STUDENTS ERROR ANALYSIS IN CONSTRUCTING SIMPLE PAST TENSE OF THE EIGHTH GRADE STUDENTS AT SMP N 2 LIRUNG

Abstract

This research aims to identify students errors and dominant errors and examine the causes of errors students make in constructing simple past tense The errors have been classified into four types: omission addition misformation and misordering based on the surface approach taxonomy from Dulay The researchers used a descriptive quantitative method to find the result The subject of this research was the eighth grade students of SMP N 2 Lirung which consists of 30 students The instrument for gathering the data was the essay test The findings showed that the students made 250 errors With 170 errors or 68 misformation is the most common error students commit The addition comes in second with 30 errors or 12 The following error is an omission with 28 errors totaling 11 2 and misordering with 22 errors or 8 8 In addition the cause of errors students made in constructing simple past tense is Carelessness with a total number of 133 or 53 2 followed by the first language with 75 or 30 errors and the last cause of error translation with 42 or 16 8 errors Misformation is the most frequent error that students of the eighth grade at SMP N 2 Lirung make when constructing simple past tense The cause of errors students make in constructing simple past tense is Carelessness followed by first language and translation From the percentage of students the mastery of using simple past tense was poor< p>