ABSTRACT
It is important for the students to know about question tags especially when they use it both in written and spoken. Many students also still find difficulties in using question tags.
The main objectives of this study are to know the students’ recognition mastery of question tags and to find out the special difficulties faced by the students in mastering question tags. This study was carried out under consideration that question tags is one of topics of English which should be taught in the third years of SMP. Therefore, students should master the topic well.
The population of this study is the third-year students of SMP N I Grabag Magelang in the academic year of 2005/2006. The number of population is 162. By applying random sampling, I took 25% of the population. Then, I got 40 students as my sample in my research. After that, they did the test of question tags with total number of 100 items. The type of the test is multiple-choice test. The score of the test would be 100.
Before the test was used, it has been tried out first. The purpose of conducting the try-out was to find out the validity and reliability of the test as an instrument. I also revised some test items before they are used as the instrument of this study.
The result of the statistical analysis showed that the students’ recognition mastery of question tags is good. After computing the data statistically, then, I computed the data non-statistically by using Criterion-Reference Grading, that is Tinambunan’s five grading A, B, C, D and F. The result of the non-statistical analysis is 2 students or 5% get A, 3 students or 7.5% get B, 16 students or 40% get C, 11 students or 27.5% get D and 8 students or 20% get F. It means that 32 students or 80% students were successful in mastering question tags and 8 students or 20% students were failed. Therefore, the teaching learning should not be repeated.
Based on the sum of the right and the wrong answers, it can be concluded that the special difficulty of question tags lies on the area of concord between verb and auxiliary, since the percentages of the students’ achievement in this term is the lowest one.
From the result of this study, I would like to offer some suggestions to be considered: the teacher should explain more deeply about the use of verb and auxiliary because it is the special difficulty faced by the students, the teacher should explain question tags clearly and give his/her students a lot of exercises, and the teacher should improve his/her students’ motivation in learning English.
