An Analysis of Students’ Error on the Use of Simple Past Tense in Writing Narrative Text at SMA Adabiyah Palembang

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to find out the types of errors in the used of simple past tense in writing narrative text made by eleventh grade students of SMA Adabiyah Palembang. The method of this study was quantitative. The subject of this study was eleventh grade students of SMA Adabiyah Palembang, which consisted of 31 students. The data obtained from the writing task and then analyzed by using a percentage as a data analysis procedure. There were found 137 errors in writing narrative text which the most dominant type were in misformation found 73 (53,28%) errors, then followed by 51 (37,22%) errors in omission, next addition got 11 (8,05%) errors, and the lowest error in misordering was 2 (1,45%). The result showed that the researcher found four types of errors, misformation, omission, addition and the last misordering.