Errors of Past Tense Inflection in Students Talk: Qualitative Study on Speaking for Social Purposes Course

Abstract

The research addressed errors of past tense inflection in student talk during Speaking for Social Purposes course of English Language Education Program (ELE), Faculty of Language and Arts, Universitas Kristen Satya Wacana (FBS-UKSW). This study attempted to answer the research question: “In which grammatical part did students make most error in their talk?” There were four classes of Speaking for Social Purposes class. To collect the data, a qualitative study used in this research, observations and interviews were used in this study in one class. For the observations, three times observations were done by the researchers, and fifteen students were participated. For the next step, interviews were collected by three students in the same class, three students were selected to be interviewed in random order. The result of this study showed past tense (simple past tense) was the most common errors during students’ talk.