STUDENTS’ DIFFICULTIES IN LEARNING PARAGRAPH WRITING IN CREATIVE WRITING CLASS
THESIS
Submitted as a Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the Degree of
Sarjana Pendidikan
Berkelina Ayu Permatasari 112016006
ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION PROGRAM FACULTY OF LANGUAGE AND ARTS UNIVERSITAS KRISTEN SATYA WACANA
SALATIGA 2020
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STUDENTS’ DIFFICULTIES IN LEARNING PARAGRAPH WRITING IN CREATIVE WRITING CLASS
THESIS
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Sarjana Pendidikan
Berkelina Ayu Permatasari 112016006
Approved by:
Thesis Supervisor Thesis Examiner
Maria Christina Eko Setyarini, M.Hum. Yustina Priska Kisnanto, M.Hum.
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PERNYATAAN TIDAK PLAGIAT
Saya yang bertanda tangan di bawah ini:
Nama : Berkelina Ayu Permatasari
NIM : 112016006 Email :[email protected]
Fakultas : Bahasa dan Seni Program Studi : Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris Judul tugas akhir : STUDENTS’ DIFFICULTIES IN LEARNING PARAGRAPH WRITING IN
CREATIVE WRITING CLASS Pembimbing : Maria Christina Eko Setyarini, M.Hum.
Penguji : Yustina Priska Kisnanto, M.Hum.
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PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN AKSES
Saya yang bertanda tangan di bawah ini:
Nama : Berkelina Ayu Permatasari
NIM : 112016006 Email :[email protected]
Fakultas : Bahasa dan Seni Program Studi : Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris Judul tugas akhir : STUDENTS’ DIFFICULTIES IN LEARNING PARAGRAPH WRITING IN
CREATIVE WRITING CLASS
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PERPUSTAKAAN UNIVERSITAS
UNIVERSITAS KRISTEN SATYA WACANA
Jl. Diponegoro 52 – 60 Salatiga 50711 Jawa Tengah, Indonesia Telp. 0298 – 321212, Fax. 0298 321433 Email: [email protected] ; http://library.uksw.edu
Mengetahui,
____________________________ ______________________________
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Salatiga, _________________
_______________________________________
tanda tangan & nama terang mahashasiswa
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COPYRIGHT STATEMENT
This thesis contains no such material as has been submitted for examination in any course or accepted for the fulfillment of any degree or diploma in any university. To the best of my knowledge and my belief, this contains no material previously published or written by any other person except where due reference is made in the text.
Copyright@ 2020. Berkelina Ayu Permatasari and Maria Christina Eko Setyarini, M.Hum. All rights reserved.
No part of this thesis may be reproduced by any means without the permission of at least one of the copyright owners or the English Language Education Program, Faculty of Language and Arts, Universitas Kristen Satya Wacana, Salatiga.
Berkelina Ayu Permatasari
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PUBLICATION AGREEMENT DECLARATION
As a member of the (UKSW) Universitas Kristen Satya Wacana academic community, I verify that:
Name : Berkelina Ayu Permatasari Student ID Number : 112016006
Study Program : English Language Education
Faculty : Language and Arts
Kind of Work : Undergraduate Thesis
In developing my knowledge, I agree to provide UKSW with a non-exclusive royalty free right for my intellectual property and the contents therein entitled:
STUDENTS’ DIFFICULTIES IN LEARNING PARAGRAPH WRITING IN CREATIVE WRITING CLASS
along with any pertinent equipment.
With this non-exclusive royalty free right, UKSW maintains the right to copy, reproduce, print, publish, post, display, incorporate, store in or scan into a retrieval system or database, transmit, broadcast, barter or sell my intellectual property, in whole or in part without my express written permission, as long as my name still included as the writer.
This declaration is made according to the best of my knowledge.
Made in : Salatiga Date :
Approved by
Thesis Supervisor Thesis Examiner
Maria Christina Eko Setyarini, M.Hum. Yustina Priska Kisnanto, M.Hum.
Verified by signee,
Berkelina Ayu Permatasari
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TABLE OF CONTENT
COVER PAGE ………i
APPROVAL PAGE ... ii
PERNYATAAN TIDAK PLAGIAT ... iii
PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN AKSES ... iv
COPYRIGHT STATEMENT ... v
PUBLICATION AGREEMENT DECLARATION………...vi
TABLE OF CONTENT ... vii
ABSTRACT ... 1
INTRODUCTION………...1
LITERATURE REVIEW ... 3
Definition of Paragraph Writing ... 3
Main Elements of Paragraph Writing ... 4
Paragraph Writing in ELEP Creative Writing Classes ... 5
Students’ Difficulties in Paragraph Writing... 5
THE STUDY ... 9
Contexts of the study ... 9
Participants of the study ... 9
Data Collection Instruments ... 10
Data Collection Procedures ... 10
Data Analysis Procedures ... 10
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ... 11
Linguistic Difficulties: Vocabulary ... 12
Linguistic Difficulties: Language Use ... 13
Linguistic Difficulties: Grammar ... 15
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Linguistic Difficulties: Word Choice ... 16
Psychological Difficulties: Anxiety ... 17
Cognitive Difficulties: Content ... 18
Cognitive Difficulties: Organization ... 19
Pedagogical Difficulties: Teaching Style ... 20
CONCLUSION ... 22
REFERENCES ... 24
ACKNOWLEDGMENT ... 26
APPENDIX ... 27
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STUDENTS’ DIFFICULTIES IN LEARNING PARAGRAPH WRITING IN CREATIVE WRITING CLASS
Berkelina Ayu Permatasari 112016006
Abstract
Paragraph writing is a basic skill that should be mastered to succeed in writing. It is one of the assessments in Creative Writing classes, which are prerequisites for taking other writing classes. A lot of the students faced difficulties in paragraph writing, so the purpose of the study is to find paragraph writing difficulties that students faced. The study conducts a semi-structured interview for six low achievers in learning paragraph writing. In creating the paragraph itself, the result indicated that the students encountered difficulties related to linguistic, psychological, and pedagogical aspects. Moreover, psychological and cognitive become the most dominant aspects. The findings are expected to help the students to minimize their difficulties and the lecturers can determine a suitable teaching style for the students.
Key words: difficulties, paragraph writing, creative writing classes INTRODUCTION
Many people express their points of view by writing. Through this way, they can describe their creative ideas into writing. Therefore, writing can give a big impact because it is one part of essential skills to communicate with other people.
In an academic setting, writing in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) is something challenging especially for freshmen who learn in English Language Education Program (ELEP). According to Ellis (2009, p 3), “Writing in foreign language contexts not only provides an extensive review of the literature and
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research which has been carried out in the field, but also presents the aspects that need to be further investigated in order to have a broader view of the writing process in FL context.” On the other hand, Fareed, et al. (2016, p 83) argue that
“students face numerous challenges: effects of L1 transfer lack of reading, motivation, and practice.” Moreover, there are stages in writing in English that should be followed by the students such as brainstorming, planning, drafting, revising, and editing. It can be seen that the students who write paragraphs need extra preparation.
In my experience of studying in my first year, I was obligated to take Creative Writing class in which the students can express their ideas. In the class, I learned many things such as creating a paragraph. Even though the class did not emphasize on the grammar, I still had difficulties in expressing the ideas. This happened because I was a new learner who still learned how to write in English and lack of vocabulary. I was also struggling to find a thesis statement and topic sentences to support my paragraph writing. Based on these, I want to investigate students’ difficulties because there are also possibilities that some students did not get the expected result. Finding out the difficulties more comprehensively would help both teachers and students to solve them.
Wirantaka (2016) has already researched about students’ difficulties in paragraph writing but focused on academic context. His finding was the learners faced one of the difficulties such as developing the main idea. The learners overcome that with following some steps to develop their paragraphs like brainstorming, drafting, revising, and editing. Another researcher, Alfaqiri (2018)
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did research about English as Second Language (ESL) Writing assumed that students’ difficulties are having anxiety with grammar issues and giving their ideas to use in their work as cognitive factors. Different from the previous studies, the present study will discuss and focus on factors of students’ difficulties in paragraph writing in Creative Writing class where English is learned as a foreign language (EFL context).
Based on the explanation above, there is still a gap about paragraph writing, creative writing, and EFL context. The study aims to find students’
difficulties in paragraph writing. If we want to succeed in writing, we can master how to create a paragraph. Therefore, I will focus on students’ low achiever experience in the first year when they took the Creative Writing class. The study will find the answer to this question “What are students’ difficulties in creating paragraph in Creative Writing classes?” Hopefully, the result is expected to help students and lecturers in writing classes. After knowing the difficulties, lecturers can show a teaching style that is suitable with ELEP students in writing classes.
Therefore, this study can help and understand students to minimize their difficulties.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Definition of Paragraph Writing
“Paragraph writing is an intellectual activity, it demands constant practice and learning of its stylistic process for the proper formation of a paragraph”
(Singh, 2015, p. 30). Besides that, Erliana, et al. (2014) expressed that paragraph
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writing is not only once step, but some steps should be followed to make a creative paragraph. Moreover, Hussen (2015) who researched in Bedeno Secondary School argued that paragraph writing is adequate practicing that could increase students’ ability, students should have opportunities to practice and study the elements of paragraph well and utilize it to compose a paragraph. Therefore, it can be concluded that paragraph writing is a continuous process which pays attention to the main elements of paragraph writing and produce a creative and well-organized paragraph.
Main Elements of Paragraph Writing
Determining a good paragraph can be seen through how well the writers’
develop their ideas and highlight the elements in writing. There are three significant parts of paragraph writing such as a topic sentence, supporting sentences, and concluding sentence that can be followed. (Erliana, et al., 2014). A topic sentence is the main idea of overall paragraphs which usually occurs at the beginning of the first paragraph. The important thing is the topic sentence should be a complete sentence which contains a subject and a verb. Another essential thing is topic sentence should consist of a topic and controlling idea. The topic refers to the subject of the topic sentence and the function of controlling the idea itself is to emphasize the topic that is going to be figured out. The last beneficial thing when creating the topic sentence is not too general or specific. This means that it only provides the general idea of the paragraphs to lead continuous writing easier. The second significant part of paragraph writing is supporting sentences. It is the explanation of the main idea and the details of the paragraph. Writers can
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add related additional information and examples in this part. The third part is the concluding sentence. It emerges in the last paragraph and the conclusion sentence usually is the paraphrasing part of the topic sentence. The content of the last paragraph is also the summary of the main information that has already been discussed.
Paragraph Writing in ELEP Creative Writing Classes
ELEP Creative Writing classes aim that the ELEP students will be able to produce original work creatively. The classes are offered in the first semester every year. The credits of the classes are 4 credits and there are around 32 meetings to finish the classes. To support students in producing original work, the classes provide a paragraph writing task that will be graded. In the task, ELEP students should choose one of some topics that are provided by teachers for their paragraph writing. Then students should follow some steps such as making an outline, creating the first draft, and final draft. In this case, ELEP students might find difficulties during composing their paragraph writing because they should able to develop and organize their ideas for each paragraph appropriately.
Students’ Difficulties in Paragraph Writing
Difficulties in EFL are a common situation that is encountered by a freshman. It is supported by Huwari & Al-Khasawneh (2013) statement that the hardest skill is writing. Not only a difficult skill, but the reason behind L2 writing students’ difficulties in their study is a possibility that they are writing infrequently. Therefore, it causes a lack of writing experience. However,
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recognizing the other factors that influence students’ difficulties itself is also beneficial. Hailemariam (2011) as cited in Wirantaka (2016) stated that students may get a little exposure to English as the target language. In this case, he stated that students may find difficulties in vocabulary selection, generating ideas, organizing problems, spelling and punctuation errors, and the use of grammar appropriately. There are also some causes of students’ difficulties in L2 writing, which here focus on paragraph writing. Those difficulties can be divided into four parts that are linguistic, psychological, cognitive and pedagogical categories (Haider, 2012; Hyland, 2003)
Linguistic Difficulties
Byrne (cited in Bouchibi 2017, p. 21) assumed that “The first classification includes the linguistic difficulties caused by the necessity to compensate for the absence of certain devices that the spoken medium has, such as pitch and intonation, through a clear and correct expression of ideas.” Writers should think the appropriate words to express their thoughts so it will not be misinterpreted by the readers. The reason is that linguistic difficulties are a significant part when readers are going to assess the quality of writers’ writing (Bouchibi, 2017). For instance, the difficulties are vocabulary, language use, grammar and word of choice that must be completely paid attention.
7 Psychological Difficulties
The second classification is psychological difficulties. Byrne (cited in Bouchibi 2017) believed that there is less interaction between the writers and the readers. In this case, the writers are pointed out as the students and the reader is the teacher. Then because of this, he also said that there is no physical appearance of the reader. An example that is called as psychological problems is anxiety of the students as writers.
Cognitive Difficulties
Students who face hardship and have a different level of capability in writing cannot utilize their cognitive maximally. Nunan (1989, p. 36) as cited in Alfaki (2015) found the following:
Writing is an extremely complex cognitive activity in which the writer is required to demonstrate control of a number of variables simultaneously. At the sentence level these include control of content, format, sentence structure, vocabulary, punctuation, and letter for action. Beyond the sentence, the writer must be able to structure and integrate information into cohesive and coherent paragraphs and texts. (p.46)
In this case, they who cannot maximize their cognitive only highlight how they implement the language. They do not seem to think about control of content and the organization of a paragraph itself.
8 Pedagogical Difficulties
Pedagogical is referring to the teachers’ teaching style and strategies.
However, students confront pedagogical problems during their writing processes. Some researchers also said that students’ writing difficulties or problems may be a result of different factors, because “…not only self- strategies influence students’ performance, but also the effectiveness of the methods and techniques that teachers apply in their English composition courses” (Aragon, Baires & Rodriguez, 2013, p. 1). Investigating students’
problems may bring us for depth comprehension of their problems. Being conscious about that is essential to discover how far students ability in writing and also helping to find aspects of learning and teaching of a second language appropriately (Nuruzzaman, Islam, Shuchi, 2018).
Theories above will be used for the context of this study. The categorization of four difficulties which are linguistic, psychological, cognitive, and pedagogical will be used as the main classification of the research findings.
Figure 1: Difficulties in Paragraph Writing
Difficulties in Paragraph Writing
Linguistics
Vocabulary
Language Use Grammar Word Choice Psychological Anxiety
Cognitive
Content Organization Pedagocical Teaching
style
9 THE STUDY
This study of “Students’ Difficulties in Learning Paragraph Writing in Creative Writing Class” used a qualitative study. The qualitative study was used to obtain more information about students’ experiences because of “…qualitative approaches allow room to be innovative and to work more within researcher designed frameworks.” (Creswell, 2014, p.50).
Contexts of the study
The place of the study was in ELEP - Faculty of Language and Arts (FLA), Universitas Kristen Satya Wacana (UKSW) Salatiga. This university had been chosen because it provided Creative Writing classes which the students’ had a chance to create paragraph writing. The location of doing the study was also accessible.
Participants of the study
The participants of the study were 6 students include males and females of ELEP UKSW who had already taken Creative Writing classes. The participants consisted of 3 students of the 2017 batch and 3 students of the 2018 batch who were low achievers in learning paragraph writing. They were chosen because they were certain to face difficulties during learning paragraph writing in their classes.
Not only that, but it also found out their actual writing skills’ ability in their first year. In selecting the participants, quota sampling was used in controlling particular requirements.
10 Data Collection Instruments
For collecting the data, semi-structured interview questions (see Appendix) were conducted for 6 participants. The interview questions were developed from (Haider, 2012; Hyland, 2003) theories. Then the researcher offered the participants to choose the language between English and Indonesian for the interview sessions. Therefore, they could freely express their difficulties and the researcher got deeper finding related to the difficulties. There were open- ended questions that had already prepared and continued with some follow-up questions to gain a deeper result.
Data Collection Procedures
First of all, the researcher contacted Creative Writing teachers’ to get permission in getting the participants’ score in paragraph writing. Then the researcher contacted the participants. Two participants were interviewed in a week, so it took three weeks to finish interviewing all of the participants. The participants’ answer was also recorded using the researcher’s phone. Last, the procedure of collecting data was held on the second semester of 2019/2020 period.
Data Analysis Procedures
The result of interviewing had already been recorded and transcribed as the data analysis. Then the result was also being grouped based on themes or categories emerged that had already asked. Later, the data described in the form of description.
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Figure 2: Students’ Difficulties in Paragraph Writing FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
This chapter presents the participants’ difficulties in writing a paragraph in Creative Writing classes. Six participants of ELEP students who were low achievers had been interviewed. The results show that the students faced difficulties related to linguistic difficulties which are vocabulary, language use, grammar, and word choice, then psychological difficulties which focused on anxiety, cognitive difficulties which are content and organization, and lastly, pedagogical difficulty that is related to teaching style. The graphic below shows the findings of the difficulties students’ faced in paragraph writing.
By looking at the graphic above, there are some difficulties that are mostly encountered by students such as language use, word choice, anxiety, content, and organization. In the second place, students often faced difficulty in vocabulary.
Then in third place, 4 students experienced difficulties in grammar. Last but not
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Students' Difficulties in Paragraph Writing
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least, half of the participants sometimes faced difficulties related to the teaching style of their paragraph writing lecturer. Each category will be discussed further below.
Linguistic Difficulties: Vocabulary
The result of the interview showed that 5 of 6 participants agreed to learn more about vocabulary. They perceived that they still lacked vocabulary in writing. This can be seen from Participant A’s statement.
Excerpt 1:
Yes, I think that I need more vocabulary. Because when we write, we need to think about what is the right vocabulary to write in our essay or assessment. (Participant A)
Participant A also added that she did not know the definition of several vocabulary in English that she could use to write, so she agreed to learn more to determine the appropriate vocabulary in her writing. The same difficulty was also perceived by Participant F.
Excerpt 2:
Yes, I think I should learn more. Because I rarely read English books, so I feel that I still lack in mastering a lot of vocabulary. I also rarely watch English videos and anything about English I feel that I still lack.
(Participant F)
From the statement, her difficulty occurred because she did not engage in activities that could enrich her vocabulary. Moreover, Alfaqiri (2018) found that a
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lack of practice creates ongoing difficulties for participants in writing. In relation to the previous studies’ finding, apparently difficulties in writing due to a lack of vocabulary also emerged in paragraph writing as shown in this result. Even though they faced difficulties in vocabulary, one of the participants admitted that she was not interested in finding the meaning of difficult vocabulary, as stated in Participant C’s interview.
Excerpt 3:
For me, what makes me lack vocabulary is because I rarely read books.
Then when I find a difficult vocabulary, I am not curious to find the meaning of it. (Participant C)
The student participants were aware that some of the difficulties they faced in paragraph writing were due to a lack of vocabulary, but unfortunately, some of them were still reluctant to engage in English exposure-related activities. This study is in line with Alfaqiri’s study and maybe this is why they have been struggling and got a low score.
Linguistic Difficulties: Language Use
Language use becomes one of the significant parts of linguistic difficulties that we should highlight. All participants responded that they faced difficulties in creating a paragraph in English. Here is evidence that the participant faced difficulties related to language use.
14 Excerpt 4:
Sometimes, I am confused about how to use the vocabulary or the appropriate context or certain particular situation or particular context.
Sometimes, I am confused that it is in the correct context or not.
(Participant B)
His statement showed that he was confused in how to apply appropriate vocabulary in a particular context. It is seen that the use of vocabulary also influenced him in writing in English. Other participants also struggled in the use of English in their paragraph writing.
Excerpt 5:
I have already found the inspiration, but I felt it was difficult to express it.
(Participant C) Excerpt 6:
The difficulty or the struggle is when I want to express something; I cannot find the appropriate sentences in English. (Participant E)
When I tried to clarify those statements, I found that both of them thought of the ideas in Indonesian but they struggled in translating them into English. In the previous study, Khuweileh (1995) as cited in Shukri (2014, p.192), found that the Arab students think the ideas in the first language (L1) before they interpret it in English and it causes a negative transfer in writing. In this case, the participants that I had already interviewed experienced the same difficulties as the Arab students did. Both the previous and present studies were conducted in an EFL context and the results were similar. Based on the interviews, it can be seen that
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relying on L1 causes difficulties in creating a paragraph and hampers the participants in expressing the ideas.
Linguistic Difficulties: Grammar
In writing in English, grammar is considered as an essential part. In Creative Writing classes, simple present tense has an important role in writing a paragraph. However, the result of the interview indicated that some participants encountered difficulties in grammar especially in deciding the tenses. The following statements indicated their difficulties.
Excerpt 7:
I think, I sometimes face difficulties deciding the tenses. Then it’s right or not and sometimes I am not sure to use grammar in English. (Participant F)
Excerpt 8:
In my first semester, I am not only learning Creative Writing, but also Basic Grammar. So, I am still confused to decide the tenses itself.
(Participant D)
Based on Participant F’s answer, she also explained that she faced hardship in applying simple present tense. Besides that, she mentioned that her other difficulties were differentiating the singular and plural sentence form. Then Participant D also showed the same difficulties in deciding the tenses because she was still in the learning process of grammar knowledge at that time. According to Ridha (2012) who researched Iraqi students, she found that determining tenses became the most problem that the students faced and singular or plural nouns
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were the other errors that only influenced some students. In writing a paragraph, as shown in this finding, students apparently also faced the same problems related to grammar. However, there were only four out of six participants who encountered difficulties in applying appropriate grammar in this study. It appears that grammar was not the most challenging aspect in paragraph writing.
Linguistic Difficulties: Word Choice
Word choice is another important part of linguistic difficulties that should be brought into attention. The result proved that all of the participants were unable to choose appropriate words for their paragraph writing. Here are some statements that showed their difficulties.
Excerpt 9:
When my teacher asks me to create a story or paragraph about SIASAT, I feel difficulty with the word that I use. Maybe it is not appropriate with the paragraph or sometimes it’s having the same meaning, but not natural.
(Participant A) Excerpt 10:
Usually, in Indonesian, it is easy to express something, but in English sometimes we need something detailed in choosing the language. I usually feel it is difficult to choose the appropriate words. For example, if we want to bring stuff. Several words that can be used are carried and picked up and it’s hard to choose those appropriate words. (Participant F)
Both of the statements confirmed that they faced difficulties in choosing the words that carried the same meaning as what they wanted to express in Indonesian. This finding is similar to Abbderraouf’s (2016) that students found a problem in writing because they were not able to choose the exact words for their
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context. In this case, they might have limited vocabulary. In writing a paragraph, it appears that the students also faced difficulties; as in line with Abbderraouf, it is possibly due to limited vocabulary knowledge and competence
.
It also influences the participants in choosing the appropriate words for their paragraph writing.Psychological Difficulties: Anxiety
In achieving proficiency in English, psychological difficulty would be an obstacle for the participants, especially in the writing process. The researcher found that all of the participants admitted that they faced a psychological difficulty. In this case, the participants that were interviewed seem to be facing the same difficulties that are related to anxiety.
Excerpt 11:
Sometimes my point is blurred, so I am afraid what I write will not be delivered to the readers of my writing. (Participant B)
Excerpt 12:
The unmatched vocabulary, the idea that is not interesting for the reader and how I express my paragraph writing is still unclear. (Participant D)
The result of those statements showed that they were afraid they could not express the message of their paragraph to the reader. Here, we can define the reader as their teachers because one participant, who is Participant C, said that she had already worked hard but she was afraid of getting a low score after submitting her work. According to Kurniashi (2012) and Wahyuni & Umam (2017), as cited in Toba, Noor, & Sanu (2019), found that linguistic difficulties, time pressure, afraid
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of getting teacher’s comment negatively, lack of writing practice and topic knowledge were the cause of students’ anxiety in writing English. However, the researcher found a new result from this study. All of the participants of this study faced difficulties such afraid of getting a low score and inability to express the writing message to the teacher. Therefore, more interaction is required between the students as the writers and the teacher as the reader to deal with the students’
psychological difficulties.
Cognitive Difficulties: Content
In creating a paragraph, it is important to plan such as creating a topic sentence, supporting sentences, and concluding sentences. The result of the interview proved that all of the participants faced difficulties in composing the content of their paragraph writing.
Excerpt 13:
If we want to write something, of course, we should read a lot and that is tiring. And then, sometimes, I cannot spend too much time reading about my topic and then I cannot make any good ideas. Sometimes, I like to feel stuck. (Participant B)
Excerpt 14:
So, my difficulty is like the first sentence, I’ve already found the idea. But, when I want to get other ideas, I feel confused. Then when I had a consultation with my lecturer, she said that my paragraph does not connect with each other. Then she asks me to change my topic. (Participant C)
In those cases, Participant B and Participant C did not have the sufficient time to brainstorm. Referring to Abderraouf (2016), he found that the students did not
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follow the stages of writing because it was difficult and time-consuming.Similar to this, the participants of this study faced difficulties in composing an outline.
Not only that difficulty, but they also skipped brainstorming since it was time- consuming. As a result, the lack of brainstorming before making an outline caused the students could not get sufficient ideas for their paragraph content.
Cognitive Difficulties: Organization
The organization of paragraph writing is also one part of cognitive difficulties that should be highlighted. The finding showed that six participants that were interviewed shared the same difficulties related to the organization. This following interview supports this statement.
Excerpt 15:
Sometimes, making a coherent idea is difficult and when I think it’s coherent enough, it is still not coherent enough for the readers, my lecturer, and my friend. And then, it will only be jumbled ideas.
(Participant B)
His statement was also supported by Participant F and Participant C. Based on Participant F’s experience, she stated that some sentences that she had already made were irrelevant to her thesis statement. For instance, she should have used an "A" idea, but she used other ideas for the paragraph. It made her paragraph incoherent and jumbled. Then from Participant C’s experience, when she had classified and made her paragraph, she felt that the paragraph was coherent enough. However, when she consulted it with her lecturer, the paragraph was still not sequencing. However, Abderraouf (2016) in his study found that there were
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only a few students who encountered difficulties toward coherence and organization of writing. The most common difficulties that they faced were vocabulary, grammar, and academic style. This result is not in line with this study.
Based on the participants’ statements, all of them faced difficulties in organizing their paragraphs appropriately. It can be seen from the irrelevant sentences that they made for their paragraph writing. In this situation, they might be drafting their paragraph writing directly before thinking about brainstorming and arranging their outline in a good way. To deal with this problem, the participants overcame it by not only asking the lecturer but also discussing it with their friends. This way is helpful according to Participant B’s answer in the follow-up questions.
Pedagogical Difficulties: Teaching Styles
The last part of this finding discusses pedagogical difficulty related to the participants’ teachers’ teaching style. The result indicated that three out of six participants agreed that they face difficulties with their teachers’ teaching style. It can be seen from the statement below.
Excerpt 16:
When my teacher asks me to create a paragraph, they sometimes choose the topic, but I don’t like the topic. (Participant A)
From Participant A’s statement, the cause of her difficulty is the selected topic by the teacher. She also preferred to choose the topic by herself. In the previous study, Cohen’s (2013) result showed that the selected topic has a positive impact on the students, but the students’ writing fluency could increase if they were able
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to express their ideas and use various words when they selected their own topic.
Through Participant A’s case, the role of a teacher is important for considering the suitable topic of paragraph writing for each student. The teacher had already facilitated the students by providing the given topics, but there was a student who felt that it was difficult to relate to it. Participant C and D also faced pedagogical difficulty with teachers’ teaching style, but they felt different struggles.
Excerpt 17:
It is not detailed and sometimes my lecturer only asks me to do the assignment. I feel that the explanation and also the instruction are unclear enough. (Participant C)
Excerpt 18:
I feel difficult because the teacher's expectations are different from ours.
So, we should follow the teacher’s feedback. (Participant D)
Both of the difficulties were classic situations that students always find during the learning process. According to Participant C and D’s interviews, it can be interpreted that their struggle was related to the teacher’s explanation, instruction, and feedback. Besides that, Participant D also clarified her difficulty through this statement.
Excerpt 19:
The lecturer is only scribbling on my writing and does not give the details.
So, we should change it from the beginning. (Participant D)
In the previous study, Kasanga (2014) found that few students perceived that the teacher’s feedback did not help them in improving their writing. It happened
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because the teacher sometimes did not give detailed comments related to their errors in writing. In addition, the students were also unable to understand the teacher’s instruction and the written symbols' feedback. However, the result is somewhat different from this study. The study indicates that half of the participants not only faced difficulties with the lecturer’s feedback and instruction but they also were struggling with the lecturer’s explanation during the learning process. One of them also felt that the lecturer only gave assignments without more guidance. Here, it can be seen that the teachers’ teaching style affects the students’ competence in paragraph writing. The lecturers’ guidance is difficult for some students, so they cannot maximize their ability to create a creative paragraph.
CONCLUSION
This study aims to find students’ difficulties in paragraph writing. The findings indicate that students faced various difficulties related to linguistic, cognitive, psychological, and pedagogical difficulties in paragraph writing in Creative Writing classes. Then the most dominant category is psychological and cognitive difficulties. In linguistic difficulties, students did not have the motivation to gain more exposure to English. It created a lack of vocabulary, knowledge of grammar, synonyms, and dependence on their first language. Then afraid of getting a low score and inability to express the writing message to the teacher became the reasons that led to psychological difficulties that were faced by the students. In cognitive difficulties, students were not brainstorming appropriately and still encountered difficulties in classifying ideas for each
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paragraph. Lastly, the selected topic by the teacher, unclear instruction and not being able to comprehend feedback and lesson explanations became the students’
struggle in creating a paragraph itself.
Based on the findings, some implications have been made for the students.
The students should have a positive attitude to motivate themselves in getting more exposure to English. They can also consult with the lecturers if they find any difficulties in their process of writing a paragraph. For the lecturers, these findings could be information to overcome students’ difficulties in creating a paragraph and determine a suitable teaching style especially in teaching paragraph writing.
This research, however, is subject to several limitations that could be addressed in the future. The participants of the study were low achievers in Creative Writing classes who are in the second and third year of their study. My suggestion is to conduct research where the participants vary who are taking or have just passed the course, also add the number of participants, and investigate teachers’ perceptions. Therefore, further research is needed to obtain more findings from various perspectives.
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REFERENCES
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
My greatest gratitude is to Jesus Christ, who gives me strength and blessing in my daily life. Through him, I could able to finish my thesis. I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Ibu Maria Christina Eko Setyarini, M. Hum., for her guidance and motivation for my thesis. As my thesis examiner, Ibu Yustina Priska Kisnanto, M. Hum., thank you for your advice and suggestions. Second, I would like to thank my aunt, Sri Hartini Sugino and my sister, Inti Kusuma Anugrahani for their support. Third, I would like to thank all of my participants who helped me to complete my thesis’s data. Last but not least, special thanks to Erviana, Putri, Fransisca and others who could not be mentioned one by one for being my best friends during my college life.
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APPENDIX
The researcher will do a small talk first with the participants. Then it will continue with the interview questions related to the difficulties. Here are the lists of questions that are going to be asked:
1. Which batch are you from?
2. What major do you take in Faculty of Language and Arts?
3. Have you already taken Creative Writing class at the beginning of your semester?
4. Do you get an assignment about paragraph writing?
5. Do you think that you should learn more about vocabulary to write creatively? Why do you lack of vocabulary in writing?
6. What factor that makes you struggle in creating a paragraph writing in English?
7. What are your difficulties in applying grammar in paragraph writing?
8. What are your difficulties in choosing appropriate words in paragraph writing?
9. What makes you anxious when creating paragraph writing?
10. What difficulties do you face in finding relevant ideas in paragraph writing?
11. What difficulties do you face in classified the ideas for each paragraph?
12. Do you face difficulties related to the teacher teaching style in paragraph writing? What are they?
13. What are other difficulties that you find when do paragraph writing?
