A. Theoretical Description
This section presents some related theories as the guideline to conduct this study. As mentioned above, this section is divided into six main parts, namely a
brief overview of simple past tense, a brief overview of teaching grammar, Dictogloss
, the characteristics of first grade students of SMK, the rubrics, and the previous research.
1. A Brief Overview of Simple Past Tense
A Brief Overview of Simple Past Tense is limited to the use, the pattern of Simple Past Tense, and type of verbs used in Simple Past Tense.
1.1. The Use of Simple Past Tense
Azar 1992:32 says that Simple Past Tense is used to talk about activities or situation that began and ended at a particular time in the past, for examples,
yesterday, last night, two days ago. Murcia and Freeman 1983:63 also proposes that Simple Past Tense is used to express a habitual or repeated action event in
the past suggest that some changes in this habit event have taken place. For example: Sam walked his dog every day last year. Sam had a habit to take his dog
for a walk and it was done every day but it’s done a year ago and now it isn’t done anymore. Murcia and Freeman 1983: 62 states that Simple Past Tense is
used to express an event with duration that applied in the past with the implication that it no longer applies in the present as shown by this sentence:
Prof. Nelson taught at Yale for 30 years. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
1.2. The Pattern of Simple Past Tense
Gumpol 1995: 57 divides the pattern into two subdivisions: the sentence pattern that uses past to be was and were and the sentence pattern that uses full
verb.
Table 1: Sentence pattern that uses past to be was and were Sentence
Pattern Examples
+ S + was were + adj adv n
I was sick She was an actress
We were in the zoo -
S+ was not were not + adj adv n I was not sick
She was not an actress We were not in the zoo
? Was Were + S + adj adv n ?
Was I sick? Was she an actress?
Were we in the zoo? -?
Wasn’t Weren’t + S + adj adv n? Wasn’t I sick?
Wasn’t she an actress? Weren’t we in the zoo?
Table 2: Sentence pattern that uses full verb Sentence
Pattern Examples
+ S + V
2
They studied -
S + did not + V
1
The did not study ?
Did + S + V
1
Did they study? -?
Didn’t + S + V
1
Didn’t they study? PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
Simple past tense has certain adverbial of time and it must refer to some point of period in the past. The following are the examples of the adverbial of
time:
Yesterday, Then, in....1985, the other day, A moment ago, earlier this week. It
is also possible that simple past tense goes along with adverbial of frequency to indicate the past time habit. The examples of adverbial of frequency are:
Always : She always studied harder.
Sometimes : Peter sometimes walked to school.
Never : Maria never had breakfast.
Usually : Jane usually swam in the river.
1.3. Type of Verbs
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