FARIDA AMASAE Pengarang LAURENSIUS KIAN BERA Dosen Pembimbing 1 SELFIANA P MBADI Dosen Pembimbing 2 Alexander Home Kabelen Penguji 2 Laurensius Kian Bera Ketua Penguji SELFIANA P MBADI Penguji 1

This study aims at knowing the grammatical errors and the possible causes of errors committed by the 8th grade students of SMP Muhammadiyah Ekosari Alor in their writing on recount text. This study used qualitative-quantitative method (mixed method). The total population was 50 students from the two classes of SMP Muhammadiyah Ekosari Alor. The writer selected class B which had 25 students as the sample. In this study, the writer used two instruments. The first instrument was writing test in the form of recount text written by students to answer the first research question; what are the grammatical errors commited by the 8th grade students of SMP Muhammadiyah Ekosari Alor. The second instrument was a questionnaire to answer the second research question; what are the possible causes of errors committed by the 8th grade students of SMP Muhammadiyah Ekosari Alor. The writer analyzed the data by identifying, classifying, and calculating the data. The finding showed that 161 errors were identified as grammatical errors. The identified grammatical errors were classified based on Dulay’s (1982) theory, namely surface strategy taxonomy. There were four types of grammatical errors committed by the 8B students of SMP Muhammadiyah Ekosari Alor in their recount text. They were 24 errors (15%) of omission errors, 21 errors (13%) of addition errors, 99 errors (62%) of misformation errors, and 17 errors (10%) of misordering errors. There were three causes of errors made by the students in writing a recount text: 70 or 40% of carelessness, 57 or 32.5% first language interference, and 49 or 27.5% translation. Based on the result, it is figured out that the students still lack of knowledge and have difficulty applying grammatical structure in writing. Keywords: analysis, grammatical, error, writing, recount text.