Simple Present Tense and Present Continuous Tense Errors Found in the Explanation Text of Writing III Students

Delivering information is very important in many ways. One of the ways to deliver information is in the written. To deliver the information in the written way, a person should learn and know how to use the correct grammar in order to explain the information correctly. This study is limited to Simple Present Tense and Present Continuous Tense, since both of the tenses is regularly used in the Explanation Text. This study is a descriptive study which is the part of experimental study. The data is taken from the Writing III 2016/2017 students’ essays, Explanation texts, of the English Department Widya Mandala Catholic University. The main instrument of this study is the writer himself helped by the triangulator. To obtain the data, the writer approaches the head of department and the lecturers of Writing III classes to ask permission to take the data for this study. After taking the data, the writer then copies the essays and returns it to the lecturers. The writer classifies the errors of the Simple Present Tense and Present Continuous Tense, which are Omission, Addition, Misinformation, and Misordering. The writer uses the theory of Taxonomy to classify and identify the errors and the possible causes of the errors. The result of this study indicated that most of the errors found are in Omission (66%), followed by Addition (18.9%), then Misinformation (15.1%), and Misordering (0%). The writer also interviews some students to get more specific reasons why the students omit the errors. The interview will be the support for the writer to conclude final reason of possible causes. By the result of the interview and some theories that writer uses to create this thesis, the writer then conclude the possible causes of the errors are because of the lack of these students to transfer the language grammar from L1 into L2. Based on the research findings, the writer suggests that the students need to learn how to transfer grammar from L1 into L2, especially tenses. Because the use of grammar in L2 is not the same as the L1, the students need to practice more with their peers to increase their capability of transfering L1 into L2. Meanwhile, the lecturers need to re-explain or brain-storming the students about the materials that is needed to accomplish the lesson of the day