THE PROBLEMS FACED BY THR SECOND YEAR STUDENTS IN WRITING PARAGRAPH BY USING WORD CLUSTERING AT ENGLISH DEPARTMENT OF BUNG HATTA UNIVERSITY

Abstrak

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to describe students’ problem in writing descriptive paragraph by using word clustering. Descriptive method was used as the design of this research. The population of this research was the second year students of English department of Bung Hatta University. The writer used cluster random sampling to select the sample. The total number of sample members was 38 students. The writer took class B (38 students) was as the sample. The writer used inter - rater method to make test reliable. The result of the test was reliable with coefficient correlation .98. It was categorized as very high correlation. The test was valid in terms of content validity because it had covered all materials which students had learnt. Generally, the result of analyzing data showed that 26 (68.5%) the second year of English students of Bung Hatta University had no problem in writing descriptive paragraph by using word clustering. Specifically,35 students (89.5%) had no problem in writing topic sentence, 36 students (94.7%) had no problem in writing supporting sentence, 20 students 52.6% had problem in writing concluding sentence, 20 students (47.4%) had no problem in using vocabulary, 26 students (68.5%) had no problem in using grammar, and 22 students (57.9%) had no problem in using mechanics in writing descriptive paragraph by using word clustering. Based on the result, the writer is suggested to the English lecturer to give the students more exercise to write descriptive paragraph in order to have good in writing, and for the students they are suggested to do more writing practice in writing descriptive paragraph especially writing concluding sentence.

Key words: Paragraph, Word Clustering