STUDENTS’ ERRORS IN USING SIMPLE PRESENT TENSE IN WRITING DESCRIPTIVE TEXTS

ABSTRACT
This final project is a study about students’ errors in using simple present
tense in descriptive text made by the eighth year students of SMP N 2 Brebes. Almost
students consider writing is the most difficult skill than others. Therefore, the students
often make errors, and also when they use simple present tense in descriptive text.
This study was conducted under the consideration that simple present tense plays an
important role in writing a descriptive text.

The problems of this study are what dominant errors in descriptive texts are
made by the eighth year students of SMP N 2 Brebes and what possible causes of
those errors are.
The purposes of this study are to find out the dominant errors on simple
present tense in descriptive texts made by the eighth year students of SMP N 2
Brebes and to find out the possible causes of those errors.
The population of this study was the eighth year students of SMP N 2 Brebes
in the academic year of 2006/2007 which consisted of 7 classes; they were 8A, 8B,
8C, 8D, 8E, 8F, and 8G. The total number of the population was 294 students; out of
which 42 students were chosen as the samples. Cluster proportional random sampling
was used to collect the data proportionally to represent each of the group, so that they
were all well represented. The samples were taken 15% from every class to collect
the data. The instrument that was used is a written test consisting of an outline in
writing a descriptive text. In analyzing the data, error analysis is used in which there
are five steps; they are identifying the errors, classifying the errors, calculating the
errors, putting the result in tables and the last step is drawing conclusion.
Finally, the result of the analysis shows that there were 10 types of errors.
They are omission of be, wrong form of be, double be, wrong use of singular and
plural form, addition of be (before and after verb), omission of suffix -s/-es, wrong
use of verb, wrong form of modal auxiliary, omission of verb, and wrong form of
negative sentence.
It is concluded that the dominant errors lies on the omission of suffix –s/-es
from the verb of third person singular subjects in the students’ descriptive texts
whose proportion of the errors is 24.65%.
Based on the result of the research, it is suggested that the eighth year students
of SMP N 2 Brebes should be given intensive exercises on the correct structure of
simple present tense in their writing. It is quite necessary for the eighth year students
and the teacher of SMP N 2 Brebes to be informed about the result of this study so
that they can improve their teaching and learning process.

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