Errors in the use of the Simple Present Tense in the discussion essays Of Writing-IV students

English tenses are very important. Without the use of correct English tenses, people are unable to understand the ideas of an essay. Besides, the wrong use of English tenses leads to the misunderstanding of the essays. With all these reasons, the writer conducted this study. This study is limited to Simple Present Tense since Simple Present Tense is generally used in Discussion text. The purposes of this study are to find the types and the possible causes of errors in Simple Present Tense which the Writing IV students often made in the discussion essays. This is a descriptive study which is the part of non-experimental study. The data of the study was the discussion writings for midterm test of Writing IV students of the English Department of Faculty of Teacher Training and Education Academic Year 2013 whose genre was a discussion text. The main instrument of this study was the writer herself. To obtain the data, the writer approached the head of department and the Writing IV lecturers of the English Department of Widya Mandala Catholic University to ask for permission to collect the data for the writer’s research. The writer then personally made an appointment to the lecturers to collect the data. After the writer got the data which was midterm test paper, the writer copied it and then returned it to the lecturers. To classify the types of errors, the writer firstly read all the students’ writing and listed the errors of the English tenses errors encountered. The writer also asked the help of triangulator to evaluate the result. The writer discovered that there were 256 errors found in Simple Present Tense. The errors of Simple Present Tense are 16.32% of the total verbs found in Simple Present Tense. The writer then analyzed and classified the errors into Omission (O), Addition (A), Misordering (MO), and Misformation (MF) types of errors. The writer also asked the help of triangulator to evaluate the result. The writer then found out that there were 106 Omission errors (41.41%), 36 Addition errors (14.06%), 107 Misformation errors (41.80%), and 7 Misordering errors (2.73%). The writer then concluded that the types of errors in Simple Present Tense which were often made by the students are Misformation (107 errors; 41.80%) and Omission (106 errors; 41.41%). In Omission errors, Omission of ‘-s’ which took 62.26% (66 out of 106) is the most problematic; meanwhile in Misformation errors, Alternating Form type is the most problematic, especially the type of misusing Simple Past Tense to substitute Simple Present Tense which took 46.73% (50 out of 107). The writer then analyzed and classified the possible causes of errors into Interlingual and Intralingual transfer. The writer classified the Interlingual transfer into: (1) Overextention of Analogy (OA), (2) Transfer of Structure (TS), and (3) Interlingual/ Intralingual Errors (II). Meanwhile, the writer classified the Intralingual transfer into: (1) Overgeneralization (OE), (2) Ignorance of Rule Restrictions (IR), (3) Incomplete Application of Rules (IA), and (4) False Concepts Hypothesized (FC). The writer also asked the help of the triangulator to analyze the result of the classification of the possible causes of errors. The writer then found that Omission of ‘-s’ errors are possibly considered as Interlingual and Intralingual errors. In Interlingual Error, the main possible cause is Transfer of Structure. The student did not add ‘-s’ to the verb of the singular subject. Meanwhile, in Intralingual error, there are 5 main possible causes: (1) Overgeneralization by creating a deviant structure with ‘-s’ form, (2) Ignorance of Rule Restrictions with –s Ending, (3) False Concept Hypothesized of ‘third-person singular/ plural subject’ (4) False Concept Hypothesized of ‘verb forms in Simple Present Tense’, and (5) Incomplete Application of ‘verb form in Simple Present Tense’. Meanwhile, the Misusing of Simple Past Tense to substitute Simple Present Tense errors are possibly considered as Intralingual errors. The main possible cause is False Concept Hypothesized of Simple Past Tense. The implication of this study is to find out the possible causes of the errors and possible teaching methods to overcome these problems. From this study, the writer found out that Intralingual factor is the main cause of the problem. As a result, the writer suggests that teachers should pay a great attention to the inputs and the ways of inputting the knowledge since there is a possibility that the student might have the wrong concept of English tenses from their previous knowledge. The writer also suggests two approaches in teaching which are training approach and peer-reviewing. The students need to be re-explained and trained in the Simple Present Tense