The analysis on students’ ability in mastering reported speech at grade X in SMA Negeri 3 Padangsidimpuan.

The formulations of the problems were talking about the students’ ability in mastering reported speech, the difficulties that usually faced by the grade X students of SMA Negeri 3 Padangsidimpuan in mastering reported speech and the efforts done by the English teacher to increase the students’ ability in mastering reported speech The aims of research were to know the students’ ability in mastering reported speech at grade X in SMA Negeri 3 Padangsidimpuan, to know the difficulties that usually faced by the grade X students of SMA Negeri 3 Padangsidimpuan in mastering reported speech and to know the efforts done by the English teacher to increase the students’ ability in mastering reported speech. The sources of data were the grade X students, the English teacher, and Head Master of SMA Negeri 3 Padangsidimpuan. The kind of this research was qualitative research by using descriptive method. The instruments of collecting data were observation, interview and test. Based on the result of research, researcher found that the students’ ability in mastering reported speech at grade X in SMA Negeri 3 Padangsidimpuan was enough (57.41%). The difficulties of grade X students of SMA Negeri 3 Padangsidimpuan in mastering reported speech are: They still weak in changing tenses, pronoun and adverb that happened in converting direct into indirect speech, they have not mastered in using if/whether in interrogative sentences and using to and not to in imperative sentences. The efforts done by the English teacher to increase the students’ ability in mastering reported speech were: The English teacher gives the students drill and practice more and more about the changing tenses, pronoun and adverb that always happened in the reported speech, the teacher always repeats the lesson, gives more explanation and examples about the changing in reported speech, asks the students to memorize the rule of the changing in the reported speech. Then, the English teacher motivates the students to improve students’ interested in learning grammar especially in reported speech