AN ANALYSIS OF THE THIRD YEAR STUDENTS’ DIFFICULTIES IN TRANSFORMING QUOTED SPEECH TO REPORTED SPEECH AT ENGLISH DEPARTMENT IN BUNG HATTA UNIVERSITY

Abstrak

Abstract

Based on the writer’s experience while taking Advanced Structure subject, there were some  students who got trouble to apply sequence of tense in reported speech. So that, the writer was interested in doing a research about students’ difficulties in transforming quoted speech to reported speech. The goal of this research was to describe students’ difficulties in transforming quoted speech to reported speech at the English Department of Bung Hatta University. The research design was descriptive. There were 23 third year students as a sample. Grammatical Transformation Test was as an instrument in this research. Based on data analysis, it can be known that transforming time was the most difficult type for the students in 4 tenses (Simple Present Tense, Present Continuous Tense, Simple Past Tense, Simple Future Tense). It was supported by the data that there was 75% of students getting difficulties in Simple Present Tense, 85% in Present Continuous Tense, 70% in Simple Past Tense, 75% in Simple Future Tense. In Present Perfect Tense, there was 51% of the students having difficulties in tense changing. Based on the result above, it could be concluded that the students still had difficulties in transforming quoted speech to reported speech. Since the students faced difficulties in time changing, the writer suggests them to memorize the change of  time in reported speech. And since the students also faced difficulties in tense changing, the writer suggests them to keep practicing their grammar and to understand the rule of tense changing.

Key words : Students’ difficulties, Grammar, Reported Speech