AN ANALYSIS OF GRAMMATICAL ERRORS IN USING SIMPLE PRESENT TENSE IN DESCRIPTIVE TEXT WRITING BY STUDENTS OF MAN 1 (MODEL) BANDAR LAMPUNG

Abstract

Abstract: The objectives of this research were to investigate how simple present tense was used by students in descriptive text writing and to identify the common error made by students’ in using simple present tense in their descriptive text based on Surface Strategy Taxonomy. This research was designed in the form of qualitative research, especially in descriptive method. This research was conducted at MAN 1 (Model) Bandar Lampung.

The subject of this research was the students of class XI.A.1 which consisted of 33 students. In analyzing the data, the researcher collected the data from the students, determined whether simple present tense was used in well-formed or error by the students, identified the grammatical errors made by the students, classified the errors of using simple present tense in students’ descriptive text to find out the frequency of errors, displayed the data, calculated the data taken, and made the percentage in each category.

The result shows that the students used more correct simple present tense than errors. The correct use of simple present tense was 73.81%, whereas the error in using simple present tense was 26.19%. Furthermore, the highest frequency of errors made by the students based on surface strategy taxonomy was omission error with 56 items (50.90%).The teachers are suggested to give much practice about the use of ending -s or –es in simple present tense in order to minimize the omission errors. Moreover, for other researchers, they can provide some techniques to increase students’ mastery of simple present tense.

Key words: Grammatical Error, Simple Present Tense, Descriptive text