EFL STUDENTS" WRITING ERRORS AND OBSTACLES IN LEARNING ENGLISH
Abstract
The research is intended to analyze the use of past tense auxiliarybe in 10th grade students" writing in one of the high schools in Banda Aceh. The objectives of this study were: (1) to investigate the students" errors in using was and werein their essays through AntConc software quantitatively, (2) to find out the students" obstacles in using past tense auxiliarybein their essays qualitatively. The results of AntConc corpus software showed that the most errors in the essays were the use of patternswas and werewithsubject+was/were+noun. This denotes that even for the simple past tense, the students still struggled to produce correct grammar in writing. To understand the students" obstacles, we interviewed 10 students. They revealed some reasons on why they faced difficulty in learning these tenses and English in general, they are: the system of grammar in Indonesian is very different from English, lack of vocabulary to write good sentences, lack of motivation (e.g. less support from family members, discrimination from the teachers in class, and being occupied with extracurricular activities after school), and the teachers" lack of proficiency.
Keywords
AntConc software, past tense auxiliary be, errors, obstacles, writing