An Analysis of the Second Year Students Ability to Write Descriptive Paragraph at English Department ofBung HattaUniversity. Thesis. English DepartmentTeacher Training and Education Faculty. Bung Hatta University

Abstrak

Writing is one of the important language skills that should be learned and posessed  by the students. By writting, the students  can express their  thoughts, ideas and feeling to the readers. It is a recording process to put a message into words (Byrne in Mc Donough and Shaw, 1993:138). For this purpose, the students need to know how to write well effectively.Writing skill is commonly regarded as a very hard skill. Byrne (1982:5) states that among the language English skills, writing is the highest level and commonly regarded as a difficult activity. To posseses this skill, students should consider  many aspects like full attention to grammar, choice of word, capitalization, punctuation, and spelling.

      The design of this research was descriptive research. The population of this research was the second year students at English Department of Bung Hatta University. The total sample members were 25 students, they were chosen by total sampling technique. The data were collected throught writing test. To make the scorers to check the students writing test. The correlation coeficient of two scorers was 0.91. it means that the test was very high reliable.

            The result of research showed that the data the students’ ability to write a descriptive paragraph was moderate. It was provided by finding that 84% students had moderate ability. The students ability to write descriptive paragraph was moderate. It was provided by finding thatIn term of writing the identification (60%) got moderate ability.In term of writing the description of descriptive paragraph (44%) got moderate ability. In term of language features in writing  a descriptive paragraph, (88%). In term of vocabulary in writing  a descriptive paragraph, there were (64%) got moderate ability. In term of mechanics in writing  a descriptive paragraph (80%) got moderate ability.

           In line with the findings of this study as discussed above, it can be concluded that writing ability of the second year students at English Department of Bung Hatta University eas moderate. So, it is suggested to the lecturer to keep or improve their ability in writing into high ability by giving some more practice in writing and giving more exercises in grammar because the students’ ability in mechanics is low.

Key word : Writing, Descriptive Paragraph.