CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
A. Background
English language teaching includes four language skills such as listening, speaking, reading and writing. One of the language skills which is very difficult to study is writing. English writing is a
subject that learns about how to express our idea in written form. In writing students of Elementary School, Junior High School, and Senior High School learn how to write words, phrases, clauses, and
sentences. When the students make a sentence they should concern with: subject, verb, and tense. Tense is an aspect of language that should be learnt by the student. To make a good sentence
they should master tense. Tense is difficult to study. When they write a sentence, most of the students found some problems to determine and to choose the appropriate tense. Tense related with changing of
verb agree with the time. There are two kinds of verb namely regular and irregular verb. The students always make error to change the verb in different tense because in Indonesian has not irregular and
regular verb. Although tense has been taught since the elementary school, the students still can not apply
tenses rules. Because when the students make a sentence they are influenced by their mother tongue. It is make most of them made error on it.
Here are the examples of wrong sentences are often made by students in using tenses: ∗ My sister study English yesterday.
The sentence is wrong because in simple past tense they must use past verb verb 2 in the sentence. Most students can not change the base form into past form because Indonesian has only one
form. The word study is regular verb so, they must add –ed in the end of the word in simple past tense. The right sentence is: My sister studied English yesterday.
∗ She usually go to school by car.
The second sentence is wrong. If the subject is singular, the verb is also singular. It is called subject – verb agreement. In the sentence, in the end of the verb must add SES. The right sentence is:
She usually goes to school by car. ∗ Andy have wrote a letter to his uncle.
The third sentence is wrong because in present perfect tense, if the third person singular subject he, she, it they have to use “has” before the verb and use “have” if the subject plural you, we, they
or I. It also use verb 3 past participle in the sentence. The verb participle from write is written. It is irregular verb. They should say: Andy has written a letter to his uncle.
The errors are made by students, can be understood because the students have learned Indonesian since they were children. They usually use Indonesian rules, meanwhile English rules is
different from Indonesian one. Consequently, the differences make it difficult for the students to develop English because Indonesian has been printed in students’ mind.
The students made errors of using tense because some reasons. First, that English has great variety of tense, is one of reason why the Indonesian students have difficulties in understanding tenses.
The second reason is that Indonesian students are influenced by their mother tongue. The last reason is in Indonesian there is no subject – verb agreement. The students make a sentence without concern with
subject – verb agreement.
From the description above, the writer is interested in doing research about “Error Analysis on English Tenses Found in The Students’ Writing”
of the second year students of “Dharma Karya
UT” Junior High School, “Pondok Cabe Ilir.”
B. Limitation of the Study
