GENERIC STRUCTURE AND LANGUAGE FEATURES OF DESCRIPTIVE TEXT WRITTEN BY JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS OF SMP ISLAM KALIBARU

Abstract

Indonesian students learn English as a foreign language. Ellis (1996:12) states that the process of learning English as a foreign language is a language learning that takes place in setting where the language plays no major role in the community and is primarily learnt only in the classroom. The different language system is one of the factors towards students’ writing error. The negative interference from the students’ native language that is different from English language rules overwhelmed them in applying the structure and the words used. The problems also happen to the students’ descriptive paragraph writing of SMP Islam 1 Kalibaru. The teacher told the researcher that the students made some errors in their writing, both the generic structure and the language features. They got difficulties in developing good generic structure and applying the language features, especially simple present tense. This research was intended to analyze the patterns of the generic structure and language features of descriptive text writing written by the high achievers of the eighth grade students of SMP Islam Kalibaru who got score 80 or higher on semester exam. This research subjects were the high achievers of the eighth grade that was determined purposively. The researcher chose all of the high achievers as the research participant. The method to collect the main data was administering a writing test. Interview and documentation were used to collect the previous scores of semester exam from the English teacher. In the test, the high achievers were assigned to write descriptive text with the topic “Famous Person” in 40 minutes. The writing test was xiv not to take the students’ scores but only to collect the students’ works by analyzing the aspects of generic structure and language features of the compositions. In the aspect of generic structure, the results of the research revealed that all the high achievers had fullfilled the requirements of identification which was reflected from the existence of the phenomenon which was stated in the identification. The research also revealed that the high achievers still had not be able to write a good description. They had difficulties in developing main idea into paragraph and did not understand the paragraph parts that should be written in descriptive text. In the aspect of language features, the research revealed that high achievers were able to apply simple present tense correctly in writing identification of descriptive text. Meanwhile, most of the high achievers got problem in applying simple present verbs, subject agreement, and “be“ in writing description of descriptive text. The result showed that the high achiever students of the eighth grade of SMP Islam Kalibaru were able to organize identification of descriptive text, but they still had problems in organizing description of descriptive text and applying simple present tense. Then, it was suggested to the English teacher to improve their way of conveying knowledge of organizing description and the use of simple present tense to the students.