6 used as feedback for the Structure class lecturers in the teaching learning
processes, and thus hopefully be able to improve the teaching of English tenses. The study also, hopefully, gives benefits to future researchers and readers. It
is expected that the study gives sufficient information about the research on mastery of tenses, thus they can explore more. It is hoped that the study will help
the future researchers and readers in understanding the tenses, especially the ten tenses. For future researcher, it is expected that they can develop the research by
improving and modifying the test. They may find the significance of tenses in building the mastery of a language related to four basic skills; listening, speaking,
reading, and writing.
F. Definition of Terms
To avoid misunderstanding, there are some terms that need to be explained. The terms that will be defined are mastery, tenses, and errors.
1. ELESP Students ELESP stands for the English Language Education Study Program. The
subject of this research is the third semester students of the English Language Education Study Program in the academic year of 20082009. The study is
conducted at Sanata Dharma University Yogyakarta. 2. Errors
According to Dulay, Burt and Krashen 1982: 138, errors are the deviation parts of learner in spoken and written from rules of language. In the
study, the writer tries to find out the errors the students make in using the tenses. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
7 There are three categories of errors in the study. They are
„context-related errors‟, „form-related errors‟ and „other errors‟. Those three categories are then divided
into sub categories based on the errors that the writer found in each tense. Context-related error
s consist of the students‟ answers that deviate from the context or function in a given tense. Form-
related errors consist of the students‟ answers that deviate from the form or pattern in a given tense. Other errors consist
of the students‟ answers that do not belong to two previous categories because they deviate from the intended context and form.
3. Tense According to Jackson 1982: 74,
“the grammatical category of tense is related to real-world time.
” He divides time into past, present and future. According to Asher 1994: 4558, there are two important facets of tenses. First,
from a formal point of view, tense is a grammatical category expressed overtly on the verb. Second, from a semantic point of view, tense serves to locate situations
in time. The study focuses on ten tenses. They are simple present tense, present progressive tense, simple past tense, past progressive tense, present perfect tense,
present perfect progressive tense, past perfect tense, past perfect progressive tense, simple future tense, and future progressive tense.
4. Mastery In this study, definition of mastery refers to Fries 1948: 3. He says that
“a person has learned a foreign language when he has thus first, within a limited
vocabulary mastered the sound system, that is, when he can understand the stream of speech and achieve an understandable production of it and has, second, made
8 the structural devices or the basic arrangements of the utterances as a matter of
automatic habit.” A person is said to have mastered a language if within the limitation of vocabulary that he has, he understands the sound system and
produces the understandable sound system, and moreover, he is able to produce sentences. In the study, the writer wants to find out the students’ mastery of
tenses. It is related to the second requirement of mastery; that is, the mastery of structural devices in which the students are expected to be able to recognize the
form and use of tenses. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
9
CHAPTER II REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
