Electronic Theses and Dissertation

This study deals with mastering simple past tense through short reading passage. the purposes of this research are to know whether short reading passage used can influence students' understanding in mastering simple past tense and to know the obstacle faced by students of smpn 2 banda aceh in mastering simple past tense. the population of this study is the second year students of smpn 2 banda aceh. the sample of this study was one class of the second year students. the total numbers of the samples were 40 students. the data in this study ware collected on march 10, 2007. the method applied in this study is descriptive quantitative analysis. the instruments used are test and questionnaire. the data of the test ware analyzed by using the formula of product moment correlation and questionnaire used percentage. the finding of the two instruments prove that r xy score is 0,464. according to interpretation of r score classification, the score 0,464 lies between 0,400 - 0,600 means that both simple past tense and short reading passage have correlation. furthermore, the students of smpn 2 banda aceh are interested in studying english, especially simple past tense. however, the students have the obstacles in mastering simple past tense such as they have difficulties in studying simple past tense (55 %) and they do not understand with changing of verbs and adverbs in teaching simple past tense (72,5 %). besides, they agree if the teacher use reading passage in teaching simple past tense (55 %) and also (60 %) the students can improve their ability in mastering simple past tense through short reading passage.