Background of the study

12 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

1.1. Background of the study

In our society few people fail to realize the importance of using good English especially in written English. This mostly happens at school. We observe most students understand grammar when they learn it. Students find it easy to understand what simple past tense is. Students do not find difficulty when they learn about recount writing. But when taking composition test on using simple past tense in recount writing most of the students make errors in using simple past tense. Studying English does not only focus on speaking skill. Every learner should be able to master the four language skills, namely: Speaking, listening, reading, and writing. As Haycraft 1978:8 states that there are various skills in mastering a language; receptive skill, listening understanding the spoken language, reading understanding the written language, and productive skills-speaking and writing. The most difficult skill among those four skills is writing because it requires demonstrating the control of a number of variables simultaneously; they are control of content, format, sentence structure, vocabulary, punctuation, spelling, and derivation as well. Remembering the difficulties found in using those complicated rules, the writer observes that most students find it difficult to write a recount composition without making errors. Dealing with those, the writer would like to analyze one of those problems namely students’ errors in writing especially on how they use grammar. Grammar deals with the organization or morphemic units into meaningful Universitas Sumatera Utara 13 combination. It cannot be denied that the use of language is governed by rules. Manser 1991:182 defines grammar as the rules for forming word and making sentences. There are many kinds of English grammar that is taught and learnt by the students. Simple Past Tense is one of the lessons in English grammar which has been learnt by the 10 th year students, but anyhow we still often find many errors made by the learners. Hendrickson 1980:55 states that many language educators have proposed that foreign language teachers should accept many errors from their students and should accept those errors as a natural phenomenon integral to the processes of learning a second language eventhough their teachers have given the pattern clearly and also examples that related to the material. Error could even be an important feedback for the learners themselves. By knowing their errors, they will know the problems that they face and try to analyze their weaknesses. On the other hand, by analyzing students’ errors, the teachers cannot only detect the students’ difficulty in learning the target language, but can also determine the effectiveness of certain method in teaching the language. Likewise, Lim 1975:100 states that learners’ errors could give contribution in creating appropriate materials for teaching. Studies of errors can be applied only in speaking and writing Dulay, 1982: 144. It cannot be applied in reading and listening. Errors in recount writing are chosen in this study. Recount is one of the genre texts, which is taught at the tenth year students of senior high school. The significant lexicogrammatical features of recount text use past tense so it matches with this study. Corder 1981:218 says that errors analysis is the study analysis of the errors made by the second of foreign language learners to predict the errors or the Universitas Sumatera Utara 14 difficulties in learning foreign language. Error analysis may be carried out in order to find out how well someone learns a language, find out how well someone knows language, and obtain information on common difficulties in language learning. Based on the reason above the writer chooses “An Error Analysis on Using Simple Past Tense Made by the Eleventh Year Students of The Ark School Sidikalang” as the title of this thesis. This study tries to describe and analyze the areas of difficulties in written English in sentences made by senior high school students. This includes errors on tenses in student’s writing assignment. Errors on tenses viewed from morphology and syntax will be analyzed. Then classified the errors into type based on surface strategy taxonomy; omission, addition, misformation, and misordering. 1.2.Problem of the Study Based on the background of the study above, the writer finds some problems that are going to be answered as: a. What type of errors on the use of simple past tense in recount writing are made by the eleventh year students at The Ark School Sidikalang? b. What are the causes of errors on the use of simple past tense in recount writing made by the eleventh year students at The Ark School Sidikalang?

1.3. Objectives of the Study