An Error Analysis of Using Plural Nouns in English Sentences” a Case Study of the Second Year Students of MA Al-Manar Tengaran in the Academic Year 2003/2004

By doing this research, the writer hopes that the results will be helpful to the English learner in order to be more careful in using plural nouns in English sentences. The subject of research is the second year students of MA Al- Manar Tengaran in the academic year 2003/2004.The writer uses random sampling by lottery method to get the sample of research. The writer analyses the data by making the observation of all collected data, Categorizing the data by giving codes for cash data, categorizing the data by giving codes for cash data, and interpreting data info substantive theory. The result of the study shows that there are dominant errors which are made by students of second years of MA Al- Manar to use plural nouns in English.


Kata Kunci: Plural, Sampel Random,Pengkategorian, Dominan, Kesalahan
Introduction Language is the system of arbitrary vocal symbols by means of which a social group cooperates (Bloch and George, 1942: 5). Every normal human being is a member of a social group, sometimes of more than one, and every human being depends, in all his social activities, on the use of language. Without language, human society is unthinkable; language is the link between otherwise unconnected nervous systems, and thus the means by which the stimulus acting on one man may produce an effective response in another, or in all the members of the group. By using language, human beings can express their ideas and whishes in written or oral form to other people. Nowadays, English is one of thousand languages in the worlh that it is considered as an important language and Engliah must be learned since the students are studying in Elementary School.
Indonesia as a developing country was appointing English is taught as compulsory subject from the first grade of Junior High School up to third grade of Junior High school, and even in semesters of Tertiary Educational institution. So, the student feel difficult to learn English when they study in the Junior High School, because they do not know it before.
In the curriculum of English teaching, it includes skills of practical language, like listening, speaking, and writing. For expanding the student"s skill, the curriculum of English teaching also include the language components, like vocabulary, structure, and pronunciation (in speech) or spelling (in writing).
Beside for students, a teacher must have teaching ability for making them understand and effort to apply both language skills and language components in class. So, this makes condition alive, or this is not snared in monotone situation in teaching and learning process.
English as a second language for foreign learner, as corder observes the learners" errors are indicative both of the state of the learners" knowledge and of the ways in which a second language is learned. Sentences contained errors would be characterized by systematic deviancy.
While the learners, correct sentences do not necessarily give evidence of the rules the learner is using or of the hypothesis he is testing, his errors suggest the strategies he employs to work out the rules of the new language an the rule he has developedat given stages of his languagedevelopment (Richards, 1974 : 1).
Errors can be described as errors of addition, omission, substitution, and ordering following standard mathematical categories. Inflectional errors is overgeneralization of constructed rule clearly revealded when children treat irregular verbs and nouns as if they were regular. We have probably all heard children say bringed, goed, doed, or foots, mouses, sheeps, childs. These mistakes tell us more about how children learn language than the correct forms they use (Fromkin and Blair, 1965).
As a majority of noun accurrence for number in the surface structure of English are regularly governed by this "count-uncount" generalization. Count nouns refer to things that can be counted, such as tree, book, bird and therefore have a plural forms. Uncountable nouns refer to substances and qualities which we do not perceive in terms of countable units and which consequently have no plural form, such as rice, water, sugar, etc.
Most countable nouns can change their form from singular to plural by adding -(e) s (treetrees, city-cities, book-books) and so on. Although this-s plural is the most common form, there are other so-called irregular plurals (Nichols, 1965). Sometimes, the students have many difficulties of using plural nouns in English sentences because the inflectional plural forms.

Research Methodology
The writer has tried to narrange the research methodology systematically in order to capable of analyzing the collected data easily. The research methodology will be organized as follows:

Sample
A sample is part of populations, which is researched by researcher. In this research, the writer takes the second year students of MA Al-Manar Tengaran as the sample.

Sampling
Sampling is the way of taking sample. For getting the sample of research, the writer uses random sampling by lottery method. In this case, the writer takes all of the second year students.
4. The procedure of collecting data a. Library research Lybrary research is use to get the appropriate and relevant books with this study.

b. Test
The instrument is the research is used to know the students" error in using plural nouns and application in the Englishsentences. Based on those steps, the writer analyzed the data using the following steps: 1. Identify the students" dominant errors based on the result of the test as the primary data.
2. Count the students" dominant error in percentage The writer analyzed the data beginning the first step, namely : a. Identification the students" dominant errors based on the result of the test.
There are 40 test item for the 52 students.
Based on the classification of possible error, there are types of error that made by the students. The next steps was to carry out an error analysis in order to find out the dominant errors that ofen occurred. In this analysis, she used the pre-selected category approach favored by Ethorton as adopted by Norish ( norish, 1983 ). in which the stastical computation is based on Gulos formula:

Interpreting all data to find out the sources of dominant errors
In this analysis, the writer made a classification and categorization of errors based on the text-reference. The main purpose on doing this analysis was to trance the source of the dominant errors observed, nsmely the resl error made by the students. Then, the writer classified those errors into two categories of errors based on intralingual only. The possible ways out of preventing those errors 1. Before teaching the material, the teachers can emphasize the difference the plural nouns between Indonesian and English form, so the students understand them and apply the correct pattern in English.

The teacher provides a lot of examples of plural form and ask students to compare
English and Indonesian form, so that they really find differences between them.
3. The teachers also give some excercises to students, so they are abel to make correct plural form in English and abel to apply its in the sentenc.
4. The students can be asked to apply their knowledge about the material. When they get the difficulties, the teacher re-explains the material clearly.

Conclusion
From the analysis result this research, the writer can conclude that the dominant errors which are made by the students to use pluran noun in english. error in form changing by addings (33.32%), error in form changing by adding -es (10.32%), error in form changing by in vocal (28.12%), error in irregular form (35.5%), error in difference between plural and singular (25.55%), error in using plural nouns in sentence (4.92%) .
T he possible sources or causes of those errors are ignorance of rule restriction (65.42% = 539 errors) mand Incomplete application of the rules (34.59% = 285 errors). The possible ways out of preventing those errors. Before teaching the material, the teachers can emphasize the difference the plural nouns between Indonesian and English form, so the students understand them and apply the correct pattern in English. The teacher provides a lot of examples of plural form and ask students to compare English and Indonesian form, so that they really find differences between them. The teachers also give some excercises to students, so they are abel to make correct plural form in English and abel to apply its in the sentenc. The students can be asked