AN ERROR ANALYSIS OF USING PAST TENSE IN WRITING NARRATIVE TEXT AT THE ELEVENTH GRADE STUDENTS AT SMA NEGERI 5 BINJAI AND SMA NEGERI 7 BINJAI.

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AN ERROR ANALYSIS OF USING PAST TENSE IN WRITING

NARRATIVE TEXT AT THE ELEVENTH GRADE STUDENTS

AT SMA NEGERI 5 BINJAI AND SMA NEGERI 7 BINJAI

A THESIS

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Pendidikan

By :

RICKA SETIAWATI

Reg. Number: 2111121001

ENGLISH AND LITERATURE DEPARTMENT

FACULTY OF LANGUAGES AND ARTS

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The deep greatest thankfulness to Allah SWT for blessing, strength,

capability, and patient, so that the writer can accomplish this thesis as a partial

fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Sarjana Pendidikan at the English

Department of Faculty Languages and Arts, State University of Medan.

The scintillating, historical, and meaningful process of realizing this thesis,

surprisingly has created the involvement between the writer and a great number of

people who gave guidance, suggestion, and assistance for which the writer would like

to extend her wholeherted and special gratitude to:

 Prof. Dr. Syawal Gultom, M.Pd., the Rector of State Universsity of Medan  Dr. Isda Pramuniati, M.Hum., the Dean of Faculty of Language and Arts.  Prof. Dr. Hj. Sumarssih, M.Pd., the Head of English and Literature

Department and her Thesis Reviewers

 Dra. Meisuri, M.A., the secretary of English Department.

 Nora Ronita Dewi, S.S., M.Hum., the Head of English Education Study Program.

 Dr. Anni Holila Pulungan, M.Hum., her Thesis Supervisor

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 All the Lecturers of English Department who have taught her, her throughout the academic years.

 Khaidir, SPd., the Headmaster of SMAN 7 Binjai

 Hj. Hidayati Hanum, SPd., the Headmaster of SMAN 5 Binjai

 Eis Sri Wahyuni, M.Pd, the Administration Staff of English Department  Bonidi and Jamilah, her beloved parents for their love, pray, motivation,

material and spiritual supports, lessons, and all of the things they gave that

can make the writer understands and appreciates the meaning of struggel in

life. The writer’s sincere gratitude also goes to her brother and young sisters,

Ricki Setiawan and Ervina Wati.

 Regular Dik A’11 of English Educational Program Students, especially for her best freinds Fani Fadhillah, Risa Afianti and Rifa Sri Agustina who

always together for four years until finish this study and Muhammad Arif

Nugraha for the motivation, love and help.

The writer realizes that this thesis still has the paucity, she conveniently

comes any suggestion, comments, critics, and advices that will improve the thesis.

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ABSTRACT

Setiawati, Ricka. Registration Number: 2111121001. An Error Analysis of Using Past Tense in Writing Narrative Text at The Eleventh Grade Students at SMA Negeri 5 Binjai and at SMA Negeri 7 Binjai. A Thesis. English Educational Program, State University of Medan, 2015

This research deals with an error analysis. The objective of the study are (1) to identify and classify the kinds of past tense error find in narrative writing by the eleventh grade students at SMA Negeri 5 Binjai and At SMA Negeri 7 Binjai, (2) to find out the causes of past tense error in narrative writing by the eleventh grade students at SMA Negeri 5 Binjai and at SMA Negeri 7 Binjai. The research design that was used in this study descriptive research. The sources of data were taken from the eleventh grade students of SMA Negeri 5 Binjai which consists of 40 students who were chosen by taking the X-1 class as the sample. And in SMA Negeri 7 Binjai which consists of 40 students who were chosen by taking the X-3 class as the sample. In this research, the writing text was used as collecting data. The result of the analysis shows that: (1) the errors of past tense in narrative writing made by the eleventh grade students of SMA Negeri 5 Binjai were 141 occurrences of all errors. And in SMA Negeri 7 Binjai were 166 occurrences of all errors.

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LIST OF TABLES

Pages

Table 1.1 The Percentage of the Eleventh Grade Students’ Score in Writing...2

Table 1.2 The Percentage of the Eleventh Grade Students’ Score in Writing...2

Table 2.1. The Example of Narrative Text...16

Table 2.2 The Example of Simple Past about Actions or Situation...18

Table 4.1 The percentages of Kinds of Error in SMA Negeri 5 Binjai...34

Table 4.2 The percentages of Kinds of Error in SMA Negeri 7 Binjai...34

Picture 4.3 The Recapitulation of Kinds of Error in Narrative Text in SMA Negeri 5 Binjai...35

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LIST OF APPENDICES

Pages

Appendix A. Writing Text...45

Appendix B. students’ Work

Sheet...46

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1 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

A. The Background of the Study

English is the most important language in the world. As in international

language, a greate deal of academic discourses around the world takes place in

English. In Indonesia, English is taught from elementary school, and obligatory

from the first year of junior high school through the third year of senior high

school even for some semesters at university which consist of listening, speaking,

reading and writing. Johnstone, (2002) state that writing is the basic skill in

English. Even native speakers feel difficulty in showing a good command of

writing. Kellogg, (2008) stat that writing can helps us to: (1) reinforce the

grammatical structure. (2) enhance the students’ vocabulary. (3) and assist other

language skill such as reading, listening and speaking.

Based on the preliminary observation of the English teacher of SMA Negeri 5

Binjai and SMA Negeri 7 Binjai on April 2015. The first at SMA Negeri 7

Binjai the writer asked the teacher about the students’ writing score list for the

semester. Then, the writer also asked about the minimum criteria mastery for

writing. The writer saw the Minimum Criteria Mastery (KKM or Kriteria

Ketuntasan Minimum) was applied 75 meanwhile the students’ writing score were

still low. Most of students could not exceed the minimum criteria mastery (KKM)

which applied by school for English lesson. And the second at SMA Negeri 5

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list for the semester. Then, writer also asked about the minimum criteria

mastery for writing. The writer saw the minimum criteria mastery (KKM or

Kriteria Ketuntasan Minimum) was applied 75 meanwhile the students’ writing

score were still low.

Most of students could not exceed the minimum criteria mastery (KKM)

which applied by school for English lesson. For more detail, the students’

accumulated score are shown on the table 1.1 and table 1.2.

Table 1.1 The Percentage of the Eleventh Grade Students’ Score in Writing

_semester _>75 _{≥ 75} _{< 75}

XI -1 12 students (30.0%) 1 students (2.5%) 27 students (67.5%)

Source: The students’ accumulated score of the eleventh grade students at SMA

Negeri 7 Binjai academic year 2014/2015

Table 1.2 The Percentage of the Eleventh Grade Students’ Score in Writing

_>75 _≥75 _<75

XI-3 14 students (35.0%) 2 student (5.0%) 24 students (60.0%)

Source: The students’ accumulated score of the eleventh grade students at SMA Negeri 5 Binjai academic year 2014/2015

From the previous data, it can be concluded that the students’ ability in

writing is still low. It can be seen from the most of students’ score percentage are

under the KKM ( Kriteria Ketuntasan Minimum).

So, the reason of the writer’s choosen of SMA Negeri 7 Binjai and SMA

Negeri 5 Binjai because based on the writer’s observation result, the writer found

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Reffering to the 2013 curriculum (kurikulum 2013) of senior high school,

the students are required to be able to write various types of writing genres, such

as narrative, descriptive, recount, report, procedure, explanation, analytical

exposition, hortatory, news item and anecdote. Meanwhile in their syllabus the

students must learn one of genre that is narrtive text.

Narrative is one of the most powerful was of communicating with others. A

good written story lets your readers response to some event in your life as if it

were own. They do not only understand the event, but they can almost feel it. The

action, details, and dialogue put readers in these seem and make it happen for

them (Meyers, 2005:52). Narrative is telling of some true or factious event or

connected sequence of events. So the students are expected to be able to write a

narrative text by using past tense to describe the action in the text.

Thescher and Evans (2007 : 48) state that past tense is put in a trullypast time

frame. Azar (1992:18) simple past tense is used to talk about activities or

situations that began and ended in the past (e.g., yesterday, last night, two days

ago). So past tense refer to activity, actions or events in the past.

As the writer’s preliminary data observation of the eleventh grade students at

SMA Negeri 5 Binjai and SMA Negeri 7 Binjai on April 2015, the writer

found some past tense errors in their English writing. Some sentences which are

indicated have errors are

1. I always came at seven to the school. ( I always came at seven to the school)

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2. We go home yesterday. (we went home yesterday)

The sentence is ill-formed in the use of infinitive verb. Since the sentences tell the event that happened in the past, the verbs go should be replaced by went.

3. I sleepy. ( I always sleepy)

In this case, failed to apply a complete structure in the simple past tense as they omitted an element that is be (was/were). The revised sentences should be “I was sleepy”.

4. Last night, I studyed English material to face the final examination. (Last night, I studied English material to face the final examination)

In this case, the verb should be changed into “studied”, because when the word ended by “y” followed by te suffix –ed, so the letter “y” should be changed into “ i ”.

Even most of students forgot and did not know about pats tense. But

sometimes the teacher do not aware to correct the students’ errors in writing. They

think that the error correction spend their time. This situation makes the students

do the mistakes repeatedly, because they do not get the understanding of error

state that mistake can be self corrected when attention is called. Whereas, an error

can not be self-corrected that the use of linguistic item in way that a fluent or

native speaker of the language regards it as showing faulty or incomplete learning.

Error analysis is an activity to identify, classify or describe the errors made

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error analysis is systematic. It is likely to occur repeatedly and is not recognized

by the learner as an error. Brown (2000:76) difines error analysis is the process to

observe, analyze, and classify the deviations of the rules of the second language or

foreign language and then to reveal the systems operated by learner. Darus (2009)

mention error analysis is a type of linguistics study that focuses on the errors

students make. It consists of a comparison between the errors made in target

language and within that target language itself.

The analysis of studets’ errors is something advantages in order to know

students’ needs then finding the solution for it. The research hope that the findings

in the analysis of students’ past tense errors can ba useful for education progress.

B. The Problems of the Study

The problems of the study which the writer would like to analyze as follows:

1. What kinds of errors are made by the eleventh grade of SMA Negeri 5 and

SMA Negeri 7 Binjai in using past tenses of the narrative text?

2. What are the causes of past tense error find in narrative writing by the

eleventh grade of SMA Negeri 5 and SMA Negeri 7 Binjai?

C. The Scope of the Study

The study deals with the errors analysis. The study focuses on the

identification,classification the kind of error, and to find out the causes of errors

on using past tenses in narrative writing by the eleventh grade students at SMA

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D. The Objectives of the Study

Based on the statement of the problems above the writer has some purposes.

1. To identify and classify the kinds of past tense errors find in narrative writing

by the eleventh graders of SMA Negeri 5 and SMA Negeri 7 Binjai in using

past tenses in the narrative text.

2. To find out the causes of past tense error in narrative writing by the eleventh

grade students at SMA Negeri 5 and SMA Negeri 7 Binjai .

E. The Significance of the Study

The study is expected to have both theoretical and practical perspective.

1. Theoretical perspective

a. The researcher as reference to conduct the research

b. The research who want to conduct the same research

2. Pratical perspective

a. For the teacher

The writer hopes that this research will be inspiring for English teacher

to give correction and more exercise about past tenses clearly.

b. For the students

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AN ERROR ANALYSIS OF USING PAST TENSE IN WRITING NARRATIVE TEXT AT THE ELEVENTH GRADE STUDENTS AT SMA NEGERI 5 BINJAI AND SMA NEGERI 7 BINJAI.