The Past Tenses Used in Recount Texts Written by The Tenth Graders of Nursing Vocational High Schools (SMK)

The purpose of this descriptive qualitative study is to find out the types of errors in using past tenses in recount text writings of the tenth grade students of SMKN 11 Malang and the causes of the errors. The participants were 32 students of X Nursing 2 class or KPR (Keperawatan) in the academic year of 2015/2016. The data were obtained from the students’ recount writing works and their answers in the questionnaire and interview. The data were identified based on Dulay et al. (1982) Surface Strategy Taxonomy and Richards (1974). The findings showed that the past tenses used by the students were simple past, past progressive, and past perfect. The past tenses errors found were 125 items in the first writing and 83 items in the second writing. Misformation was the most frequent type of error occurred followed by omission and addition. In terms of causes of the errors, ignorance of rule restriction and incomplete application of rules were at the highest rank followed by false concept hypotheses and over-generalization