Investigating Junior High School Students’ Errors in Using English Past Tense: A Look From Technological and Sociological Foundations

Abstract

This study aims at investigating junior high school students’ errors in using English past tense in their English compositions. The subjects of this study were 8th-grade students in a junior high school in North Bali. This study employed descriptive qualitative research which describes the error that was produced by EFL learners. There were four steps in collecting the data namely, asking the students to watch a video, telling them to write recount text through guided writing, collecting the learners' writing, identifying the students' errors in writing past tense, and classifying the errors. The data were analysed using Corder's framework to classify students' errors. The study revealed that there were nine types of errors produces by EFL learners. The errors are applying Indonesian syntactic pattern, using Indonesian acronym, omitting the plural marker -s, adding plural marker -s in a singular form, deleting BE, using incorrect word choice, adding articles, overgeneralising, and using incorrect word order. The errors show that the students tend to use their native language structure in composing the English past tense. Hence, the errors made by students and acknowledged by teachers should be addressed immediately by implementing appropriate strategies and materials to enhance learning. Furthermore, this study can be conducted for further research with different subjects as well as references for applied linguistics courses.

Grammatical Features in Indonesia English: A Study of Indonesian College Students

“…Due to the fact that a copula is not required, predication may be expressed using a two-word or one-word nonverbal utterance (Adnyani et al, 2018). Various studies have reported the absence of BE in a student's English production (Burhansyah, 2019;Fauziati, 2011;Fauziati & Maftuhin, 2016;Gayo & Widodo, 2018;Iman, 2020;Kusumawardani & Adnyani, 2020;Mandarani, 2020;P. Sari et al, 2020).…”

“…So far, research has concentrated on error analysis and interlanguages (Aini et al, 2020;Burhansyah, 2019;Fauziati, 2011Fauziati, , 2017Fauziati & Maftuhin, 2016;Fauziati & Nugroho, 2019;Gayo & Widodo, 2018;Gumilar et al, 2018;Kusumawardani & Adnyani, 2020;Maheswari et al, 2020;Mandarani, 2020;Pratiwi et al, 2020;Puspita, 2019;E. Sari, 2016;P. Sari et al, 2020;Suwastini et al, 2020;Tiarina, 2017).…”