An Analysis on Students' Errors and Difficulties in Using Relative Clause

This study analyzed students’ errors on using relative clause. The purposes of the study were to find out the errors made by the EFL students in using relative clauses and to figure out what makes the EFL students do errors. The research design in this study was descriptive research. To this end, I used simple random sampling to choose the sample of the research. 20 students of 8th semester of English department at UIN Ar-Raniry were chosen as the sample of this research. To answer the first research question, the paper test was distributed to the students to find out the errors that they made. In addition, to answer second research question, semi-structured interview was employed. Finally, 8 students who got most errors were chosen to participate in interview that focused on the causes at their errors. The results of this research showed that the students got most of the errors on relative clause “whose” with 88.75 % of the average error and on the relative clause “whom” with 60%. In brief, there were some factors that cause students made errors, namely the confusion in using relative clause, overemphasis on language forms, lacking in vocabulary mastery and language transfer problem.