AN ANALYSIS OF STUDENTS’ DIFFICULTIES IN WRITING

RECOUNT TEXT: A CASE STUDY AT THE ELEVENTH GRADE

STUDENTS OF MA PUTRA AL-ISHLAHUDDINY KEDIRI
ACADEMIC YEAR 2016/2017

ARTICLE

Submitted as the Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for SarjanaPendidikan (S.Pd)

Degree in English Education Program Faculty of Teacher Training and Education
University of Mataram
By:

HENI YUNI MUSTIKA

E1D111046

ENGLISH EDUCATION PROGRAM

LANGUAGE AND ART DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION
MATARAM UNIVERSITY
2017
AN ANALYSIS OF STUDENTS’ DIFIFFULTIES IN WRITING RECOUNT TEXT: A
CASE STUDY AT THE ELEVENTH GRADE STUDENTS OF MA PUTRA AL-
ISHLAHUDDINY KEDIRI ACADEMIC YEAR 2016/2017
Heni Yuni Mustika, Udin, Ni Wayan Mira Susanti
ABSTRACT

HENI YUNI MUSTIKA

E1D 111 046

This thesis entitled “An Analysis of Students’ Difficulties in Writing Recount Text: A Case
Study at the Eleventh Grade Student of MA Putra Al-Ishlahuiddiny Kediri Academic Year
2016/2017”. It was aimed to know students’ difficulties and the factors contributing to those
difficulties in writing recount text. There were 36 out of 135 students who were taken by using
purposive sampling as samples (XI IPA 2). In data collection, three kinds of instruments were used:
test, questionnaire and interview. The test was used to know students’ difficulties in writing recount
text. The questionnaire was divided into open and close ended questions to obtain information about
the factors contributing to the students’ difficulties in writing recount text. The Interview was used as
an additional input to complete the data. This study used quantitative and qualitative descriptive
method to analyze the data. From the analysis it was found that students were generally categorized as
mean score with the percentage is (50.69%) by seeing students’ difficulties in content, organization,
vocabulary and sentence structure in term of the test conducted. In terms of the questionnaires, the
result showed that the most dominant difficulties were the making of past tense sentences and
distinguishing regular from irregular verbs with percentage (81%). Whereas the interview result
found that most of students did not understand how to write a recount text and how to use proper
words and that they had lack of vocabulary.

Key words: Writing difficulties, recount text, factors contributing to students’ difficulties in writing
recount text.
 ABSTRAK

Tesis ini berjudul "Analisis Kesulitan Siswa dalam Menulis teks Recount: Studi Kasus di
SiswaKelasdua MA Putra Al-Ishlahuiddiny Kediri Tahun Akademik 2016/2017". Skripsi ini
bertujuan untuk mengetahui kesulitan siswa dan faktor yang mempengaruhi kesulitan-kesulitan dalam
menulis tesk recount. Sampel yang digunakan berjumlah 36 dari 135 siswa (XI IPA 2) yang diambil
dengan menggunakan purposive sampling. Dalam mengumpulkan data instrument yang digunakan:
tes, kuesioner dan wawancara. Tes ini digunakan untuk mengetahui kesulitan siswa dalam menulis
tesk recount . Kuesioner dibagi menjadi pertanyaan terbuka dan tertutupuntuk mendapatkan informasi
tentang faktor-faktor yang mempengaruhi kesulitan siswa di dalam menulis tesk recount. Wawancara
digunakan sebagai tambahan untuk melengkapi data. Penelitian ini menggunakan metode deskriptif
kuantitatif dan kualitatif untuk menganalisis data. Dari hasil analisis ditemukan bahwa siswa-siswa
pada umumnya mendapatkan nilai rata-rata dengan persentase (50,69%) dengan melihat kesulitan
siswa dalam isi, organisasi (urutan), kosakata dan struktur bahasaketika tes menulis dilaksanakan.
Hasil dari kuesioner, menunjukkan bahwa kesulitan yang paling dominan adalah dalam membuat
kalimat lampau dan membedakan kalimat beraturan dari kata kerja tidak beraturan dengan persentase
(81%). Sedangkan hasil wawancara menunjukkan bahwa sebagian besar siswa tidak memahami
bagaimana cara menulis tesk recount dan bagaimana menggunakan kata-kata yang tepat dan mereka
masih kekurangan kosakata.

Kata Kunci: Kesulitan menulis, Tesk Recount, Factor-factor yang mempengaruhi kesulitan siswa
1. INTRODUCTION

English is an international language. It is used all over the world. For that
reason, it is the first foreign language taught at every school in Indonesia. The purpose
of learning English is that students are supposed to be able to communicate well either
orally or written forms. As stated by Finocchiaro and Brumfit (1983:149) stated in
Ningrum (2013), “Writing should reinforce and help extend the listening, speaking,
and reading skills”.
In Indonesia, most students consider English as a difficult subject which make
them frustrated. Students of junior and high school level failed on the graduation
because of their mark of it. They do not achieve the requirement of the standard
minimum score. That is why the government makes some efforts to find the solution
of those problems. For example they have changed the curriculum for several times
and then they have introduced new approaches of teaching English. They also have
considered some factors which affected the improvements itself such as; of the
teachers’ quality, students’ interest, motivation, teaching techniques. These terms
have important roles to achieve the learningobjective. Students must master four
language skills, listening, speaking, reading and writing.
English writing is categorized as productive skill and it is one of the skills that
is difficult to be mastered. One of the genres in writing that must be taught in Senior
high school level is recount text. It is taught by teacher in order to make the students
know how to describe themselves and their surrounding in a simple way. However
many students faced problems in writing recount text. Writing skill is difficult since it
involves not only generating and organizing ideas, but also demonstrating a number
of variables in their composition, such as control of content, format sentence
structure, vocabulary, punctuation, spelling, and etc.
From the problems explained above,I am interested to conduct a research
entitled “An Analysis of Students' Difficulties in Writing Recount Text of the
eleventh of MA Putra Al-Ishlahuddiny Kediri Academic Year 2016/2017.”
II. LITERATURE REVIEW
Recount Text
 Definition of Recount Text
Recount is the text telling the reader what happened. It retells a past
event. It begins by telling the reader who was involved, what happened,
where this event took place and when it happened (Pardiyono, 2007: 63).
 Purpose
Derewianka (2004: 18) states that the purpose of a recount is to list and
describe past experiences by retelling events in the order in which they
happened (chronological order). To achieve its purpose, the text will move
through a different set of stages: a) an orientation letting the reader know
who is involved, where, when, etc. b) the retelling of a series of events in
chronological sequence.
 Types of Recount
According to Derewianka ( 2004 ), there are types of recount text such
as as personal recount, factual recount, imaginative recount,Features of
Recounts and Conventions and Structure.
Problem in Tense

DeCapua (2008:192) states that ESL/EFL learners have the same problems using

the do auxiliary in the simple past that they do in using it with the simple present.

These problems include:

1. Learners still using simple present tense of to be intended as a simple past

tense.

2. Forgetting to insert did for questions and negative Statements.

3. Using did together with the – ed inflection or the irregular form the verb,

rather than leaving the main verb in its base form.

4. At times Learner used do instead of did

Process of Writing

There are five-step processes writing approach that will be described as follows:
  Prewriting. The students are expected to generate ideas by listing,
brainstorming, outlining, silent thinking, conversation with friends and put
their thought in order.
 Drafting. The students try to capture ideas on paper. The quantity of the
draft is necessary rather than the quality.
 Revising. This is the importance step of process writing and often
neglected in writing process. The students can revise and reshape their
draft by adding parts, taking parts away, and vice versa.
 Editing. Editing is the stage that the students correct their punctuation,
grammar, and spelling errors. The students can check their errors with the
teacher and friends.
 Publishing and Sharing. This stage the students share their writing product
to the audience. Writing becomes real at this point.
III. RESEARCH METHOD
Research Design

This study entitled “ An Analysis of Students' Difficulties in Writing Recount

Text of Eleventh Grade of MA Putra al-Islahuddiny Kediri Academic Year
2016/2017. It uses descriptive qualitative study method. Descriptive-quantitative
study is a method that describes characteristics about the population or phenomenon
being studied. Further, the data is factual, accurate, and systematic. In this case, the
researcher has given a test in the form of some themes of writing that they will choose
by themselves in order to know their ability in understanding the recount text.
Population of the Study
The population of this study is all of the eleventh grade students of MA Putra
Al-Islahuddiny Kediri Academic Year 2016/2017. They are separated into four
classes from IPA and IPS. The whole number of students is 135.
Sample of the Studyand Sampling Technique
Arikunto (2006) stated that if the subjects are less than a hundred, it is better to
take all of them as sample, however; if the subjects are more than hundred, it is
suggested to take 10-15% or 20-25% or more. Thus the researcher used a purposive
sampling. In this case XI IPA 2 was chosen with 36 students as the sample.
 IV. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
Findings

The mean score of the students is figured out by using the following formula:

According to score gained, the students’ mean score was between 50.69–58.35.

Classification of students’ score in writing recount text at eleventh year students of MA

Putra Al-Ishlahuddiny Kediri in academic year 2016/2017.

No Category Score Range Frequency Percentage

1 Excellent 75 – 100 5 14%

2 Good 58.35 – 75 8 22%
3 Fair 41.65 – 58.35 7 20%
4 Unsatisfactory 24.95 – 41.65 12 33%
5 Unacceptable 0 – 24.95 4 11%
Total 36 100

The table above shows that the students’ competence in writing recount text; there were
5 students (14%) classified into excellent category, 8 students (22%) classified into good
category, 7 students (20%) classified into fair category, 12 students (33%) are classified as
unsatisfactory and 4 students (11%) in unacceptable category.

From data above it can be seen that the largest number of the students is in
unsatisfactory (12 students/33%). It is followed by good category (8 students/22%), then
respectively fair category (7 students/20%), excellent category (5 students/14%) and the last
is unacceptable category (4 students/11%).

Analysis on Data Questionnaire

The highest difficulties are dominantly in making past tense sentence and
distinguishing regular and irregular verbs with percentage (81%). The second one is using
regular and irregular with percentage (78%). The last one is understanding generic structure
with percentage (72%). Beside those difficulties the students with percentage (75%) agreed
that they need teaching media to learn and understand regular and irregular verbs in recount
text.

Discussion

Furthermore, after trying to be more focused on analyzing the students difficulties in

writing recount text in each aspect of writing in terms of content, organization, vocabulary
and sentence structure, their competence in each of those aspects can be classified. From all
of those aspects of writing the students mostly faced problem or difficulty in vocabulary
aspect. Vocabulary is the most complicated aspects for the students. It can be proven by the
result or the number of students’ percentage in those aspects. There are 30 students (83%)
classified into inacceptable category in terms of vocabulary aspects. 25 students (70%)
classified into inacceptable category in term of content, and 23 students (64%) classified
into inacceptable category in term of organization and sentence structure. According to the
result of data analysis above, it can be concluded that the highest level (category) of students’
difficulties of MA Putra Al-Ishlahuddiny Kediri Academic Year 2016/2017.

Additional point to the discussion, in this case, the researcher will give further
discussion about incompatibility as relatedness between the responses on the questionnaire
and the test result than can be obtained as follows:

Questionnaire statement “I have difficulties related in using vocabularies in writing

recount text” with percentage is 50%–50% shows that vocabulary does not become a
meaningful obstacle to the students, whereas the test reveals that it becomes the most
meaningful obstacle which is categorized as inacceptable with the percentage 83% compared
by the others. Thus it can be stated that the questionnaire response can not be proven by the
test result.

Generally, from these five students whom were interviewed, it can be stated all of their
responses are quite similar. Further explanations are written as evidence to it as follows;

Most of students say that:

 They do not like writing as they said writing is boring.

  A half of them said that, they like writing Indonesian not English. Students’
response refers that English text is quite complicated since it has many kinds of
text.
 Students’ response refers that English demands a lot of vocabulary and a good
comprehension structure.

From the interview above, most response arises that students do not really comprehend
on regular and irregular verbs, and the second interview student (A) stated that they have got
lack vocabulary and still confused with simple past, students (B) stated that they do not like
writing recount text as well as they are still confused about generic structure. Among all of
students who were interviewed, there is only a student who likes writing a recount text, that is
the response from student (D).

V. CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION

Some factors contributing to students’ difficulties in writing text is that they were still
confused by using to be and modal auxiliary verb. Learners still use simple present tense
instead of simple past. They forget to insert simple past modal auxiliary. This case happens
because they cannot decide which words are included in regular and which words are
included in irregular verbs. To sum up the elaboration above that there are many students
who are able to make a recount text correctly, but almost half of the students are not
successful to make good recount text based on content, vocabulary, organization and the last
sentence structure.

Suggestion

Based on the result of the research, the researcher offers some suggestions, The
teachers are expected to explain to the students how to build a good text English recount text,
and The teachers are expected to make the students interested in writing in order words they
may need to get a new method or media to support and build up the students’ interest. They
may also introduce any kind of text and their characteristic. The students should pay attention
to the teachers guidance and explanation, students should learn more about English paragraph
writing, especially recount text and they must be ready to do a lot of practices.
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