An Error Analysis of the Use of Past Tense in a Recount Paragraph By the Eighth Graders of SMP Negeri 1 Jiwan Madiun

ABSTRACT Maria, Riske Christin. 2010. An Error Analysis of the Use of Past Tense in a Recount Paragraph By the Eighth Graders of SMP Negeri 1 Jiwan Madiun . Thesis, faculty of Letters. State University of Malang. Advisor : Niamika El Khoiri, S. Pd., M.A. Key Words: error, recount, past tense This thesis is a study about the errors in using past tense in recount paragraph made by the eighth graders of SMP Negeri 1 Jiwan Madiun. Students consider writing is the most difficult skill than others. Therefore, in writing a recount paragraph the students often make errors. This study was conducted under the consideration that past tense plays an important role in writing a recount paragraph. The purposes of this study are to find out the types of errors of the use of past tense in recount text made by the eighth graders students of SMP Negeri 1 Jiwan Madiun and to find out the possible causes of those errors. The study was conducted using descriptive approach. The sample of this study was the eighth graders of SMP Negeri 1 Jiwan Madiun, 8D, which consisted of 33 students. The source of the data was recount paragraph made by the students.The instruments that was used are a checklist and interview to the teacher and some of the students. The checklist is based on the surface Strategy taxonomy by Dulay that consist of error of omission, error of addition, error of misformation, and error of misordering, and the Causes of errors by Richard that consist of overgeneralization, ignorance of rule restriction, incomplete application of rule and false concept hypothezised. In analyzing the data, error analysis is used in which there were three steps; they are identifying the errors, putting the errors in checklist tables and the last step is evaluation of errors. The result of the analysis shows that there were 239 errors from 223 sentences. They were 98 errors of misformation, that consisted of misformation of verb, misformation of prepotision, misformation of be and omission of plural noun marker. 81 errors of omission, that consisted of omission of -ed, omission of definite article, omission of be, omission of plural noun marker. 50 errors of addition that consisted of addition of be, addition of preposition, addition of definite article. And 10 errors of misordering that consisted of misordering of adverb and misordering of noun phrase. The factors that caused the students to make errors in the writing skills were: 6 error sentences were caused by overgeneralization, 102 error sentences caused by ignorance of rule restriction, 43 error sentences caused by incomplete application of rule, and 20 error sentences caused by false concept hypothesized. Based on the result of the research, it is suggested that English teacher should pay attention to the area of difficulties in English grammar. By knowing the errors made by the students, the teacher should use it as feedback to know the area of difficulties in learning English past tense. The last, the teacher should be able to explain to the students about past tense by using the situation around them as the example in using past tense rule. The next researchers are expected to investigate the students' error and the factors that cause students' error in another text type and using other tenses by employing other strategies of data collection