AN ANALYSIS OF STUDENTS’ DIFFICULTIES IN WRITING NARRATIVE TEXT

ABSTRACT The aims of the research were to know students‟ difficulties and causes of students‟ difficulties in writing narrative text at the second semester of the eight grade of MTs Mathla‟ul Anwar Rawa Selapan in academic year of 2020/2021. Based on interview with the English teacher, it was found that the students had difficulties in writing narrative text. The research methodology was a descriptive qualitative research. The subject was 35 students of C class at the second semester of the eight grade. In collecting the data, this research used documentation, interview and questionnaire. To analyze the data, it used three steps by Miles and Huberman, they were data reduction, data display and conclusion drawing or verification. The result showed that there were some types of students‟ difficulties in writing narrative text such as: grammar (misuse of tense 17.1%, subject-verb agreement 16.1%, article 11.1%, word order 3%, identifying sentences pattern 5%, types of sentences 5%), vocabulary 17%, spelling (word spelling 8.1% and confusing sound and letters 2.1%), and punctuation (misuse of capitalization 9.3%, misuse of fullstop 8.6% and misuse of commas 7.6%). Broadly, in generic structures, most of students did not write coda part, because they are only required to write, so they they did not draw the conclusion of the story. In addition, only some students did not write sequence of the event, complication and resolution. Beside that the causes of students‟ difficulties in writing narrative were less learner motivation, lack of practice, and inadequate time. From the conclusion of this research, the writer suggests that the readers who want to make better their writing especially in writing narrative text, they should pay attention in the correct rules of writing in every detail. Keywords: Descriptive Qualitative Research, Narrative Text, Students’ Difficulties