English Writing Skill Analysis of First Year Indonesian Tertiary Students in a University in Bandung

Abstract

This article reports a study on English writing skill of Indonesian tertiary students. The purpose of the study is to examine students' initial ability in writing English compositions. The subjects of the study are 22 university students in their first year at English Language and Literature study program at one university in Bandung. The data are taken from students' descriptive essays written in the classroom. The texts are then analyzed based on writing rubrics developed by Lane and Lange (1999) to see the recurrent global and local errors, supported by analytic writing rubrics proposed by Jacobs et al. (1981) to see the students' writing ability in general. The results of the study show that the recurrent errors made in twenty-two English descriptive essays are singular/plural nouns for local errors and sentence structure for global errors. In terms of analytic view, errors in language use are the most frequent errors made by the students. The findings provide useful information for constructing teaching materials for English writing in this study program. Keywords: writing skill, descriptive text, composition scoring technique, analytic scoring technique, global and local errors. AbstrakArtikel ini melaporkan hasil kajian mengenai keterampilan menulis bahasa Inggris mahasiswa. Tujuan penelitian ini adalah untuk memotret kemampuan awal menulis mahasiswa dalam bahasa Inggris. Adapun subjek penelitian adalah 22 orang mahasiswa tingkat I di Program Studi Bahasa dan Sastra Inggris, di sebuah universitas di Bandung yang dipilih untuk mengetahui kemampuan awal mereka. Data diperoleh melalui karangan deskriptif yang ditulis di kelas.Teks dianalisis dengan menggunakan rubrik penilaian yang dikembangkan oleh Lane and Lange (1999) untuk tataran global dan lokal (global and local errors); dan rubrik penilaian analitik yang dikembangkan oleh Jacobs (1981) untuk melihat keterampilan menulis mahasiswa secara umum. Analisis data menunjukkan bahwa kesalahan yang paling banyak dilakukan mahasiswa pada tataran lokal terkait pemarka nomina tunggal dan jamak (singular/plural nouns), sedangkan pada tataran global, kesalahan pada struktur kalimat (sentence structure) merupakan kesalahan yang paling sering dilakukan oleh mahasiswa. Dari sisi analitik, kesalahan pada penggunaan bahasa merupakan kesalahan yang paling sering ditemukan dalam kebanyakan tulisan mahasiswa.Hasil temuan ini diharapkan dapat memberikan masukan bagi penyusunan bahan ajar matakuliah menulis di lingkungan program studi.Kata kunci: keterampilan menulis, teks deskriptif, teknik penilaian tulisan, teknik penilaian analitik, kesalahan global dan local.

Exploring Academic Writing Proficiency of Tertiary EFL Learners of Bangladesh: A Pedagogical Implication

“…While investigating the students' proficiency level in writing the content of an essay, the study found that Bangladeshi tertiary EFL students' overall mean score in content writing is 17.28 out of 30 (57%). This is in contrast to the findings of the previous studies that found the overall mean score in content to be 22.3 out of 30 (74%), and that was at the level of Good to Average (Yuliana et al, 2016). It indicates that compared to other global tertiary EFL contexts, both English and non-English major tertiary EFL students in Bangladesh are much weaker at writing the content of an essay.…”

“…In the study by Yuliana et al (2016), the analytical scoring method was used to assess the English writing skills of Indonesian tertiary students at a university in Bandung. The test papers were scored using the ESL Composition Profile, which was created by Jacobs et al (1981).…”

“…Therefore, it is crucial for the EFL teachers to have a thorough understanding of their students' level of writing abilities and comprehend the major issues their students experience in developing their writing skills. The analysis of the EFL learners' writing abilities is essential for achieving this goal (Yuliana et al, 2016).…”

The effect of using WhatsApp in online learning setting on Indonesian EFL students’ writing apprehension and the relation with their writing achievement

“…However, according to Ariyanti (2016), students still have difficulties in mastering writing even though it is an essential skill to acquire by students. It apparently happens since writing is complicated activity yet believed as the most complex and difficult language skill to acquire both in the writer's native language and foreign language (Richards and Renandya, 2002;Alwasilah, 2004;Yuliana, Imperiani, and Kurniawan, 2016). Writing in a foreign language is even more challenging because it deals with the target language's rules which include grammar and rules usage, vocabulary, and discourse (Hung, 2006 in Yuliani, Imperiani, andKurniawan, 2016).…”

“…It apparently happens since writing is complicated activity yet believed as the most complex and difficult language skill to acquire both in the writer's native language and foreign language (Richards and Renandya, 2002;Alwasilah, 2004;Yuliana, Imperiani, and Kurniawan, 2016). Writing in a foreign language is even more challenging because it deals with the target language's rules which include grammar and rules usage, vocabulary, and discourse (Hung, 2006 in Yuliani, Imperiani, andKurniawan, 2016). As a result, due to the complexity of writing and its various requirements, EFL learners usually have negative perceptions towards writing which is generally known as writing apprehension (Challob, Bakar and Latif, 2016).…”