Error Analysis Focusing on Tenses Usage in Writing of EFL Teaching

prof. dr. suswandari, m.pd.; hamzah puadi ilyas, ph.d.; silih warni, ph.d.;

Writing is a productive skill that requires many aspects to be mastered.
However, the problems of writing have been addressed in the EFL teachers’ writing. Therefore, this study aimed to identify the most common errors in the verb tenses of using present tense and past tense in EFL teachers’ writing products. It also aimed to investigate the causes of those errors. To investigate these two aspects, a qualitative study with a case study method was employed. There were five teachers had involved in this study. The primary instrument was taken from ten teachers’ journals. The whole primary data were identified and described based on the types of errors. The interview protocol had been conducted to deeply investigate the sources of errors.
The research findings showed the types of errors made by EFL teachers in verb tenses usage of present tense and past tense form cover omission, addition, misinformation and misordering. Furthermore, the most common errors occurred in omission in the use of verb “be”/ linking verb is/am/are/was/were/has/have. The results also showed that the cause of errors cover interlingual and intralingual aspects. The Interlingual transfer is an error that is influenced by the interference of learner’s mother language.
Meanwhile, the intralingual transfer occurs from faulty to construct concept and hypotheses about the second language.