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AN ANALYSIS OF STUDENTS’ ABILITY IN USING SIMPLE PAST TENSE IN WRITING RECOUNT TEXT
( A study at the Ninth Grade of SMP Pertiwi 2 Padang )
Sri Maiyanti *) Elmiati, M.Pd **) dan Rindilla Antika, M.Pd ***)
*) Staf Pengajar Program Studi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris STKIP PGRI Sumatera Barat Email : smaiyanti@yahoo.com
**) Staf Pengajar Program Studi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris STKIP PGRI Sumatera Barat
Email : elmiatisofiana@yahoo.com
***) Staf Pengajar Program Studi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris STKIP PGRI Sumatera Barat
Email : dillarindilla@mail.com
Abstract
The purpose of this research is to desccribe the students’ ability in using simple past in writing recount text.
The type of this research is descriptive quantitative. Population of this research are students of SMP Pertiwi 2 Padang ninth grade academic year 2015/2016. While the sample are students of ninth grade consist five classes, there are: IX 1, IX 2, IX 3, IX 4, IX 5 taken by sample random sampling the amount of 23 students. Interpretation for sample of each class average of 5 students. The interpretation of data, the researcher share paper test to the students. The test did fill by the students consisting of ten items about their experience. Then, the researcher gave measure for the writing recount text of students. The researcher counted score the students ability in writing recount text based on the indicators of Azar and Purwanto. From the data got the result after the researcher adding score got by students, the result is appear students ability in using simple past tense in class IX SMP Pertiwi 2 Padang academic year 2015/2016. Based on the data got while the research, the researcher concluded the score of students that there were 9 students who had problems in analyze of using simple past tense in writing recount text on very poor rank ( 39, 13 %), 3 students who had poor score in writing recount text on percentage (13,04%), 7 students who had fair score in writing recount text on percentage (30,43%), and 4 students who had good score on percentage (17,39%) in the test, it mean that third year students of SMP Pertiwi 2 Padang have very poor understanding about in using simple past tense in writing recount text.
Abstrak
Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menemukan informasi bagaimana kemampuan siswa dalam menggunakan simple past tense di dalam teks recount. Jenis dari penelitian ini adalah descriptive quantitative. Populasi dari penelitian ini adalah siswa SMP Pertiwi 2 Padang kelas IX tahun akademik 2015/2016. Sedangkan yang menjadi sampel adalah siswa kelas IX yang terdiri dari lima kelas, yaitu: IX 1, IX 2, IX 3, IX 4, IX 5 yang diambil dengan menggunakan sample random sampling yang berjumlah 23 siswa. Pengambilan sampel dari setiap kelas rata-rata terdiri dari lima siswa. Dalam pengambilan data, peneliti membagikan lembaran test yang diisi oleh siswa.
Lembaran test yang diisi oleh siswa terdiri dari sepuluh item mengenai pengalaman pribadi. Selanjutnya, peneliti memberikan penilaian terhadap lembaran test siswa. Peneliti menghitung skor kemampuan siswa dalam menulis sebuah recount text berdasarkan indikator dari Azar dan Purwanto. Dari data yang diperoleh setelah peneliti menjumlahkan nilai yang telah di dapatkan oleh siswa, diketahui hasil kemampuan siswa dalam menulis teks recount menggunakan simple past tense kelas IX SMP Pertiwi 2 Padang tahun akademik 2015/2016. Berdasarkan data yang didapatkan selama penelitian, peneliti dapat menyimpulkan bahwa ada 9 siswa yang sangat rendah pemahamannya dalam menggunakan simple past tense di dalam menulis teks recount pada persentase ( 39,13 %), 3 siswa yang mendapatkan nilai rendah dalam menggunakan simple past tense di dalam menulis teks recount pada persentase (13,04%), 7 siswa yang mendapatkan nilai rata-rata dalam menggunakan simple past tense di dalam menulis teks recount pada persentase (30,43%), dan 4 siswa yang mendapatkan nilai yang baik dalam menggunakan simple past tense di dalam menulis teks recount pada persentase (17,39%). Jadi, siswa kelas 9 SMP Pertiwi 2 Padang sangat lemah pemahamannya dalam menggunakan simple past tense di dalam menulis teks recount.
2 Key Words: students’ ability in using simple past tense INTRODUCTION
One way to communicate can be done through writing. Writing is one of the four language skills that should be mastered well by the students. The reader and the writer can communicate through written form. Besides that, writing is a medium to deliver the idea, feeling, and perception. The students not only used the oral language, but it can be used the written form to share the idea and to communicate.
Referring to the Curriculum 2006 or KTSP (Kurikulum Tingkat Satuan Pendidikan) requires the students to write some kinds of texts in form of functional text, for example advertisement, announcement, personal letter and notice and then monolog text, for example descriptive text, narrative text, and recount text. These texts have their own characteristic, such as social function, generic structure, and language features. It means that the students are hoped to have an ability to understand and write many kinds of short functional text or monolog text. As the result, they can interact and communicate with their environment clearly.
There are some kinds of monolog text that are taught for Junior High School students. One of them is recount. Recount text is the text which tell about the personal experience. In writing recount text, the students should know how to write well. It usually uses simple past tense. It means the students should know how to use of simple past tense and then, be able to produce a good recount text. Simple past tense is activity that happen in the past or situation that began and ended in the past.
In the other word, the students should have the ability in writing recount text by using simple past. In fact, based on the pre-observation in teaching English at SMP Pertiwi 2 Padang, not at all the students can write recount text well. Some of the students were difficult to write sentence in simple past. The others were difficult to write by using language features of writing recount text. It was supported by students’ score in which is not achieved the
standard minimum criteria (KKM) of writing.
Moreover, based on the interview with the students, they argued that they felt difficulties in writing because of several reasons. First, the students argued that they lack of vocabulary, it makes the students difficult to develop the idea by using simple past tense in writing recount text. They also faced the difficulties to improve their vocabulary in writing. Second, the students still got confuse of using verb in writing simple past because it simple past tenses, the verb used consists of regular and irregular verb and using be: was and were. They also have difficulties in write a sentence using simple past tense.
However, simple past should be learned by the students at Junior High School.
The problem that is face by the students is important to be analyzed. Therefore, the researcher interests to conduct a research about students ability in using simple past. Simple past in recount text is one of the element in language features which becomes the characteritics of recount text..
According to Azar (1992:25), simple past is used to talk about activities or situations that began and ended in the past. Simple past tense is used for events or situation that exist last year, yesterday, last week, two days ago, etc. There are two kinds of verb : regular and irregular verbs. For example : regular : stayed, arrived, walked, etc. Irregular : ate, took, slept, etc. It means that simple past talk about activities that happen in the past, it used regular and irregular verb.
Nunan (2003:88), writing is the work of inventing ideas, thinking about how to express them, and organizing them into statements and paragraphs that will be clear to a reader. It means that to express the ideasby writers in writing, the writers need to organize into statement,that statement or paragraph it make to easier understand and interest to read by a reader.
Sundayana (2005:95) states that recount text is a report of event or activity in the past. It is to inform or to entertain the readers.
The writer tells about their activity or
3 experience in the past and the reader will know and get information from the text about what happened in the past. It means that recount text tells event in the past to inform or entertain the reader.
Palmer Sue (2000:4) language features are :
a. Recounts normally start by setting the scene e.g : what , where, when, how.
b. This by follow by a series of events, in the order that they happened (chronological order).
c. There are important events, not irrelevants details.
d. The final paragraph should bring the reader back to the subject. This is may be in the form of an evaluation.
e. There are written in the past tense and the active voice.
f. Use connectives related to time e.g. after, then, next, meanwhile, to cause e.g.
because, since or to contrast e.g.
however, although, nonetheless.
g. Focus on specific people or events, not general topics.
h. Use the first person (I, we) in autobiography and fiction, otherwise use the third person.
i. Use critical vocabulary appropriate to subject.
Based on the explanation above, students ability in using simple past tense is students’ ability in using simple simple past tense in writing recount text. The students still got confused to write good sentence in using simple past in writing recount text .
RESEARCH METHOD
In this research, the researcher conducts this study as descriptive quantitative research, because the researcher would find out the data at the field based on the fact, would described students’ ability using simple past tense, and wanted to analyzed students’ ability using simple past tense in writing recount text.
According to Subana and Sudrajat (2005:26), descriptive quantitative research concludes fact, situation, variable, and phenomenon that happen at the time and present it reality. It means, in this research, the research would find out the data at the field based on the fact and phenomenon related to the variable of the research and described it based on the theory
that was put at previous chapter. The researcher would described students’ ability using simple past in writing of recount text at ninth grade of SMP Pertiwi 2 Padang.
In this research, the research wanted to analyzed students’ ability using simple past in writing recount text. In this research, the researcher would analyze students’ ability using simple past tense in writing a recount text. In other words, the data can be classified into quantitative data.
According to Gay (2000:122), population is the group of interest to the researcher to which she or he likes the result of the study to be generalized. Thus the population of this research was the ninth grade students of SMP Pertiwi 2 Padang. The researcher chose the classes because some of them were good in writing ability. There were five classes with the total number 150 students.
As states by Gay (2000:121) that sampling is the way for selecting a number of individuals representing the large group from which they are selected. Consequently, the degree to select sample which representing population is the degree to which the result are generalized.
In this research conducted random sampling for selecting the sample. According to Gay (2000:117) random sample in such way that all individuals in the defined population have an equal and independent chance of being for the sample. Arikunto (2006:131) states if the population is less than 100, it is better to take all to be sample. Instead, if the total of population was more than 100, it can be taken between 10%
- 15% or 20% - 25%. In this research took 15%
as the sample. So, the researcher took 23 students as the sample.
CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION
The researcher concludes that the students of SMP Pertiwi 2 Padang class IX were enough able in using simple past tense most of students get fair score in writing recount text test. It was supported by the fact that there were 9 ( 39, 13 %) students who had problems in analyze of using simple past tense in recount text or the students that have low score, it can put on very poor rank.
And there were 3 (13,04 %) students who had poor score in writing recount text. Next,
4 there were 7 (30,43%) students who had fair score in writing recount text. Then, 4 (8,70%) students who had good score in the test, it mean that third year students of SMP Pertiwi 2 Padang have very poor understanding about in using simple past tense in writing recount text. After doing the research in the field and analyzing the collected data, the researcher would like to give some suggestions for the students and teacher. First, for the english teacher to inform problems the students might face in using simple past tense in writing recount text. By showing the result of this research, they might be more careful and might also find the solution. The teacher should give more practice to the students in writing simple past tense of recount text in order to help in understanding the important aspect of recount text. Then, teacher as facilitator in teaching learning process have to do maximal effort to make all students understand about this material. Besides, they also have to increase their knowledge as well as their teaching method so the students will be motivated to write english.
Second, for the studentsit is to practice more in writing by themselves. They can apply writing in their daily activities so they will get used to write english. In addition, they also have motivation to improve their writing.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
For the first, the researcher also would like to express her deepest gratitude to Mrs. Elmiati, M.Pd and Mrs. Rindilla Antika, M.Pd as my advisor.
The researcher thanks for her valuable time, guidance, suggestion, support and comment during the process of finishing this thesis. Secondly, the researcher’s special gratitude goes to Mrs. Dra. Hj.
Riny D. Sani, M.M.Pd, Mrs. Belinda Analido, M.Pd and Mrs. Astuti Pratiwi, M.Pd as the examiner who have given valuable contribution and suggestion to improve this thesis as examiner.
REFERENCES
Azar, B.S. 2003. Basic English Grammar. Third edition. New York: Pearson.
Gay, L.R and Airasian, Peter. 2000. Learning and Teaching: Competencies for Analysis and Application Sixth Edition. New Jersey:
Prebtice-Hall, Inc.
Nunan, David. 2003. Practical English Language Teaching. McGraw-Hill: Harper Collins Publisher.
Subana, M dan Sudrajat. 2005. Dasar – dasar penelitian Ilmiah. Bandung: CV. Pustaka Setia.
