“Every time Obama opens his mouth, his subjects and verbs are in agreement,”

says Mr. Logsdon. Language is very important thing used in daily activity. According to

Siahaan, language is a set of rules used by human as a tool of their communication

(Siahaan, 2010). In short, language is a tool of communication for delivering messages

and ideas from speaker or writer to listener or reader in an interaction. For many years,

there have been many studies in the process of the first language acquisition and second

language learning. Findings about first language acquisition have been adapted to foreign

language learning and it has been concluded that process works in a similar way. That

children's learning their native mother tongues make plenty of mistakes is a natural part

of language acquisition process. They lack great deal of information about subject-verb

agreement. As they got feedback from adults, they learn how to produce grammatically

and semantically acceptable sentences in their native language. What a foreign language

learner does in operating on the target language is not different from that of a child

acquiring his first language, it is inevitable that all learners make mistakes and commit

errors. They use subjects and verbs incorrectly.

The learner difficulty in subject-verb agreement will affect the construction of

sentences by the learner. Subject –verb agreement is an important topic in English

language learning/ teaching process. Until late sixties, the prominent theory regarding the

issue of second language was behavioristic – which suggested that learning was largely

a question of acquiring a set of new language habits. Therefore, errors in subject-verb

agreement were considered as being the result of the persistence of the existence of

mother tongue habits in the new language.

 “I always have lots of errors in my writing. I am not confident with my English.” “I

don’t know why I still have problems with my grammar even though I have learn it all the

rules before.” “It is quite confusing when you have a singular subject in a sentence, but

you have to add ‘s’ to the verb” . Subject- verb agreement is very vital in language and

consequently, in communication and depicts the extent to which a user of the language

in both speaking and writing media has internalized the rule. Anyone who speaks or writes

English language without errors in subject/verb agreement among others is considered

as a good and an experienced speaker. However, the present day usage of English

language by learners at various levels of education is bedeviled by errors in agreement

between subject and verb, among others. Subject-verb agreement means that the

conjugation of the verb matches the subject (e.g., I, you, and they) of the sentence. You

may think that it is easy but this subject-verb agreement is one of the common mistakes

or one of the difficulty that the students have when they are about to construct a

sentences. Being master in subject-verb agreement is will really a big help when you are

mastering language, because this SV is just a basic foundation in a sentences before you

can master the tense and aspects. There are a lot of rules to be followed in subject-verb

agreement simple words really, mean a lot so you should be careful to avoid being

grammatically incorrect

The main purpose of the research is to help those students to develop their

competence in English and choose suitable verb with each subject and to know why the

student has a common mistakes in subject-verb agreement. What intensifies the need for

such a study is that they are going to be teachers of English at schools, so they are

supposed to get rid of subject verb agreement errors. The present study will also help to
improve the learning / teaching process at the department of English as well as the

schools of this area.

The problem of Subject-Vegreements rb A cuts across many English as second

language users and was investigated by different researchers. Studies by Noorizah and

Mustapha listed SVA as one of the several types of grammatical errors among Malay

students. Maros et al. (2007) studied written essays of form one students in six schools

in Malaysia with 20 students from each school. The findings showed that the learners had

difficulties using correct grammar and SVS constituted 47% of the errors recorded. Stapa

and Izaha (n.d) 2010 opine that Malaysian ESL learners face problems in subject-verb

agreement because in their L1 which is Bahasa Malaysia, there is no such rule regarding

subject-verb agreement. In Bahasa Malaysia all subjects either singular or plural require

the same form of verb. In their study of twenty postgraduate (English Language Studies)

students from a teachers‘training college from the northern state of Malaysia Stapa and

Izaha (n.d) 2010, examined errors in 5 types of subject-verb agreements: subject verb

agreement of person, subject verb agreement of number, agreement with coordinated

subject, agreement with indefinite expression of amount and also notional agreement and

proximity. They conclude that even at the level of postgraduate studies (in English)

learners (Tafida and Okude, 2016)states that the use of singular versus, plural verbs and

correct subject-verb agreement are more abstract concepts and require more detailed

explanations. Correct use of singular and plural verbs also depends on the writer's ability

to correctly identify the subject of the sentence and to determine if the subject is singular
or plural. Therefore, this paper investigates the problem of subject-verb agreement (SVA)

among one hundred. (Rodrigue, 2015).

Raimes gives the explanation that students commit errors in writing and students

find it useful if they can understand their errors because of the following reasons: “First,

it reinforces the grammatical structures, idioms and vocabulary that have been taught to

students. Second, when students write, they also have a chance to be adventurous with

the language. Third, when they write they necessarily become very involved with the new

language”. The current study shows that the tertiary level students of Bangladesh are

committing the errors of subject verb agreement. They have learnt English for more than

12 years. Despite that they are having this kind of error. They should have textual analysis

and feedback based on their write-ups. They should be motivated to get involved in peer

group discussion of the necessary rules including the rule of subject verb agreement.

Thus, awareness, analysis, (Muhammad, 2015)

According to Hyland (2006), novice writers are not used to seeing writing as

interactive or to imagining the perceptions, interests and requirements of a potential

audience. Thus, it is a duty of the lecturer to create greater reader awareness among their

students. Students should be told that they are writing for other readers as well not just

for themselves. On the other hand, skilled writers or expert writers are those who are

able to handle audience concerns and consider more perspectives with regard to their

rhetorical problem. They also develop more sophisticated thinking about the writing topic

through inferences about their audience and their anticipated response and evaluation of

their arguments and assumptions against their reader’s imagined position. Conversely,

the less skilled writers are writers who have limited linguistic ability in English and difficulty
in problem-finding and problem-solving (Hanizah & Moore, 2003) From the first draft

submitted by the students, I noticed that they have difficulties in general and sub -rules of

subject verb agreement. The following are sample errors made by these students.

1) Nobody care for health and fitness till the age of 30 or 35 years, but after

crossing the 40’s, we find a lot of changes in our activity and work style.

2) Psychologist believe that pressure is the cause for hysteria attacks (Nizam,

2005).

3) These are the symptoms shown when someone were attacked by hysteria.

4) As we look around at the atmosphere of university, we tend to find many

couples and some of these couple end up getting married while studying.

5) So, it show that every person in this world include the students have their own

spouse to get married and it is not wrong for them to get married early.

6) Spouse who choose to get married early tend to face with a lot of problems

because they do not have their own money to support their lives.

7) The number of unmarried women who is having a good career has increased.

8) For example, Anis Ramlee, the mother of three and the group CEO of Esthetics

International believe the childhood experiences given her the firmness, guts and strength

to pursue whatever passions she has. 9) The man need to have a good family

background. 10) One of the benefits when student involve in sports is they can manage

their stress. 11) Student who come from either a primary school, secondary school,

college, university or even ‘pondok’ (religious school) have their own learning styles. 12)
Good and smart style promise better results, but bad style can fail them. 13) Difficulty in

controlling teenagers’ desire to stay on-line for long period is one of the factors that make

them addicted to the internet. 14) All the problem have its solution. 15) It is very clear that

smoking cause this problem. Based on the above findings, it can be concluded that

students have more tendency to make errors in the general rule of subject verb

agreement. This may be because they try to avoid using the sub rule of subject verb

agreement. This is proven since majority of the errors made are under the general rule of

subject verb agreement. Another factor that causes them to make errors in subject verb

agreement is because of the L1 interference (inter language errors) where these students

notice that in their L1, there is no rule which says that a singular subject requires a single

form of verb. Besides, faulty generalization or over-generalization also involves where a

deviant structure has been constructed by these students based on their experience of

other structures in the target language. It can also be concluded that interference from

the native language is a source of difficulty in second language learning. Since the subject

and the verb are two most important components in constructing correct and complete

sentences in English, students should be made aware their importance. Thus, it is

important for the lecturers in general who are teaching BEL 331 to do revision on grammar

especially on subject verb agreement at the beginning of the semester before they start

writing their term paper. Exercises in subject verb agreement should also be given to

them to ensure that they master in subject verb agreement. Exercises on error correction

especially on subject verb agreement should be done more to make them familiar with

the correct rules of subject verb agreement. In writing their term paper, these students

actually avoided using the sub-rules of subject verb agreement. The avoidance strategy
used by them should not be encouraged especially in their writing. These students should

be made aware that all subject verb agreement rules are important in their writing, so

there will be variations in terms of words and styles used to explain something. As a result

of this, their piece of writing will be more interesting and enjoyable for the reader to read.

Lecturers should also consider using direct approach in teaching grammar at the

beginning of semester 3 before these students start writing their term paper. Direct

approach involves teaching the rules first then the students need to apply these rules in

their writing. In addition, students who have more problems in the usage of subject verb

agreement should be grouped together and more attention should be given to teaching

them. Another possible way to employ in reducing errors made by them in subject verb

agreement is to get students to check each other’s work. This will involve them in an

active search for errors and English can be used for a genuine communication while

discussing these errors in class. By adopting and implementing the above suggestions,

hopefully the students will do well in their term paper and can further enhance their writing

skills. (Jusoff, 2009).

iinvestigated the written English errors of tenth-grade students in female and male

schools in Ajloun, Jordan. The sample for the study consisted of 350 students selected

randomly from a group of schools in Ajloun. They were asked to write an essay about “a

journey to the ancient city of Jerash in Jordan” in an ordinary English-language exercise

in the c. The essays were then analyzed for errors. Zawaherh found that the most

dominant error among tenth grade students in Ajloun schools was lack of agreement

between the subject and the main verb. The number of errors due to lack of agreement

between subject and verb was 104, and the cause of these errors was Arabic interference.
In addition, the study found that omission of the verb to be occurred 3 times, and again

the cause was Arabic interference. Wahyudi (2012) attempted to analyze the errors made

by a first-semester student of the Zawaherh (2012)

English Department, Faculty of Humanities and Culture, Maulana Malik Ibrahim

State Islamic University, Jawa Timur, Indonesia. The student was a 19-year-old male

majoring in English at the university, and he was in his first semester. He was asked to

do three separate tasks, each of which included writing essays of 250 words. The

research examined the errors in subject-verb agreement of the student’s writing, and its

taxonomy was based on Duley, Burt, and Krashen (1982), who categorize errors as those

of omission, addition, misinformation, and misordering. The learner made a significant

number of errors in each task with an accuracy of 46, 42% incorrect use of verb to be

agreement (omission error = 3 times and misinformation = 12 times) in the first

composition, 31, 58% (omission = 5 times and misinformation = 21 times) in the second

composition, and 40, 62% (omission = 3 and misinformation = 16 times) in the third

composition.

It is investigated errors in subject-verb agreement among Malaysian ESL learners.

The study used error analysis to explore these errors. The subjects of the study were 20

trainee teachers from a postgraduate teaching course who were majoring in English

language studies. They had at least 16 years of experience in learning the English

language. The study examined errors in five types of subject-verb agreements: person,

number, and coordinated subject, indefinite expression of amount, and notional

agreement and proximity. Two types of written compositions (argumentative and factual)

were analyzed to identify the students’ problems in writing grammatically correct

statements with subject-verb agreement. The study found that ESL learners still have

problems at all levels of proficiency and face difficulties in applying the subject-verb

agreement rule. (Stapa and Izahar, 2010). Sun (2010)

The applied a corpus-based study of errors in Chinese English majors’ English

writing. It focuses on the general features of errors in these students’ English writing, the

reasons for those errors, the developmental features of errors in different grades, and the

reasons for those developmental features. The research design was based on a study by

Corder (1974) that suggested the following four steps in EA research: collection of data,

description of errors, explanation of errors, and evaluation of errors. The corpus of the

study consisted of compositions by English majors in Ludong University of Grade 2008,

2007, and 2006 in the first semester of the school year 2008–2009. The study found that

“grammatical errors” ranked the highest and agreement errors were estimated at 11.48%.

The reasons for these errors were vocabulary and the influence of negative transfer of

the mother tongue.(Sun,2010).

They investigated learners’ errors and their evaluation of Filipino ESL writers. The

aim of the study was to examine sentence-level errors. The data of the study was

collected from previous studies, and it consisted of 150 essays written by freshmen

college students during their first week of classes at Metro Manila. The essays were

processed and subjected to ratings and coding for errors. The raters were asked to fill out

open-ended questions to focus on their perspective on the different aspects of writing that

impacted the essay scores and they found out that there are errors in subject-verb

agreement. (Gustilo and Mango ,2012) .

 In conclusion, there are really a lot of students who are facing subject-verb

agreement difficulties. Even though they are fluent in English or they studied English, still

when it comes to the test of subject verb agreement there are still students who committed

mistake in using the rules. The lack of knowledge causes them to use incorrect forms of

the morpheme or structure, which leads to the misinformation error type. Furthermore,

this rule ignorance leads students to omit the verb to be entirely in many sentences.

Similarly, this inadequate knowledge has caused other problems, such as writing

ambiguous sentences or sentences without a subject.

The students tends to study languages and rules in language yet, they still have

problem on it and it is because they do not really give focus on the rule of the subject-

verb agreement that makes the sentences error. As a student we should make an effort

in order to master or understand the rules and use of the subject verb-agreement in a

student, it is much better if we seek help to those who really master the subject verb

agreement.

The knowledge on this field will really help you to cope up the problem that you

have when you are constructing a sentence.IN this really I have found out that it is in the

students effort if he will do an effort to learn the basic rule in SV, not only learn but also

apply. Lecturers can employ direct approach in us and at the same time organize activities

which are related to subject verb agreement. You should also be allowed to do peer-

correction to their term paper and other activities on subject verb agreement together to

involve them in learning directly. By doing this, hopefully the students can improve their

writing and can function well in English. But we should not be dependent to our lecturer
we must also make a way like searching on internet, browsing book in English so that our

grammar will be enhances and we can make our weakness into our strength.

If we will jut help ourselves to improve then we will improve but if we will be lazy in

finding ways to not to improve well, we will not grow and we will still have a hard time in

grammar. Students often do the errors of English not only in speech but also in written

for. . For students, they have to establish the framework of their study of English grammar

especially in subject-verb agreement. So, they can make good and correct sentences.