AN ANALYSIS OF THE SECOND YEAR STUDENTS’ ABILITY IN WRITING EXPOSITION PARAGRAPH AT THE ENGLISH DEPARTMENT OF BUNG HATTA UNIVERSITY

Abstrak

INTRODUCTION English is one of the international language used in various countries for studying various fields because of its very significant role in the world of communication. Generally, there are four language skills in English. There are listening, speaking, reading, and writing. At the English Department curriculum of Bung Hatta University, writing is divided into three, they are writing sentence, writing paragraph, and writing essay. Hence, writing paragraph is one of the main subject which has been offered in the English Department. This is considered an initial skill that must be mastered by the students before finally plunging into scientific writing. In fact, writing exposition is one way to improve the students’ critical thinking skills, in exposition paragraph or essay. By writing an exposition paragraph, the students are to think and develop their ideas. Writing paragraph exposition also makes students think in detail about how to write well, connect each sentence, and create their argument/thesis sentences. The researcher described the previous-related researches. First, the study done by Muslimin (2017) entitled " The Students’ Ability in Writing English Exposition Texts: Descriptive Study at the Second Grade of Senior High School of Hangtuah 3 Mataram in Academic Year 2016-2017". He found that the students’ ability in writing English exposition text was good in 2 classes (30 students). In this case, there are no students got excellent, 20 of students got good level (67%), 8 of students got very good (26%), and 2 of students got fair (7%). Based on the result above, it can be concluded that the students' ability in writing English exposition text was good. Second, the study done Niken Palupi Ramadhani (2019) entitled “Pembelajaran Menulis Teks Eksposisi Berbantuan Media Audio Visual dalam Upaya Meningkatkan Kemampuan Berpikir Kritis”. She found the result that as many as 24 students with a percentage of 67% admitted have difficulty in writing expository text. The difficulty is to find the topics, to develop ideas into paragraphs, lack of interest in reading and writing, and didn't understand the structure of the exposition text. Third, the study done by by Aida Asti Adekayanti (2017) entitled “The Students Writing Ability of the eleventh-grade students of SMAN 1 Labuapi in the academic year 2017/ 2018” The result showed that in writing the generic structure, students were unable to use the generic structure completely. Then, in developing the ideas, the students were unable to make a paragraph. It was also followed by a lack of vocabulary, grammatical errors, and wrote with inappropriate mechanics. Based on those phenomena, the researcher was interested in investigating the second year students’ ability in writing exposition paragraph at the English Department of Bung Hatta University. METHOD The researcher used descriptive research design. Descriptive research is a study to find facts with the right interpretation which aims only to recognize phenomena for further studies. The number of population of this research was 37 students. The researcher used total sampling technique in selecting the sample. The instrument used to collect the data was writing test in which the students had to write exposition paragraph. Then, the test was valid in terms of content because it was based on the syllabus in semester 3 which explains students have studied writing exposition. The reliability index of the test was 0.91 which means that the test was reliable, and it was categorized as very high. To collect the data, the researcher administered the test by using a google classroom application in 90 minutes. Then, the researcher counted the raw score of each student. The researcher counted the number of students who had excellent, good, fair, and poor ability. Finally, the researcher found the percentage of the students in each of ability level. The data were analyzed by using statistical formula as suggested by Arikunto (2015). FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS The results of the research showed that generally the students had excellent ability in writing exposition paragraph. It was supported by the fact that 27 students (73%) got excellent ability in writing exposition paragraph. Specifically, 32 students (86%) got excellent ability to express the content in writing exposition paragraph. Then, 23 students (62%) got excellent ability to organize the relevant idea in writing exposition paragraph. There were 13 students (35%) got excellent ability to use appropriate vocabulary in writing exposition paragraph. Next, 19 students (51%) had very high ability to use correct grammar in writing exposition paragraph. Finaly, 15 students (40%) got excellent ability to use appropriate mechanics in writing exposition paragraph. Those are described below: The Table of All Findings No. Aspects The Number of Students Ability Number Percent age 1 The students’ ability in writing an exposition paragraph 27 73% Excell ent 2 The students’ ability to express the content in writing an exposition paragraph 32 86% Excell ent 3 The students’ ability to organize the relevant idea in writing an exposition paragraph 23 62% Excell ent 4 The students’ ability to use appropriate vocabulary in writing an exposition paragraph 13 35% Excell ent 5 The students’ ability to use correct grammar in writing an exposition paragraph 19 51% Excell ent 6 The students’ ability to use appropriate mechanics in writing an exposition paragraph 15 40 Excell ent 1. The Second Year Students’ Ability in Writing an Exposition Paragraph at the English Department of Bung Hatta University The results of data analysis show that 27 students (73%) who got excellent ability, 8 students (21%) who got good ability, 1 student (3%) who got fair ability, and 1 student (3%) who got poor ability. Different with this research, Aida (2018) she found that only 2 students (3.33%) from 60 students of the sample. 2. The Second Year Students’ Ability to Express the Content of an Exposition Paragraph at the English Department of Bung Hatta University The results of data analysis show that 32 students (86%) who got excellent ability, 4 students (11%) who got good ability, 0 students (0%) who got fair ability, and 1 student (0%) who got poor ability. It is not in line with the study conducted by Annisa (2018) which found that the result shows in making a thesis and argumentation statements (content), the students got B which as categorized proficient (good) at Universitas Negeri Padang Standard. 3. The Second Year Students’ Ability to Organize the Relevant Idea an Exposition Paragraph at the English Department of Bung Hatta University The result shows that the second year students at the English Department of Bung Hatta University had excellent ability to organize the relevant idea in writing an exposition paragraph. It is supported by the fact that 23 students who got excellent ability (62%), 7 students who got good ability (19%), 2 students who got fair ability (5%), and 5 students who got poor ability (14%). These findings support a previous study conducted by Annisa (2018), finding that was in proficient level with the mean score 70,65 or B which is categorized proficient (good) at Universitas Negeri Padang Standard. 4. The Second Year Students’ Ability to Use Appropriate Vocabulary in Writing an Exposition Paragraph at the English Department of Bung Hatta University The results show that 19 students who got excellent ability (51%), 10 students who got good ability (27%), 3 students who got fair (8%), and 5 students who got poor ability (14%). This study was not consistent with the study conducted by Aida (2018) that the mean score she got was 54.53, and it was categorized as fair level. 5. The Second Year Students’ Ability to Use Correct Grammar in Writing a Narrative Paragraph at the English Department of Bung Hatta University Based on the scoring criteria of using correct grammar, it was found 19 students who got excellent ability (51%), 10 students who got good ability (27%), 3 students who got fair (8%), and 5 students who got poor ability (14%). It is not in line with the study conducted by Aida (2018), showing that the mean score of the result was 45.68, and it was categorized as poor level. 6. The Second Year Students’ Ability to Use Appropriate Mechanics in Writing an Exposition Paragraph at the English Department of Bung Hatta University The results show that 15 of the students who got excellent ability (40%), 8 of the students who got good ability (22%), 7 of the students who got fair ability (19%), and 7 of the students who got poor ability (19%). This finding supported is with the previous research found by Fadhly (2018). He found the mean score of the result was 71,56, and it was categorized as fair level. CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS Based on the the findings, it can be concluded that the second year students at the English Department of Bung Hatta University had excellent ability in writing exposition paragraph. Related to the study, the researcher proposes some suggestions. For the students, they need to improve their ability in writing, especially for writing exposition paragraph by doing some exercises, being more selective in choosing the right vocabulary, give much attention to grammatical rules, and the mechanic using on the text to make their ability better than before. The lecturers the researcher hopes they could give more exercises to students to make their ability more increasingly in writing exposition paragraph and build up their understanding about the important things such as grammatical rules and the mechanic use. The researcher also hopes for many exercises that the lectures gave to the students, it would help them in improving their ideas in writing especially for writing exposition paragraph Keywords: Ability ,Writing, Paragraph.