AN ANALYSIS OF UNIVERSITY STUDENTS' ERRORS IN USING THE SIMPLE PRESENT TENSE IN WRITING REPORT TEXTS

This research aims to figure out the errors made by university students in using the simple present tense in writing report texts. The research method used in this research is a descriptive qualitative method. The test was used in this research as a research instrument to collect the data. The subjects in this research are students of the English Language Education Study Program at Abulyatama University and Muhammadiyah Aceh University, consisting of 30 students. The data were analyzed using the error analysis framework proposed by Ellis (2008), focusing on categorizing grammatical errors based on the surface strategy taxonomy. The results show that misformation is the most frequent error made by university students, with 59,53% of total errors. The second most common errors are omission and addition, with 14,41% total of errors for each of them, and the last one is misordering, with 11,62% total of errors. This finding indicates that there are still many university students who have difficulty applying grammar rules consistently and correctly, and there is still a gap between theoretical understanding and practical ability in applying it to good and correct writing. For future research, it is recommended that grammatical error analysis also be conducted on other types of text and consider additional variables such as semester level, learning experience, and the influence of mother tongue on sentence structure in English. The use of data triangulation methods, such as interviews or observation of the writing process, can also enrich the depth and validity of the findings.