An Analysis of Student’s Ability in Writing at Riau University Pekanbaru - Indonesia

Abstract

This study focused on the analysis of students’ writing performance. It aimed to ascertain the students’ ability in using grammar, vocabulary, punctuation, spelling, coherence and cohesion. To measure the students’ writing ability, they were told to do a writing task to be completed in less than 75 minutes in duration. The task asked them to imagine that they were working for a company in Batam, a fast-growing administrative town in Kepulauan Riau Province. They were told to write a letter to their friends who wanted to know about the companies they were working for, the companies’ future prospects, the availability of vacancies in them, and the requirements to be met if their friends wanted to apply for positions there. The findings the study showed that grammatical problems seemed to be the most frequent made by the students ranging from error in using plural forms, articles, verb, forms, clauses, passive voice and prepositions. The findings also indicated that problems in coherence and cohesion stemed from the absence of cohesive markers in the students’ sentences which affected how they put ideas in their letters coherently. However, despite the problems the students faced in writing, on the whole the results of their writing were good enough as they were able to include most of the important information required by their friends.