An Error Analysis of Using Simple Past Tense in Students Narrative Writing

Writing is one of language skills used to give information to others. It is very important to be mastered by the students because at the end of the study they must write a scientific paper. In fact, there are some errors made by the students during the learning process. The objectives of the study are to identify the types of error made by the students in using simple past tense in narrtaive writing, to find out the causes of error based on Richards’ theory, and to know the percentage of students’ errors in using simple past tense in narrative writing. The study was conducted at SMA IT Tunas Bangsa Insan Mandiri Cilodong Depok.The approach used in this study is descriptive qualitative. The instrument of this study is written test in narrative text. The sample of this research were twenty students of the tenth grade student of X-2 and X-3 class at SMA IT Tunas Bangsa Insan Mandiri Cilodong Depok. Based on the research findings in data analysis it can be concluded that there are four types of error made by the students in using simple past tense in narrative wrting; omissions, additions, misformations, and misorderings