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GRAMMATICAL PROBLEMS IN USING REGULAR AND IRREGULAR VERBS IN WRITING RECOUNT TEXT
Desi Hermalinda1, Lili Perpisa 2, Hevriani Sevrika 2
1 Mahasiswa Program Studi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris STKIP PGRI Sumatera Barat
2 Dosen Program Studi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris STKIP PGRI Sumatera Barat dhermalinda@gmail.com
ABSTRAK
Penelitian ini dilatarbelakangi oleh masalah-masalah tata bahasa siswa dalam menggunakan kata kerja beraturan dan kata kerja tidak beraturan dalam menulis teks recount di kelas delapan delapan SMP Negeri 26 Padang. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui masalah-masalah dalam penggunaan kata kerja beraturan dan kata kerja tidak beraturan dengan memperhatikan karakteristik dari kata kerja beraturan (regular verb) dan kata kerja tidak beraturan. Penelitian ini adalah penelitian descriptive qualitative. Peserta dari penelitian ini adalah siswa kelas delapan SMP Negeri 26 Padang tahun ajaran 2016/2017. Sedangkan yang menjadi sampel adalah anak kelas VIII.5 dengan jumlah peserta sebanyak 31 siswa dengan menggunakan cluster sampling. Penelitii mengambil dokumen dari tugas siswa dan mewawancari siswa kelas VIII.5 dengan menggunakan cara semi-structured interview. Hasil dari penelitian ini ditemukan siswa melakukan kesalahan dalam penggunaan regular verb dan irregular verb, terdapat kekeliruan dalam penggunaan ed/d ending. Dari 7 indikator karakteristik dari regular verb dan irregular verb, siswa kelas VIII.5 SMP Negeri 26 Padang memiliki kesalahan dan masalah yang sama dengan 6 indikator dalam penggunaan regular verb dan irregular verb, hanya 1 indikator yang tidak ditemukan dalam penulisan teks recount oleh siswa kelas VIII.5 SMP Negeri 26 Padang ini. Berdasarkan temuan tersebut, diharapkan kepada guru-guru bahasa Inggris lebih banyak lagi melatih siswa untuk memahami kata kerja beraturan (regular verb) dan kata kerja tidak beraturan (irregular verb).
Kata Kunci: Masalah-masalah tata bahasa, kata kerja beraturan, kata kerja tidak beraturan
INTRODUCTION
Regular and irregular verbs are kinds of verbs in simple past tense. Regular usually has ends –ed or –d and irregular has different form in present, past and past participle. Students sometimes are hard to choose which one regular or irregular verb when they will write some paragraph. Based on the pre-observation, researcher found some examples of using regular and irregular verbs in VIII.5 class of SMP Negeri 26 Padang. Teacher gave task for students in classroom, and then students have to make a recount text for thirty minutes by using
regular and irregular verbs of past tense.
There are some problems in using regular and irregular verbs of past tense. Students are hard to identify the appropriate regular and irregular verbs when they write that text.
For examples:
1. We stooped and rested under a large tree.
2. We go to grandmother’s house
For the first sentence, stooped should be stopped. And then, go should be went because recount text use simple past tense.
Stooped is an example of problem in using regular verb and go is the example of problem in using irregular verb. It means
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that students have some problems in using regular and irregular verb. In conclusion, using of regular and irregular verbs makes some students to get some problems. They have to open their dictionary to find some appropriate regular and irregular verb for using in the sentences of past tense. Regular and irregular verbs usually use in past tense because there are many form of regular and irregular verb in simple past tense.
Students not only have some problems in listening, speaking and reading but also have some problems in writing. These problems sometimes happen when students write a sentence. Students still confuse for organizing words become a sentence and sentence becomes a paragraph then a text.
Students usually have problems in grammatical, sentence structure or vocabulary. According to Alfaki, 2015, p.44-45, “Grammatical problems are when students have problems with subject verb agreements, pronoun references, and connectors”. It means that students often get problems in using grammar. It is about subject-verb agreement, pronoun references, and also connectors. Grammar always talks about structure in a sentence, text or passage.
It is one of important skill for making our English better. It means that there are some different problems. There are students’
problems such as; content and organizing.
Content is about the main ideas what students want to write. Students usually are
hard to think what they want to write.
Organizing is about how writer to making readers understand about what they have wrote.
Then, there is explanation about students’ problems. It does not have some differences so far. In addition, according to Salma, 2015, p.74, “various problems are like grammar, vocabulary, punctuation, spelling, organization etc”. It means that students usually have various problems in writing something such as; grammar, vocabulary, punctuation, spelling, organization etc. Based on experts’
explanations above abour students problems in writing, the researcher will take Alfaki’s opinion to describe in this research, here some problems that student have in writing skill are grammatical problems, problems of sentence structure, problem of word choice and cognitive problem, esprcially grammatical problems are about subject- verb agreement, pronoun references and also connectors.
In learning English, there are four skills such as; listening, speaking, reading and writing. Many people think the last skill is the most difficult skill from others. It is writing. Writing is a skill which needs to express our ideas through words. Many learners think that writing is the most difficult skill. It is because they have to express their ideas but also think the rules of sentence structure or grammar. According
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to Harmer, 2001, p.79, “writing is a form of communication to deliver thought or to express feeling through written form”.
Communication is not only in directly but also indirectly. On of indirectly communication is writing. Through writing people can communicate and share some informations in written form. It can be some texts in novel, book, newspaper and etc. By writing someone can communicate in a way of ideas, feelings and thoughts into sentences or words. Moreover, according to Hogue, 1991, p.3-13, “there are four main stages in the writing process: prewriting, planning (outlining), writing and revising drafts and writing the final copy to hand in”. It means that before someone will write some texts, there are some steps such as prewriting, planning (outlining), writing and revising drafts and writing the final copy to hand in.
It has different processes too from others experts but it is also a good step for writing.
According to Azar, 2009, p.439 that
“verb consist to two types such as transitive verb is verbs that are followed by an object and intransitive verb is verbs that are not followed by an object”. It means that more verb forms for different experts’ opinion.
These verbs are transitive and intransitive verbs. Transitive is the verb which is followed by noun but intransitive verb is the verb which is not followed by noun. For example:
Transitive: a student studies.
Intransitive : a student studies books.
Moreover, according to Graham, 2015, p.50, “simple past tense is used to talk about a completed action in the definite past”. It means that simple past tense is tense that tells about events which happened in past time and end at the time. Some events which happened in past can happen more in the next time so it is past tense exactly.
People can tell about their own story in simple past tense because that story ever happened. In simple past tense, there are elementary of simple past tense such as;
regular verb and irregular verb. Regular has no differences of form in past and past participle. On the other hand, irregular has different form in present, past and past participle. It is supported by Roselina, 2014, p.4 she mentions that “verb is divided into two groups; a regular verb and irregular verb, in regular verb, the verb changes regularly in the past tense form or past participle”. It means that regular is the verb which changes its form regularly in past tense and past participle also.
In other hand, according to Cyssco, 2003, p.112-113, “Katakerja yang memiliki akhiran ed, pada umumnya, bentuk lampau dibentuk dengan menambahkan akhiran ed pada kata kerja bentuk pertama. For example: stay = stayed, count = counted , and enjoy = enjoyed. Kata kerja yang memiliki akhiran e. Kata kerja yang huruf e hanya ditambah dengan d untuk bentuk
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lampaunya. For example: live = lived, taste
= tasted, utilize = utilized and organize = organized. Kata kerja yang huruf akhirnya y dan didahului oleh huruf mati (consonant).
Apabila kata kerja yang huruf akhiranya y didahului oleh huruf mati (consonant) maka y ditukar dengan i, lalu ditambah dengan ed. For example: study = studied, accompany = accompanied, and dry = dried.
Kata kerja yang huruf akhirnya adalah huruf mati. Kata kerja yang huruf akhirnya adalah huruf mati (consonant) dan dibaca singkat atau satu bunyi maka huruf terakhirnya digandakan lalu ditambah dengan ed. For example: stop = stopped, clap = clapped and drop = dropped.” It means that regular verb has many characteristics although it has simple form.
The first characteristic is that it has ending – ed. The second characteristic is if a verb has ending e, it should be added d in the end. The third characteristic is if there is ending y, it should be changed i. And the fourth characteristic is if there is consonant ending, it should be added the same letter with the ending.
Irregular is verb which has some different forms for simple form, past form and past participle form. It has change depends on tenses. It is supported by Roselina, 2014, p.4 she states that, “irregular verbs do not have the form of fixed and do not change regularly, and have to memorize because the changes are not permanent”. It
means that irregular verb change the form but it is not permanent. Moreover, according to Cryssco, 2003, p.114, “kata kerja yang tidak beraturan (irregular verb) tidak dibentuk dengan menambahkan akhiran d/ed dan kata kerja yang tidak beraturan mempunyai bentuk tersendiri.”
Recount is a text that retells some events which ever happened in writer real life. It can be writers’ experience or some events which ever happened for writers. It is supported by Dirgeyasa, 2016, p.2 he states that, “a recount is a text that retells events or experiences in the past what we do, feel, hear, read, even what we dream”. It means that recount text is a text which tells about something people hear, see or happen in their real life. Writers can also tell about their good or bad experience or others’
experiences which ever they hear. Before choosing this topic, the researcher found three theses related to this study. Researcher reviews some theses for related findings.
The first, related finding found and reviewed from the thesis by Christos Pliatsikas. This thesis entitled Processing of regular and irregular past tense morphology in highly proficient L2 learners of English: a self- paced reading study. This study has results that as follows: first, regularly inflected verbs were processed more slowly than Irregular verbs during online processing of grammatical sentences by native speakers 31.Second, this effect was also observed in
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late learners of English with high proficiency. Third, this difference was not dependent on the type of language exposure of the L2 learners. Fourth, small differences in proficiency level among highly proficient L2 learners did not affect their accuracy and RTs.
The second thesis entitled “Regular – Irregular Dissociation in L2 Acquisition of English Morphology”. A study is conduct by David Birdsong (2001). This study has the results that for every class of item, and across both nouns and verbs, there is evidence of every type of error. However, remarkably, there is no distribution of errors that could be said to constitute a pattern.
Errors types are largely confined to individual items among low-frequency nouns and verbs, and are not observed across classes of items.
And the last, related finding found and reviewed from the thesis by Dwi Supatmi (2013) entitled “Students’ Difficulties in Writing Recount Text at Second Year of SMP N 2 Kartasura in 2012/2013 Academic Year”. The results of students’
difficulties are as follows: 1) generic structure, 2) language features. Teacher’s solutions for the difficulties are as follows:
1) giving explanation repeatedly to solve generic structure, 2) asking the students to analyzing language features, 3) memorizing past form of word to solve tenses, 4) giving exercise to solve difficulties in grammar and
deleting word, 5) looking up at the dictionary to solve difficulties in vocabulary and spelling. In this research, researcher makes different research from others. In this research, researcher will use qualitative research. It will describe about the students’
problems in using regular and irregular verb in writing recount text at eighth grade of SMP Negeri 26 Padang.
RESEARCH METHOD
The research used descriptive as research design. According to Gay and Airasian, 2000, p.275 descriptive research was research design that determines and describes the way things are and it can be used to investigate the educational problems and issues. It means that, descriptive research would very useful nowadays in investigating many kinds of educational problems included in investigating present situation analysis. In this research, the participants were eighth grade students especially VIII.5 students. Meanwhile, VIII.5 class has 31 students and researcher used cluster sampling in choosing samples.
According to Ary et al (2010:154), “cluster sampling is which the unit chosen is not an individual but rather, a group of individuals who are naturally together.” It means that the researcher will take one class of eighth grade at SMP Negeri 26 Padang especially VIII.5 class which has 31 students. Researcher took
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31 students of VIII.5 class of eighth grade in SMP Negeri 26 Padang as participants.
The instruments were documents and interview. The researcher analyzed document from students of eighth grade at SMP Negeri 26 Padang and researcher took interview the students at eighth grade of SMPN 26 Padang for supporting the data.
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
After researcher got documents and interviewed the VIII.5 students of SMP Negeri 26 Padang, researcher found the answer from research questions about students’ grammatical problems in using regular and irregular verb of simple past tense in writing recount text.
1. The ways of using regular and irregular verbs of simple past tense in writing recount text are:
In fact, researcher found many problems that participants have in using regular and irregular verbs of simple past tense in writing recount text. Based on indicators in chapter II which mentioned by Cyssco, 2003, p. 112-113 and also Quirk, 1973, p.30-31, there are 7 items of indicators for regular and irregular verbs. Researcher found only 6 indicators in documents of students’ recount text. And also 4 students’
ways in using regular and irregular verb.
There were S+V1, S+V2, S+V3, S+V+ing.
2. The students’ grammatical problems in using regular and irregular verbs of
simple past tense in writing recount text are:
There are some problems which researcher found when interviewed 31 students of VIII.5. All of them have problems in using regular and irregular verbs especially regular and irregular verbs of simple past form. Based on theory in chapter II, Alfaki, 2015, p.44-45 mentions that
“grammatical problems are when students have problems with subject and verb, pronoun references and connectors”, thus researcher found some problems. There were such as students are hard to differentiate forms of regular and irregular verbs, students are difficult to remember the appropriate forms of regular and irregular verbs, students do not understand about regular and irregular verbs and then students are hard to find good idea when they wanted to write recount text.
Based on the classification of the problems above, almost students did same problems in writing recount. These problems happened because they still difficult for remembering the forms of irregular verb and they are still confused with the appropriate irregular verb in writing recount text. The result was that students only have 2 problems from Alfaki’s theory. There were subject-verb agreement and pronoun references.
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REFERENCES
Alfaki, Dr. Ibrahim. 2015. University Students’ English Writing and Prsesent:Diagnosis and Remedy. Nile Valley University, Atbara, Sudan.
Azar, Betty Schrampfer. 2009.
Understanding and Using English Grammar.(4th ed). New York:
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Dirgeyasa M.Hum, Dr. I.Wy. 2016. College Academic Writing a Genre-Based Perspective.Jakarta: Prenada Group Indonesia.
Gay, L R & Airasian, Peter. 2000.
Educational Research Competencies for Analysis and Applications Sixth Edition. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc.
Graham, Mark. 2015. Boom! English Grammar Made Easy. Jakarta:
Erlangga.
Harmer, Jeremy. 2004. How to Teach Writing. London: Pearson Education Limited.
Hogue, Ann. 1991. Writing Academic English. New York: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc.
Quirk, Randolph and Greeenbaum, Sidney.
1973. A University Grammar of English.Hongkong: Commonwealth Printing Press Ltd.
R. Cyssco, Dhanny. 2003. Mastering Tenses
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