THE CORRELATION BETWEEN STUDENTS’ UNDERSTANDING SENTENCE PATTERN AND THEIR ABILITY IN WRITING DESCRIPTIVE TEXT AT THE SECOND YEAR OF STATE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL 10 TAPUNG KAMPAR

he purpose of this research was to determine students’ understanding of sentence pattern, to determine students’ writing ability, and to determine whether there was or not significant correlation between understanding of sentence pattern and writing ability at Junior High School 10 Tapung Kampar Regency.The type of this research was a correlational research design. Multiple choice test was used to determine the understanding of sentence pattern and writing test was used to determine the writing ability. The total population of this research was 162 students. Then, the writer took one class for the sample. It was consist of 23 students by using cluster random sampling In analyzing the data, the writer used pearson product moment correlation, through spss 16.0, in analyzing the data, the researcher found that the sig. t is 0.001, smaller than the significant alpha of 0.05 (sig.t < 0.05). It means that Alternative Hypothesis (Ha) was accepted. In the other words, there was significant correlation between students’ understanding of sentence pattern and writing ability at the second year of State Junior High School 10 Tapung Kampar Regency. Keywords: Correlation, Understanding Sentence Pattern, Writing Ability, Descriptive Tex