THE PROBLEMS FACED BY THE EIGHTH GRADE STUDENTS OF SMP NEGERI 7 PALEMBANG IN USING ENGLISH VERB TENSES

 

1. Background

            In Indonesia, English is taught as a compulsory subject to high school and college students.  At some elementary school, English has ever been introduced as local content subject to their fourth grade pupils.  The objective of teaching English to Indonesian students is that the students are able to communicate in English both oral and written.    To achieve the objective, the students have the four language skills, namely listening, speaking, reading and writing.  To support their language skills, the students should master the language components, such as pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary.

            Grammar is one of the language components that the students should master.  Grammar is a linguistic description of a particular language, a set of statements or rules that explain how the language works (Calderonello, 1986:481).  It is important to master grammar because a person who has good grammar mastery would be able to understand sentences produced by other people and to produce grammatical utterances/sentences understood by other people.  According to Langacker (1978:87), grammar is the language components that form the construction of the sentences.  The study and the use of the structure of the language should be more accurate and clear.  Learning a new language gives knowledge how to put words together in right order and other knowledge meaning.  One of the important things in learning the language is order to use the verb patterns.  This verb patterns are the basic elements of a sentence construction.

            Since the mastery of grammar is one of the elements that cannot be disregarded, it becomes a problem both teacher and students, and it is one of the reason to write this thesis.  One of the grammar items that should be taught at junior high school is five tenses of 16 tenses in English.   In this study, the writer would like to write the problems faced by the students in changing of the verbs tense:

For examples:

1) Students write                                  I am get up at five o’clock everyday

    The correct verb tense is                   I get up at five o’clock everyday.

2)  Students write                                 Mr. Boy is teach in the class right now

     The correct verb tense is                  Mr. Boy is teaching in the class right now.

            The problem for the students in sentence 1,  has to do with the verb Be (is, am, are) often used together with the verb, and in sentence 2, the students cannot understand the functional of Present Progressive.  Tense so that, verb Be and verb-ing often changes.  In this case, the teacher should have systematic knowledge how to eliminate that problem.  If the students understand and master the structure, they may develop their language skills.   Based on the explanation above the writer would like to write a thesis entitled “THE PROBLEMS FACED BY THE EIGHTH GRADE STUDENTS OF SMP NEGERI 7 PALEMBANG IN USING ENGLISH VERB TENSES.”

2. Problems of the Study

            To make the problems clear, the writer presents the limitation of the problem and the formulation of the problems. 

2.1 Limitation of the Problems

            The problem of this study will be focused on the eighth grade students’ problem in using the English verb tenses of SMP Negeri 7 Palembang.  The verb tenses are Present Progressive, Present Perfect, Simple Past Tense, and Simple Future Tense.

2.1.2 Formulation of the Problems

            There is only one main problem of this study that is “What problems are faced by the eighth grade students of SMP Negeri 7 Palembang in using English Verb Tenses?”

3.  The Objectives of this Study

            Based on the problem of this study, the main objective will be “to find out the students problem in using English Verb Tenses.”

4.  The Significance of the Study

            The writer hopes that this study will be useful for the writer herself to increase his knowledge of conducting a study and to enlarge of English, especially the verb tenses.  For the teacher of SMP Negeri 7 Palembang, the writer hopes the result of this study would be useful at least for giving information to the teacher in teaching grammar.  For the students it would give them motivation to study English especially in the verb of the tenses. This study will be carried out in order to describe the students’ problem in understanding and using the English verb tenses.