An Analysis of the Second Year Students’ Ability in Writing a Personal Letter at SMPN 2 Madobag

Abstrak

Writing a short functional text especially personal letter is ane of standard competencies that junior high school students must have. However, the fact says that this topic is not yet studied at SMPN 2 Madobag. Considering the fact, the writer was interested  in studying the second year students’ ability in writing a personal letter in the school.

 The design of this research was descriptive. The population was the second year students at SMPN 2 Madobag. Therefore, the subject of the research was 29 students chosen by convenience sampling. The data were collected through writing test. The writer asked the students to reply a personal letter in 50 minutes. The writer only measured the second year students’ ability in writing a personal letter by considering four components of writing: organization, mechanics, grammar, and vocabulary. To analyze the data, the writer presented the raw score of each sample, calculated the score, calculated the average score from first scorer and second scorer, classified the students who had high ability, moderate ability, and low ability, and the last the writer counted the percentage of them.

Based on the result of the data analysis, the second year students’ ability in writing a personal letter was moderate. In details, there were 26 students (89.7%),who had moderate ability  in writing organization, 21 students (72,4%) who had moderate ability in applying mechanics, 26 students (89.7%), who had moderate ability  in applying grammar, and 14 students (48.3%),who had moderate ability in using appropriate vocabulary,

Based on the research findings, the writer concludes that the second year students’ ability in writing personal letter was moderate. Related to the conclusion, the writer suggests English teachers to give more exercises and employ more effective technique of teaching writing. In addition, the students are suggested to do more exercises to improve their ability in writing.  

Keywords:  Writing, short functional text, personal letter