The Analysis of Student’s Ability In Distinguishing Present Tense and Past Tense at The Eleventh Grade of SMK Muhammadiyah Kutowinangun in The Academic Year of 2015/2016

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.