Errors in the Use of Simple Past Tense Commited by EFL Students’.

Simple past tense is a tense that describes an event that happened in the past.
Students in Indonesia still have difficulty in using simple past tense, they often have
difficulty in distinguishing between regular and irregular verbs in the simple past
tense. This can occur due to a lack of understanding and mastery of students towards
grammar, resulting in error. Therefore, this research is conducted to investigate
grammatical errors, especially in the use of the simple past tense by students.
The problem of this study is what type of errors are made by students of SMP
Miftahul Ulum Rambipuji of using simple past tense? and what are the causes of the
students make errors in using the simple past tense?. This study aimed to describe the
type of errors made by students of SMP Miftahul Ulum Rambipuji of using simple
past tense and to find out the causes of students to make errors in using the simple
past tense.
This study is descriptive qualitative research method. The subject of this
research was the eighth grade students at SMP Miftahul Ulum Rambipuji, comprised
of 28 students. The instrument of this research were writing task, questionnaire, and
interview.
It was found that 3 kinds of errors are committed by the students. The three
errors were omission with 20 errors, addition with 2 errors, and misformation with
386 errors. Based on analysis of questionnaire and interview, it was found that the
causes of student making error were overgeneralization, false concept hypothesized,
and ignorance of the rules’ restrictions
Based on the research result, it can be concluded that the most types errors
were commited by students is misformation error, and the causes of students in
making error in the use of simple past tense were overgeneralization, ignorance of the
rules' restrictions, and false concept hypothesized.