ABSTRACT

Mustika, Liany. 2019. The Ability in Writing Comparison and Contrast Essay of
the Advanced Writing Students of the English Department of FKIP ULM Banjarmasin in the Academic Year 2018/2019. Sarjana’s Thesis. English Department, Faculty of Teacher Training and Education, Lambung Mangkurat University, Banjarmasin. The first advisor: Dr. Jumariati, M.Pd., the second advisor: Nasrullah, M.Pd.B.I.

Keywords: ability, writing, comparison and contrast essay

One of writing activities is writing comparison and contrast essay. Having adequate knowledge and ability in comparison and contrast essay is essential for the English Department students to do their academic assignments. Thus, this research was aimed to find out the ability in writing comparison and contrast essay of the Advanced Writing students of the English Department of FKIP ULM Banjarmasin in the academic year 2018/2019.

The researcher used a descriptive quantitative method to describe the ability in writing comparison and contrast essay with no treatments for the students and provided the factual data from the current situation of the students’ ability. The population of this research was the Advanced Writing class. Students in class A3 and A4 (26 students) were the sample of this research, selected by using convenience sampling. To collect the data, the researcher used the students’ comparison and contrast essays to analyze the levels of their ability in writing comparison and contrast essay.

The research results showed that there were 5 students (19.23%) in excellent category, 14 students (53.85%) in very good category, and 7 students (26.92%) in good category. Meanwhile, no one in fair, poor, and very poor category. Thus, the ability of the Advanced Writing students in writing comparison and contrast essay was in very good category. Furthermore, the researcher found that some of the students made mistakes on language use (grammar) and mechanics in their writing. Based on the findings, the researcher suggests the students to improve their grammar involving tenses, subject-verb agreement, and the aspect of mechanics. For the next researchers, they may conduct a research related to the similar topic by using other different research approach to get the data of best instructional practice in teaching comparison and contrast essay.