Abstract:
Grammar is essential as the rules of word to make the sentences to be
meaningful. A sentence will be a grammatically correct if the sentence has right
pattern. Tenses is the material of grammar. Especially in Junior high school,the
students should mastersimple past tense in the eighth grade. They will learn the
formula, the use, and the rules of simple past tense, butusually ability of students
to deliver material of simple past tense in each other is different. Therefore, this
research focus on analysis of students' ability in using pasttense in the Eight Grade
at SMPN 1 BuayanKebumen in The Academic Year of 2016/2017.
This objective of the study is to describe the students’ ability in using past
tense andto find out the casual factor related to the students’ ability in using past
tense. It is expected that the research would be useful for the teachers and students
in language teaching and learning process.
This research is qualitative research. The instrument of the researcher used
is test to describe the students’ ability and quesionnaires to find out the casual
factor of students’ abilty. There are 62 students who participate in the research.
The analysis tehcniques of the data are 1). Coding the data 2). Counting the score
of the students 3). Classifying the data 4). Describing the casual factor by the
students in using past tense on the questionnaires5). Drawing conclusion and
suggestion
The result of this research in analysis the students’ ability in using past
tense are 15 students (24.2%) categorized excellent, 12 students (19.4%)
categorized good, 20 students (32.3%) categorized sufficent, 11 students (17.7%)
categorized fairly sufficent and 4 students (6.5%) categorized low. There are 4
casual factor related to this students’ ability in using past tense. Those are 1). The
students feel difficulty using verb in simple past tense. 2). The students do not
understand about regular and irregular verb. 3). The students have difficulty in
change sentences in the other formula to be simple past tense. 4). The students can
not make interrogative sentences using simple past tense.
