ABSTRACT
The main objective of this study is to find out dominant spelling errors and possible causes of those errors in dictation as a testing device of listening made by the fifth grade students of SDN Slawikulon 03 in the academic year 2006/2007.
This study was conducted under the consideration that there are some different pronunciations between English and Bahasa Indonesia. For example, when pronouncing English words, the students usually get difficulty because most English words are not spelled the way they are pronounced, while in Bahasa Indonesia the students will never find difficulty in pronouncing the Indonesian words because the words are pronounced the way they are orthograpichally written.
To gain the objectives, I did two activities: (1) library activity and (2) field activity. In the library activity, I explored some reference books that were related to dictation, listening skill, error analysis and research. While in field activity, I gave the fifth grade students of SDN 03 Slawikulon in the academic 2006/2007 a dictation test consisting of fifty multiple choice items. In taking the sample of this research, I used simple random sampling. I chose 26 students out of 42 students as the sample. In preparing the test, based on dictation and the students’ achievement, I classified and arranged the test items into four categories, those are: (1) simple words, (2) compound words, (3) words phrases, and (4) sentences. After giving the test, I analyzed the result by using statistical analysis and non-statistical one.
The result of the study revealed that there were 328 spelling errors because of: clusters (9.7 % or 32 errors), diphthong (40.5 % or 133 errors), distinguishing long and short vowels (19.8 % or 65 errors) and recognizing words, phrases and sentences (29.9 % or 80 errors). There were also 328 possible causes of errors because of: interlingual interference (214 or 65. 24 %) and intralingual interference (114 or 34. 76%)
