The Students’ Problems and Solutions in Writing an Argumentative Essay on Gender Issue
Abstract
This study is intended to find out the students’ problems and their solutions in writing argumentative essays. The subjects of this study were the fourth-semester students of English Education study program, Faculty of Pedagogy and Psychology, University of PGRI Wiranegara in the academic year 2019-2020. This study used Byrne’s classification in 1995 about writing problems, namely psychological, linguistic, and cognitive. This uses descriptive quantitative design. The instruments were documentation of the students’ writing tasks and interviews. The result shows the almost all students have no problems in making thesis statements and refutations for their argumentative essay regarding gender issue. The students’ psychological problems are anxiety, nervousness, the feeling of pressure in timed writing and perfect work, a negative expectation in writing, and low self-confidence. For the linguistic problems, the result from both data indicated that students faced problems in tenses, word-class, word formation, the use of the article, and word error. While the cognitive problems faced by the students are being ignorant in the use of punctuation, short knowledge in giving appropriate examples and details in the body of the essay, and lack of knowledge in writing reference. The solutions proposed by the students, among others are to have more readings on the topic, to be self-motivated learners, to propose untimed writing to the lecturer, and to use writing tools applications.
Keywords
Full Text:
PDFReferences
Al-Sawalha, A. M. S, & Chow, T. V. V. (2012). The Effects of Writing Apprehension in English on the Writing Process of Jordanian EFL Students at Yarmouk University. International Interdisciplinary Journal of Education, 1(1): 6-14.
Alvarez, T. (2001). Textos Expositivo-Explicativors y Argumentativos [Argumentative and Expository-Explanation Texts]. Barcelona, ES: Octaedio.
Aydinoglu,N. (2014). Gender in English Language Teaching Coursebooks. 14th International Language, Literature and Stylistics Symposium. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences. 158, 233 – 239
Ariyanti, A. (2016). Shaping Students’ Writing Skills: The Study of Fundamental Aspects in Mastering Academic Writing. Indonesia. J. EFL. Linguist, 1 (1), 63-77.
Aunurrahman, A., Hamied, F. A & Emilia, E. (2016). Exploring an Academic Writing Class in an Indonesian University Context. Journal of Language and Literature, 11(1), 1–11.
Bakry, M. S., & Alsamadani, H. A. (2014). Improving the Persuasive Essay Writing of Students of Arabic as a Foreign Language (AFL): “Effects of Self-Regulated Strategy Development,” in 4th World Conference on Educational Technology Researchers, WCETR, 182, 89-97.
Byrne, D. (1995). Teaching Writing Skills. Sixth Impression. Singapore: Longman Publisher.
Chala, P. A. & Chapeton, C. M. C. (2013). The Act of Writing as a Situated Social Practice: Going beyond the linguistic and the textual. Colomb. Appl. Linguist. J. 15 (1), 25-42.
Chapter 1. (in press). United Nations Chapter 1: Purposes and Principles. Retrieved 12 October 2020 from from https://www.un.org/en/sections/un-charter/chapter-i/index.html
Cheng, Y. S. (2004). A Measure of Second Language Writing Anxiety: Scale Development and Preliminary Validation. Journal of Second Language Writing, 13(4):313-335.
Creswell, J. W. (2012). Educational Research: Planning, Conducting, and Evaluating Quantitative and Qualitative Research (4th ed). Boston: Pearson.
Davis, J & Liss, R. (2005). Effective Academic English. New York: Oxford University Press.
Ferretti, R. P., Andrews-Weckerly, S., & Lewis, W. E. (2007). Improving the Argumentative Writing of Students with Learning Disabilities: Descriptive and Normative Considerations. Reading & Writing Quarterly, 23(3), 267-285. https://doi.org/10.1080/10573560701277740
Ibnian, S. S. K. (2017). Writing Difficulties Encountered by Jordanian EFL Learners. Asian Journal of Humanities and Social Studies, 5(3). 197-206. Retrieved 10 October 2020 from https://www.ajouronline.com/index.php/AJHSS/article/view/4785
Islam, K.M.B. (2018). Issues in English Language Teaching: Gender in Language Education. Intellection: A Bi-annual Interdisciplinary Research Journal. 4 (2), 1-8.
Ka-kan-dee, M., & Kaur, S. (2015). Teaching Strategies Used by Thai EFL Lecturers to Teach Argumentative Writing. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 208, 143 – 156.
Karyuatry, L. (2018). Grammarly as a Tool to Improve Students’ Writing Quality: Free Online-Proofreader across the Boundaries. JSSH (Jurnal Sains Sosial dan Humaniora), 2(1), 83-89.
Kuhn, D. (1991). The Skills of Argument. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Levine, M. (1998). Developmental Variation and Learning Disorders. 2nd Edition. Educators Pub. Service Hardcore.
Nippold, M. A., & Ward-Lonergan, J. M. (2010). Argumentative Writing in Pre-adolescents: The Role of Verbal Reasoning. Child Language Teaching and Therapy, 26(3), 238-248.doi:10.1177/0265659009349979.
Norton, B., & Pavlenko, A. (2004). Addressing Gender in the ESL/EFL Classroom. TESOL Quarterly, 38(3), 504-514. doi:10.2307/358835
Qin, J., & Karabacak, E. (2010). The Analysis of Toulmin Elements in Chinese EFL university argumentative writing. System, 38(3), 444-456.
Qomariah, D N. (2019). Persepsi Masyarakat Mengenai Kesetaraan Gender Dalam Keluarga. Jurnal Cendekiawan Ilmiah PLS. 4 (2), 52-58.
Rahmatunisa, W. (2014). Problems faced by EFL learners in writing argumentative essay. English Review: Journal of English Education, 3(1), 41-49
Rezaei, M. &Jafari, M. (2014). Investigating the Levels, Types, and the Cause of Writing Anxiety among Iranian EFL Students: A Mixed Method Design. Procedia-Social and Behaviour Sciences, 98, 1547. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.03.577
Rivers, W. M., (1981). Teaching Foreign Language Skill. Washington: The University of Chicago.
Setyowati, L. (2016). Analyzing the Students’ Ability in Writing Opinion Essay using Flash Fiction. Journal of English Language Teaching and Linguistics (JELTL). e-ISSN: 2502-6062, p-ISSN: 2503-1848. Vol.1(1): 79-92.
Setyowati, L., Sukmawan, S., & Latief, M. A. (2017). Solving the Students’ Problems in Writing Argumentative Essay Through the Provision of Planning. Celt: A Journal of Culture, English Language Teaching & Literature, 17(1), 86-102.
Setyowati, L. Sukmawan, S., & El-Sulukiyyah, A.A. (2020). Write Down Your Thought: Essay Writing for EFL Learners. Sidoarjo: Delta Pijar.
Solikhah, I. (2017). Linguistic Problems in English Essay by EFL Students. Indonesian Journal of Language Teaching and Linguistics IJOLTL, 2(1): 31-44.
Sukmawan, S., Setyowati, L., & Nurmansyah, A. (2017). Mendayagunakan genre sastra flash fiction untuk menulis teks argumentasi. Jurnal Ilmiah Edukasi & Sosial, 6(1), 84-95.
Sunderland. J. (1992). Gender in the EFL classroom. ELT Journal 46(1), 81-91
Toba, R., Noor, W. N., & Sanu, L.O. (2019). The Current Issues of Indonesian EFL Students’ Writing Skills: Ability, Problem, and Reason in Writing Comparison and Contrast Essay. Dinamika Ilmu, Vol. 19 (1): 57-73.
The Ministry of Demography, Women Empowerment, and Child protection of Indonesia/Bappenas, (2014). Pembangunan Kesetaraan Gender Background Study RPJMN III (2015 – 2019). Retrieved 14 October 2020 from https://www.bappenas.go.id /files/7014/0850/2296.
United Nations. (in press). Gender Equality. Retrieved 10 October 2020 from https://www.un.org/en/sections/issues-depth/gender-equality/
Wahyuni, S., & Umam, M. K. (2017). An Analysis on Writing Anxiety of Indonesian EFL college learners. JEELS (Journal of English Education and Linguistics Studies), 4(1), 105-128.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.21462/jeltl.v5i3.424
Refbacks
- There are currently no refbacks.
JELTL (Journal of English Language Teaching and Linguistics); Web: www.jeltl.org; Email:journal.eltl@gmail.com
JELTL by http://www.jeltl.org is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
Indexed and Abstracted BY: