THE CORRELATION BETWEEN STUDENTS’ MASTERY IN USING ADJECTIVE AND THEIR ABILITY IN WRITING DESCRIPTIVE TEXT AT THE EIGHTH GRADE OF SMPN 1 TALANGPADANG IN THE ACADEMIC YEAR OF 2016/2017

Writing ability is defined as the level of skill or competence in writing. The writer should be more careful and pay attention to the aspects of writing. Commonly, writing is the hardest thing for students because they should take a long process. One of the English components is grammar. The grammar can defined as the science of the rules in forming and combining words into sentences. Adjective is one the most important part in the grammar. The objective of this research was to know whether there was the correlation between students’ ability in using adjective and their ability in writing descriptive text. Descriptive text is the form of text that aims at describes how something or someone looks or feel. The purpose or the social function of descriptive text is to describe the reader about many things, including people, places, events, situations, thoughts, and feelings. In the recount text, the sentences are usually organized according to identification and description. The research methodology used in this research was correlation research. The population of the research was taken from the students at the first semester of the eighth grade of SMPN 1 Talangpadang Tanggamus in 2016/2017 academic year consisted of 137 students. The sample was chosen based on cluster random sampling technique. The sample taken was class VIII.2 consisting of 34 students. In collecting the data, the writer used instrument in the form multiple choice test for adjective ability and descriptive writing for ability in writing descriptive text. After giving try out, the writer gave the test and then analyzed the data by using Pearson’s Product Moment formula. The result of Pearson’s Product Moment correlation showed that the result was 0.8, and then it was consulted to rcritical. The result of rcritical with significant level 0.05 was 0.325. Due to robserved is higher than rcritical (0.8 > 0.325), the conclusion of the research is that there is a correlation between sudents’ ability in adjective and ability in writing descriptive text at the first semester of eighth grade of SMPN 1 Talangpadang in 2016/2017 academic year