MISSPELLING IN ESSAY OF SECONDARY STUDENTS IN TUARAN DISTRICT, SABAH

Writing essay is a learning activity in Malay subject in school that must be mastered by students. Through writing, error in language mechanical such as spelling can be easily misspelled by students whether they are Malay native speakers or not. The objective of this research is to study misspelling in written Malay essays. Datas were obtained from 70 essays written by students from three different secondary schools in Tuaran district, Sabah. Each essay is analysed by using content analysis method. There were 511 misspellings found in students’ essaywhich involve addition, substraction and substitution of alphabet in loanwords, root and derivative words. Students also could not differentiate whether some words should be spelled together or isolated. Other than that, words were spelled in abbreviation and there were lack of awareness of the function of capital letters for common and proper nouns. The ability to spell words correctly plays a major role in any written communication to ensure more meaningful and comprehendable message, that a writer intend to convey. Therefore, this study proposes an awareness to the teachers and students to be more aware of misspelling so that students could produce a written essay that is easier for the reader to read, comprehended and more effective in conveying written communication by using standard Malay spelling.