
1. How good the students’ ability in using English plural nouns at SMA N 3 Kampar?
2. What are the obstacles of the second year students in using English plural nouns at SMAN 3 Kampar?

D. The General Objectives of the study
The objectives of this study is to know the obstacels of the second year students of SMA N 3 Kampar in using English plural nouns.

E. The Needs of the study
The writer hopes the result of this research later can be an input for the English teachers at SMAN 3 Kampar on the students’ obstacles in using English plural nouns.

F. The Definitions of the Terms Used
1. study means doing the research in order to analyse a problem
2. obstacle means difficulties of term
3. plural nouns mean anything denoting more than one in number (Hornby, 1989: 753)
4. second year students in this study means the students who have studied at SMA N 3 Kampar for 2 years.














CHAPTER 11
THEORITICAL FRAME WORK
A. The Nature of Nouns

Eckersley and Eckersly (1980, 19) state that nouns is the name of a person, place, or thing, for example : book, house, flag, etc. they say that a nouns usually functioned as subject or object. According to them, nouns can be classified into two main categories; they are abstract and concrete noun. Second, Marcella Frank (1972: 2) says that nouns is the head of the grammatical structure in which it function. For example: The house on the corner belongs to my uncle. (House is the subject of on the corner). Third, according to Glenn H Legged (1974:98) says that nouns is the word that functioned as the basic part of sentence and also characteristically function as object of verb and preposition.

B. The Kinds of Nouns
Nouns is a word that refers to thing, place or people. First, according to Elaine and Darcy Jack (1985: 64) nouns is a kind of class word which refers to living or unloving thing and person, for example cat, book, John, etc. they classify nouns into singular nouns, plural nounsm countable nouns, uncountable nouns, masculine nouns, feminime nouns and neuter nouns.
Second, Patricia K. Werner and Mary Mitchel Church (1951: 48) say that nouns is a word which refers to thing, idea, quantity and emotion, for example home, love, students, etc. they classify nouns into two main categories, they are abstract and concrete nouns.
Nouns is a word that refers to thing, place or thing. According to Betty (1985: 23) noun can be classified based on the way we see it. If we see from the way see it, noun can classify into two; they are concrete and abstract noun. Then, if we see from the form, noun can be classified into two they are singular and plural noun. If we see from the way to count, we can classify into two; they are countable and uncountable noun. In addition, if we see from the gender, we can classify into three kinds; they are masculine gender, and neuter gender.
1. If we see from the way see it, noun can classify into two; they are:
a. Concrete noun
Concrete noun is a kind of noun that can be seen, touched, smelled and hold. Concrete noun is divided into 3 items, they are:
1. Common noun is a noun that we can find in daily or common.
Example: eat, dog, teacher, etc.
2. Proper noun is a noun, which refers to people’s name, nation, city, school, month, nationality and religion.
Example: George, Japan, May, etc.

3. Collective noun is a noun that refers to a group of people, animal or thing.
Example: committee, team, fleet, constellation, etc.
b. Abstract noun
Abstract noun is a kind of noun that cannot be seen, cannot be hold and cannot be touched.
Example: love, hate, friendship, freedom, etc.

2. If we see from the form, noun can be classified into two they are
a. Singular noun
Singular noun is a kind of noun that tell it only one or singular.
Example: book, pen, lamp, teacher, etc.
b. Plural noun
Plural noun is a kind of noun that tells it more than one or plural.
Example: books, pens, lamps, teachers, etc.

3. If we see from the way to count, we can classify into two; they are
a. Countable noun
Countable noun is a kind of noun that can be counted with numbering.
Example: car, door, table, book, chair, etc.

b. Uncountable noun
Uncountable noun is a kind of noun that cannot be counted.
Example: paper, water, milk, sugar, etc.

4. If we see from the gender, we can classify into three kinds, they are;
a. Masculine gender
Masculine gender is a kind of noun that refers to masculine gender.
Example: father, brother, husband, son, etc.
b. Feminine gender
Feminine gender is a kind of noun that refers to feminine gender.
Example: mother, sister, wife, daughter, etc.
c. Neuter gender
Neuter gender is a kind of noun that has no gender.
Example: butter, steel, mirror, street, beauty, etc.

C. The Formulation of Plural Nouns
As far as Betty said that there are two main forms of nouns; they are singular and plural nouns. Singular noun is a kind of nouns that tells it only one or singular, for example: Book, Pen, Lamp, Teacher, etc. Then, plural nouns is a kind of nouns that tells it more than one or plural. Example: Books, pens, Lamps, Teachers, etc.
From the examples above, we can conclude that for forming plural nouns is by adding “s” or “es” in singular nouns. According to Betty (1989: 98) there are some ways to form plural nouns wheter by adding “s” or “es” in singular nouns.
1. The Formulation or Regular Plural Nouns
a. Singular + s
book --- books
car --- cars
door --- doors
lamp --- lamps

b. Singular with end ss, sh, ch, x + es
glass --- glasses
brush --- brushes
watch --- watches
box --- boxes

c. Singular with end “y” and there is a consonant before it, so “y” is changed into “I” and added by “es”
lady --- ladies
army --- armies
baby --- babies
butterfly --- butterflies

d. Singular with end “y” and there is a vowel before it, so “y” is not changed but only added “s”
monkey --- monkeys
boy --- boys
day --- days
toy --- toys

2. The Formulation or Regular Plural Nouns
As stated before that Irregular plural nouns is anything denoting more than one in different rules (Eckersley 1984: 4). Betty (1989: 201) believes that are 6 ways to form irregular plural nouns in English as follow:
1. The nouns that have vowels changes. For example, singular form: man, woman, tooth, mouse, goose, louse, child, foot, gentleman, etc change to be plural form: men, women, teeth, feet, mice, lice, geese,children,oxen, gentleman.
2. The nouns that end in –f or –fe must be changed to –ves. For example: singular form: calf, half, knife, leaf ,life, thief, self, etc must be change to be plural form: calves, halves, leaves, lives, thieves, selves.
3. The nouns that end in –f or –fe only added with –s to form their plural. For example, singular form: roof, gulf, cliff, chief, belief, safe, turf, change to be plural form: roofs, gulfs, cliffs, chiefs, beliefs, safes, turfs.
4. The nouns that end in – o only added with –es to form the plural. For example, singular form: echo, hero, potato, tomato, etc change to be plural form: echoes, heroes, potatoes, tomatoes.
5. The nouns that end – o only added with –s to form the plural. For example, singular form: auto, kilo, memo, radio, zoo change to be plural form: autos, kilos, memos, radios, zoos.
6. The nouns that have same form singular and plural. For example, deer, fish, sheep, series, species.

D. Relevant Research.
A researh from Mardhiyah, in her research, A Descriptive Study on The Ability of Students in Mastering The Plurality of Nouns at SLTP Negeri 02 Tanjung, District of XIII Koto Kampar. The conclusion that the factors can effect their difficulties in mastery of plurality of noun is the students are not accustomed to consult dictionary when they fail to understand a word, so they cannot differentiate word class such as noun, adjective, verb, etc.


E. Operational Concept.
Concept is a main element to avoid misunderstanding and misinterpreting in a specific study as a concept that still operate in an abstract from the research planning which to be interpreted into particular words in order to be easy to measure. It means that operational concept is needed to avoid misinterpreting about the thesis content by another reader. Operational is an action that mean as special senses that are only used in this research.
Based on the statement above, the writer concludes that there are some factors that needed to be operating in the operational concept.
1. Obstacles of the students in using english plural noun can give positive effect for developing students’ ability in English Language.
2. Influence of Obstacles of the students in using english plural noun.










CHAPTER 111
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
A. The Research Design
This research is a descriptive research because it has only one variable. Rusfendi (1994: 30) says that a descriptive research is a research that involves observation interview and collecting the data involves observation interview and collecting the data through questioner to test hypothesis or answer the question concerning the current status the subject of the study. This study had one variable that is the students’ ability in using plural nouns. This research is intended to know the students’ ability in using regular and irregular plural nouns.

B. Location and time of The Research
This research was conducted at SMAN 3 kampar to collect the data up to analyse them took three month, from September until November 2009

C. The subject and Object of The Research
The subject of this research is the second year students of SMAN 3 Kampar, in 2009/2010 academic year, and the object is the obstacles of the students in using english plural noun.


D. The Population and sample of the research
The population of this research is the second year students of SMA N 3 Kampar in academic year 2009-2010. the number of the students in the second year is 105. these students are divided randomly into three classes II IPS1, II IPS2, and II IPA1.
NO CLASS STUDENTS/POPULATION SAMPLE
1 II IPS1 35 17
2 II IPS2 35 17
3 II IPA1 35 18
TOTAL 105 52

The same teacher using the same material teaches these students. Based on the data above, the writer took 52 students as the sample of this research. In this case, by doing split, that is a half of population in one class is selected (Hatch and Lazaraton, 1991:79). Split is to get an equal competency for the students in one class.
In taking the sample, the writer used lottery to choose the students as sample. The writer with draw a piece of paper available in a box. Some papers contain a word “sample” and some other do not. For those who get paper with the word “sample” on it, they will be selected as the sample of this research.

E. Instrument of Data collections
In order to get the data of the research, the writer used a test and observation. It is correcting from test which plural noun would execute in sentences. The material for this study will take from some text book such as, Understanding and Using English Grammar by Betty Azhar Schramper, Practical English Usage by Michael Swan, and some questions are created bt writer himself.

F. The Data Collection Technique
In collecting the data for this research, the writer will ask the students to do a test deals with plural noun. In this research the writer will use a test. It is correcting from test in which plural noun will execute in sentences. The material for this study will take from some text book such as, Understanding and Using English Grammar by Betty Azhar Schramper, Practical English Usage by Michael Swan, and some questions are created bt writer himself. The test was conducted at the second year students of SMAN 3 kampar in academic year 2009/2010.
The test tried out to another students before being administrated to the sample. The try out test conducted to know the quality of the test item in order to determine the validity and the ability of the test.
After analysis the items and finding the reability, the writer revised the test for the next test. The items analyzed for their difficulty level as formulated as follow:
F.V =
Where:
F.V ═ Facility value (index of difficulty)
R ═ the number of correct answers
N ═ the number of students taking the test
(Heaton, 1975: 178)
According to Heaton (1975: 179) the test is accepted if the level of difficulty is 0,30 – 0,70 and the test will be rejected if the index of difficulty is below 0,30 (difficult) or over 0,70 (easy). Then, item discrimination of the test calculated by using the formula:
Correct U – Correct L
D = ½ N

D ═ Discrimination index
U ═ Upper group answering (Upper half)
L ═ Lower group answering (Lower half)
N ═ Number of students
(Heaton, 1975: 176)
The next step is to compute the reliability of the whole test. According to Heaton ( 1975: 162) reliability is a necessary characteristic of any good test; for it to be valid at all, a test must first be reliable as a measuring instrument. In order to find the reliability of the test, the following formula is used:
N
r11 = N - 1

Where:
r11 = Reliability
N ═ the number of items
M ═ the mean score on the test for all test
X ═ the standard deviation of all the tests’ score
(Heaton, 1975: 164)
According to Guilford (1956: 45) Reability of the test is consider as follow:
0,00 – 0,20 Reability is very low
0,20 – 0,40 Reability is sufficient
0,41 – 0,70 Reability is middle
0,71 – 0,90 Reability is high
0,91 – 1,00 Reability is very high



BIBLIOGRAPHY

Azhar, Betty Scramper. 1985. Fundamental of English Grammar. New Jersey: Pretice Hall Regent Englewood Clifts.
Azhar, Betty Scramper. 1989. Understanding and using English Grammar. New Jersey: Pretice Hall Regent Englewood Clifts.
Eckersley, C. E. and Ecersley, J. M. 1980. A Comprehensive English Grammar. Hongkong: Dai Nippon Printing Co. Ltd.
Hornby, AS. 1983. Guide to pattern and usage in English. London: oxford University Press.
Swan, Michael. 1996. Practical English Usage. London: oxford University Press.