TENSES MASTERY OF THE FOURTH SEMESTER STUDENTS OF ENGLISH STUDY PROGRAM UNIVERSITAS BENGKULU 2005 – 2006 ACADEMIC YEAR

The objective of this research was to find out the students’ tenses mastery. This was a descriptive quantitative research. The population of this research was the fourth semester students of English Study Program in 2005 – 2006 academic year in Universitas Bengkulu. The data were collected by giving a test. The result of this research showed that; there were eight tenses mostly mastered by the respondents, namely, Simple Present Tense, Simple Past Tense, Present Continuous Tense, Simple Future Tense, Simple Past Future Tense, Past Continuous Tense, Past Future Continuous Tense, and Future Continuous Tense. The moderate mastered were: Future Perfect Tense, Past Perfect Tense, Present Perfect Tense, and Past Future Perfect tense. On the other hand, there were only four tenses in which the majority of the respondents could not get high scores on or least mastered. They were; Present Perfect continuous Tense, Past Perfect Continuous Tense, Future Perfect Continuous Tense, and Past Future Perfect Continuous Tense.