Abstract:
This research is categorized as qualitative research. The aims of this thesis are
to categorize the student‟s ability in distinguishing simple present tense and past tense
and to explain the causes of student‟s difficulties in distinguishing both of the tenses.
This research was focused on analysis of student‟s ability in distinguishing simple
present tense and past tense at the eleventh grade of SMK Muhammadiyah
Kutowinangun in the academic year of 2015/2016.
The instruments of the research used are test and questionnaire. The method
used in this research is nonstatistic method that is descriptive qualitative data
analysis. The technique of collecting data are 1) Preparing the research instrument.
The test consists of 20 multiple choice and 20 questionnaire, 2) Giving test to the
students, 3) Giving questionnaire to the students, 4) Collecting the student‟s
worksheet and questionnaire.
In analyzing the data the researcher applies descriptive method. The
researcher goes through the following steps 1) Coding the data, 2) Identifying true
and false the data, 3) Counting the total questions that answered by the students, 4)
Describing the possible cause error made by the students in distinguishing simple
present tense and past tense based on the questionnaire
The result shows that there is no students categorized excellent, good, and
sufficient. There are 16 students (57.1%) categorized in fairly sufficient and 12
students (42.9%) categorized in low category. The average score 38.03, the highest
score is 55 and the lowest score is 10.Additionally, there are 8 causes of student‟s
difficulties in distinguishing simple present tense and past tense, such as: 1) The
students feel shy to ask when they fail to understand English materials, 2) The
students never repeat given materials of English at home, 3) The students have
difficulty in using verb of simple present tense, 4) The students have difficulty to
differ plural and singular noun, 5) The students have difficulty to decide “do, did,
does” of simple present tense and past tense, 6) The students have difficulty whether
using verbs or aux be of simple present tense, 7) The students have difficulty whether
using verbs or aux be of simple past tense, 8) The students fail to understand verb
transformation in English.
