The Students’ Difficulties in Applying Simple Present Tense in Writing Descriptive Text

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to know the students’ difficulties in appying simple present tense in writing descriptive text at. This research is qualitative study. Subjects of this research are 30 students of grade seven in SMP Negeri 1 Pematangsiantar for academic year 2016/2017. The data are their descriptive writing text. The totals of the difficulties are 93 errors. The kinds of the difficulties are omission suffix -s/-es, wrong form of verb, ommision of be, wrong form of be, additional unnecessary elements of be, wrong use singular and plural noun, wrong use form negative sentence, wrong use article & no article and to infinitive. These are caused by overgeneralization, ignorance of the rules restrictions, incomplete application of rules, and false concept hypothesized. It is suggested that the students should be given intensive exercises on the correct structure of simple present tense in their writing.