A CORRELATION STUDY BETWEEN STUDENTS MASTERY OF PAST TENSE AND THEIR ABILITY IN EXPRESSING PAST ACTIVITIES IN WRITING

ABSTRACT
The final project is about a correlation study between students’ mastery of
past tense and their ability in expressing their past activities in writing, a case
study of eleventh grade students of SMA I Kudus in the academic year of
2006/2007.

The objectives of the study are to find out the students mastery of past
tense and the students abilities in expressing past activities in writing, and also to
find out whether or not there is a correlation between the students mastery of past
tense and their abilities in expressing past activities in writing.
This study is a case study and the population of this study is the eleventh
grade students of SMA I Kudus in the academic year of 2006/2007. The sampling
process was administered by applying a purposive sampling technique. There
were 400 students of the eleventh grade and I took 40 students as the sample.
I administered two kinds of tests, namely Grammar Test and Writing Test.
Both of the tests were in written form. In Grammar Test, I used Multiple Choice
test, while in writing test, I emphasized students to retell their past activities into a
good writing construction. The instrument used for measuring the achievement
was a test. Before the instrument was used, it had been tried out first. The main
purpose of conducting it was to find out the validity, reliability, discrimination
items and level of difficulties of the item of past tense in a multiple choice test. I
then selected the items before they were used as the instrument of this research.
The result of this research showed that there is a significant correlation
between the students’ mastery of past tense and their ability in expressing past
activities in writing. This result is obtained from the computation of the
correlation between the students’ mastery of past tense and their ability in
expressing past activities in writing applied to the sample is 0.8107. The critical
value of the Pearson r with the 5 % significant level is 0.312. It means that the
result obtained from the computation is greater than its critical value. Therefore, I
conclude that the correlation between the two variables above is significant.
In line with the result of the research, I suggest that to improve the
students’ ability in expressing past activities in writing, students should improve
their mastery of past tense, because the mastery of past tense can support their
ability in expressing past activities in writing. It is essential to the teacher to know
that one of the factors affect the students ability in expressing past activities
especially in writing is the students’ mastery of past tense.


TABLE OF CONTENTS
Abstract ................................................................................................................... v
Acknowledgements ................................................................................................. vi
Table of Contents .................................................................................................... viii
List of Appendices .................................................................................................. xi
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study ................................................................................... 1
1.2 Reasons for Choosing the Topic ....................................................................... 3
1.3 Statement of the Hypothesis ............................................................................. 3
1.4 Objectives of the Study ..................................................................................... 4
1.5 Statements of the Hypothesis .............................................................................. 4
1.6 Significance of the Study .................................................................................... 5
1.7 Scope of the Study ............................................................................................ 5
1.8 Outline of the Study .......................................................................................... 6
CHAPTER II REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
2.1 Definition of Grammar ...................................................................................... 7
2.2 Importance of Learning Grammar ..................................................................... 7
2.3 English Tense .................................................................................................... 8
2.4 Definition of the Past Tense .............................................................................. 9
2.5 Form of Past Tense ........................................................................................... 10
2.5.1 Form of Past Simple ........................................................................................ 10
2.5.2 Form of Past Continuous ................................................................................. 12
ix
2.5.3 Form of Past Perfect ........................................................................................ 13
2.5.4 Form of Past Perfect Continuous ..................................................................... 13
2.6 Use and Function of Past Tense.......................................................................... 14
2.6.1 Past Simple Use and Function ......................................................................... 14
2.6.2 Past Continuous Use and Function .................................................................. 15
2.6.3 Past Perfect Use and Function ......................................................................... 17
2.6.4 Past Perfect Continuous Use and Function ...................................................... 18
2.7 Definition of Writing .......................................................................................... 18
2.8 Definition of Good Writing................................................................................. 20
2.9 Speech and Writing............................................................................................. 21
2.10 Writing Skills in 2006 English Curriculum ...................................................... 23
CHAPTER III METHOD OF INVESTIGATION
3.1 Object of the Study ............................................................................................ 24
3.1.1 Population ........................................................................................................ 24
3.1.2 Sample ............................................................................................................ 24
3.1.3 Method of Data Collection ............................................................................. 24
3.2 Research Design ................................................................................................ 25
3.2.1 Instrument ........................................................................................................ 25
3.2.2 Try Out ........................................................................................................... 25
3.2.3 Validity of the Test ......................................................................................... 28
3.2.4 Reliability of the Test ..................................................................................... 29
3.2.5 Difficulty Level .............................................................................................. 30
3.2.6 Discriminating Power .................................................................................... 31
x
3.2.7 Scoring System .............................................................................................. 32
CHAPTER IV RESULT OF THE INVESTIGATION
4.1 Discussion ......................................................................................................... 34
4.2 Result ................................................................................................................ 40
CHAPTER V CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION
5.1 Conclusion ........................................................................................................ 41
5.2 Suggestion ......................................................................................................... 42
BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................................................................. 43
APPENDICES ....................................................................................................... 45

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