The students’ problems in identifying simple past tense and present perfect tense at grade xi SMA Negeri 3 Padangsidimpuan (a case study at IPA section)

This research discussed about the students’ problems in identifying simple past tense and present perfect tense at grade IX SMA Negeri 3 Padangsidipuan. The researcher formulated the problem as follow: how was the students’ ability, what were the students’ problems, and what were the English teachers’ efforts to overcome students’ problems in identifying simple past tense and present perfect tense at grade XI SMA Negeri 3 Padangsidimpuan. The aims of this research were to know the students’ ability, to know the students’ problems, and to know the English teachers’ efforts to overcome their problems. This research was done in SMA Negeri 3 Padangsidimpuan. The sources of data were the students XI grade IPA-1, the English teacher and headmaster 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. After the research was done, the researcher found the answer that the abilities of Grade IX SMA Negeri 3 Padangsidimpuan in identifying simple past tense and present perfect tense can be categorized into enough categories. The problems of XI grade IPA-1 SMA Negeri 3 Padangsidimpuan in identifying simple past tense and present perfect tense were they still lack in all of the formula of tenses, regular and irregular verb that happened in simple past tense and present perfect tense. The efforts done by the English teacher to decrease the students’ problems in identifying simple past tense and present perfect tense were gives the students drill and practice more and more about the changing of tenses, the teacher always repeats the lesson, gives more explanation and examples, asks the students to memorize the rule and formula of the tense. Then, the English teacher motivates the students to improve students’ interested in learning grammar especially in simple past tense and present perfect tense