AN ANALYSIS OF STUDENTS’ ABILITY IN DISTINGUISHING SIMPLE PAST TENSE AND PAST PERFECT TENSE: A CASE STUDY OF SECOND SEMESTER STUDENTS OF ENGLISH EDUCATION PROGRAM OF MUHAMMADIYAH UNIVERSITY OF PURWOREJO IN THE ACADEMIC YEAR 2013/2014

Abstract

Grammar makes us possible to talk about language. One of the important concepts in grammar is tenses. Tense is a method that we use in English to refer to time present, past, and future. Being able to recognize and use tenses is important, wether spoken or written communication. There are many students of English Education Program don’t speak and write grammatically. They also don’t really understand to distinguish each tenses. The researcher wants to know how far they ability in distinguiishing simple past tense and past perfect tense. Therefore, this research was focused on analysis of student’s ability in distinguishing simple past tense and past perfect tense of the Second Semester at English Education Program of Muhammadiyah University of Purworejo in Academic Year 2013/2014. The objective of the study is to categorize the student’s ability in distinguishing simple past tense and past perfect tense and to explain the causes of student’s difficulties in distinguishing both of the tenses. It is expected that the research would be useful for the lecturers and students in language teaching and learning process. The instruments of the research used is test. the test is the teacher-made test that is multiple chioce and True False test concerning simple past tense and past perfect tense. The mothod used in this research is non-statistic method that is discriptive qualitative data analysis. The analysis techniques of the test are a) Collecting the data. b) Counting the total questtions answered by students. c) analysing the data. d) making conclution. e) analysing causes of students’ difficulties. The result of this research are: there are 6 students (18.18%) categorized very good category, 8 students (24.24%) categorized in good category, 7 students (21.21%) categorized in fair category, 12 students (36.36%) categorized in poor category, and there is no student including in very poor category. The writer conclude that the students’ ability in distinguishing simple past tense and past perfect tense is fair with the average score 64.02, the higest score is 92.5, and the lowest score is 45. There are 6 causes of students’ difficulties in distinguishing simple past tense and past perfect tense, namely, the Students have difficulty to differ regular verb and irregular verb; the students are confused in using to be of simple past tense; the students are confused in using modal auxiliary; the students are confused in using adverb of time; the students make error related to the rule after auxiliary did; the students are confused in using nominal sentence of past perfect tense.