ABSTRACT

Ratri Raharjo, Puput. 2018. The Ability of the English Department Students of Lambung Mangkurat University Banjarmasin Batch 2016 in Using Present Perfect Tense. Thesis. English Department, Faculty of Teacher Training and Education. Lambung Mangkurat University, Banjarmasin. Advisors : (1) Dr. Rina Listia, M.Pd, (2) Elvina Arapah, M.Pd.

Keywords : ability, Present Perfect tense

The Present Perfect tense is often related to the Simple Past tense. Both tenses are used to tell an action that takes place in the past, but they are different in term of form and usage. The researcher was interested to conduct a research about the ability of the English Department students in using Present Perfect Tense because students are more familiar with the use of Simple Past tense than Present Perfect tense and think that both tenses are similar. This research employed a quantitative approach and describe the result in descriptive form. The subject of this research are the English Department Students of Lambung Mangkurat University Banjarmasin Batch 2016 and purposive sampling technique was used on this research. A written test was used to collect the data. The result of the research showed that the ability of the English Department students is categorized ‘average’ with the average score is 61. The test with forming the sentences in the form of affirmative, negative and interrogative were answered correctly by 55% students, completing the sentences of Present Perfect was answered correctly by 80% students and changing the sentences from active sentence into passive sentence and from passive sentence into active sentence was answered correctly by 50% students. Based on the result, it is suggested that students take a lot of practice using Present Perfect tense especially using auxiliary have/has in the sentence and since Present Perfect is almost the same as Simple Past, learning through comparison can help to understand the difference.