Rahman Anwar, Sayuti. 2020. A Study on the Students’ Ability in Using Simple Past Tense and Past Continuous Tense in Sentences of the English Education Study Program Batch 2019 FKIP ULM. Sarjana Thesis. English  Language Education Study Program, Faculty of Teacher Training and Education, Lambung Mangkurat University, Banjarmasin. The first advisor: Dr. Hj. Noor Eka Chandra, M.Pd, the second advisor: Rizky Amelia M.Pd.

Keywords: ability, Simple Past tense, Past Continuous tense.

            The Simple Past tense and Past Continuous tense are the common tenses of Past tense that the students still find it hard to use its verb. It makes the researcher interested to carry out a research of the English Language Education Study Program students’ ability who already took Basic Grammar in using tense in Simple past tense and Past Continuous tense.

 This research uses a descriptive-qualitative method. The subject of this research is the English Language Education Study Program students of Lambung Mangkurat University Batch 2019 who already took Basic Grammar. The samples of this research are 32 students. A written test was used to collect the data.

The result of the research showed that the ability of English Language Education Study Program students who already took Basic Grammar is in ‘poor’ category with the average score of 46. The test of completing sentences of Simple Past tense were answered correctly by of 49% students, changing tense in sentencens of Past Continuous tense were answered correctly by 41,5% of students, changing the tense with Simple Past tense or Past Continuous tense in sentences were answered correctly by 45% of students. Based on the result, it is suggested that students learn more about the vocabularies of verb II, and the structures of Past Continuous tense.