An Analysis of the Second Year Students’ Problems in Writing Compound Sentences Using Conjunctive Adverbs at English Department of Bung Hatta University

Abstrak

Writing is one of the main language skills. Writing plays a major role in expressing ideas, thoughts, opinions, and attitudes. Through writing, people are capable of sharing ideas, feelings, persuading, and convincing others.  This shows that writing plays a predominant role in language learning. A compound sentence is a sentence consisting of at least two clauses, each of which can be separated off into its own independent clause and independent sentence (Teschner and Evans, 2007:220). A compound sentence is one of the most problematic one for the English Department Students. There were many problems in writing compound sentences that students faced, such as combining two ideas correctly, and using conjunctions. Based on the reason above, the researcher was interested to conduct the research in order to know the students’ problem in writing compound sentences using conjunctive adverbs that add information, give an example, and showing contrast.

The population of this research was the second year students at English Department of Bung Hatta University. The number of population was 24 students. The writer used total sampling technique to select the sample. Writing test was the instrument to get the data. The students were asked to write 15 compound sentences: 5 sentences using conjunctive adverbs that add information, 5 sentences using conjunctive adverbs that give an example, and 5 sentences using conjunctive adverbs that showing contrast. The test was reliable because the reliability of the test was high (0.98).

The result of this research showed that generally the second year students at English Department of Bung Hatta University had problems in writing compound sentences. Specifically they had problems in writing compound sentences using conjunctive adverbs that add information, give an example, and showing contrast. The first problem the students faced was writing compound sentences using conjunctive adverbs that give an example (36.43%). The second problem was writing compound sentences using conjunctive adverbs that add information (36.42), and the third problem was writing compound sentences using conjunctive adverbs that showing contrast (29.22%). Among these problems, the most problem the students faced was in grammar (77.62%), especially in second clause (43.21%).

Dealing with the conclusion, the writer suggested to the lecturers to use pictures as the media to teach compound sentences to the students. The students are suggested to do more exercises in writing compound sentences using conjunctive adverbs that give an example by using pictures. The next researchers are expected to find out students’ problems in writing compound sentences in other conjunction such as compound sentences with correlative conjunction, and semicolon.

Key Word : Students’ Problem, Writing, Compound Sentences, Conjunctive Adverb