3 The usage of simple past tense.
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a The simple past tense is used to talk about activities or situation that began and ended in the past.
E.g. The students did their homework yesterday. b To express the duration of an event completed in the past.
E.g. I was in Jakarta for four years I’m in Surabaya now. c To express habitual action in the past.
E.g. When I was child, I caried loudly.
D. Relevant Studies
There are two relevant studies that the writer takes about tenses. They are: An analysis on grammatical errors in simple present tense on students’
descriptive writing and an analysis on students’ difficulties in learning simple past tense.
The first relevant study is about an analysis on grammatical errors in simple present tense on students’ descriptive writing a case study focusing on
analyzing the grammatical errors in simple present tense and the dominant influence that made by students in their descriptive writing. The objective of the
study is to fine the grammatical errors in simple present tense and to investigate the influence of errors that commonly caused in writing descriptive. The methods
used by the researcher is documentation method that explained the subject about the language fanction, explained about the rules in writing a descriptive text, held
and field research by preparing questions sheet and answer sheets and analyzed the students’ work by making a list of the students’ errors in descriptive text.
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The second study is about an analysis on students’ difficulties in learning simple past tense a case study focusing to analyze the students’ difficulties in the
form and in the usage of the simple past. The purpose of this research are to find out the difficulties and to analyze the reason why the students face difficulties in
learning simple past tense. This research is used two kinds of ways; the library
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Betty Schrampfer Azar, op.cit., p. 24.
33
Husniati, An Analysis on Grammatical Errors in Simple Present Tense on Students’ Descriptive Writing. skripsi, Jakarta: FITK UIN, 2010, pp. 2-5.
study and field research. The library study, she reads some books, papers, internet and other references concerning to the topic and the field study she takes the
observation, gives the test and does the interviews.
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Different from these researchs, the write focuses her study on analyzing the students’ grammatical errors on the simple present tense, simple present
continuous tense and the simple past tense.
34
Evi Setiawati, An Analysis on Students’ Difficulties in Learning Simple Past Tense. skripsi, Jakarta: FITK UIN, 2010, pp. 2-4.
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CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This chapter presents the description of the research method used in this study, including place and time of the research, method of research, research
subject, research instrument, checking of instrument validity and the technique of data analysis.
A. Place and Time of Research
This research was held at Yayasan Pendidikan An-Nurmaniyah SMP YAPERA or SMP An-Nurmaniyah which is located at Jl. Dr. Cipto
Mangunkusumo Jln. H. Mencong No. 62 Paninggilan Utara-Ciledug. The writer makes the proposal on 22 may 2013 and began an observation until 27 March
2014. Before doing the research, fristly the writer observed the location and
population where the research carried out. Then, she observed the English teaching learning activity and she watched the method that used by the English
teacher about tenses expecially in learning simple present tense, simple continous tense and simple past tense. Finally, the writer gave short answer question test in
order to get the data and to analyze the most common students’ error in using tenses simple present tense, simple present continuous tense and simple past
tense.
B. Method of Research
This method of research used the descriptive qualitative as the method to analyze the students’ error in the use of tenses which are commonly made.
The analysis involves, firstly, collecting the data of the students test to find out the errors. The second step is the identification of student’s error in the use of
tenses simple present tense, simple present continuous tense and simple past tense. The next step is the classification of the error, this step is when the errors
