STUDENTS’ WRITING PROBLEMS AND UNDERSTANDING ABILITY IN GENRE TEXTS AT SMAN 2 LUBUKLINGGAU

This research is intended to find out the students’ difficulties viewed from the
writing aspect, particularly explanatory text, students’ understanding of
explanatory texts, and the factors that influence their problems in writing
explanatory texts. This research employed a mixed method case study design
that involved 35 students in grade XI IPA 4 of SMAN 2 Lubuklinggau in the
academic year 2022-2023. The data were gathered using tests (a writing and
an understanding test) and a semi-structured interview. The writing test was
analyzed using a checklist table. The understanding test was analyzed by
counting the correct answer, and the interview data were analyzed using an
interactive model. The results showed that students had difficulties in content,
organization, grammar, vocabulary, and mechanics aspects. However, the
student’s difficulties in grammar were not excessively high because they used
Google Translate. Furthermore, students’ understanding of explanatory texts
was in a less category because their scores were dominantly under 65.
Moreover, some possible factors influenced students’ problems in writing and
understanding explanatory texts; knowledge of generic structure, grammar,
vocabulary, mechanics, determining a topic, and developing a main idea,
students’ interest in writing lessons of explanatory text, learning English, and
teachers’ roles for the feedbacks that students need to evaluate and refine their
mistakes in writing and understanding explanatory texts. In conclusion,
students’ ability in writing and understanding explanatory text lessons still
needs to improve to achieve the learning objectives. The English teacher
should find effective teaching strategies to solve the students’ problems in
writing and understanding explanatory texts.
Keywords: Genre text, factors influencing students’ problems, students’
difficulties, students’ understanding, writing skills.