THE STUDENTS’ ABILITY IN USING SIMPLE PAST TENSE IN THE SECOND GRADE OF MTS HIDAYATUSSIBYAN WADASLILITANG IN THE ACADEMIC YEAR OF 2012/2013

Abstract

The objective of the study are to know the students’ ability and to know what the students’ difficulties in using simple past  tense in the second grade of  MTs Hidayatussibyan wadaslintang in the academic year of 2012/2013. This research is descriptive quantitative research which conducted on second grade of  MTs Hidayatussibyan wadaslintang in the academic year of 2012/2013. The researcher took 30 students as the sample. The instrument of this research is test. It is multiple choice form which consists of 30 items. The researcher concludes that the students’ ability in using simple past tense is fair with the mean score 65.11. There are 9 students are include in very good category or 30%, 3 students are include in good category or 10%, 11 students are include in fair category or 36.7%, 7 students are include in poor category or 23.3% and there is no student include in very poor category or 0%. The highest score is 90 and the lowest score is 43.33. There are 4 kinds of the students’ difficulties in using simple past tense, namely, they have difficulty to differ regular verb and irregular verb; they are confused in using to be and auxiliary modal; they are confused in using adverb of time in simple past tense; and they make errors related to the rule after auxiliary did.

(Keywords: students’ ability, grammar, past tense)