AN ERROR ANALYSIS ON THE USE OF SIMPLE PAST TENSE AMONG THE NINTH YEAR STUDENTS OF SMPN 3 PARE

 IN 2006-2007

ABSTRACT

Noertjahjono, Mochamad, 2007. An Error Analysis on the Use of Simple past Tense Among  the Ninth Year Students of SMPN 3 PARE. Thesis. Institute of Teaching Training And Education Budi Utamo Malang. Advisor: Dra Titik Purwati, MM.

Key words: An error analysis, the use of simple past tense

English as an International language has an important role to develop science and technologies. The states of the problems are. (1) What analysis is to be described on the use simple past tense among students of the ninth year SMPN 3 Pare? (2) What analysis is to be described on the frequency occurrence of the errors made among the students of the ninth year students of SMPN 3 Pare on the use simple past tense? In trying to analyze the students’ language, the research will be focused on the aspect of An Error Analysis on the Use of simple past tense among them.

The objectives of this study are (1) to identify and classify the errors of the ninth year students of a SMP Negeri 3 Pare in using simple past tense, (2) to describe the frequency occurrence of the errors. The instrument used was a test on English simple past tense for Junior High school level.

The population of the study was the ninth year students of SMP Negeri 3 Pare, which consisted of three classes. However, samples were used as the researcher could not cope with the whole population. The samples consisted of 50 students.

Students errors identified in this study were categories into three types, namely, errors of omission errors addition and errors misformation. The result of the analysis shows that there were in all, 1234 errors among 50 students.

The types of errors among the students in constructing and using English simple past tense consisted of 68 (5%) errors of omission, 95 (8%) errors of addition and 1071 (87%) errors of misformation. From the highest to the lowest, the errors were: misformation, addition, and omission.

The result of farther analysis shows that the students seemingly have problems in each category omission, addition and misformation. Thus, the students were often found to make errors in using those patterns high.

The average number of errors made of all the students was 46%. From the percentage, it can be conclude that the students’ mastery in using English simple past tense was poor.

It is hoped that the finding of the present study will be useful for the teaching of English, especially the teaching of English simple past tense.

 

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

1.1.      Background of the Study

English as an international language has an important role to develop science and technologies many countries in the world use English as a medium of communication among people in different countries, and also of writing many kinds of books in which those are spread in different countries. In Indonesia there are many kinds of foreign books written in English, whether they are medical, Economical, Botanical, or other books, they claim Indonesian students to be able to learn and to use English in schools or in society in order that the books they read can be applied in various fields so that the development of science and technologies in Indonesia can be obtained.

For many years, English has been the most important foreign language in Indonesia, Which is taught from elementary school to university. However, in senior high school, English is taught as main subject in which the government has changed the curriculum into Curriculum Based on Competence 2004. According to Departemen Pendidikan Nasional (2003: 36).

“The competence-basing language curriculum is a systematic draft and strategy which build the communicative competence or the competence of contextual. It means that it builds all the basis of competences themselves. They are like linguistics competences, social culture and strategies to make the benefit context.”

From the statement above, it is clear that Curriculum Based on competence 2004 tries to develop and achieve the communicative competence or discourse competence and has perspective that is comprehensive to the discourse. The learners must be able to master the four skills, they are: listening, speaking, reading, and writing, also English components such as: grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, etc.

Among the four skills above, writing is the most difficult one. Because it requires demonstrating the control of a number of variables simultaneously; they are control of content, format, sentence structure, vocabulary, punctuation spelling, etc. Nunan (1989: 35) points out, “It has been argued that that learning to write fluently and expressively is the most difficult of the macro skills for all language users regardless of whether the language in question is first, second, or foreign language.” Another opinion comes from Heaton (1989: 138). He explain that the writing skills are complex and sometimes difficult to teach, requiring mastery not only of grammatical and rhetorical devices but also of conceptual and judgment elements. It means that ability to write needs a special skill and process in organizing language material by using learners’ own words and ideas and to be a good composition.

According to the results of the research done by the students of IKIP Budi Utomo Malang show that in learning English, most of the students find difficulties, especially in applying grammar in their speaking and writing. So, they will make mistakes and errors. It describes that learners’ ability in English is still poor and they need to be taught more effectively.

The learners often make mistakes and even errors in learning English, especially when they try to arrange sentences or use tenses in their writing. As a result, they will write sentences ungrammatically. Actually, ungrammatical sentences have great influence when the learners are writing sentences. That can be influenced by the first language which is different from the second language in written form. Therefore, the first language can interfere learners in the process of the second language. Abbort (1981: 216) wrote,

“For pedagogic purposes, teachers and others more likely to be concerned with the performances of whole groups and especially with the problems they have in commons. For these purposes, we need to ensure that the data comes from fairly homogeneous groups as regards mother tongue, age, previous teaching, and if possible, intelligence. Perhaps the most important of these factors is the mother tongue, particularly if phonological errors arte being studied

From the statement above, it can be seen that errors in learning a second language are caused by the interference of the learners’ mother tongue. In other words, errors made by the learners sometimes are caused by use of the first language.

Making Errors are a natural and unavoidable part of the process of learning English. Many kinds of errors arise when the learners write because they do not master the English structure well. Also, errors are the inability of the students in using rules of the components and elements of the second language. Brown (1987: 170) Said that ”second language learning is a process that is clearly not unlike first language learning in its trial and errors nature”. It means that the learners cannot avoid errors in learning second language. That statement is supported by Wiganti (2000: 11)

“Many linguist and researcher have found out that learners’ errors may account the process of learning a target language, in other words, making errors is considered to be natural to the learners. More extremely, they hypothesize that errors should not be viewed as problems to be overcome, but rather as normal and inevitable features indicating the strategies that learners use.”

So almost all learners must make errors when they are learning English because it is difficult to separate error in the process of learning English.

Students’ errors are very useful ways of showing what they have and have not learnt. Dubin F. and Olshtain E. (1986: 74) reported,:   …    , today errors are viewed as an integral part of the language-learning process from which we can gain very significant insight.” It tells that errors are important to study in order to understand the process of learning. A study of learners’ errors describes what problems the learners are having now and help the teacher to plan remedial work. In addition, the teacher should not see negatively as a sign of failure but see them positively as an indication of what the teacher still needs to teach. So, if the teacher tries to prevent students; errors, he/she never finds out what they do not know.

There are four standard competences in curriculum based on competences in Curriculum Based on Competence 2004. One of them is writing. In writing students are hoped to be able to express many written meanings that have purposes in communicative, text structure etc. They can develop their writing in the forms of genre (kinds of text) such as: narrative, descriptive, recount, news items, etc as a means of communications.

One of genres is recount. Recount tells something happening in the past time, like: history, journey, autobiography, biography, diary, personal letter, etc. As it tells some events, it usually uses sequence words such as: When, while, after, before, until, etc. Then, tense used in recount text is simple past tense, because it tells past events.

To make a good composition, the students must be able to master and apply the structure correctly, especially about tense used. In this case, the tense used is simple past tense. If they cannot do that, of course, errors will arise. Automatically their writing will cause misunderstanding for the readers, because the readers cannot receive the massage or expression of their idea well. Most of the students still find problems in using it, because of their limited mastery, especially the differences between regular and irregular verb. Therefore the writer wants to analyze the errors made by the students and tries to give solutions to overcome their problems. He chooses the title “An Error Analysis on the Use of Simple Past Tense among the Ninth Year Students of SMPN 3 Pare.”

1.2.  Statement of the problems

Based on the background of the study there are problems, which can be formulated after identifying the type errors, omitted among the ninth year students of SMPN 3 Pare

The problem can be stated as follows:

-                What analysis is to be described on the use simple past tense among students of the ninth year SMPN 3 Pare?

-                What analysis is to be described on the frequency occurrence of the errors made among the students of the ninth year students of SMPN 3 Pare on the use simple past tense?

1.3.  Objective of the Study

This study has their objectives relating to the formulation of the problems above. They can be stated as follows:

-          To describe what errors, made among the students of the ninth year students of SMPN 3 Pare on the use simple past tense.

-          To describe the frequency occurrence of the errors made, among the students of the ninth year students of SMPN 3 Pare on the use simple past tense.

1.4.  Limitation of the Study

In this study, the researcher used a test to find the students errors. He gave some material and the students all of them. The researcher only took Indonesian students who were in the ninth year students at SMPN 3 Pare.

The student did not concentrate on all structure/tense problems found in students doing, since the researcher limited his study in the problem of tense especially simple past tense.

1.5.  Significance of the Study

The use of the result of the study has great sign finance:

1.5.1    For teacher:

-     Teacher will know the errors that usually make among students on the use of simple past tense.

-          Teacher will be able to predict the errors that probably will happen to the students so that he will be able to overcome the troubles.

1.5.2        For the students:

-          The students will be able to study the simple past tense more easily.

1.6.  Definition of key terms

To avoid misunderstanding of the concepts used in this study, some definitions are provided as the following:

-     Errors are flowed side learned speech or writing they are those parts of conversation or writing that deviated from some selected of nature language performance.

-     Mistakes are due to memory, lapses, physical static such as tiredness and psychological condition such as strong emotion of the language the learner is making errors are systematically made, it is due to do the learners still developing the knowledge of the target language rule system.

-     Simple past tense; the simple past is the tense normally used for the relation of past event, the simple past tense is used for actions completed in the past at a definite time. It is used for an action whose time now terminated, or occurred in period of time now terminated. It is also used for a past habit, and it is used in conditional sentences, type II.

-     Native language, the learner’s first language or mother tongue, in this case Bahasa Indonesia.

-     Target language, the new language the learners are learning, in this case English.

CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

The purpose of the chapter to review literature related to (a) errors and mistake, (b) errors analysis, and (c) English simple past tense.

2.1. Errors and Mistakes

Many linguists have defined differently what an error is based on their own concept. Vicki Fromkin and Robert Rodman (1978: 361) states that the human brain is able not only to acquire and store the mental grammar, but also access that linguistic store house to speak and understand what is spoken, meaning they are against the grammatical rule of the language and result in unacceptable utterances, in second language learning they occur because the learner has not internalized the grammar of the second language. In order words, the student arise out of lack of competence, therefore errors are systematical. Furthermore, they make a distinction between errors, mistakes, and lapses.

Mistakes arise when the speaker fails to match the language to the situation and result in appropriate utterances. Lapses, in the other hand, arise out tiredness, nervousness; or stain which result in slip of tongue, false starts confusion of structure, etc. Both mistake and lapses are not systematical and belong to phenomena of performance.

Unlike the two definitions mentioned above, Dullay in Brown (1987: 170­) uses the term “errors” to refer to any deviations from a selected norm of language performance, and matter what the characteristics or causes of the definitions might be. They also explain that the norm used to identify the errors may be anyone of the dialect of other varieties of language the native speaker uses.

The terms errors, as noted by Dullay above is used for the systematic deviations due to the learners still developing knowledge of the target language rule, system or for idiosyncrasies in the inter language of the learner which are direct manifestations of system with which a learner is operating at the time.

In this present study the researcher prefer to use the definition of errors given by him on the consideration that this study is not intended to differentiate between errors and mistakes.

2.2. Error analysis

2.2.1.   The Role of Error Analysis in Language teaching and Learning.

In language learning the study of the learners has become very important and has always been a cause of much concern to the teacher and text-book writers alike. It has been used as indicator of learning and guide in teaching. The study or learners errors are known as error analysis. Error analysis shows the significance of learner’s errors and three ways:

(1)   They tell the teachers how far the learners have progressed and what remains for them to learn.

(2)   They provide evidence to researchers of how language is learned of acquired and what strategy or procedure the learner is employing to learn the language, and

(3)   They serve as feedback to the learner of hypothesis he is using

Further more, Sue loarch (1984: 11) states that error analysis is not confronted with the complex theoretical problem encountered by contrastive analysis, e/q/ the problems of equivalence.

According to Soetikno (1996: 187) contrastive analysis has in many case, failed to predict learning problems, despite the claim that contrastive analysis has not only predicated difficulties in the areas where the mother tongue and foreign differ but also in the case of linguistic features that are unknown in the sources language.

However, there are weaknesses of error analysis are also started by Zuchrudin Surya Winarta  and Hariyanto in their book “Translation” (2003: 17)

The points out of their major weaknesses of error analysis are:

(1)   The confusion of error description with error explanation (the process and product aspect of analysis).

(2)   The lack of precision and specificity in the definition of error categories and

(3)   Simplistic categorization of the causes or learning’s errors.

As stated by Baradja (1990: 96), there are three major difficulties in conducting error analysis. There are:

(1)   Difficulty in giving meaning to the student utterances. If often happens that the researcher are usually and other activities that he does not have time to make reconstruction of students wring utterances or to return them to their original sentence or corpus, These often cause mistake and produce unmeaning finding.

(2)   Difficulty in creating instrument, which can be used to obtain the information that we need. If the instrument we make is not good and systematic, we will get invalid and unmeaning data. In other words the information Data we do not contain error since students may avoid using difficult items.

(3)   Difficulty in classifying the errors.

To classify errors into types is not easy work and it takes much time.

Sometimes students are wrong utterance cannot be regarded as ‘error’.

2.2.2.   Categories of Errors in Error Analysis

To categorize error into classification based on the types or the sources of errors is not easy work. Many times error cannot be traced back into one source. More over, the boundaries between different sources of error many sometimes be unclear that the arbitrary classification decision unavoidable

According to the process editing written by Sue Loarch in her book (1984: 181) the writer concludes that there are two categories of errors, global and local errors.

Global errors are thus which affect the over all sentence organization significantly, while local errors are those affect single element (constituent) in a sentences.

Suotikno (1996: 181) made a classification of errors in comparative taxonomy based on comparisons between the structure of L2 errors and certain other types of constructions there comparisons result in four types of errors; developmental, inter-lingual, ambiguous and other errors Further more, based on surface strategy taxonomy, Soetikno (1996: 181) give emphasis on the ways surface structure is altered. Learners may omit necessary items or add unnecessary ones, they may misfire item or miss order them. Thus, the errors may be in the form of omission, addition, miss formation, and miss ordering errors types.

Omission errors are characterized by the absence of an item that must appear in a well-formed utterance. Although any morpheme or word in a sentence is a potential candidate for omission, some types of morpheme are omitted than others.

Additional errors are the opposite of omission. They are characterized by the presence of an item, which must not appear in a well-formed utterance. Additional errors include double marking, regularization and simple addition that is an addition that is not double marking or regularization.

Misformation errors are characterized by the use of the wrong from of morpheme or structure, while in omission errors the items is not supplied at all, in miss-formation errors the learners. Supplies something although it is in correct.

Misordering errors are characterized by the incorrect placement of a morpheme or group morphemes in a utterance.

This study has the same purpose as Dulay’s statement in the classification of error types. The error classification is intended as an aid to present data rather than to create a basic for extensive speculating concerning the source of errors.

2.3.   English simple past tense

The simple past tense indicates that on activity or situation began and ended at a particular time in the past.

Example:

-          I walked to school yesterday.

-          He bought a new car three days ago.

Sentence pattern of simple past tense:

Affirmative (+): S + V11 + c (complement).

Example:

-          He saw a film at Jaya theatre last night

-          I played piano yesterday.

Negative      (-): S + did not + infinitive +c.

Example:

-          He did not see a film at Jaya theatre last night

-          I did not play piano yesterday.

Interrogative (?): Did + S + infinitive + c?

Example:

-     Did he see a film at Jaya theatre last night?

-          Did you play piano yesterday?

The use of this tense is limited to indicate that an activity, state or occurrence in the past without indicate any connection with the “yesterday” is one of the safe time signals for this tense.

In the simple past tense we must use verb II for all subjects.

The verbs in the simple past tense there are of two forms:

1)            Regular verbs:

a.   The simple past tense is regular verb is formed by adding “ed” to the infinitive:

Work  _ Worked

Cook   _ Cooked

b.      Verbs ending in “e” add “d” Only

Love-Loved

c.       Verbs ending in “y” following consonant change the “y” into “I” before adding “ed”:

Stop - Stopped  

Admit - Admitted 

Travel – Traveled

2).     Irregular Verbs

These very considerably in their simple past form:

Speak - spoke

Eat - Ate

See - Saw

Leave - Left

Come - Came

Fight - Fought

Find - Found

Hold - Held

Make - Made, etc

The simple past form of each irregular verb must therefore be learnt, but once this is done there is no other difficulty, as irregular verb no inflections in the past tense.

CHAPTER III

RESEARCH METHODS

3.1.   Research Design

The use of method in a research is very necessary, because it will be able to help a researcher to get data easily. There are some methods that can be used to do research. They are experiment, this survey method. And this survey method the research the method that was used was survey. It is a method used to describe phenomena of a case by taking its data that will be analyzed and generalized to the population of research through Descriptive to qualitative samples.

The case that was surveyed in this research was about phenomena of English simple past tense errors committed by the ninth year students of    SMPN 3 Pare

3.2.   Place and time of research

3.2.1.   Place of Research

In trying to get relating to variables of research, it is necessary to determine where the research must be held. In doing a research the area where the data will be taken it must be held. In doing a research the area where the data will be taken must be restricted. It aims to make the research easy to be done, and it does not need much time, and finance. The area used in the research should have good quality, because it will be used as a place to get valid data. This research are taken at school of the ninth year students of SMPN 3 Pare

3.2.2.   Time of Research

To determine how long the research must be held, it is necessary to arrange the time schedule of research according to the activities done is research. The activities were begun by proposing design of research and the research started on 24^th July 2006 and finished 1^st August 2006.

3.3.   Population and Sample

3.3.1.   Population

Population is all individuals becoming subjects of research. Usually the number of population in the area of research is great. It must consider the ability of population. Because it will be influence whether the result of research is good or not.

This research, the population is the whole numbers of the ninth year students of SMPN 3 Pare – Kediri. There are three classes. Every class consists of 44 students. So the total numbers are 132 students.

3.3.2.   Sample

Sample is part of population becoming subjects of research. The sample will be taken of the subjects or individuals in area of the research are great enough. It is too many to make data from all individuals in area of the research.

The data can be gotten from part of population by using technique or random sampling. It is technique of taking part of population or sample at random. It means that all individuals in the population get the some chance to be selected to become the member of sample.

Meanwhile the sample of this research is 50 students. In class IX A, it will be taken 17 students, class IX B will be taken 17 students and class IX C will be taken 16 students.

3.4.   Instrument of Research

Instrument used to get data in this research was in the form of topics list used in the writing composition. The instrument used in the research should be appropriate with the variables of research. So in order to get data relating to each variable, the researcher used the form of topics list as instrument for asking the students to produce their language in the form of written language through writing composition spontaneously in the class.

3.5.   Technique Of Data Collections

The technique used to collect data in this research was by giving a test of writing composition to the students. The purpose of giving the test was to ask the students to produce her/his language through writing an English composition spontaneously. It means that it does not give the opportunity to the students to look up his/her note.

The result of the student’s work was needed to analyze her language, which has many kinds of errors. So in this case test did not measure the student’s ability in the writing skill, but it analyzed the student’s errors in producing their language in the written from in the aspect of English simple past tense.

3.6.   Data Analysis

The data were the errors found in the sentences in the students writing. After the records had been collected, the data processing procedure was carried out.

According to the Carden’s Model (1987:173) the first step in process if analysis is the identification of errors. After identifying the errors the total number of errors, made by the learners was counted, and the value each errors was 1 (one).

After the identification of the errors the researcher formed a reconstruction of the correction of the sentences in the target language, or on the other word, the researcher compared the original sentences and finally describe the differences.

CHAPTER IV

THE ANALYSIS OF DATA

This chapter presents the result of the test on English simple past tense and also the discussion concerning the findings obtained from the test. The data analysis was done to answer to the question stated in chapter I.

4.1.   The results of Qualitative analysis

The ninth year students of a junior high school, in using English simple past tense, did the analysis as an attempting to find out the errors mode. The analysis of the data as mentioned in chapter III was done by the following two steps.

It is included identifying the errors and classifying the errors.

4.1.1.   Identifying the Errors

This was done identifying and counting the numbers of errors, which appeared in the students answer sheets. As in had done, the test in English simple past tense, which consists of 50 items, was conducted to 54 subjects. Most of the items in the test were answered (which were included in the errors of omission). Besides, the researcher also described the number of errors (wrong answer) for each sentence on the test as an integrated part of the description of the frequency of occurrence of the errors.

4.1.2.   Classifying the Errors

The classification the error into error type was done based on the surface strategy taxonomy. In which errors can be described into four types, they are:

-     Errors of omission: the absence of an item test must appear in a well-farmed utterance.

-     Errors of addition: the presence of an item, which must not appear in a well-farmed utterance.

-     Errors of miss formation: the use of the wrong form of the morpheme or structure.

-     Errors of misordering the incorrect placement of a morpheme or a group of morpheme in an utterance.

However, it was found from the data. There was no error of miss ordering. So that in the analysis errors only consisted of errors of omission, addition, and misformation. This was done to compare the right sentences with the student’s wrong sentences and also to indicate to which types the errors belong.

4.1.2.1.   Errors of Omission

They are indicated by the absence of one or more items that must appear in a well-formed sentence. From the data analysis, errors of omission, which could be identified in these studies, are:

1). Omission of “not” in negative simple past tense.

2). Omission of the simple past tense, and

3). Blanks or unanswered items.

1).  Omission of “not” (n’t) in negative simple past tense

Such errors, in this study were found when the students did not understand the form of the statement whether it was negative or positive, which would determine the form of the simple past tense needed. Most of the time the students were probably still confused or lack of attention with the form or the statement, which were asked for confirmation, so they answered with the wrong form of simple past tense.

The examples found in students answer sheets:

1.      He did help his father in the yard.

2.      She did studied English and Indonesia.

3.      He did cleaned the house yesterday.

4.      Tuti did washed her shirts last week.

5.      Ali did carried the radio to his brother’s house.

The underline simple past tense, which errors in the answer sheets are wrong as they do not correspond to the right answer/simple past tense needed for statements given. “not” as an indication of negative forms, is left out in these sentences.

Reconstruction of the sentences”

1.      He did not help his father in the yard.

2.      He did not help his father in the yard.

3.      He did not clean the house yesterday.

4.      Tuti did not wash her shirts last week.

5.      Ali did not carry the radio to his brother’s house.

2)      Omission of “ed” of simple past tense

The omission of “ed” of the simple past tense, is indicated by the sentence of predicated in the simple past tense. The examples are:

1.      She want to see her brother there.

2.      Ana carry the basket for her mother.

3.      On Monday I wash my shirts.

4.      On Friday I study match and history.

5.      Yesterday I clean the house.

 Those simple past tenses shown above are considered wrong because the predicate of the simple past tense (Predicate on type II) are left out:

Reconstruction of the sentences:

1.      She wanted to see her brother there

2.      Ana carried the basket for her mother

3.      On Monday I washed my shirts

4.      On Friday I studied math and history

5.      Yesterday I cleaned the house

3)      Blanks or unanswered items

Besides the two kinds of omission described above, at the time, it was found that there were many items left unanswered. In the students answer sheets, they were seen as blank answer for related number of items.

4.1.2.2.   Errors of Addition

The second type of errors in this study is errors of addition. As it has been mentioned in advance, errors of addition are characterized by the presence of one or more items that must appear in well-formed sentences. Identified in this study include:

1)      Addition of “was/were” on nominal sentences

Errors in the form of addition of “was/were’ to simple past tense on nominal sentence is characterized by the appearance of  ‘was/were’ to simple past tense.

The examples are:

1.      Tari did in the living room

2.      They are in the classroom

3.      She did reading a newspaper

4.      Mr. Smith did a teacher in SMP

5.      She does very happy with the apples, the oranges and the flowers

Reconstruction of the sentences:

1.      Tari was in the living room.

2.      They were in the classroom

3.      she was reading a news paper

4.      Mr. Smith was a teacher in SMP

5.      She was very happy with the apples, the oranges and the flower.

4.1.2.3.   Errors of Misformation

These kinds of Errors are characterized by the use of incorrect form morpheme or structure. While in errors of omission, the items is not supplied of all, in errors of misformation the learners supply something although it is in an incorrect form. The errors of miss formation identified in this study are:

1.      Misformation of “V1 to be VII”.

2.      Misformation of auxiliaries “did, was, were.

3.      Misformation of “to be “(was/were)

4.      Misformation of change to negative (-) and      interrogative, (?) sentence

5.      Misformation of “did” and “was/were” in the    interrogative (?)

1.)    Misformation of “V1 to become VII”.

Usually, the errors occurred since the students still don’t understand with the rule or the usage of pattern.

The examples are:

1.      Yeni go to the market yesterday.

2.      Mary help the teacher to clean the blackboard.

3.      They play football in the yard.

4.      He study English in his school.

5.      His father works in the post office.

Reconstruction of the sentences:

1.      Yeni went to the market yesterday.

2.      Mary helped the teacher to clean the blackboard.

3.      They played football in the yard.

4.      He studied English in his school.

5.      His father worked in the post office.

2.)    Misformation of auxiliaries “did, was, were”.

The errors occurred as the students at that find still did not understand yet or they were likely confused with the use of auxiliaries (did, was, were).

The examples are:

1.      He does play football last Sunday.

2.      Rini were in living room.

3.      They was reading a newspaper.

4.      Jony does not writing A letter yesterday.

5.      Father were talking with mother.

Reconstruction of the sentences:

1.      He did not play football last Sunday.

2.      Rini was in living room.

3.      They were reading a newspaper.

4.      Jony did not write a letter yesterday.

5.      Father was talking with mother.

3.)    Misformation of “to be “(was/were)

These errors appeared When the students used incorrect forms or to be which are not in agreement with the subject of the simple past tense

The example is:

- They was in the garden looking for flowers.

Reconstruction of the sentence

-  They were in the garden looking for flowers.

4.)    Misformation of  “change to negative (-) and interrogative (?).”

The errors are characterized by the use of incorrect simple past tense as the influence of change to negative and interrogative.

The examples are:

1.      We did not washed the desk (-)

2.      Listened Tono to the song (?)

3.      Maria carried not her bag (-)

4.      Do they talked to Mr. Brown (?)

5.      Ani did not written a letter (-)

Reconstruction of the sentences:

1. We did not wash the desk (-)

2. Did Tono listen to the song (?)

3. Maria did not carry her bag (-)

4. Did they talk to Mr. Brown (?)

5. Ani did not write a letter (-)

5.)    Misformation of “did” and “was/were” in the interrogative (?)

The errors are characterized by the use of incorrect simple past tense for the statements beginning with “did” and “was/were”. These errors are characterized by the incorrect use of both the auxiliaries in the simple past tense.

The examples are:

1.      Does Tini cooking when her mother come?

2.      Does Mr. Brown  a teacher?

3.      Do Lestari went to school yesterday?

4.      Does Mary left the house at eight?

5.      Do they answered the question?

Reconstruction  of the sentences:

1.      Was Tini cooking when her mother com?

2.      Was Brown  a teacher?

3.      Did Lestari went to school yesterday?

4.      Did Mary leave the house at eight?

5.      Did they answer the question?

4.2    Result of Quantitative analysis

Quantitative analysis was done as the coming process of identifying and classifying the errors, in the attempt to answer research question as stated in chapter I, especially concerning with the students errors and problems in using English simple past tense.

Students on the test did this analysis on the basic of competition on the percentage of errors mode. Then, from the errors percentage, it can also be inferred, which aspects/items of English simple past tense? We found to be more difficult than the other. Therefore, in this study a certain item is identifies, as a difficult item is 45 % or more if the students make errors.

TABLE: 4.1

STUDENTS MASTERY LEVEL IN TERMS OF ERRORS

ERRORS	LEVEL OF MASTERY
8 % - 15 % 16 % - 30 % 31 % - 45 % 46 % - 50 % 51 % - 100  %	Very Good Good Fair Poor Very Poor

It found that in this study the students had difficulty in using English simple past tense since they still made many errors.

There are 23 items out of 50 items having error percentage 45 %. Thus, it means that the student’s level of mastery is still poor since they still faced difficulties in certain items of simple past tense. It terms of errors types, the frequency occurrence of each error type is provided in table 4.2.

TABLE 4.2.

FREQUENCY OF OCCURRENCE OF EACH ERROR TYPE

Type of Errors	Number of Errors	Percentage of errors
Omission Addition Misformation Misordering TOTAL	68 95 1071 - 1234	5 % 8 % 87 % - 100 %

The percentage of each type or errors above was calculated by using the formula:

Number of errors types

Terms of each error types

                                              X 100 %     

Total number of errors

Table 4.2. shows that out of 1234 errors, there are 68 (5 %) errors omission, 95 (8 %) errors of addition, and 1071 (87 %) errors miss formation, there is no error of miss ordering.

4.3.   Discussion

This study, as it has been mentioned in advance, aimed at finishing out weather the students have problems in using English simple past tense.

The data analysis of the test on simple past tense show that errors of misformation reached the highest frequency, followed by errors of addition, and errors or omission, it was found that there is no error of misordering in this study. Further analysis concerning the use of simple past tense in terms of each always of the items shows that misformation errors were always of the highest frequency.

The researcher thinks that they happened because most of the students still have problems especially with the use of tense, auxiliaries, and special patterns on the simple past tense.

CHAPTER V

CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION

            Conclusions

This study had the aims of describing and analyzing the errors on the use of English simple past tense made by the ninth year students of a junior high school. As it had been done, the study was conducted to the SMPN 3 Pare. By studying the errors, as they existed in the students answer sheets, the student’s difficulties in using in English simple past tense could be analyzed to know how far the students might have faced.

From the analysis it can be inferred that:

1.      The students can face some problems in using and constructing the simple past tense especially dealing with words and patterns.

2.      The students’ mastery on English simple past tense is poor.

3.      Based on the research, the teacher is able to give the real understanding to the students, but the students must obtain exercise more often.

4.      The student’s concentration can be focused to the practice.

5.      The writer hopes that data analysis can motivate the students to study more diligent.

            Suggestion

As mentioned in chapter I, the result of this study are meant indirect significantly to both the teachers and students. For the teachers, the student’s errors show how far they have understood the lesson and what remains for them to learn. By studying the students’ errors and knowing the areas of difficulty, the teacher will get the clear picture of the student’s knowledge of language, particularly in using English simple past tense. Furthermore, the teacher will be able to select the most appropriate technique and the teaching materials as well. Those can be done if the teachers of English pay more attention to the problems on English simple past tense and give more emphasis in their teaching process.

Finally, the researcher does not claim this study to be perfect one due to the limited time the writer had. It is suggested for other researcher to do further study about errors in the use of English simple past tense. In the present study the researcher only dealt with small population in the third year students of junior high school level.

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