Author: Lili

Chapter I
Introduction
	This chapter focuses on giving introductory explanation of the research. It presents the research background, research problem, the limitation of the study, the objective of the study and the significance of the study.

1.1	Research Background
English as an international language has an important role to develop science and technologies many countries. In the world, English language use as a medium of communication among people in different countries. In Indonesia there are many kinds of foreign books written in English, whether they are Medical, Economical, Botanical, or other books. They claim Indonesian students to be able to learn and to use English in schools or in society in order that the books they read can be applied in various fields so that the development of science and technologies in Indonesia can be obtained.
For many years, English has been the most important foreign language in Indonesia, Which is taught from elementary school to university. However, in junior high school, English is taught as main subject in which the government has changed the curriculum into curriculum Based on Competence 2004. According to Departement Pendidikan Nasional (2003: 36):

“The competence-basing language curriculum is a systematic draft and strategy which build the communicative competence or the competence of contextual. It means that it builds all the basis of competences themselves. They are like linguistics competences, social culture and strategies to make the benefit context.”

From the statement above, it is clear that Curriculum Based on Competence 2004 tries to develop and achieve the communicative competence or discourse competence and has perspective that is comprehensive to the discourse. The learners must be able to master the four skills, they are: listening, speaking, reading and writing, also English components such as: grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, etc.
Among the four skills above, writing is the most difficult skills to acquire             because it requires demonstrating the control of a number of variables simultaneously; they are control of content, format, sentence structure, vocabulary, punctuation spelling, etc. Nunan (1989: 35) points out, “It has been argued that learning to write fluently and expressively is the most difficult of the macro skills for all language users regardless of whether the language in question is first, second, or foreign language.” Another opinion comes from Heaton (1989: 138). He explained that the writing skills are complex and sometimes difficult to teach, requiring mastery not only of grammatical and rhetorical devices but also of conceptual and judgment elements. It means that ability to write needs a special skill and process in organizing language material by using learner’s own words, ideas and to be a good composition.
According to the results of the research done by the students of the 2^nd Grade Students of Junior High School 36 Bandung Academic Year 2015-2016 show that in learning English, most of the students find difficulties, especially in applying grammar in their writing when they must write a composition focusing on narrative text that using Simple Past Tense. So, they will make mistakes and errors. It describes the learner’s ability in English is still poor and they need to be taught more effectively.
The learners often make mistakes and even errors in learning English, especially when they try to arrange sentences or use tenses in their writing. As a result, they will write sentences ungrammatically. Actually, ungrammatical sentences have great influence when the learners are writing sentences, it can be influenced by the first language which is different from the second language in written form. Therefore, the first language can be interfere learners in the process of the second language. Abbort (1981: 216) wrote,
“For pedagogic purposes, teachers and others more likely to be concerned with the performances of whole groups and especially with the problems they have in commons. For these purposes, we need to ensure that the data comes from fairly homogeneous groups as regards mother tongue, age, previous teaching and if possible, intelligence. Perhaps the most important of these factors is the mother tongue, particularly if phonological errors arte being studied.”

	From the statement above, it can be seen that errors in learning a second language are caused by the interference of the learner’s mother tongue. In other words, errors made by the learners sometimes are caused by use of the first language.
	Making errors are a natural and unavoidable part of the process of learning English. Many kinds of errors arise when the learners write because they do not master the English structure well. Also, errors are the inability of the students in using rules of the components and elements of the second language. Brown (1987: 170) said that “second language learning is a process that is clearly not unlike first language learning in its trial and errors nature”. It means that the learners cannot avoid errors in learning second language. That statement is supported by Wiganti (2000: 11)
“Many linguist and researcher have found out that learner’s errors may account the process of learning a target language, in other words, making errors is considered to be natural to the learners. More extremely, they hypothesize that errors should not be viewed as problems to be overcome, but rather as normal and inevitable features indicating the strategies that learners use.”

So almost all learners must make errors when they are learning English because it is difficult to separate error in the process of learning English.
	Students’ errors are very useful ways of showing what they have and have not learnt. Dubin F and Olshtain E (1986: 74) reported,: … , today errors are viewed 
as an integral part of the language-learning process from which we can gain very significant insight.” It tells that errors are important to study in order to understand the process of learning. A study of learners errors describes what problems the learners are having now and help the teacher to plan remedial work. In addition, the teacher should not see negatively as a sign of failure but see them positively as an indication of what the teacher still needs to teach. So, if the teacher tries to prevent students; errors, he/she never finds out what they do not know.
	There are four standard competences in curriculum based on competences in Curriculum Based on Competence 2004. One of them is writing. In writing students are hoped to be able to express many written meanings that have purposes in communicative, text structure etc. they can develop their writing in the forms of genre (Kinds of text) such as: narrative, descriptive, recount, news items, etc as a means of communications.
	In this case, the writer will analyze about the learners’ mistakes and error in their writing that use one of tenses, that is Simple Past Tense and of course the tense use for tells past events. To make easier, the writer will analyze from the student’s composition. In the learning English language, the learners often make mistakes and even errors especially when they try to arrange sentences or use tenses in their writing. The learners will make it because they will write sentences or text ungrammatically. Making errors are a natural and unavoidable part of the process of learning English. Many kinds of error arise when the learners write a composition or write something in other form text because they do not master the English structure well.
	To make a good composition, the students must be able to master and apply the structure correctly, especially about tense used. like as an explanation above, in this case the tense used is Simple Past Tense. If they cannot do that, of course, errors will arise. Automatically their writing will cause misunderstanding for the readers, because the readers cannot receive the message or expression of their idea well. Most of the students still find problem in using it, because of their limited mastery, especially the differences between regular and irregular verb.
	Therefore the writer wants to analyze the errors made by the students that they use when they try to write a composition and tries to give some solutions to overcome their problems. So, for the reason above, she chooses the title “An Error Analysis of Simple Past Tense in Student’s Composition focusing on Narrative text.” (A study towards the 2^nd Grade Students of Junior High School 36 Bandung Academic Year 2015-2016).

1.2	Research Problem
Based on the background of the study there are problems, which can be formulated after identifying the types of errors, produced the 2^nd grade students of junior high school 36 Bandung academic year 2015-2016.
The problems can be stated as follows:
1.	What kinds of Errors did the students produced in using Simple Past Tense when writing narrative text?
2.	What kinds of Errors did the students produced in using Simple Past Tense when writing questions based on narrative text?
3.	What kinds of students errors produced in using simple past tense when answer the questions?
4.	What influenced the student’s errors in writing narrative text?

1.3	Limitation of the Study
		In this study, the writer didn’t teach in the class. She just gave some exercise about Simple Past Tense that use to make a composition. The writer only took Indonesian students who were in the 2^nd Grade Students Junior High School 36 Bandung. The students just focus on one tense that is Simple Past Tense to make a composition. They didn’t concentrate on all structure/tense problems found in students doing. And then the writer will do interview to the teachers that teach in the school especially the teacher that teach English language and she will try to describe what the teacher’s difficulties in teaching Simple Past Tense and the last
The writer will try to describe what the student’s opinion about using Simple Past
Tense especially when they must use it in their writing composition.

1.4	Objectives of the Study
		This study has their objectives relating to the formulation of the problems above. They can be stated as follows:
1.	To describe the errors of Simple Past Tense produced by students when writing narrative text.
2.	To find out student’s difficulties in using Simple Past Tense when writing questions based on narrative text.
3.	To find out the student’s errors in using Simple Past Tense when answer questions.
4.	To find out the influence of errors produced by students of SMP Negeri 36 Bandung.

1.5	Significance of Study
		The use of the result of the study has great signficance:
1.5.1	For the teacher:
1.	Teacher will know the errors that usually produced by students on the use of Simple Past Tense.
2.	Teacher will be able to overcome the problem of using the simple past tense encountered by students.
1.5.2	For the Students
1.	The students will be able to study the Simple Past Tense.