Evaluating the Students’ Ability in Using Preposition of Place in Speaking Performance

The use of preposition of place in speaking performance still becomes problems for students. Therefore; it is important to evaluate the students’ ability in using preposition of place. This research aimed at evaluating the students’ ability and describing the problems faced by students in using prepositions of place in speaking performance. The descriptive qualitative method was applied in this research. The instrument of this research was an oral test. To get the data, the researcher used Tape Video Recorder (TVR). There were 25 participants of the first semester students of English study program of Timor University chosen randomly as the sample in this research. There were four steps used in analyzing the data, namely transcribing, codifying, analyzing and describing. The results of the research showed that five students passed and nineteen students failed in the test. The highest score was 80,95 and the lowest score was 31. There was one student categorized as very good; two students were categorized as good; three students were categorized as enough; eleven students were categorized poor and seven students were categorized as very poor. For the kind of preposition; the highest percentage was IN which was 67,53%. Then it was followed by ON which was 57,32%. The preposition BEHIND made 55,51% which was higher than NEAR/CLOSE which was 51,56% but it is lower than IN FRONT OF which was 56,57%. The preposition UNDER was 48,39% which was higher than AT. The lowest percentage was preposition AT which was 47,94%.. The students’ average score was 54,60. Therefore the students’ level of ability was categorized as poor. This means that the students failed in using prepositions of place in speaking performance.


Introduction
The purpose of learning English in Indonesia is students are expected to be able to listen, speak, read and write. Speaking is a complex skill; because it contains sound, words (vocabulary) and sentences (grammar). Speaking is one the skills that frighten the students. Since speaking skillinvolves many aspects; therefore many students avoid from the speaking class. Many students often face many difficulties in choosing the proper words, selecting the tenses, arranging words into a good sentence, and so on. In speaking process, it is automatically using the correct grammar. The speaking will be meaningful if the speaker uses correct grammar.
Grammar is important for language, because it makes meaning. Grammar names the types of words and word groups that make up sentences in any language. Every language in the world has it own system of grammar. English has broad grammar; including tenses, noun, verb, adjective, adverb, pronoun, articles, preposition and so forth. Greenbaum & Nelson (2002, p. 3) mention that there are many grammars of English, that is to say books describing English grammar.
They differ in how much of the grammar they cover and in how they set out the rules. There are also some differences in the categorization and terminology they use. This means that grammar becomes very important in language learning.
Since English has broad grammar; it is becomes challenges of every learner to master the grammar of English.
Preposition is a part of English grammar. Preposition is one of the parts of speech in English. Preposition is one of function words in English grammar. The use of the correct preposition is important in English grammar. In other hand, a preposition is defined as connecting word showing the relation of a noun or a noun substitute to some other word in the sentence. Preposition is a word that shows relation between noun or pronoun and the other words in sentence. e.g. in, on, at, to, with, under, above, into, by, of etcetera. Preposition is always used before a noun or pronoun and shows the relation of the noun or pronoun to the other words in sentence. Prepositions show many relations (for different nouns) in sentence. Prepositions describe the relationships such as space (place, position, direction) and time. Prepositions are used for many purposes such as preposition Since the prepositions are used for time, place and direction; they might make students to distinguish in using prepositions. The writer's experiences in teaching speaking for years at university show that the use of prepositions of place is still become problems in their speaking performance. They make many errors to place the correct prepositions of place in speaking performance. The students' ability in using preposition of place in speaking performance made the researcher to reflect and evaluate how well the teaching outcome of speaking to the first semester students of English study program of Timor University. Therefore; it is important to do the research on the use of prepositions of place in speaking performance.
This research results comes to evaluate the students' ability in using preposition of place in speaking performance. The research findings also describes the difficulties faced the students in using preposition of place in speaking performance.

Review of related literature
The previous studies on the use of prepositions focused on the students' errors in writing skill; while this present study focused on the use of prepositions in speaking skill. Recently; a study on Error Analysis on the Use of Prepositions in Students' Writing by Andajani in 2016 showed that that from 1002 prepositions found in 72 students' writing, there were 117 incorrect preposition usage or 11.68%. In other words, in general the students are able to use preposition correctly. The dominant errors made by the students are errors on the use of prepositions of place. There were 78 errors of preposition usage or 66.67%. In addition, the possible factor of errors is interlingual transfer. The students were influenced by their native language. They also over generalized the information from the target language.
The study on Acquisition of English Language Prepositions in the Absence of improvements in the use of prepositions by the students for both speaking and writing tasks. Regarding the types of errors, there were more errors of commission than errors of omission. A common error was the unnecessary use of the phrase involving a preposition, 'for me'. With respect to the progress made, in speaking tasks, most improvement was seen in the prepositions 'for ', 'in' and 'about', while in writing tasks, the best results were with the prepositions 'to, 'of' and 'in'. He suggested that grammar should be taught in a way that is compatible with the natural processes of acquisition, rather than with the use of formal grammar rules.

The study was conducted by Saravanan in 2014 on the Use of English
Prepositions examined the writing skill of the students at the undergraduate level, with a special focus on the use of prepositions of place, time and direction in English. The research found that the students found more difficulties in the use of prepositions of place and direction than the prepositions of time because of their mother tongue interference. He stated that the reason for the errors was lack of understanding the usage and the inability to use an appropriate preposition to produce meaningful sentences.
Basically, preposition is a word that shows relation between noun or pronoun and the other words in sentence. (Stobe, 2008, p. 108) defines preposition is a word or group of words that is placed before a noun or a pronoun to show a relationship in a sentence. There are many functions of prepositions; such as space (place, position, direction) and time. The position of prepositions is explained in (Eastwood, 2002, p. 286) that preposition usually comes before a noun phrase, e.g. into the building, at two o'clock without a coat. Some prepositions can also come before an adverb, e.g. until tomorrow through there at once. Some prepositions are used before a gerund, we're thinking of moving house.
Prepositions of place covers at, on and in, above, over, below, under, near, close and by, in front of, before, behind, after, opposite, between and among. Furthermore; (Stobe, 2008, p. 110) noted that the preposition in often describes a location. Use in when the meaning is within. Place can refer to specific locations, such as at your house, or it can refer to a surface, such as on top of the road. The For this case; (Eastwood, 2002, pp. 291-295) explored more about the use of prepositions of place. At is one dimensional which is used to see something as a point in space On is two dimensional which is used for a surface. In is three dimensional which is used it to see something as all around. Above and over have similar meanings. We do not normally use above to mean horizontal movement.
We use above with a measurement that we think of as vertical, such as temperature. Below is the opposite of above; under is the opposite of over. Near and close to mean not far from. Normally; we prefer in front of and behind to before and after before usually means 'earlier in time', and after means 'later in time'. But we also use before and after to talk about what order things come in.
While opposite means 'on the other side from'. Let's compare in front of and opposite; e.g. People were standing in front of the theatre waiting to go in but people were standing opposite the theatre waiting to cross the road. Between is used with a small number of items that we see as separate and individual. Among suggests a larger number.
In showing where things are; it is important to use the preposition of place; such as at, on and in, above, over, below, under, near, close and by, in front of, before, behind, after, opposite, between and among. These prepositions are normally used to show location or place. In speaking performance; speakers tend to use the preposition of place to show the positions of things in the room. The ability to use each preposition depends on the speakers' understanding on how to use each prepositions of place.

Research method
This research aims at evaluating out the students' ability in using preposition of place and describing the problems faced by students in using prepositions of place in speaking performance; therefore descriptive qualitative method was used.

Findings and discussion
This part presents the students' results in using prepositions of place in speaking performance. The data are presented in tables and the description describes the results of the research. There are seven kinds of prepositions of place found in the students' speaking performance; they are at, on, in, near/close, behind and in front of. They are presented in the following tables.      Based on the test scores, the level students' ability in the test, it is necessary to apply these scores into the level of ability which is presented in the following chart.

Figure 3. Distribution of Students' Level of Ability
This chart presents the distribution of the students' level of ability based on five categories of scoring namely 80-100 is categorized as very good; 70-79 is good, 60-69 is enough, 50-59 is poor and 0-49 is very poor and the passing grade is 60. The data showed that one student was categorized as very good; two students were categorized as good; three students were categorized as enough; eleven students were categorized poor and seven students were categorized as very poor. The category which got more frequency of the students was poor category and the least was very good category.
Regarding to the data in the previous part; it is important to present and to describe some of the data referring to the students' errors in using preposition of place in speaking performance. preposition of place with different functions. For other reason is because the students interfaced of their mother language. Saravanan (2015) in his research found that the students are lack of understanding the usage and the inability to use an appropriate preposition to produce meaningful sentences. The errors committed by the students were related to syntax and semantics due to the lack of knowledge and practice in English.

Conclusion
The results of the research showed that there were 24 students do the test on speaking performance; 5 students passed in the test and 19 students failed in the test. The scores show that the highest score was 80,95 and the lowest score was 31. For each kind of preposition; the highest percentage was IN which was 67,53%. Then it is followed by ON which was 57,32%. The preposition BEHIND was 55,51% which was higher than NEAR/CLOSE which was 51,56% but it is lower than IN FRONT OF which was 56,57%. The preposition UNDER was 48,39% which is higher than AT. The lowest percentage is preposition AT which was 47,94%. In other hand; students were able to used preposition IN.
Furthermore; the total correct usage of preposition of place was 269 and the errors were 222. The percentage of the use of correct of preposition of place was 54,79%. The findings showed that one student was categorized as very good; two students were categorized as good; three students were categorized as enough; eleven students were categorized poor and seven students were categorized as very poor. The students' average score was 54,60. The students' level of ability was categorized as poor. The result of the research showed that the students failed in using preposition of place in speaking performance.