INTRODUCTION.
The importance of learning English as a second language has grown in recent years in Indonesia. English is a crucial language for international progress, and the Indonesian government recognizes this. Students in Indonesia study English as their primary subject because of its significance in the country's economic, scientific, and technological development. English has been taught at all levels of education, from primary school to university. Unfortunately, in remote areas in Indonesia, English still becomes a strange subject since not all remote students are interested to learn a foreign language because they are not even fluent enough in Bahasa Indonesian. Due to the continual use of local languages, students have zero interest when being introduced to English lessons. Other than that, English has a different grammatical structure and language system, making learning even more challenging. However, with the globalization demands and today's developments, English has become a necessary global language. Hence, many advanced approaches and learning methods are being adopted and implemented in the Indonesian curriculum for the English language teaching framework, such as grammar translation method, direct or natural approach, TPR (Total Physical Response), audiolingual, and many more that have different learning objectives. English grammar instruction, particularly the tenses, is prioritized in the field above other skills. Simple past tense is one of the tenses that Indonesian students have trouble with. In order to analyze the types of problematic uses, causes of mistakes, and solutions which include the analysis of suitable methods for simple past tense teaching in the classroom, the study of the incorrect usage of simple past tense produced by Indonesian students will be explained in this paper.
I. THE KINDS OF ERRORS IN UTILIZING SIMPLE PAST TENSE
Each learner of the English language studies grammar as one of the building blocks of the language. It's crucial to grasp the nuances of the English language. With a firm grasp of grammar, students can construct sentences and articulate their thoughts in written and oral presentations, discussions, and other forms of communication. Students with excellent grammar knowledge can also express themselves confidently and clearly in written and spoken English.
Tense is a fundamental concept in English grammar that describes specific occurrences, activities, and actions in time (Freeman & Murcia, 2016). In other words, tense describes the status of the verbs at various points in time. English has three main tenses: present, past, and future. Each tense clarifies an activity that happens in the present, the past, and the future. For example, "I eat rice every day" (present), "I ate rice yesterday" (past), and "I will eat rice tomorrow morning" (future). In its use in a sentence, we might put the adverb of time to emphasize the specific time in which the events happened. Tense is a way to express actions with a temporal component. This temporal component is known as the aspect. Aspect and tense are two unseparated elements. Aspect denotes specifically the duration, frequency, and completion of the action. As an illustration, the past tense will be used to describe an action that took place in the past, but the aspect will precisely indicate whether the activity has ended or is still in process. There are four aspects in tenses: simple, perfect, progressive, and perfect progressive. A complete collaboration of tense and aspect will clarify what kind of sentence and when exactly the action is done. For example, “I took a shower yesterday” (simple past tense). As we can see, the activity was completed in the past (which was yesterday). Furthermore, the six common tenses addressed in Indonesian’s English teaching framework are simple present tense, past tense, present and past continuous tense, present and past perfect, and simple future tense. Indonesian students find learning tenses difficult for several reasons; one is the difference between the English and Indonesian paradigms of verbs, which remains the same. In Bahasa Indonesia "saya (SUB) pergi(V) ke sekolah setiap hari minggu'. It occurs frequently. Then, "saya(SUB) sedang pergi(V) ke sekolah sekarang", it appears during the progress events. The phrase "saya(SUB) pergi(V) ke sekolah kemarin" then indicates past occurrences. From the example, it can be seen that despite the aspects, Bahasa Indonesia does not require a verb change. "Pergi," which means "go," will always be "pergi" in whatever context of time. Meanwhile, in English: "I go to school Every Monday." denotes habits. The phrase "I am going to the school now" indicates the progress events. In addition, the phrase "I went to the market yesterday" marks the past occurrences. Therefore, the English language does require tenses to modify verbs based on temporal aspects. This is a prime cause of why Indonesian students experience difficulties and tend to produce errors in English verbs. From time to time, it has inspired scholars and practitioners to study many mistakes in English grammar in general by Indonesian students. One is a study conducted by Wahyuni Setti, an undergraduate student of Muhammadiyah University of Makassar who analyzed simple past tense in the narrative text made by the third semester of English department students at the Muhammadiyah University of Makassar Indonesia. The participants in this study were students enrolled in the English Department at Muhammadiyah University in Makassar who were in their third semester. Two hundred twenty-eight students from seven different classes were a part of it. The data analysis shows some kinds of simple past tense errors in the narrative text produced by the students. Those are errors of omission, errors of addition, and misinformation. The error of omission happened because the students could not create a component essential to a grammatically correct utterance. In this particular instance, the students made mistakes in their narrative writing by deleting some words and making incomplete sentences. Wahyuni Setti (2018) classifies this type of error as 1) omission of verbs, 2) omission of to be, 3) regular past marker of –ed, 4) omission of be, 5) omission of not, 6) omission of letter of verbs. For example, “they promise” instead of “they promised”. As we can see, the students mostly did not change the verb to past form and omitted the -ed mark. Moreover, in error addition, the students committed an error by including non-required elements in one or more sentence components. The students carried out addition errors of the following types: 1) addition of suffix "s" in the past sentence, considered Regularizations addition; 2) addition of to be in a verbal sentence; 3) addition of ed; 4) addition of verbs; these three types considered double marking addition; 5) addition of to; and 6) addition letter of verbs. For example, “The other one didn’t knew” instead of “The other one didn’t know”. In the preceding example, students identified both items (verbs) as past form when only the word "didn't" is required to indicate simple past tense. Besides, the misinformation type of error happened when the students repeatedly use to be present for a past tense sentence, for instance, “There are two best friends” instead of “There were two best friends”. Students also misunderstood the present form irregular verb in simple past tense as shown in “Slowly leave the place” instead of “Slowly left the place”. other than that, students also have a wrong perspective regarding the modality verbs. They tended to use modals in present form for past tense, for example, “They will always together” when it should be “They would always be together.”
I.I DRIVING FORCE FOR THIS ANALYSIS
As a foreign language learner and a prospective English teacher, I perceive that errors and misconceptions in learning a foreign language with a completely different grammatical structure are inevitable. Therefore, they must be deemed a component of cognition.
Since the beginning, this problematic language use with simple past tense has piqued my interest due to two imperative reasons. Firstly, as I read the present focus of study on second language acquisition in Indonesia's English teaching curriculum, simple past tense is one of the common errors Indonesian students produce. Other research entitled "Analysis Of Error Using Simple Past Tense on Recount Text Class VIII B Students of SMP Pelita Ngabang in Academic Year 2019/2020 Landak Districts" conducted by Faridha et al. (2020), "An Error Analysis Of Using Simple Past Tense On Students' Writing Recount Text At The Eighth Grade of SMP Negeri 4 Tuhemberua In 2020/2021" conducted by Harefa et al. (2022), and many more have proved that Indonesian students still have the similar difficulty in encountering simple past tense. As a subset of tenses that indicate past events, the past tense is said to be simple since it only seeks to describe an event that took place in the past, not to demonstrate that it was committed. We can specify the date and time of the occurrence. Reflecting on the paradigm that Bahasa Indonesian does not change the verb to past form, students produce the same errors from time to time. This has motivated me to learn and implement effective simple past tense teaching strategies so my prospective students will no longer experience similar difficulty.
My introspection is another factor that makes this particular language issue essential for me to discuss. I realized I had been in the same situation as the Indonesian students who participated in Setti's research due to my struggles with learning English, mainly the simple past tense. Because my classmates and I should have mastered the past forms of irregular verbs, I needed help understanding the simple past tense. Other than that, while attempting to write a simple past tense, it was sometimes challenging to determine whether a verb is regular or irregular. We also understand how crucial it is to correctly employ the simple past tense while speaking and writing in everyday circumstances. It will influence how our speaking partners or readers know what we are trying to express.
I had the chance to participate in a global Catholic student movement while I was in school. This experience made it necessary for me to be able to speak with students from other countries and to discuss folklore, our society's daily routine in the village, and cultural values throughout our event. My understanding of grammar, particularly tenses, could have improved at the time. I frequently needed to correct mistakes when retelling the narrative in front of the other participants, confusing the audience inadvertently. Even though everyone seemed to understand the main points of my story by the end of the activity, I realized how essential it is to learn the simple past tense as one of the English tenses. However, since I chose to pursue a profession as an English teacher in Indonesia, this experience encouraged me to pay greater attention to grammar. I plan to improve my knowledge of teaching grammar in the classroom by studying, conducting research, and learning from peers with different teaching experiences.
II. CAUSES OF ERRORS AND REFLECTION OF PREVIOUS STUDIES
Most results from research investigating simple past mistakes showed that students struggle with utilizing the simple past tense, particularly the past form of the verb and to be. It indicates that Indonesian students need to comprehend the correct use of the simple past tense or its principles. As mentioned previously, the first reason causing this error is the mother tongue’s interference or Bahasa Indonesia’s grammatical structure, which does not change the verbs. In other words, Bahasa Indonesia does not have inflectional verbs like English does. This impacts students’ understanding when they learn English verb forms for the past aspect (Manian & Rajagopal, 2016). Therefore, when writing a sentence in the simple past tense, they tend to reflect their mother tongue’s structure and thus make them stuck with the same verb for the past form.
1Setiap hair, aku makan nasi goreng
Every day, I eat fried rice
2Kemarin pagi, aku makan nasi goreng
Yesterday morning, I ate Fried rice
In this illustration, the verb “makan” in Bahasa Indonesia does not change no matter when the activity is done. The first sentence in Bahasa Indonesia shows a habitual activity, while the second displays a past event. Although Bahasa Indonesia does not do anything with the verbs to indicate the temporal aspect, it does have an adverb of time to represent the time of the event. In the sentence above, the adverbs of time are “setiap hari which means every day” and “kemarin pagi" which means yesterday morning.”
To give us an idea of how Indonesian students make errors because of this reason, the data set
cited from (Setti, W. 2016, p. appendix) is presented below.
As shown in the data sets above, when retelling events that occurred in the past for narrative purposes, Indonesian students misunderstood that English verbs also do not change like Bahasa Indonesia. When they were supposed to write “there were two best friends,” they used the present to be “are”. The same thing also happened for verbal sentences. When students were supposed to write “they knew”, they wrote, “they know”. In other examples, students omitted the -ed ending for regular verbs, like “climb” instead of “climbed.” This fact shows how most Indonesian students learning English tenses still need help differentiating between Indonesian and English grammar paradigms, specifically for the past forms of regular and irregular verbs. These components are essential. Therefore, a strategic teaching approach focusing on these items should also be prioritized.
Another source of simple past tense error is ignorance of its rules. Kinds of the error caused by this are the omission of the past form of the verb and to be and the addition error, which includes regularization and double marking. As explained earlier in types of errors, an omission error occurs when a part of a sentence that should be included is left out or when a necessary element is missing in a grammatically correct sentence. Such errors typically manifest in the form of morphemes. Indonesian students who do not comprehend the rule of simple past tense tend to omit the past to be and verb when writing or producing a sentence. For example, 1“I sleepy” when it is supposed to be 2“I was sleepy”. This error occurred because there is no to be “was” in the first sentence. A similar error can also be viewed in data set 1, p.8. Another error is also shown in this example cited from (Situmorang et al., 2018, p. 67), “She were angry” instead of “she was angry”. The students failed to choose the correct to be “was”.
Moreover, the error of addition caused by regularization occurs when exceptions are overlooked and rules are incorrectly applied to situations where they do not belong. For instance, using "telled" instead of "told." Furthermore, Indonesian students frequently make double-marking errors where they fail to remove elements only needed in specific linguistic contexts. This often results in an English sentence having two tense markers instead of just one. For example, “She didn’t came last night” and “I could ate the whole wedding cake”. In these sentences, the students did not realize they used two markers to indicate simple past tense. They misunderstood if the main verb should be changed into the past form after the auxiliary, which is entirely incorrect.
The last source of error comes from an ineffective learning strategy of memorization. For beginner-level students, learning English may sound complicated when it comes to memorizing all the structures and rules of tenses. For example, in terms of the regular and irregular verbs for simple past tense, students are expected to be able to categorize whether this verb is regular or irregular. Unfortunately, not all students are good at memorizing details. Some do not even think memorization is an effective strategy for tenses instruction. A study pertaining to memorization as a strategy for learning English conducted by Khamees (2016) revealed that English language learners who adopt this strategy often forget what they memorized and were incompetent to make inferences. In learning English, this may be seen as a low-level neurological technique that can be utilized in conjunction with other high-level cognitive techniques. Although it does not explicitly cover the idea of regular and irregular verbs for past tense, this study investigates the extent of learners’ use of the memorization strategy. These reasons motivate them to memorize the problems they encounter and the techniques they use to overcome them. The result suggests that memorization is ineffective for learning English as a foreign language.
III. EFFECTIVE TEACHING APPROACH FOR SIMPLE PAST TENSE
The analysis conducted by scholars to investigate the error use of simple past tense by Indonesian students nowadays creates more studies and development of the practical learning strategy that can be implemented in the classroom to improve students’ comprehension of simple past tense concepts and rules. Some existing approaches are used to enhance students' understanding of simple past tense, such as task-based Learning, cooperative Learning, creative media that include folktales and songs, and contextual learning.
Firstly, task-based learning (TBL), or task-based language, is a strategy based on the idea that learners may perform better when their attention focuses on the task rather than the linguistic material they are currently utilizing (Pratiwi, D. 2009). Task-Based Learning uses tasks as media to improve students` understanding. The task given for simple past instruction can be in the form of recount text completions, narrative text writing, and retelling projects highlighting important components of past tense rules and assessment tests, including diagnostic, formative, and summative assessment. By working on tasks that promote attention on how to avoid the common problematic error of past tense, students can comprehend more the concept of this tense. There are many successful studies of TBL implementation for simple past-tense instruction. One of them is a study conducted by (Pratiwi, D). According to the findings, using task-based Learning to teach students the simple past tense resulted in a meaningful improvement in the student's understanding of the subject. Additionally, the study's questionnaire revealed that the students were enthusiastic about this approach and, consequently, driven to master the simple past tense.
Moreover, cooperative Learning is also perceived to be one of the effective approaches for simple past-tense instruction. Cooperative Learning is a method where a small group of students collaborates to complete a shared objective to achieve mutual learning objectives (Johnson, 2014). Through this approach, students pool their resources, exchange information, pose and answer inquiries, and motivate each other to enhance individual and group learning. One of the cooperative learning techniques is jigsaw (Hizbullah, 2010). To use the jigsaw technique for teaching the simple past tense, the instructor can create small groups and assign each group a specific aspect of the topic, such as regular, irregular verbs, narrative text, and the difference between simple past tense and past perfect tense. Then, the students collaborate in groups to gain expertise in this tense. After that, the teacher can mix up the groups to create new ones, each with one student from every original group. The students then exchange their knowledge and teach others about the various aspects of the simple past tense within their new group, enabling them to understand the topic comprehensively.
Furthermore, creative media such as songs and folktales are adequate to help students recognize simple past tense. A folktale is a story orally transmitted within a culture from one generation to another, featuring imaginary characters and events that convey a message or lesson. Simple past tense in folktales can promote how past forms of regular and irregular verbs are employed. Folktales can aid students in easily memorizing and recognizing verb forms, including the simple past tense in positive, negative, and interrogative structures (Utami, T. p. 17. 2016). Additionally, there are some success stories of implementing songs as media to teach simple past tense, such as the study conducted by Zain (2010). After the treatment, students find it fun and easier to understand the concept of simple past tense. Their performance on the assessment test also proves it. Using songs as a tool for teaching simple past tense can be effective since they utilize repetitive patterns and memorable tunes that can aid in retention. By choosing songs that contain simple past tense verbs, students can both listen and sing along with the lyrics, which can help them to comprehend and memorize the verb forms. Furthermore, educators can generate exercises based on song lyrics that involve filling in gaps where students must apply simple past tense verb forms while listening or reading along. This method can make the learning experience for simple past tense more exciting and pleasant for learners while at the same time bolstering their understanding of the grammatical framework.
The last teaching approach discussed in this paper is contextual Learning. Contextual teaching is a method of teaching that focuses on linking what is learned in the classroom to practical, real-life situations and experiences. Teachers can facilitate comprehending and applying simple past tense by incorporating actual situations and materials, like personal accounts or news articles, into the learning process. For instance, teachers could provide a news article about a significant event or achievement and ask students to recognize and analyze the simple past tense verbs used in the text. By contextualizing grammar teaching in this manner, students can better understand the significance and usage of simple past tense in different settings, Ovalina (2010).
IV. LESSON PLAN
School : Junior high School
Lesson : English
Class/semester/level : 7/1/pre-intermediate
Theme : Simple past tense in Folktale text
Skill : Listening, writing, reading, speaking.
Method : TBLT with a creative medium: folktale
Time allocation : 90 minutes
Materials are as follows
· Video of storytelling
· Handouts of the concept of Simple past tense.
· Handouts for the tasks (the completion task of folktale transcription)
Learning objective :
By the end of the lesson, students will be able to
· to recognize past tense verbs in the story and understand their meaning within the context,
· to grasp the correlation between the past tense verbs and the events in the folktale,
· to apply the rules for forming the simple past tense of regular and irregular verbs,
· to retell the folktale in the past tense using proper sentence structures and verb forms.
Procedure :
1. Warm-up (10 mins):
Begin by asking students to share what they did yesterday or over the weekend with their peers sitting beside them.
Asking the students to report their discussion in front of the class (These two activities are meant to promote students’ communicative competence habitually).
Write some of their responses on the board (the past verb forms)
2. Introduction/Pre-Task (15 mins):
The teacher explains the concept of simple past tense and examples of common regular and irregular verbs in folktales and narrative stories.
The teacher explains the characteristics of folktale and narrative story
The teacher gives examples of sentences in the simple past tense
The teacher explains the form of the task that will be done today (The Snow White storytelling video, the task they have to do, etc.)
3. Task 1 (25 mins):
Present the video of the storytelling “Snow White” twice or three times.
Ask students to identify some of the past tense verbs in the text and write them on the handouts to be submitted.
The video: https://ranisiami08.wixsite.com/website/post/video-storytelling
The handouts of the task. Task 1 is targeted to test students’ listening and writing comprehension. This task can also measure students’ prior knowledge of simple past tense.
After students submit, check on their answers and give feedback as well as the new handouts of the transcription of Snow White story.
Handouts 2. Transcription of Snow White Story (the answer is to be discussed together)
Once upon a time there (1) live a little girl named Snow White. She (2) live with her Aunt and Uncle because her parents (3) (be) dead. One day she (4) hear her Uncle and Aunt talking about leaving Snow White in the castle because they both (5) want to go to America and they did (6) have enough money to take Snow White. Snow White did not (7) want her Uncle and Aunt do this so she (8) decide it would be best if she (9) run away.. The next morning she (10) run away from home when her Aunt and Uncle were having breakfast. She (11) runaway into the woods. She (12) (be) tired and hungry. Then she (13) see this little cottage. She (14) knock but no one (15) answer, so she (16) go inside and ( 17) fall asleep. Meanwhile, the seven dwarfs were coming home from work. They (18) go inside. There, they (19) find Snow White sleeping. Then Snow White (20) wake up. She (21) see the dwarfs said, “what is your name?. Snow White said, “My name is Snow White. Doc said, “if you wish, you may live here with us”. Snow White said, “Oh could I?. Thank you”. Then Snow White (22) tell the dwarfs the whole story and Snow White and the 7 dwarfs (23) live happily.
· Together with students, categorize the irregular and regular verbs. (Call out students’ names for discussion).
Guided Practice (10 mins):
Provide handouts with practice exercises on identifying regular or irregular verbs.
Handouts 3 guided practice.
I had a very bad weekend. On Friday night, I ________ (go) downtown to meet my friend Alex. We ________(want) to go to the movies, but he ________(not come), so I _________ (watch) the movie alone. Early on Saturday morning, my Father _________ (call) me and we _________(work) in the yard. I hate working in the yard. In the afternoon, I ___________(go) shopping with my girlfriend. I _________ (see) a lot of nice things to buy, but I_________(lose) my wallet and _______(not buy) nothing. On Sunday, my sister was sick so I ________(stay) at home and________(care) for her all day. It really ________ (not have) fun this weekend.
Students work in pairs to complete this exercise, and the teacher monitors their progress and provides feedback.
4. Independent Practice (15 mins):
Students individually write a short paragraph about an experience using simple past tense verbs.
The teacher collects the paragraphs to assess understanding and provide feedback.
5. Conclusion (10 mins):
Recap the key points learned in the lesson, including the formation and usage of simple past tense verbs.
Encourage students to continue practicing and using simple past tense daily.
Assessment:
The teacher can assess the students' understanding of the lesson by collecting and reviewing their completed exercises and paragraphs.
CITATION
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Freeman, D & Murcia, M. (2016). The Grammar Book: Form, Meaning, And Use For English Language Teachers. Sherrise Roehr.
Harefa et al. (2022). an error analysis of using simple past tense on students’ writing recount text at the eighth grade of smp negeri 4 tuhemberua in 2020/2021. Tehude Journal of English Language Education, 1(1), 28-35. Retrieved from https://ojs.unias.ac.id/index.php/tehude/article/view/92
Hizbullah. Teaching Simple Past Tense By Using Cooperative Learning; An Experimental Study at Second Grade of MTS Pembangunan Jakarta. Thesis: Department of English Education Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University. Jakarta: 2010.
Simple Past Lesson Plan Using the Communicative Approach. Ontesol. https://esl-lesson-plans.ontesol.com/simple-past-lesson-plan/
Johnson, D. W., Johnson, R. T., & Smith, K. A. (2014). Cooperative learning: Improving university instruction by basing practice on validated theory. Journal on Excellence in College Teaching, 25(3&4), 85-118.
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Ovalina. Improving Student’s Ability in Using Simple Past Tense through Contextual Teaching Learning. Thesis: Faculty of Tarbiyah and Teaching Training Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University. Jakarta. 2010.
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Setti, W. An Error Analysis on The Use of Simple Past Tense in Narrative Text Made By The Third Semester Of English Department Students at Muhammadiyah University Of Makassar. Undergraduate Thesis. English Education Department, University of Makassar. 2018.
Situmorang et al. (2018). An analysis on the errors in using simple past tense made by students at class VIII C in SMP trisakti I medan. Kairos ELT Journal, 2(1), 64-78.
Utami, T. Teaching and Learning simple Past Tense By Using Folktalesat The First Semester Of Theeleventh Grade Of Sma Negeri 1 Sumberejo Tanggamus In The Academic Year 2016/2017. Thesis: Tarbiyah and Teacher Training Faculty the State Institute of Islamic Studies. Raden Intan Lampung. 2016.
Zain, Noorma Fitriana M. The Affectiveness Teaching Simple Past Tense by Using the Medium of English Songs. Thesis: Tarbiyah Faculty State Institute of Islamic Studies Walisongo. Semarang. 2010.
Cheers | G.April
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