DIFFICULTIES FACED BY THE STUDENTS IN WRITING

DESCRIPTIVE TEXT AT MA DARUL ULUM PULAU RIMAU

UNDERGRADUATE THESIS

This thesis was approved as one of the requirements to get the tittle of

Sarjana Pendidikan (S.Pd.)

By

Heru Siswanto

1810205006

Advisors:

1. Shynta Amalia, M.Pd

2. Hariana Amalia, M.Pd

ENGLISH EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM

FACULTY OF TARBIYAH AND TEACHING SCIENCES

UNIVERSITAS ISLAM NEGERI RADEN FATAH PALEMBANG

2023
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1. Background of the Study
Writing is one of various methods to communicate language.
Thomas (2000) states that writing is a tool for expressing ideas, thoughts,
views, and feelings regarding specific events. Students are required to be
proficient in English writing at the senior high school level and to
participate actively in the teaching and learning process in the classroom
by writing in English. According to Amstrong (2001), writing is a method
of communication that is permanent, if reading an article in the newspaper
is upsetting or frustrating, writing is often the most effective form of
communication.

In addition, writing is an important skill in learning English, which

requires a significant time commitment from students, because so many
high school students do not understand the value of writing, they only
devote a limited amount of time to it. Nunan (2003) claims that at its most
fundamental level, writing is both a physical and a cerebral act, on the
other hand, is the mental process of creating an idea. While, Prabhakar
(2010) states that writing skill is necessary for reaching professional and
business objectives. It serves as an important communication tool. It is
also thought to be a sign of how well students will learn English and how
well they will do in their future careers. Heaton (2017) states that writing
skills are complicated and difficult to teach because not only grammatical
and rhetorical elements but also conceptual and judgment elements are
required in writing mastery. There are some components that must be
understood in writing, they are content, organization, vocabulary, language
use, and mechanics. Writing is difficult since the writer does know what
the writer want to write because the writer has no ideas. There are many
kinds of writing text must be learnt by student of senior high schools in
learning writing skills. The categories include report text, recount text,

1
narrative text, descriptive, and others. Descriptive writing is one type of
writing that is taught in tenth grade.

The purpose of a description text is to provide a clear description

about something, whether it be a person, item, event, place, scenario, or
something else entirely (Thommy, 2008). When describing someone or
something, it must paint a picture for the reader through the written word.
Suparman and Hartatik (2008) states that the word "descriptive"
originates from the Latin "describer," which means to write or to explain.
Drawing anything is also done in description. On the other hand, writing a
descriptive text is a means to describe something in words and to arrange
those words and ideas in a logical or comparative structure. Then,
Amstrong (2001) defines descriptive text as a description of a person,
place, or thing that includes sensory details to make real people, places, or
things come to life. According to Curriculum 2013 (K-13) descriptive text
has been studied by students from junior high school to senior high school.

Alisha (2019) puts statistical data from her research. In this study
has explored the student difficulties in writing EFL. The results of this
study indicate that the lack of mastery of students vocabulary and
grammar is the most difficult problem during the writing process, which is
equal to 77.84%. They also face problems when generating ideas, then
they also feel unsure to choose words and they need to look at their
dictionary when writing in English. Besides that, based on the data collect,
most of the participants (75.68%) say that they usually faced some
difficulties when constructing sentences, and they also feel confuse about
using past verbs. In addition, some of them are confuse about the order of
sentences in each paragraph. In addition, the majority of respondents
(78.38%) often make mistakes in writing English words. Most of them
(64.86%) also their spelling was not good. That is because they often
hesitate in writing English words and think their spelling is not good
enough. In fact the difficulties faced by students are linguistics (grammar

2
and vocabulary). The writers' ability to master language and vocabulary is
the cause of this problem. Additionally, it causes students to produce a lot
of errors in their text writing because they use the wrong grammar and
vocabulary. Alfaki (2015) emphasizes that students have trouble
employing grammar correctly and word choice when writing in a foreign
language. The majority of students still do not know much more about
English language. The students have writing problems because of poor
vocabulary and grammar. When writing descriptive text, the students are
unable to develop similarity transformations or construct clear sentences.
Then, Mashullah (2015) states that prior knowledge of the students affects
their capacity to learn a foreign language. Besides that, lack motivation to
learn and practice writing descriptive text because they believe it to be a
complicated task. Additionally, it will cause students to write less
effectively. Hanafi (2017) also implies that the primary reasons why
students drop out of school the problem is that they do not want to learn
how to write, which leads students to believe that writing classes are
boring.

Preliminary study was conducted by interviewing with an the

English teacher for the tenth grades of MA Darul Ulum Pulau Rimau.
Based on the preliminary interview, the majority of the students or 90
percent’s students still have limited writing skills when they come to
descriptive texts.

There were some previous studies are related to the topic about
students' difficulties in writing descriptive text. Firstly, research that has
been completed by Wahyumi (2019) entitled An Analysis of Students
Ability and Difficulties in Writing Descriptive Text, found that the
students had difficulty describing objects in-depth and mastering grammar
concepts like the basic present tense when writing descriptive texts.
Additionally, most students found it challenging to construct complete
sentences and write correctly spelled phrases, their limited vocabulary

3
caused them to overuse certain words in their work. The difference in this
study is the data collection instrument, the researcher only used an
interview to know the students' thoughts on the lesson, the other difference
is the place of the research and the grade level of the students, and the last
difference is the method of the study. Secondly, the next previous study
written by Faradella (2018) entitled Students’ Difficulties in Writing Efl
Descriptive Text, revealed that the students had linguistic problems
(grammar and vocabulary). And the students' lack of enthusiasm in
practice and learning was the cause of the student problems. Additionally,
there is a dearth of vocabulary and grammar understanding in the EFL
text. The difference in this study are the place of the research and the
instrument, the researcher used questioner to collect the data. The third
study has been done by Annisa (2021) entitled The Students’ Difficulties
Of Writing Descriptive Paragraph Faced By Eight Grade Students Of Mtsn
8 Muaro Jambi. The result had several potential caused of the problems.
The researchers divided the factors in this data into two categories: internal
and external factors. Students interests in studying English are among the
internal factors that affect motivation to learn English. The researchers
presumption on the teacher input concluded that the students received
infrequently was an example of an external influence. The difference in
this study is the place of the research, the grade level of students, and the
instrument, the researcher used a test and also interviews to collect the
data.
Based on the information that the researchers acquired, the
researcher is inspired to carry out a descriptive qualitative study to
describe the difficulties that students have when writing descriptive texts.
The researcher expresses his intent to discuss the study Difficulties Faced
by the Students in Writing Descriptive Text at MA Darul Ulum Pulau
Rimau.

4
 1.2. Research Problem

The research problem in this study is: what are the difficulties of
students in writing descriptive text?

1.3. Research Objective

Based on the research problem, the objective in this study is to find out
the difficulties of students in writing descriptive text.

1.4. Research Significance

The researcher hopes that this research paper can provide meaning.
First for the researcher, this helps the researcher to find out where the students
difficulties that often occur and why. Secondly for teachers, teachers get in-
depth information and know the difficulties of students so that they can meet
the needs of students. Thirdly for English learners, it provides information for
English learners to correct difficulties that often occur when writing texts. And
the last for other researchers, it helps them understand students' difficulties in
writing.

2. LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Writing
Writing is one of various methods to communicate language.
Thomas (2000) states that writing is a tool for expressing ideas, thoughts,
views, and feelings regarding specific events. Students are required to be
proficient in English writing at the senior high school level and to
participate actively in the teaching and learning process in the classroom
by writing in English. Writing is a method of communication that is
permanent, if reading an article in the newspaper is upsetting or
frustrating, writing is often the most effective form of communication
(Armstrong, 2001). In addition, writing is an important skill in learning
English, which requires a significant time commitment from students,
because so many high school students do not understand the value of

5
writing, they only devote a limited amount of time to it. Nunan (2003)
claims that at its most fundamental level, writing is both a physical and a
cerebral act, on the other hand, is the mental process of creating an idea.

Writing is a valuable activity that may be prepared for by

practicing other abilities such as listening, speaking, and reading (Ghaith,
2002). Before beginning to write, the writer engaged in a number of
activities in order to generate ideas. The writer approaches people to
obtain information. The writer should also read various books to broaden
their prior expertise. Raimes (2002) state that writing is a skill that allows
one to express thoughts, feelings, and ideas. Using the eyes, the brain, and
the hands, these thoughts were put into words, phrases, and paragraphs.
An excellent piece of writing must include elements such as substance,
grammar, and language. Many people think that writing is the hardest skill
to learn in a foreign language. It is complicated because there are other
factors to consider when writing, such as grammar and vocabulary.
Knapp (2005) states that language as a communication system is
always organized as a cohesive entity, whether it was created, exchanged,
or accepted as text. The genre of work is a classification technique used by
writers to separate the way of authoring a document. It may have certain
points that make each of them readable for use in the creation of a certain
text. For instance, the descriptive text contains exact points detailing the
item's qualities. As with other genres, it has its own grammar and writing
conventions. Pardiyono (2016) claims that genre is a type of text used to
express ideas. All forms of texts are split into two categories when they are
written, as follows: (a) Texts that provide background knowledge or
historical facts. Both recount (spoof and anecdote) and narrative writings
fall under this category. The use of the past tense predicate is a defining
feature of this writing. (b) Texts that provide background knowledge or
current factual information. Descriptive, procedural, explanatory,
informational, report, exposition, and discussion texts fall under this

6
category. The use of a present-tense predicate is a defining feature of such
works.

2.2 Descriptive Text

There are many kinds of writing text must be learnt by student of

senior high schools in learning writing skills. The categories include report
text, recount text, narrative text, descriptive, and others. Descriptive
writing is one type of writing that is taught in tenth grade. The purpose of
a description text is to provide a clear description about something,
whether it be a person, item, event, place, scenario, or something else
entirely (Thommy, 2008). When describing someone or something, it must
paint a picture for the reader through the written word. Suparman and
Hartatik (2008) states that the word "descriptive" originates from the Latin
"describer," which means to write or to explain. Drawing anything is also
done in description. On the other hand writing a descriptive text is a means
to describe something in words and to arrange those words and ideas in a
logical or comparative structure. Amstrong (2001) also implies that
descriptive text is a description of a person, place, or thing that includes
sensory details to make real people, places, or things come to life.
According to Curriculum 2013 (K-13) descriptive text has been studied by
students from junior high school to senior high school. An element of a
text is generic structure. Each literature genre has a specific generic
structure. A descriptive text should take into account a few generic
structures, identification and description make up the generic structure of
descriptive texts (Pardiyono, 2016). These are the typical structures:
Identification is the first step in describing phenomena. It is made up of a
single sentence or a brief paragraph. The audience is introduced to the
description's subject in this section. It provides terse information to the
viewer about the who, where, when, and what of the subject. Descriptions
are outline components, attributes, and traits. Depending on what is
needed, it can be one or more brief paragraphs long.

7
2.3 Difficulties in Descriptive Writing

When writing descriptive text, the students are unable to develop

similarity transformation or construct clear sentences. The difficulties
faced by students are linguistics problems and cognitive problems.

2.3.1 Linguistic Problems

Alfaki (2015) states that there are three main linguistic issues with
writing: grammatical issues, organization structure issues, and diction
issues. These are a few descriptions of those issues: grammar is the first
linguistic issue. Brown (2000) emphasizes that grammar is a set of rules
guiding the typical placement and interaction of words in a phrase. NSW
Department of Education and Training (2007), also implies that struggling
students require clear instruction on how to utilize both oral and written
language successfully. Masbuan (2015) claims that the categories of
grammar errors are articles (omission or addition of "a", "an," or "the"),
verbs (omission of the verb "do" or "be"; confusion for verb choice), verb
tense (misuse of verb tenses), subject-verb agreement (misuse of
subject/verb agreement), prepositions (when a preposition is misuse,
omitted, or added), morphology (omission of the plural (misuse of
pronoun).

Alfaki (2015) defines organization as a problem paragraph

structuring, paragraph topic development, compose the entire discourse
and themes in descriptive text. Organization always refers to how the
writing is set up so that the reader may quickly understand the
organizational structure. Because many students struggle to generate and
organize their ideas, organization is one of the most common issues that
students face when writing descriptive text. As part of the issue with
arranging writing, Raimes (2001) emphasizes that students have trouble
coming up with subjects and supporting ideas when producing descriptive
text. Zainil and Rozimela (2013) states that many of the students found it

8
challenging to organize their ideas since they were unsure of how to do it
in English. For example, students struggle to collect and organize their
thoughts. The generic structure of the organizational descriptive text is
identification and description. In descriptive text, the first clause is
identification. For the purpose of creating ideal identifiers in descriptive
writing, tokens (subjects or participants) must be specific. Even if the
social function is achieved, if the writer is negligent with these qualities,
the descriptive text will contain inaccurate identification. (Tessuto, 2015:
Zavolzi, 2021). The second generic structure in writing organizational
descriptions is the description. A writer has to define the components,
properties and features of a particular thing to come up with a description.
The terms "carrier" and "token" refer to the participant or topic in the
description. In other words, the writer must refrain from using all
processes other than relational processes, such as material, mental, and
other processes. Writers should use simple present and epithets to convey
characteristics. (Heuvel et. al., 2016)

The final issue with language is diction (word choice). Putrayasa

(2005) defines diction as the choice of word, particularly in terms of
correctness, clarity, or effectiveness. To create a phrase that is effective,
students should use words that are appropriate, have the same meaning,
and have the right cognitive structure. Everyone brought their own food,
for instance (word choice).

The researcher comes to the conclusion that those are linguistic

issues with writing based on the description provided above. Language
issues often consist of three components. Grammar, organization structure,
and diction or word choice are the issues.

2.3.2 Cognitive Problems

Byrne (2003) states that writing is taught through a process of

instruction. Student must understand the written form of the language and

9
learn specific structures that are either never used or only occasionally
used in speech but are crucial for writing communication. Student must
also learn how to structure our ideas so that a reader who is not in the
room with us, or perhaps a reader we do not know, can understand them.
Alfaki (2015) defines punctuation, spelling, and capitalizations are the
cognitive issues in writing.

NSW Department of Education and Training (2007), states that

punctuation is the primary cognitive challenge in writing. One of the key
components of writing is punctuation. Punctuation is the practice or a
system of indicating text to aid in the understanding of the reader, The
most widely used punctuation marks are the full stop (used to indicate the
end of a sentence), the comma (used to separate items in a list, to indicate
a brief pause in a sentence, and to follow said when using direct speech),
and the apostrophe (used to indicate that a letter or letters have been
omitted from a word, as in has not become has not to show ownership).

Second problem is capitalization. Capitalization is one of other

aspects in writing. Based on NSW Department of Education and Training
(2007), characteristics of capitalization describes as follows: (1) begin a
sentence, (2) are used for the title of something (3) used for the names of
special people and places (4) are used for the names of special things (5)
begin days and months (6) are used for initials used in place of a full name
(7) are used for all the letters in an acronym, where the initials of the
words are easily pronounced as a word.

Spelling is the third cognitive component issue. Another

component of writing is spelling. Spelling, especially of frequent everyday
terms, is a skill that needs to become automatic (Westwood, 2008).
Students' ability to write clearly and simply is severely hampered by a lack
of automaticity. Students need consistent, extensive writing time, as well

10
as encouragement and constructive criticism from the teacher and peers, in
order for perfect spelling to become second nature.

2.4 Previous Study

The research has a significant amount of information that aids the

researcher. The data is valuable, and the researcher utilizes it to do the
research. After reviewing the prior study, the researcher gives a brief
overview of the design, which intends to investigate the number of
mistakes that students in grade ten may make by focusing solely on the use
of simple present tense. For the previous study the researcher equates the
research results with the results of research in a thesis entitled “An
Analysis Of Students Ability And Difficulties In Writing Descriptive Text
(A Study At Second Grade Of Smpn 3 Bontonompo)” Wahyumi (2019)
found that the students had difficulty describing objects in-depth and
mastering grammar concepts like the basic present tense when writing
descriptive texts. Additionally, most students found it challenging to
construct complete sentences and write correctly spelled phrases.
Additionally, their limited vocabulary caused them to overuse certain
words in their work. There are many similarities in the problems found by
the researchers so this research can be said to be the same as the problem
in the students being studied. The difference in this study is the data
collection instrument, the researcher only used an interview to know the
students' thoughts on the lesson, the other difference is the place of the
research and the grade level of the students, and the last difference is the
method of the study.
Secondly, the next previous study that had been done by Faradella
(2018) entitled Students’ Difficulties in Writing Efl Descriptive Text. The
results of this study were the students had linguistic problems (grammar
and vocabulary). And the students' lack of enthusiasm in practice and
learning was the cause of the student problems. Additionally, there were a
dearth of vocabulary and grammar understanding in the EFL text. There

11
 are many similarities in the problems found by the researchers so this
research can be said to be the same as the problem in the students being
studied, the other similarities are the data collection had been used an
interview and the qualitative method. The difference in this study are the
place of the research and the instrument, the researcher used questioner to
collect the data.
The third study had been done by Annisa (2021), The Students
Difficulties Of Writing Descriptive Paragraph Faced By Eight Grade
Students Of Mtsn 8 Muaro Jambi. The result had several potential causes
of the problems. The researchers divided the factors in this data into two
categories: internal and external factors. Students' interests in studying
English were among the internal factors that affect motivation to learn
English. The researcher's presumption on the teacher input that the
researcher believed the student received infrequently was an example of an
external influence. There are many similarities in the problems found by
the researchers so this research can be said to be the same as the problem
in the students being studied, the other similarities are the data collection
had been used an interview and the qualitative method. The difference in
this study is the place of the research, the grade level of students, and the
instrument, the researcher used a test and also interviews to collect the
data.

3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3.1. Research Design

In this study, the researcher will use a qualitative descriptive

method. This research is included in the type of case study using a
descriptive qualitative method. The characteristics of qualitative research
are qualitative research has the nature setting as a direct source and data,
and researcher is the key instrument, qualitative research is descriptive.
The data collected is in the form of words or picture rather than number,

12
qualitative research is concerned with process rather than simply with
outcomes or products, qualitative research tends to analyze the data
inductively, and meaning is essential to the qualitative approach
(Sugiyono, 2015). Case studies have various characteristics as described
by experts as a detailed, in-depth, and intensive study of a particular
institution, phenomenon, or organization. Cases can be in the form of
institutions, groups, or individuals who become one unit in a study. From
the explanation above, this research is a case study because of its
characteristics. This research will use to dig up information about a
phenomenon or case of a subject, namely difficulties in learning. The case
in this study is the problems faced by students when writing descriptive
texts and the subjects are 10th-grade students of MA Darul Ulum Pulau
Rimau. This study will use a qualitative descriptive method because it
includes a case study.

3.2. Operational Definitions

An operational definition is a variable that defines the word in a

procedure or project that will be presented so that someone can understand
what they are observing. The following terms are defined: difficulties,
writing skills, and descriptive text.

Descriptive text is a written discourse that describes or tells

an object such as animals, objects, plants, and others.

Writing skills are skills that are used to write effectively

and concisely and aim to describe and express certain people,
places or things.

Difficulties are a sign of students who are difficult to

understand so they do not understand the rules of English.

3.3. Participants of the Study

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 Researcher will conduct this research in one of the schools in
Banyuasin, namely MA Darul Ulum Pulau Rimau which is located at  Jlr.
25 RT 12 Dusun III, Sumber Mulya, Kec. Pulau Rimau, Kab. Banyuasin
Prov. Sumatera Selatan Kode Pos 30759. The object of this research are
the 10th-grade students of MA Darul Ulum Pulau Rimau. Population is the
whole subject of the research. Population is a set or collection of all
elements possessing one or more attributes of interest (Arikunto, 2006). If
researchers want to deal with all elements of the subject, the study is called
population research. However, if they want to deal with part of the
elements, it is called sample research. Arikunto (2006) states sample is a
part of population that will be examined. The research conducted at MA
Darul Ulum Pulau Rimau. The participants selected by purposive sampling
method for this study. According to Raco (2010), purposive sampling is a
technique used to select case information according to the aims of the
study from limited sources. This method use to find out the research
objective and the researcher can save more time. The researcher will take 6
of 10th grade students at MA Darul Ulum Pulau Rimau by using
maximum variation sample. Patton (2002) states maximum variation
sampling where there is a deliberate strategy to include phenomena which
vary widely from each other. The aim is to identify central themes which
cut across the variety of cases or people selected from high, medium, low
scores of descriptive writing.

3.4. Data Collection and Instruments

In this research, the researcher chose instruments in collecting all

the data for this research, namely interview. Researcher will use data
collection methods by means of interviews. Interview is a type of data
collection method by asking questions and will be answered one-on-one
based on the research objectives. According to Moleong (2002)
conversation with a purpose is an interview. Conversations are carried out
individually or by two parties, namely the interviewer and the interviewee.

14
The interviewer is the person who will give questions to the person to be
interviewed, the interviewee will provide information or answers to the
questions asked. Interview will be conducted by researcher is also based
on mutual agreement. The interview method is a very important and
influential method in the process of collecting data in research, researcher
usually has prepare the materials to be use asked in detail for regular
interviews. Researcher actively ask and make the discussion is not too
serious by adding a few interesting questions so that the interviewes are
not stiff when answering questions and it is easy to get data from the
research. The researcher will use face to face interview with participants.
Asking questions is used to gain an understanding of an event, fact or
reality through the perceptions, opinions, thoughts, feelings of other people
(Raco, 2010). According to Mathers (2002), semi-structured interviews are
a sequence of openended questions based on the topic area researched that
allow the interviewer to discuss numerous issues in more depth, allowing
the researcher to acquire the appropriate data. Therefore, the researcher
chose interview with semi-structured interview as a way of collecting data
because the researcher want to know more in-depth information about the
problem.

3.5. Data Analysis

The researcher analyzed the data of the interview with thematic

analysis. Thematic analysis is a sort of qualitative study that examines
categories and identifies themes (patterns) in data collected by researchers
(Braun & Clarke, 2006). First, the researcher recognizes the data. Second,
the researcher wrote the first line of code. Third, the researcher tries to
come up with a theme. Fourth, the researcher retracies the concept. Fifth,
the researcher reviews and compiles the candidate themes that have been
made in this phase, because there are themes that cannot be used as themes
in the candidate themes, and two themes that appear to be separate can

15
become one. Sixth, the researcher identify the concept and give it a name.
Last, the researcher makes a report.
3.6. The Trustworthiness

The accuracy of interpretation and findings must be ensured in the

process of data collection and analysis. In this study, the researcher will
validate the accuracy of the discovery by using member checking. When
the researcher provides the interviewees with the transcript as well as a
draft of the findings for participant feedback regarding accuracy is
Member Checking (Creswell, 2014). Based on the explanation above, the
member checking technique will use to check the validity of the data by
checking the accuracy of the interview data with the student. After the
member checking, the researcher will get accurate results and return it to
the student to find out what they need.

16