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Background of the study Language is a system of sounds and words used by people to communicate. People use

the language to express their feelings, emotions, ideas, either spoken or written. Since English is used as an international language, it plays an important role in many activities such as in technology, trade, mass media communication, business world, and many others. The people who seriously study English should learn four skills of the language. The first, the ability to speak, which concerns with sound system and phonological system. Second, the ability to listen, this ability is used to avoid misunderstanding when people communicate. Third, the ability to read, it is related to vocabulary. The more people read English text, the more they have vocabularies memories. The last one is the ability to write. The people should write the correct word in English. There are many languages in the world such as Japanese, French, Dutch, Spanish and English. And English is an international language which is used by people from any other countries. Every people should be able to speak English well, so that if we speak with the foreigner they understand what we are talking about. The most recognizable problem that is faced by learner in learning English language as second language might be the mastery of grammar. Grammar is the rules in a language for changing the form of words and joining them into sentence (Hornby, 2005:675). There are many kinds of grammar, such as tenses, gerund, passive voice, and etc. In this paper the researcher just focuses on tenses. In learning process there are many difficulties that will be found. Errors always occur in the learning process. Errors are often made by people when they are speaking, reading, listening,

or writing. Mastering English is not only focuses on how well English is written, but also on how English is used in speaking form. Richard (1974:173) states that there are two types of errors, observed in the acquisition of English. First, error that caused by the interference of the learners mother tongue. Second, intralingual and developmental errors which reflect the general characteristic of rule learning, such as faulty generalization, incomplete application of rules, and failure to learn conditions under which rules apply. Developmental errors illustrate the learner attempting to build up hypothesis about the English language form based on his or her limited experience of it in class room or text book. In Bali, English is very important and useful, considering tourism has been developed well. Hotel is one of the places in Bali with so many parts of divisions, including front office, which become the centre of interaction with the people or guests. There will be a lot of conversations happen. The staffs should be able to speak English well when they give information to the guests. Sometimes, some of the staffs make an error in writing, listening, reading, speaking, and also the grammatical errors. In viewing the previous phenomenon, it makes the researcher interested in writing this paper. The researcher would like to know more about the grammatical errors and factors that influence the staff in making errors at Poppies Cottages.