An error analysis on students' simple past tense mastery in their narrative text (a case study at the eleventh grade students of SMAN 4 Bekasi)

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(A Case Study at the eleventh grade students of SMAN 4 BEKASI)

Proposed by:

By:

RINDA RIZALDI SYARIF

208014000002

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH EDUCATION

FACULTY OF TARBIYAH AND TEACHERS

’

TRAINING

SYARIF HIDAYATULLAH STATE ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY

JAKARTA

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RINDA RIZALDI SYARIF, 2014 An Error Analysis On Students’ Simple Past Tense Mastery In Their Narrative Text (A Case Study at the eleventh grade students of SMAN 4 BEKASI). Skripsi, of English Department, The Faculty of Tarbiyah and Teachers’ Training, Syarif Hidayatullah Islamic University Jakarta.

Advisor: 1.Dr. Ratna Sari Dewi, M. Pd. 2. Zaharil Anasy, M. Hum.

Keywords: ErrorAnalysis, Simple Past Tense, Narrative Text

The objective of this study is to identify whether the students make errors, and to find the types of errors made by the second year students of SMAN 4 BEKASI in learning the Simple Past Tense in their Narrative Text. The classification of the types of the error of this study was based on Dulay, and the procedure of error analysis used Ellis’ procedure.

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Tense Mastery In Their Narrative Text (A Case Study at the eleventh grade students of SMAN 4 BEKASI). Skripsi, Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris, Fakultas Ilmu Tarbiyah dan Keguruan, Universitas Islam Negeri Syarif Hidayatullah Jakarta.

Pembimbing: 1. Dr Ratna Sari Dewi, M. Pd. 2. Zaharil Anasy, M. Hum.

Kata Kunci: Analisa Kesalahan, Simple Past Tense, Narrative Text.

Penelitian ini bertujuan mengidentifikasi apakah siswa melakukan error dan menemukan tipe-tipe kesalahan yang dilakukan siswa kelas XI SMAN 4 BEKASI dalam menggunakan Simple Past Tense. Dalam penelitian ini, klasifikasi kesalahan yang digunakan adalah klasifikasi berdasarkan teori kesalahan Dulay, dan analisa procedure kesalahan berdasarkan prosedure Ellis.

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Praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds, who has given the writer His love and compassion to finish the last assignment in her study. Peace and salutation is upon to the prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), his family, his companion, and his adherence.

It is a pleasure to acknowledge the help and the contribution of all lecturers, institution, family and friends who have contributed in different ways. Hence, this skripsi is processed until it becomes a complete writing presented to the Faculty of Tarbiyah and Teachers' Training in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of S.Pd. (Bachelor of Education) in English Language Education.

The writer would like to express her special gratefulness to her beloved parents. She also expresses great honor and appreciation to her advisors, Dr. Ratna Sari Dewi, M.Pd. and Zaharil Anasy, M.Hum., whose scholarly suggestions and critical remarks enable the writer to refine this skripsi.

The writer’s sincere gratitude also goes to:

1. All lectures at English Education Department, for their knowledge, motivation, patient during her study at Faculty of Tarbiyah and Teachers’ Training Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University.

2. Drs. Syauki, M.Pd., the Head of Department of English Education.

3. Zaharil Anasy, M.Hum., the secretary of Department of English Education. 4. Dra. Nurlena, MA., Ph.D., the Dean of the Faculty of Tarbiyah and

Teachers’ Training Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University Jakarta. 5. Indiyah Pertiwi S.Pd, the English Teacher of SMAN 4 BEKASI.

6. All of the writer’s friends always supporting her.

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ABSTRACT ... i

ABSTRACK ... ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ... iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS ... v

LIST OF TABLES ... vi

LIST OF FIGURE ... vii

LIST OF APPENDICES ... viii

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION A.Background of the Study ... 1

B. Identification of the Problem ... 3

C.Focus of the Research ... 4

D.Question of the Research ... 4

E. Objective of the Research ... 4

CHAPTER II: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK A.Error Analysis ... 5

1. The meaning of Error ... 6

2. Causes of Error ... 7

3. Types of Error ... .. 10

4. Procedure of Error Analysis ... 12

B. Narrative Text ... 13

1. The Definition of Narrative Text ... 13

2. The aim of Narrative Text ... 14

3. The types of Narrative Text ... 14

4. The features of Narrative Text ... 15

5. The example of Narrative Text ... 16

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2. Types of Tense ... 18

D.Simple Past Tense ... 20

1. The definitions of Simple Past Tense ... 20

2. The form of Simple Past Tense ... 22

3. Use of Simple Past Tense ... .29

E. Previous Study ... 30

CHAPTER III: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY A. The Aim and Place of the Research ... 32

B. Data and Data Source ... 32

C. The Method of the Research ... 32

D. The technique of Collecting Data ... 33

E. The Technique of Data Analysis ... 33

F. The Validity of Test ... 33

CHAPTER IV: FINDING AND INTERPRETATION A.FINDING 1. Data Description ... 34

2. Data Analysis ... 66

B. INTERPRETATION ... 67

CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION A. Conclusion ... 69

B. Suggestion ... 69

REFERENCES ... 71

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Table 2.2 The rules of Regular Past Tense Form ... 23

Table 2.3 The Past Form of Irregular Verb is formed in different ways .. 25

Table 2.4 Form with to be ... 28

Table 4.1 The Identification of the Errors of Student 1 ... 34

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vii Frequency of Students’ Error

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This chapter presents the general account of the present study. It covers the background of the study, identification of the problem, focus of the research, question of the research and objective of research.

A. Background Of The Study

Nowdays in Indonesia, English becomes essential language subject of education issues. The government realizes how important English is today for global development. Therefore, English has been an important part of the school curriculum, which is learnt as the main subject by the Indonesian students to develop technology, science and culture. To achieve it, the Indonesian students must be able to master the four skills in English; they are Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing. Listening and reading are receptive skills while speaking and writing are productive skills. All of the skills are to be improved in the process of teaching and learning English.

In the process of teaching and learning English, writing ability is the most difficult and complicated language skill to be learned almost by the students every level of education. English writing is a subject that learns about how to express idea in written form. The students of elementary school, junior high school, and senior high school in writing skill especially learn to write words, phrases, clauses, and sentences. Then, when the students make a sentence they should concern with subject, verb and tense.

Writing needs well knowledge and hard thinking when the students produce words, sentences, paragraph at the same time with good English grammar. For some Indonesian students it is not easy to change the form and to combine the words into sentences. They seem to have problem in mastering English grammar especially about tenses.

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of tense should be learnt by students. At least there are six tenses in the Senior High School that had to be introduced to the students, they are simple present, present continuous, present perfect, simple past, past continuous, and simple future.

The Simple Pasttense is one of tenses which students learn in the school. The Simple Past as a part of grammar rules sometimes also makes students difficult in applying the simple past to the sentence. The effect is that the students cannot use and understand the simple past propely.

Ideally, student at XI grade of Senior High School are conveyed to learn and to master some types including simple past tense which is applied in any aspects of language component. It has been stated on Standard of Competency and Basic Competency (SKKD) in the current curriculum KTSP 2006/2007. The second year of Senior High School are expected to be able to express meaningful ideas in terms of functional text in the form simple past tense to interact with people in the daily life.

In fact,based on the informal interview done by the writer, the students of SMAN 4 BEKASI didn’t understand how to use simple past tense. Because of that, they can’t achieve those targets because their knowledge of English is lack of primarily on grammar. There are some errors faced by students in using simple past tense.First, they did not know the verb 2 form. When they make a sentence in simple past tense, they always use verb 1.Second, they did not know the form and the usage of simple past tense. Here are some examples of the error made by the students:

a. *I watch TV yesterday in the evening. b. *We speak together two days ago.

Those sentences above must be written as following: a. I watched TV yesterday in the evening.

b. We spoke together two days ago.

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a. *I teached English yesterday. The sentence should be I taught English yesterday.

b. *They bringed books to school yesterday The sentence should be

They brought books to school yesterday..

Fourth, they still forget using adverbial time in the sentence. The last, based on the writer’s observational English class in the class was quietly boring. There wasn’t any interaction between teacher and students.

Making errors during the process of second language learning is considered as a natural process. The teacher should be aware of these errors and correct to avoid them making errors by analyzing what the learners are doing.

In this case, the writer is interested in analyzing the students’ problems in simple past tense, because there are many students who still have difficulties in understanding thesimple past tense, and they also have difficulty in using the right form of simple past tense like the use of verb 2, the use of irregular verbs, and the use of adverbial timeof simple past tense. The writer would like to carry out a research with the title “An Error Analysis on Students’ Simple Past Tense Mastery in their Narrative Text” (A Case Study at the eleventh

grade students of SMAN 4 BEKASI).

B.Identification of the Problem

Some conditions influenced the identification of the problems in this method, among other things are:

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C. Focus of the Research

It is essential to focus the problem in order to avoid misunderstanding in interpreting the problem. The writer only focuses on the errors of the students in using SimplePast Tense in narrative writing.

D. Question of the Research

Based on the statement above the writer would like to formulate the problems as follows :

1. What types of the errors made by the students in using simple past tense in their writing narrative text?

E. Objective of Research

The objectives of research are :

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CHAPTER II

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

A. Error Analysis

In language learning process, any student attempting to avoid making errors is impossible. It is very natural for him or her to make errors in this process. Even the students will get feedbacks that will make themselves become better students in writing through the errors that they make. In other words, to achieve English acquisition, the students must get through some errors first, and then automatically they can learn from their own errors. Before knowing more about error analysis, it is good to understand the definition of error analysis.

Error Analysis is significant in developing students’competence. Moreover, according to Brown that “Error Analysis is the fact that learners do make error, and that these errors can be observed, analyzed, and classified to reveal something of the system operating within the learner, led to surge of study of learners’error1_.”

By using error analysis, the errors made by the students in the test can be identified, described and explained. It can be used to help both the learners and teacher to avoid them from making errors.

Error analysis is a process based on analysis of learner’s error in their process of second language learning. Sharma wrote on his article “Error analysis is defined as a process based on analysis of learner’s errors with one clear objective, evolving a suitable and effective teaching learning strategy and remedial measures neccessary in certain clearly marked out areas of the foreign language”.2

According to the definition above, it can be concluded that error analysis is the process in language learning for analyzing, observing,

1

H. Douglas Brown, Principles of Language Learning and Teaching, fourth edition, (New York: Addison Wesley Longman, 2000), p. 218

2

SK. Sharma, Error Analysis: Why and how, English Teaching Forum (April 1982 vol.XXX)P.21

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interpreting, and classifying learner’s error to give us indication in learning process especially in past continuous tense.

1. The Meaning of Error

Learning English language is a process that involves the making of mistakes even errors as in this new system of language, a learner will directly connect with a new vocabulary, a new grammatical pattern and a foreign pronunciation, which differ from learner’s native language. Before knowing why and what types of error made by the students, it is important to know the definition about error itself.

According to Harmer errors are part of the learner inter language that is the version of the language which a learner has any one stage of development and which is continually reshaped as he/she aims toward full mastery.3It seems that error is a part of language learning. Besides, Brown defines error as a noticeable deviation from adult grammar of native speaker, reflecting the inter language competence of the learner. Error is the result of the incorrect rule of language as a partial knowledge and competence that is achieved in learning language process4. Furthermore, We cannot avoid making errors in learning the foreign language.

Corder has different opinion. He said that error analysis is the study of the analysis of the errors made by the second of foreign language learners to predict the errors or the difficulties in learning foreign language. Error analysis may be carried out in order to:

a. Find out how well someone learns a language. b. Find out how well someone knows language, and

c. Obtain information on common difficulties in language learning.5

3

Jeremy Harmer, The Practice of English Language Teaching, (London: pearson Education, Inc, 2001), 5th ed, p. 100.

4

Brown, Op. Cit., p. 217 5

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Norrish defines error is a systematic deviation from the accepted system of the target language. Mistake is non-systematic deviation from the accepted system of a language being learned and it usually due to human limitation such as tiredness, nervousness, and fatigue.6 It means that errors may occur because of human factors in mastering the target language such as the limitation of memory, psychological problem and lack of comprehension of the material of subject, as well as unaware of making errors.

From the definition above, the writer summarizes that error is a part of second language acquisition that happens systematically and consistently learners and it’s caused by lack of comprehending the linguistic competence. On the other hand, making errors are part of learning process and no one can learn language without his/her first making errors.

2. Causes of Error

Learner’s error in the target language becomes one of the topics to be discussed among researchers. They talked about why error in the target language occurs. Error occurs for many reasons. One of the strategies to prevent the learners from making same error again is by looking at the causes of error itself.

Hubbard, et al., said that there are three major causes of errors, they are mother tongue interference, overgeneralization, and errors encouraged by teaching material or method.7

a. Mother-tongue interference

Mother tongue interference is the result of language transfer caused by learners’ first language or the transfer of grammatical elements from learners’ mother tongue to the target language such as at morphological level; Indonesian students tend to omit the plural suffix at the end of the word. For example, *two student instead of *two students

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Norrish, Jhon, Language Learner and Their Errors.(London: Macmillan 1983),p.7 7

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b. Overgeneralization

Overgeneralization is the result of faulty or partial learning of the target language. In other words, it happens because learner creating a deviant structure based on his own experience of other structure in target language. The learners tend to use two tense makers at the same time in one sentence since they do not mastered the language yet. For example, He is comes here. The use of is is not correct in the sentence. is is used if the sentence does not have verb „comes’. The sentence should be ‘he comes here. Another example, *She drinked all the lemonade yesterday. Drinked is not the correct verb form for past tense. The correct one is drank. So, the sentence should be „She drank all the lemonade yesterday

c. Error encouraged by teaching material or method

The teaching material or method can also contribute to the students errors. Unfortunately, these errors are much more difficult to classify. If the material is well chosen and presented with meticulous care, there won’t be any error made by the student.

Error can appear to be induced by teaching process itself. In other words, it is called as teacher-induced errors. For that, Hubbard et al., said, “Error is an evidence of failure of ineffective teaching or lack control. If material is well chosen, graded, and presented with meticulous care, there should never be error”.8

The errors are difficult to classify without studying the teaching material and teaching technique or method. Corder in A Training Course for TEFL by Hubbard, et al., admitted,

“It is however, not easy to identify such error except in conjunction with a close study of the material and teaching technique to which the learner has been exposed. This is probably why so little is known about them.”9

8

Ibid.,p. 142. 9

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For example,*I am go to school every day. It is caused by teacher giving more emphasizing on one tense, present progressive tense, so learners overuse it when moving on to a new pattern.

On the other hand, Brown said causes of error as sources of error and he classified into 4 categories10.

a. The first source of error is interlingual transfer. It is the beginning stage of learning second language. It is the negative influence of the mother tongue of learner. In this stage, students are not familiar yet with the use of target language, so they use a previous experience when they learn it.

b. The second source of error is intralingual transfer. It is the negative transfer of items within the target language. In this stage, students just learn some of target language, so students apply the structure into a new form and develop it that does not correspond to target language or mother language.

c. The third source of error is context of learning. It overlaps both types of transfer. In this stage, „context’ refers to the teacher or the textbook. In classroom, the teacher or the textbook can lead the students to make errors. It can called „false concept’. It is caused there are some error in teachers explanation or textbook presentation.

d. The last source of error is communication strategies. In this stage, students have to use their production strategies for getting the message. But sometimes it can be sources of error.

For this study, the writer uses causes of error from Brown to find out what causes of students error in using simple past tense in writing narrative text. Brown classifies causes of error into four categories; Interlingual, Intralingual, Context of Learning and Communication Strategies

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3. The Types of Error

After analyzing the error and finding the causes of the error, the writer tries to classify error into 2 parts. They are performance error (mistake) and competence error (error). To analyze which error as performance deviation or competence deviation is very hard. It needs the deep analysis to give the distinction both error and mistake.

To know the type of error needs a process of analysis. Threre are so many types of error based on how the linguist’s views. Some classify type of error based on error taxonomy. They are:

a. Error types based on Linguistic category

This type of taxonomy carries out specification of errors in term of linguistic categories. Dullay proposed this type of error and explained that many errors taxonomies have been based on linguistic item which is affected by an error. This linguistic category indicates on what level (in which component) of the language the error is located. We have known that language component here includes phonology, syntax, morphology (grammar), semantic and lexicon (meaning and vocabulary), and discourse (style). And this type also explains where the error occurs. If it is in grammar level, what is it? It is possible occurs in auxliaries, forms of verb, and other grammar elements.

b. The surface strategy taxonomy

This is the second type of descriptive taxonomy proposed by Dullay. He explained that this error type explains on how the surface structure changes. It is possible for the language learners to omit and distort sentence item they create or may be they add unnecessary sentence item in the sentence. Generally this type of error can be classified as follows:11

1) Omission

Omission errors occur when an element of the sentence that should be presented is omitted or by the absence of an item that must appear in a well-formed utterance, and it often occurs in form of morphemes. There are two main types of morphemes: lexical morphemes and grammatical morphemes.

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Lexical morphemes consist of referential meaning of the sentence such as noun, verb, adjective, adverb in the sentence. However, grammatical morphemes include noun and verb inflections, and plays a minor role in conveying the meaning of the sentence. For example: We will taken our exam. The sentence must be „We will have taken our exam’.

2) Addition

Addition errors are the opposite of omissions. They are charaterized by the presence of an item that must not appear in a well-formed utterance. Based on the explanation for this type of error, the subtypes are as follows:

a)Double marking is defined as failure to delete certain items which are required in some linguistic construction.

b) Regularization occurs when a learner uses one role in linguistic item and applies it for other one. He or she that the past form of regular verb is added by -ed. Then, he or she uses it for irregular past form. Such as, the verb eat not become eated it must be ate.

c) Simple addition; if an addition error is not a double marking or regularization, it is called a simple addition. No a particular features characterize simple addition. For example: The fishes has not live in the oil. The right answer is the fish has not live in the oil.

3)Misformation

Misformation defined misformation as use of the wrong form of a structure or morpheme. In other words, the error of using one grammatical form in the place of another grammatical form or the learner supplies something, although it is incorrect. For example: It is an book. This sentence should be„It is a book’.

4) Misordering

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4. Procedure of Error Analysis

In the language teaching, the teacher must analyze the error that students made. So, the teacher should do the procedures of doing the error analysis. According to Rod Ellis, the procedure for analyzing errors includes five steps, there are:12

a. Collection of sample of learner’s language

Most samples of learner language which have been used in error analysis include data collected from many speakers who are responding to the same kind of task or test. Some studies use samples from a few learner that are collected over a period of weeks, months, or oven years in order to determine patterns of change in error occurence with increasing L2 exposure and proficiency.

b. Identification of errors

The first step in the analysis requires determination of elements in the sample of learner language which deviate from the target L2 in some way. The identification of error involves a comparison between what the learner has produced and what a native speaker counterpart would produce in the same context.

c. Description of errors

The description of error involves specifying how the forms by the learner differ from target form. For purpose of analysis, errors are usually classified according to language level (whatever an error is phonological, morphological, syntactic, etc.), general linguistic category (e.g. auxiliary system, passive sentence, negative construction), or more specific linguistic elements (e.g. articles, prepositions, verb form).

d. Explanation of errors

Accounting for why an error was made is the most important step in trying to understand the processes SLA (Standard Language Acquisation).

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Two of the most likely causes of L2 errors are interlingual and intralingual factors.

e. Evaluation of errors

This step involves analyisis on what effect the error has, on whoever is being addressed. According to Ellis, the design of error evaluation studies involves decision on who the addresses (e.i. the judges) will be, what errors they will be asked to judge, and how they will asked to judge them. Moreover, in the evaluation of errors the teaacher may ask the addressees of error and try to correct the error by themselves. The evaluation of errors includes the following steps:

1) Selecting the errors to be evaluated.

2) Deciding the criteria on which the errors are to be judged. 3) Preparing the error evaluation instrument.

4) Choosing the judges.

B. Narrative Text

1. The definition of Narrative Text

Narrative is a story. Narrative text is a writing that tell about a story. We use narrative writing when we tell a friend about something interesting that happened at work or in school.

According to Keraf narrative was a form of composition, which had the main objectives.13

According to Charles most narratives have the following characteristics:

a. It tells story of an event or events

b. The events are usually arranged in a chronological order, in the order in which they occured in time14

From the definition above, the writer summarizes that narrative text is a form of writing consisting of story which happened in the past in

13

Keraf,Gorys, Argumentasi dan Narasi.(Jakarta:Gramedia1982),p. 15 14

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which the writer tries to retell to the readers. The reader can find narrative writing in novel, short story, biography and autobiography

2. The Aim of Narrative

The aim of narrative, other than providing entertainment, can make the audience think about an issue, teach them a lesson, or excite their emotions15.

It means that the purpose of narrative text is to entertain the reader so they get the pleasure and follow the story itself.

To strengthen the statement above based on “Simpati SMP” the purpose of narrative is to entertain the readers with a story that deals with problematic events which lead to a crisis, and then it needs a resolution16. This statement is suitable with Andrew Goatly’s statement “the purpose of narrative is to tell a story as a means of making sense of events happening in the world. It can be both entertaining and informing”17.

3. The Types of Narrative Text

a. Humour

A humours narrative is one that aims to make audience or reader laugh as part of telling a story.

b. Romance

The romance narrative typically tells of two lovers who overcome difficulties to end up together. The examples of the romance narrative are Romeo and Juliet and Cinderella.

c. Crime or Mystery

One narrative that includes crime is Sherlock Holmes by Agatha Christy. The words for crime or mystery narrative such as victim, alibi, clue, suspect, investigate etc.

15

Mark and Kathy Anderson, Text Types in English 3, (South Yarra: Macmillan, 1997),p.3 16

Tim Kreatif Simpati, LKS Bahasa Inggris Simpati SMP, (Surakarta: Percetakan Grahadi, 2009),p.26

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d. Real-life fiction

One narrative that includes real-life fiction is Dollhouse by the Kardashian sisters (Kim, Kourtney and KhloeKardashian). The novel is based on their lives but they added a lot of crazy fictional things.

e. Historical fiction

One narrative that includes historical fiction is Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. This fiction novel includes a historical.

f. Fantasy

One narrative that includes fantasy is The Witches by Roald Dahl. In the orientation we learn that the narrator has had two experiences with real witches. Harry Potter by J.K.Rowling also one of the fantasy narrative. g. Science fiction

Science fiction narrative use a setting involving science and technology. The novel Space Demons by Gillian Rubinstein is one example of narrative text that includes science fiction.

h. Diary-novel

Types of narrative which made based on someone’s diary. i. Adventure

One narrative that includes adventure is A Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne. This novel also includes a science fiction story. There can be a combinantion of narratives within each of these different types. A crime novel could also include romance and mystery. Similarly, an adventure narrative could include humour and romance18.

4. The Features of Narrative Text

There are steps for constructing a narrative text, such as: a. Orientation

In this paragraph the narrator tells the audience who is in the story, when it is happening, where it is happening and what is going on.

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b. Complication

This is the part of the story where the narrator tells about something that will begin in a chain of events. These events will affect one or more of the characters. The complication is the trigger.

c. Sequence of event

This is where the narrator tells how the characters react to the complication. It includes their feelings and what they do. The events can be told in chronological order (the order in which they happen) or with flashback. The audience is given the narrator’s point of view. d. Resolution

In this part of the narrative the complication is sorted out or problem is solved.

e. Coda

The narrator includes a coda if there is a moral or message to be learned from the story.19

5. The Example of Narrative Text

Snow White

Once upon a time, there lived a little girl named Snow White. She lived with her Aunt and Uncle because her parents were dead.

One day, she heard her Uncle and Aunt talking about leaving Snow White in the castle because they both wanted to go to America and they didn’t have enough money to take Snow White.

Snow White did not want her Uncle and Aunt to do this, so she decided it would be best if she ran away. The next morning, she ran away from home when her Aunt and Uncle were having breakfast. She ran away into the woods.

She was very tired and hungry. Then, she saw this little cottage. She knocked, but no one answered, so she went inside and

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fell asleep.

Meanwhile, the seven drawfs were coming home from work. They went inside. There they found Snow White sleeping. Then Snow White woke up. She saw the dwarfs. The dwarfs said, “what is your name?” Snow White answered, “my name is Snow white.”

The other dwarf asked, “if you wish, you may live here with us.” Snow White said, “Oh, could I? Thank you!” Then Snow White told the dwarfs the whole story, and Snow White and the 7 dwarfs lived happily ever after.

6. Grammatical Features of Narrative Text

Narrative usually includes the following grammatical features: a. Nouns that identify the spesific characters and place in the story

b. Adjectives that provides accurate description of the characters and setting.

c. Verbs that show the actions that occur in the story.

d. Time words that connect events, telling when they occured.20

According Aristotle’s definition, there have been many attempts to establish criteria which would define the well-formed story. Among the many suggested, two seem to be widely accepted. The first is that, to count as a narrative, there has to be a sequence of narrative clauses (clauses containing a verb in the simple past tense or, sometimes, the historic present tense) whose order matches the real time order of the events described in those clauses. These clauses constitute the heart of the story, or narrative „core’. The second is that a story has to have a beginning, middle and an end21.

20

Ibid,p.4 21

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From the explanation above, it can be concluded that narrative text is the text that tells a story and when the story only contains the beginning or just the middle or just in the end, it cannot be a good story because there must be the beginning, the middle, and the end of the story. It is to make the story good and easy to be understood.

C. Tense

1. The definition of Tense

The word “tense” is derived ultimately from the latin tempus meaning time.22 Tense commonly refers to the time of the situation which relates to the situation of the utterance or at the moment of speaking.

There are many definitions of tense. One of them is as stated by Geoffrey Leech and Jan Svartvik stated that by tense we understand the correspondence between the form of the verb and our concept of time (past, present, future).23And Michael Swan stated that the verb-forms which show differences in time are called tense. Tense are formed either by changing the verb (e.g. know, knew, known; work, worked, worked), or by adding auxiliary verb (e.g. will know, had worked).24

Tense refers to the indication of time by the form of the verb or verb phrase, whether an action is a present, past or future one.

Based on the statements above, the writer concludes that tense is a verb-form or series of verb forms used to express a time relation, and tense refers to the time of the situation relating to the situation of the utterance.

2. Types of Tense

Tense is used to show the relation between the action or state described by the verb and the time, which is reflected in the form of the verb. There are two basic tenses in English; the present tense and the past

22

John Lyons, Linguistic Semantic An Introduction, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), p.312 )

23

Geoffrey Leech and Jan Svartvik, A Communicative Grammar of English, (London: Pearson Education Limited, 2002), 3rded., p.415

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tense. The present is like the base form, although the verb of the third person singular is added –s. Regular verbs are added ed or –d to show the past tense, while irregular verbs change in many different ways, or not all in some cases.

The time that a verb shows is usually called tense. The most common tenses are the simple present, past and future, in addition, there are nine or other tenses, that enable to express more specific idea about the time.25

Furthermore, Azar stated in more detailed overview the English verb tenses as the simple tense. The progressive tenses, the perfect tenses, and the perfect progressive tenses.26

There are four types of verb tense in English: the simple, the countinous, the perfect, and the perfect countinous. Each type of tense has a present, a past, and a future form, as well as other modal forms.

Thus just as there are four present tenses in English, there are also four past tenses: the simple past, the past countinous, the past perfect, and the past perfect countinous.

Based on explanation above, the writer concludes that there are twelve verb tenses, and examples of each tense. They are:27

Table 2.1

Example of Tense

Tense Examples

Present I wash the clothes every day

Past We watched the opera last night

Future Rudi will go to the beach next holiday Present Perfect Mr. Hasan has taught English since four

years ago.

25

John Langan, Sentence Skills, form A, (New York: McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc, 2003), 7ed, p. 188

26

Betty Schrampfer Azar, Understanding and Using English Grammar, (New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1989), p. 2-7

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Past Perfect They had bought a motorcycle in the showroom.

Future perfect Jack will have done his work by the end of this week.

Present Continuous Reza and Robi are reading the otomotive magazine.

Past Continuous When you called me, I was listening to the radio.

Future Continuous We will be studying when you come. Present Perfect Continuous I have been staying here since 1970

Past Perfect Continuous When I came to Surabaya in 1970, Rudi had already been living there about six years. Future Perfect Continuous By next Idul Fitri I shall have been working

at this office for five years.

The perfect tense are formed by adding have, has or had to the past participle (the form of the verb that ends, usually, in -ed). The continuous tense are formed by adding am, is are, was, were to the present participle (the form of verb that ends in -ing). The perfect progressive tense are formed by adding have been, has been, or had been to the present participle.

D. Simple Past Tense

1. The definition of Simple Past Tense

There are several definitions of simple past tense based on grammarians’ statement. According to W.D.Bald, D.J. Cobb and A.Schwarz in their book “Active Grammar”, the simple past is concerned with spesific events which happened at certain time in the past28. This definition is similiar to Michael Swan in his book Practical English Usage which states that “simple past tense is the most often used to talk about

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past. It can refer to short, quickly finished actions and events, to longer actions and situations, and to repeated happenings.”29

Azar describes that simple past tense can be formulated in diagram as follow:

Now

Certain Time

Past Future

Figure 2.1 Diagram of Simple Past Tense

From diagram above she describes that simple past tense indicates that an activity or situation began and ended at a particular time in the past.30

In addition, to complete the definition about simple past tense, Marcela Frank said “simple past tense represents definite time, it refers to events that were completed before the statement is made. It is often accompained by such expression of definite past as yesterday, last year, two years ago,etc31.

Besides the definite past as yesterday, last week, last month, two years ago, etc. Simple past tense is formed with the past form of verb which may be either regular, by adding –d or –ed to infinitive form or irregular which must be learned and memorized in each case.

From the definition above, the writer concludes that simple past tense is a form indicating the activity or situation in the past, before now or at one particular time in the past, it began and ended in the past. Simple past tense is usually accompained by time signals such as: yesterday, last week, two years ago,etc, and verb used is the past form of verb which has to be added –d or –ed in the end of regular verb.

29

Michael Swan, Practical English Usage, (Oxford University Press,1980),p.469 30

Betty Schramfer Azar, Understanding and Using English Grammar, 2nd ed.,(New Jersey:Pretice-Hall, Inc.,1989),p. 24

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2. The Forms of Simple Past Tense

Verb used in simple past tense is the past form of verb. There are two types of verb, Regular verb and Irregular verb. According to John Eastwood in his book Oxford practice Grammars with Answers (Second Edition), that in simple past tense, a regular past form ends in –ed, some verbs have an irregular past form. ...we use did and also were and was in negatives and questions32.

According to Evelyn Farbman in A Grammar and Guide for Writers “the simple past form of verb is a single word, without auxiliaries, that expresses the simple past tense. Often the simple past is just base form with –ed to the end, but there are many irregular verbs whose simple past forms do not end in –ed.33

The formula of simple past tense consists of three parts: Affirmative, Negative, and Interogrative.

a. The Simple Past in Regular Verb

Thomas E. Payne says, “Reegular verbs are sometimes referred to as –ed verbs. The past simple form ends in –ed and is the same as the past participle form.”34

From this statement, it is clear that to make the past tense form of regular verbs is by simply adding –ed to the end of the infinitive. In the case of some verbs (e.g., talk-talked), this is fine. However, it often needs to make other changes as well. The precise changes depend on the spelling of the infinitive. Hence, before going to the formula of simple past tense in regular verb, the following table shows the changing of verb in regular verb based on Thomas E.Payne’s classification in his book Understanding English Grammar.35

32

John Eastwood, Oxford Practice Grammars with Answer, 2nd ed., (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999),p.18.

33

Evelyne Farbman, A Grammar and Guide for Writers, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company,1985),p.19.

34

Thomas E. Payne, Understanding English Grammar: A Linguistic Introduction (New York: Cambrige University Press,2011),p.411.

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Table 2.2

The rules of regular past tense form

Infinitive Past Rule

Climb infinitive ends in e

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Rebel Travel

label

Rebelled Travelled Labelled

television

Hurry Cry Study

Try Dry

Hurried Cried Studied

Tried Died

Verbs ending in consonant +y Change y to i and add –ed

Panic Picnic

Panickned Picnicked

Add + k + ed

When the infinitive ends in a vowel +c

1. The first type (Affirmative) of the simple past in regular verb form uses the formula as following:36

S + V2 + O + Adverbs

For example :

- She watched movies last night

- They climbed Slamet mountain two weeks ago

From the example above, it can be seen that the form is used to all subjects, both singular and plural. All regular verbs are added –d or –ed in the end of verb.

2. The second type, the negative formula of simple past tense in regular verb is as following:37

S + did not + V1 + O + Adverbs

For example:

- She did not watch movie last night.

- They did not climb Slamet mountain two weeks ago.

36

Lynda Berish and Sandra Thibaudeau, Grammar Connection I, (Ontario: Prentice Hall Canada Inc,1995),p.113.

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Based on the example above, it can be seen that the verb in negative form use the simple form (V1), then the use of did not is before the main verb.

3. The last type of formula of simple past tense in regular verb is interrogative. The formula is as following:

Did / didn’t + S + V1 + O + Adverbs ? For example:

- Did she watch movie last night? - Did not he play game this morning?

- Did they climb Slamet mountain two weeks ago?

The examples above show that in the interrogative form, the verb used is V1, in other words there is no ending –ed in the verb in question form.

b. The Simple Past in Irregular Verb

In the irregular verbs, there is no an –ed ending in the past form. They have different ways in changing past form. As the regular verb, the irregular verb follow the same pattern in affirmative, negative, and interrogative. The following table is the example of irregular verb past form based on Elaine Kim and Darcy Jack’ classification.

Table 2.3

The past form of Irregular Verb is formed in different ways.38 Example

Simple Form

Past Form

Simple Form

Past Form

Note

Cost Cut

Hit Hurt

Cost Cut Hit Hurt

Let Put Quit Shut

The simple and the past forms of

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Find

The table above shows partly of irregular verb, for more detail, in the Oxford Dictionary, there are 198 common irregular verbs.39 As the statement above that in the irregular verbs the pattern of affirmative, negative and interrogative are same with regular verbs, the explanation will explain more detail about the pattern.

1. Affirmative

S + verb2 + ...

Example :

- I bought some foods

- She got an accident last night 2. Negative

S + did not + Verb 1 + ...

Example :

- I did not meet her after lunch yesterday - She did not get an accident last night

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3. Interrogative

Did/did not + S +Verb 1 + ...

Example :

- Did you meet her yesterday? Yes I did / No, I didn’t - Did she get an accident last night? Yes, she did / No, she didn’t - Did they go to the concert? Yes, they did / No, they

didn’t

c. Simple Past with to be

To be is different from all other verbs in changing to the past form. In the present tense, we use (am, is, are) as to be. The past of the verb be (am, is, are) is was / were. This rule based on Robert Krohn who said that was or were are the past tense forms of be and use was with first and third person singular, were with other persons.40

I / She / He / It was We / You / They were The brief explanation of using to be in the affirmative, question, and negative can be seen in the following table:

Table 2.4 Form with to be41 Question

word

Subject Was / were

+not or +n’t

Object Complement

Affirmative She was late

Question Where were the

knives

Negative We weren’t alone

40

Robert Krohn, English Sentence Structure, (USA: The Univesity of Michigan Press, 1970),p.23.

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3. Use of Simple Past Tense

The use of simple past tense can be clasified as follow according Martin Parrot in his book Grammar for English language Teacher.

a. Finished Periods of time

Martin Parrot says “the past simple is one of tenses used to refer to

completed events, states or actions”.42 It means, we choose simple past tense

when we think that the event or action took place within a finished period of time. The period of time usually used are last week, yesterday, in 1972, three years ago, etc.

Example : I went to the party last week. Did you go to the party on Sunday?

From the examples above, it is obvious that the period of time is finished and the action is completed.

b. Precise detail

The use of past simple is to provide precise circumtantial detail about an event. Newspaper reports often introduce a description of an event using the present perfect tense but then drift into the past simple as more detail accumulates.

Example : I’ve had my appendix out in Warsaw.

In the sentence above, we have to use the past simple as soon as we specify, for example, where or how- so that we don’t say “I’ve had my appendix out in Warsaw but I had my appendix out in Warsaw.

c. Time Anchor

“In telling stories and describing what happened in the past we use the past simple as a „time anchor’- to establish they key „time frame’ of events. We also use the past simple to describe the key events that move the story forward. We use other tenses (notably the past perfect and past continuous) to show the relationship of other events to this “time frame’.”43

42

Ibid.,p.185. 43

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d. Different Kinds of events

Some languages use different tenses for different kinds of past events (e.g. „momentary’ as opposed to „extended over a period of time’ or „repeated’). In English, simple past tense can be used for many kinds of events.

According to the explanation above, it is clear that the past tense of verbs forms can be used in a number of ways. The most common function of past tense is clearly to refer to completed situations presented as occuring before the time of speaking. For instance in this sentence : we were at the last meeting. That statement imply that the situation occur before no

E. Previous Studies

Some studies dealing with this study were done by Irmawati and Herlinawati. The short explanations of those studies are explained in the following section.

Irmawati, conducted case study on error analysis on tenses learnt. Irmawati focused on the error made by the students in learning tenses especially in the usage of four tenses; simple present tense, simple past tense, present continuous tense and past continuous tense. The purpose of this study was to identify the common error and their causes test made by students and she used test as an instrument to obtain the data. The method which is used by Irmawati is descriptive analysis. Her resultin her study is the highest frequency of error is Simple Past and the lowest frequency of error is Present Continuous Tense44.

However, my study conducted An Error Analysis on Students’s Simple PastTense Mastery in their Narrative Text, a case study at the Eleventh Grade

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Students of SMAN 4 BEKASI. The study purposed to know the errors made by the students and why the students’ made from error in using simple past tense in their writing narrative text. In this study the writer used test and interview as instrument, and to analyze the data the writer used descriptive qualitative method.

Herlinawati, conducted case study on error analysis in the students writing narrative paragraph. The purpose of this study is to know the common errors in narrative writing using simple past tense made by students and she used test as an instrument to obtain the data. The method which is used by Herlinawati is descriptive qualitative method. Her resultin her study is the highest frequency of error is Misformation and the lowest frequency of error is Misordering45.

However, my study conducted An Error Analysis on Students’s simple PastTense Mastery in their Narrative Text, a case study at the Eleventh Grade Students of SMAN 4 BEKASI. The study purposed to know the errors made by the students and why the students’ made from error in using simple past tense in their writing narrative text. In this study the writer used test and interview as instrument, and to analyze the data the writer used descriptive qualitative method.

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This chapter presents the time and place of research, data and data source, the method of the research, the technique of collecting data, and the technique of data analysis.

A. The Time and Place of the Research

The research took place at SMAN 4 BEKASI located at Bekasi. The writer has conducted from 11 – 12 November 2013

B. Data and Data Source

The data of this research were error made by the students in their written test of Past Tense.

The data source was the free writing test with theme “My Holiday” given to the students. It consists of 75 words or more than that in one paragraph.

The test were distributed to 26 students of class XI IPS 3 of SMAN 4 BEKASI.

C. The Method of the Research

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D. The Technique of Collecting Data

To collect the data, the writer will use English test and interview. The writer gives the test to know error frequency in using Simple Past Tense in Narrative text. The test is Narrative paragraph writing test.

The writer also interviews some students in order to know the reason why they have difficulties in Simple Past Tense. The writer also interviews the English teacher to know what the difficulties faced by students in Simple Past Tense commonly.

E. The Technique of Data Analysis

In this part, to analyze students’ answer in forming simple past tense, the writer identified the error items as follows:

1. The writer focuses on students’ error in using simple past tense in the narrative texts that they make in the test given.

2. The writer collected and classified the errors based on their types. Then the writer verified the frequency of the errors the students made.

3. The writer then used descriptive analysis technique (percentage) to analyze the data. The formula used is as follow:

P = x 100%

P = Percentage

F = Frequency of error made

N = Number of sample which is observed

F. The Validity of Test

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CHAPTER IV

FINDINGS AND INTERPRETATIONS

A. Findings

1. Data Description

After collecting the data from the test, the writer found some errors made by the students in using Simple PastTense in writing narrative text.

Table 4.1

The Identification of the Errors of students 1

Identification Description

Error

Classfication

Explanation Correction

I stayed at Lois colour hotel is white

Misformation Misformation „is big building the colour hotel is white’ should be replaced to „had a big building and the colour was white’

The hotel had a big building and the colour was white

„buy’ should be replaced by „bought’

Addition

„a manny’ should be replaced by „many’

We bought

replaced before „back’

Then we went back to the hotel

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I ate sushi a lot Misordering Misordering

„at’ should be replaced to „on’ to my facebook

Misformation Misformation „than’ should be replaced to „it’

On the way, my mom took my pictures and then I uploaded it to my facebook

Table 4.2

The identification of the Errors of Student 2

Identification

of Error

Description

Error

Classification

Last holiday, I and my friend went to Mount Lawu

Misordering Misordering

„I and my friend’ Misformation Misformation

„have’ should be

replaced to „had’

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The next day,

Misformation Misformation

„saw Lake Ngebel and went the bridge above river and ride Lala sister’s bus’ should be replaced to „went to see Ngebel lake and the above the river by driving

Lala sister’s

bus

It ^beautiful Omission Omission

„was’ should be added

„go’ should be replaced to „went’

The last day we went back to Ponorogo

Table 4.3

The Identification of the Errors of students 3

Identification

of Error

Description

Error

Classification

I stayed at

„grandmother’ should be replaced to „my grandmother’

Misformation

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It has a big garden with

lots of

colourful flower

„has’ should be Misformation

Omission

„grandmother’ should be added my before grandmother.

Misordering

„I and my family’ should be replaced to „my family and I’ Misformation scenic ride on horse back

Table 4.4

The Identification of the Errors of student 4

Identificatio

n of Error

Description

Error

Classification

Last holiday „my big family and I’ Misformation

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Me and my „my family and I’

Misformation

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Table 4.5

The Identification of the Errors of Student 5

Identification

of Error

Description

Error

Classification

Iwent ^ with my friend

Omission Omission „there’ should be added after „went’

I went there with my friend

I saw history Misformation Misformation „I saw history’ should be replaced by „I could see the history’

I could see the history

Finally, I went back to my house

Misformation Misformation „my house’ should be replaced to „my home’

Finally, I went back to my home

Table 4.6

Identification

of Erro

Description

Error

Classification

It has the beautiful sceneries there

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To should be deleted After swam,

me and my family went to restaurant

Misformation Misordering

Misformation „swam’ should be replaced to „swimming’ Misordering „me and my family’ should be replaced to „my family and I’

After

„the’ should be added before „hotel’

After eating, we went to the hotel and sleep

The next day, we went to home. In the afternoon I went to home

Addition Addition

went to home should be „went home’

Identification

of Error

Description

Error

Classification

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Caca house at beach at sunset

„saw beach at sunset’

Addition Addition

„to’ should be deleted

We went swimming at the beach

Table 4.8

Identification

of Error

Description

Error

Classification

We goed to village by car

Misformation Misformation „goed’ should be replaced to „went’

We went to village by car

We stayed in „center Java’ should be replaced to „ Central Java’ Misformation „see the song Putri Dam’ should be and we listened to the song

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replaced to „we listened to the song Putri Dam’

back to Jakarta

„go’ should be

Identification

of Error

Description

Error

Classification

When I arrived there, I’m directly play

with my

When I arrived there, I directly played with added before „playing toodler’

We were

playing toodler boat, fishing

and my

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house playing ballons house

The next day, I with her family eat to restaurant and then I’m to buy

„go’ should be

replaced to „went’

Finally I went home

Tabel 4.10

The identification of the Errors of Student 10

Identification

of Error

Description

Error

Classification

It has

wonderful view and the food was excelent

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It was scarry, but it so fun

„so fun’ should be replaced to „was really fun’

It was scary, but it was really fun

Table 4.11

The Identification of the Errors of student 11

Identification

of Error

Description

Error

Classification

Last holiday I „my friend and I’ Misformation beautiful girl she are at eating and me I glanced and my asked name.

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her and I asked her telephone number and her name’

her name

The tragedy is happy so fun because I meet a beautiful girl

Misformation Misformation „The tragedy is happy so fun because I meet a beautiful girl’ should be replaced to „That moment was so fun because I met a beautiful girl’

That moment was so fun because I met a beautiful girl

She named is Karina is phone number is

085313867xxx

Misformation Misformation „She named is Karina is phone number is

After meating a beautiful girl my and friend continue my travelling go home

Misformation Misformation „After meating a

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Table 4.12

Ientification

of Error

Description

Error

Classification

Last holiday, I and my friends has vacation at Puncak „my friends and I’ Misformation family prepare my things „my family and I’ Misformation

„prepare’ should be replaced to „prepared’ Misformation

„go’ should be

replaced to „going’

My family and I prepared my things before going to family arrived at Puncak and I prepare my

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things in my

„had’ should be added before „beautifull’ pool at Puncak

Misordering Misformation Misformation

Misordering

„I and my family’ should be replaced to „my family and I’ Misformation

„swimming’ should be replaced to „swam’ pool in Puncak

Table 4.13