Teaching Simple Past Tense in Writing to EFL by Using YouTube

Teaching Simple Past Tense in Writing to EFL by Using YouTube Paramita Kusumawardhani University of Bina Sarana Informatika, Indonesia [email protected] Abstract This paper explores about the use of short story in YouTube in teaching simple past tense to English Foreign Learners (EFL). The development of technology has influenced in English teaching learning ways. There are some skills that should be mastered by the learners in learning English, they are listening, speaking, reading and writing. Technology can be used in all English skills, such as the use of YouTube in teaching writing. There are many short stories in YouTube that can be used as one of the media in teaching writing. Stories are related to tenses. Stories are also related to simple past tense. Simple past tense is used in retelling story. Simple past is used to show about the activity which had done in the past. There are two kinds of verb used in simple past; they are regular and irregular verb. Regular verb is the verb by adding – d, -ed, and –ied after the verb, examples: bake – baked, cook – cooked, and carry – carried; while irregular verb is the verb which some are not changed in form and some are completely changed in form, such as hit – hit, put – put, set – set, drive driven, bring – brought, and think – taught. The results of the research are: (1) most EFL have understood about the pattern of simple past tense; (2) most of them have known about using whether regular or irregular verbs; (3) some of them made mistakes by omitting the letters whether regular or irregular verb. Keywords: Teaching, Simple Past Tense, EFL, YouTube INTRODUCTION English has been used in all aspects in human daily life. English has also been used in education, start from early age until university students. The learners should master and comprehend all skills in English first before it is used well whether in daily life, education or all aspects in life. Studying English is related to the skills; they are listening, speaking, reading and writing. Writing has become the most difficult skill in studying and learning English. It becomes difficult as what it is said is different with what it is written. (Jakarta, 2018), “Writing is productive skills for writing an indirect communication and the nature of the character is very different from that expressed by speaking directly, therefore writing is included an ability”. Todd 174 in (Fadilah, 2018) also stated that the association of a meaning with a sign, a visual symbol is related to writing. Writing is related to grammar. Grammar is the system of rules governing the conventional arrangement and relationship of words in a sentence (Brown, 2001). Grammar is involved to the three dimensions of what linguists refer, such as morphosyntax, semantics, and pragmatics, ftg. Murcia as cited in (Taufik, 2013). Then grammar is related to tenses. English has been said to have 12 “tenses”. Tense actually relates to times, they are: present, past and future. Murcia as cited in (Taufik, 2013) has named four aspects, they are: simple (sometimes called zero aspect), perfect, progressive, and their combination, perfect progressive present, past and future. Based on the explanation above, it can be concluded that grammar needs to be comprehended and mastered to write in English. Grammar is related to tenses and there are 12 tenses that should be known, comprehended and mastered by the EFL. LITERATURE REVIEW The Nature of Grammar Swan as cited in (Jakarta, 2018) defines grammar as the rules that show how words are combined, arranged, or changed to show certain kinds of meaning. Swan suggests that the teaching of grammar should be determined by the needs of the students. Grammar is a method to make a good sentence and coherence each word, through arrange a word, phrase, and clause until to be a good sentence, but not only about to arrange a good sentence it is describe about sound and pronouncing too. Good pronunciation reflects good understanding of listener, it means good in pronouncing word to word in articulation, saying sentence structure and using of tenses. (Aarts, 2011) said, “Grammar is concerned with the structure of words (morphology) and of phrases and clauses (syntax).” Grammar is a process of forming words from the small unit, then to be phrases and also clauses until to be a higher form that unit of sentence. Hopper as cited in (Brisard, 2009), “Grammar is discrete set of rules which are logically and mentally presupposed by discourse.” Grammar is the way to make word, phrase, clause, and sentence structure properly, presence of interconnected between one word with another word which makes the text acceptable and easily understood by the reader. Based on the experts’ theories above, it can be concluded that grammar relates to words, phrases, clauses to be built as a good sentence. It also relates to structure of words (morphology) and phrases and clauses (syntax). 175 The Nature of Simple Past Tense Learning grammar or structure in English is also learning simple past tense. Simple past tense is one of the tenses that students learn when learning English especially grammar or structure. Simple past tense is defined as time signal for things happened in past time. According to (Narius, 2014), “Simple past tense indicates a past action that occurred at a definite time in the past, whether that time is stated or not.” From the experts’ definition, the writer can says that simple past tense is an action used to express situations, activities, or events at some points prior to the moment of speaking, whether or not the time signal is stated. There are two verbs used in simple past, they are called regular and irregular verb. Regular verbs are used by adding –d, -ed, -ied after verbs. Examples: Agree + d = agreed ask + ed = asked carry + ied = carried Bake + d = baked call + ed = called cry + ied = cried Close + d = closed discuss + ed = discussed dry + ied = dried Decide + d = decided end + ed = ended fry + ied = fried Joke + d = joked hand + ed = handed identify + ied = identified Meanwhile, irregular verb has two patterns; they are the verbs which change completely and the verbs which do not change at all. Examples: bring = brought buy = bought teach = taught eat = eaten sleep = slept drink = drank swim = swam run = ran break = broke feed = fed do = did draw = drew fall = fell go = went sell = sold cut = cut hit = hit let = let put = put read = read The Nature of Technology Technology has entranced into almost in every home and schools. It makes the educators consider the way of its usage in education. It also makes the changing of the way of teaching learning. Technology has become common in usage and it cannot be excluded from teaching or learning. The activity of teaching learning has also got the impact of them. It means that not only the learners but also the teachers or educators should adapt with this changing. Teachers or educators who cannot implement the technology in their life, will “lose contact” with their students. Before teaching the learners or students about using technology in teaching learning process, the teacher or educators themselves have to invest technology as much as they can. By using technology, the information, references related to teaching learning activity are easily accessed both for teachers and learners. 176 Technology can be used effectively as a cognitive tool as well as an instructional media. (Levin, 2001) suggested that technology can be helpful in classroom settings by encouraging inquiry, helping communication, constructing teaching products, and assisting students’ self expression. (Muir-Herzig, 2004) states that teaching and learning via technology engage learners in active situations of critical thinking to solve problems, share ideas with others and reflect what they have known. Classes which use technology shift from teacher-centered to studentcentered classes. (Pitler et. al., 2007) refers to the advantages of using technology in classes; they state that it enhances learning and understanding, and it encourages students to take active part in the learning process. It also has a positive impact to shift education from being teacher-centered to student-centered. The Nature of Writing The four languages skills and components should be known by the learners or students in learning English. It is very important for the learners or students, especially EFL to be able to write in English for their future life. Informal writing can be used as a start to learn to write, and ICT can be used to accommodate this. Writing is the most difficult part in English subject as what it is said different from what it is written. (Ardnt, 2011) stated that writing is far from being a simple matter of transcribing language into written symbols; it is a thinking process in its right. So, before the learners starting to write an English composition, they should master the English pattern correctly. Writing is one of the skills in learning English. Writing skill is related to the learners’ competence. It emphasizes on writing ability such as the production of a variety of genres and rhetorical features, but also including languagespecific abilities like the use of a range of vocabulary and syntactic structures. Some learners, especially EFL have difficulties to express their ideas through writing. The difficulties are sometimes about choosing the topic of their writing. Therefore, they need some helps to find out the inspiration about what to write so they can express their ideas through writing easily. A good technique in writing should be chosen to ease the teaching learning process. Writing can be said well if it can give information or messages clearly and creates effective verbal dialogue to readers. It aims to give point of view of the ideas in text where it organizes in different way of writing such as narration, description, exposition, and argumentation. When students write a paragraph, they try to explore what they are thinking in mind, and they also concern with the language, meaning, and the structural of context related to English language acquisition as second or foreign language. Writing must be related to the content; the language and grammatical rule are related to writing. They should be done well in order to avoid misunderstood so the learners have to use correct sentences by creating a well written text and giving attention to the arrangement of words their composition to express their idea and to give the value of the writing to readers. 177 Writing is seen as a product constructed from the writer’s command of grammatical and lexical knowledge, and writing development is considered to be the result of imitating and manipulating models provided by the teacher. For many who adopt this view, writing is regarded as an extension of grammara means of reinforcing language patterns through habit formation and testing learners’ ability to produce well-formed sentences. Developing writing is related to the writer’s knowledge of language and writing exposure and writing process is the way the writers give their ideas and messages to readers in the form of text. Various ways of writing such as narration, description, classification, comparison and contrast, argumentation and etc. can be used to express or share the writers’ ideas. Here are some ways to express and share the writers’ ideas, (1) Narration. It is a basic writing strategy for presenting past event or activities. It can be used for a variety of purposes such as to illustrate and support ideas with anecdotes, to entertain readers with revealing stories, to analyze causes and possible effects with scenarios, and to explain procedures with process narrative; (2) Description. It is a strategy used to create a dominant impression. For example, describing a place in order to set a scene and make readers aware of its atmosphere and to describe people to show a kind of person’s performance; (3) Classification. It aims to classify number of items or ideas into a small number of classes. In a classification of paragraph, it is important to set up adequate categories and define what goes into categories; (4) Comparison and contrast are to compare similar aspects or to contrast different aspects of two subjects, people or things, and (5) Argumentation. It is to argue ideas or opinion by giving some argues to proof the concept or research. A good paragraph must give readers complete information and unified by a controlling idea. It is organized form and can be understood what the paragraph is going to be about. Based on the theories above, it can be concluded that there are some kinds in writing, such as narration, description, classification, comparison and argumentation. Writing is the most difficult part in learning English as it needs to master all English aspects, such as grammar, vocabulary, spelling, punctuation, etc to make a good writing. They are needed in order to avoid misunderstanding between the writer and the readers or between the teachers and the learners. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY The participants of this research were the English Department Students, semester at Bina Sarana Informatika University. The data for this research was taken from the learners’ paper and the method used in this research is descriptive qualitative. 1st Descriptive method was used in this research. (Best, 2006) explained that descriptive method is the method which tries to give the explanation about the symptoms relating to the recent situation. It consists on the effort of giving 178 the note, the analysis and the interpretation of the recent symptoms which have the characteristics as follows: try to give the fact, straight to the problem and the recent variables aren’t manipulated by the researcher. Watching the short story played on YouTube, listening it well, filling the paper given related to the story then discussing it together were done as the procedures of the research. They were done in order to know about the effectiveness of using short story on YouTube to teach about simple past tense to EFL. FINDINGS AND INTERPRETATIONS After watching the short story, listening it well, filling the paper given related to the story then discussing it together, the findings of the research are: Figure 1 Figure 2 179 Figure 3 Figure 4 Figure 5 180 Figure 6 Figure 7 Figure 8 181 Figure 9 Figure 10 From the students’ paper above, it showed that most mistakes happened regular verbs. There are some patterns in regular verbs that should be understood by the learners. CONCLUSION After analyzing the EFL’s paper, it can be concluded that (1) most EFL have understood about the pattern of simple past tense; (2) most of them have known about using whether regular or irregular verbs; (3) some of them made mistakes by omitting the letters whether regular or irregular verb. Based on the findings, the teacher or educator should pay attention to the mistakes that the learners had done. From the mistakes found, the teacher or educator should teach them about the writing of the irregular verbs which are sometimes confusing. It is done in order to avoid the same mistakes happen in the future. 182 REFERENCES Aarts, Bas. (2011). Oxford Modern English Grammar. New York: Oxford University Press. Best, John, W. (2006). Research in Education. New Jersey: Prentice Hall. Brisard, Fran, Jan-Ola Otsman and Jef Verschueren. (2009). Grammar, Meaning, and Pragmatics. 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