DIFFICULTIES IN WRITING OF THE SECOND-GRADE STUDENTS AT JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOLS IN PALEMBANG

This study was intended to find out the difficulties in writing faced by students of the second grade at three junior high schools in Palembang. Qualitative research was used and phenomenology was employed as the research methodology. This study was conducted at SMP Patra Mandiri 1 which is accredited A, SMP Nurul Qomar which is accredited B, and SMP Sejahtera which is accredited C. The total participants of this study were nine students taken from the second grade of three junior high schools in Palembang by using purposive sampling. The researcher used observation, documentation, and interview to collect the data. The data were analyzed by using the thematic analysis technique. The results of this study showed that there were some difficulties that second-grade students of three junior high schools faced in writing. There were: 1) difficulty in composing the content of writing, 2) difficulty in organizing their writing, 3) difficulty in choosing the diction in writing, 4) lack of English grammatical competence, and 5) difficulty in using mechanics in writing. Thus, students found it difficult to understand the aspects of writing.


INTRODUCTION
Learning English as a foreign language begins with English learning activities and adequate skill acquisition.According to Mundhe (2015), there were two types of skills in English: receptive and productive.Listening and reading were two receptive skills because they were used to obtain information, while speaking and writing were two productive skills as they were utilized to create and express the information.Huy (2015) stated that writing was important because students could enhance their vocabulary, grammar as well as language in the process of writing.
Writing is a means of producing language, expressing thoughts, feelings, and opinions.In agreement with Nurhasanah (2014), a writer should expand writer's thought when writing to come up with new ideas that would make the text more meaningful.Students can use their critical thinking to express their views and ideas.Writing was commonly regarded to be the most difficult skill to be learned by students.It was because writing required more than just grammar and vocabulary skills.In line with Pratiwi (2015), the use of language aspects or abilities in writing such as punctuation, spelling, grammar, vocabulary, and so on, was the primary factor that made writing difficult.
There are three related studies, firstly, Supatmi et al. (2013), conducted a study about students' difficulties in writing recount text at the second year of SMP N 2 Kartasura.The findings showed that generic framework and language features were the outcomes of students' difficulties in writing recount text and teachers' solutions to the difficulties were providing repeated explanation of generic structure then asking students to analyze language features.Secondly, a study was conducted by Pitri (2018) about the difficulties of writing descriptive paragraph faced by the eight grade students at SMP N 14 kota Jambi.It found that there were several elements that influence students' writing difficulties such as, a lack of vocabulary, poor English grammar, and difficulty in developing ideas to compose paragraphs in writing descriptive text.The last, Yuni (2015), conducted a study about students' difficulties in writing recount text at grade VIII SMP N 11 Padangsidimpuan.It was discovered that topic and language use were the most difficult aspects of writing recount texts for students.
The similarities between this research and previous studies above were to find out difficulties in writing of the second grade students at junior high school.The gaps between this research and previous studies above were the findings of the previous studies only focused on students' writing difficulties based on types of texts or the generic structure of the writing texts such as, descriptive text and recount text.Meanwhile, this current study discussed students' difficulties in writing based on aspects of writing with non-specific text.This study was conducted at SMP Patra Mandiri 1 which is accredited A, SMP Nurul Qomar which is accredited B, and SMP Sejahtera which is accredited C. The researcher conducted the following investigation to determine: What difficulties in writing were faced by students of the second grade at three junior high schools in Palembang.

LITERATURE REVIEW The Concepts of Writing
Writing is one of the productive skills as is utilized to create and express information.Writing is interrelated with other skills.If students can write well, it can support the students to speak and read the text properly.Writing is a way of generating ideas, representing ideas, and organizing ideas into clear statements and paragraphs.Students can use their critical thinking to express their views and ideas.As a matter of fact, writing is more difficult for students than other skills.According to Husna and Multazim (2019) stating that writing is regarded as a skill that gave greater difficulties to students than other skills because it is required greater concentration, critical thinking, and long-term learning.Therefore, writing has an impact on students' language development as they work through some complex process.Students are able to express their thoughts, ideas, and experiences in writing in order to convey information to the readers.It is supported by Astrid (2015) that students often face difficulties in writing when they are going to produce a paragraph.The reasons are that the teachers usually ask the students to have writing exercises in homework with no clear explanation.Sometimes, the teachers left all the students' writing without checking them at all.Besides, the textbooks that students use at schools tend to provide limited exercises in writing, and the exercises are likely forced to meet the students' needs.

The Aspects of Writing
Students must comprehend some of the aspects in writing.Students must be aware of important competences in text production, such as the use of proper vocabulary, right sentence structure, proper capitalization placement, and others.According to Brown (2015) said that there are some aspects of writing: a. Content When creating a good paragraph, an important factor such as content is certainly essential.The content refers to the writer's thought in writing, such as sentence development and relevance in making the topic.It could be defined as the main discussion when the writer wants to write in the text.Content in writing as subject knowledge, idea development, topic coverage, relevance of details, substance, and quantity of details.In short, content is a component of writing that is seen as knowledge of how to construct a topic properly.In other words, content is a field that a writer should be familiar with in order to generate excellent writing that is easy to read and understand since the paragraphs are well-organized and connected.

b. Organization
The existence of organization in writing is important because it gives a foundation for readers to examine the material to their own standards.Organization consists of all textual written structures.It is easier for readers to follow the content in a well-organized piece of writing.It suggests that if a writer's skill to organize a text is lacking, the readers will be confused.Organization often known as cohesion, is a linguistic feature of speech.Aside from that, organization is recognized as a key component of communicative language, encompassing a variety of elements such as cohesion and coherence, reference, and rhetorical organization, all of which are interrelated in order to generate and understand the connection, function, and extension of language units.In summary, organization is an important feature that makes reader easier to understand a written content by maintaining cohesion and coherence.

c. Vocabulary
Vocabulary is one of the aspects of writing that students need to pay attention to.Vocabulary means a group of words that are widely known by people, the use of uncommon words in writing can make the writing more engaging to read.Vocabulary can serve as a measurement of writer's proficiency in English.The intended audience in writing is readers who need to receive messages through the words written, every writer must employ proper vocabulary.

d. Grammar
Grammar is one of the important aspects that students need to learn in writing.Grammar or language use refers to the usage of syntactic and grammatical structures.Considering that it typically results in sentence structure agreements that involved subject-verb agreement, tenses, word order, and other significant components.The importance of grammatical competence for any communicative strategy that aims to teach students how to determine and convey the literal meaning of utterances.Students need to pay attention to the correct and appropriate use of sentence structures and components, such as alignment, tense, articles, pronouns, and prepositions.

e. Mechanics
Mechanics is an important consideration that should not be overlooked because it contributes to the specific assessment of writing's quality.Mechanics itself refer to punctuation, capitalization and spelling.Mechanics in writing is concerned with how a written text is formed, including whether a writer spells words correctly, uses proper capitalization, punctuates properly, and other classifications specified in the mechanics rules.

Students' Difficulties in Writing
Writing is one of the most essential English skills for students to be learned.When it comes to learn how to write well, the word "difficulty" comes up frequently.Accoding to Erisda (2017), learners would have difficulty in writing since generating a new concept, constructing a topic from that idea, and selecting sentences that link to each other therefore it was not an easy task.Writing difficulty can be defined as something that stops someone from mastering any part of writing.When students struggle with difficulties, it will prevent them from achieving their objectives in writing. in line with Gumus (2019) that there were various difficulties that learners confront when writing, and these issues might lead to writing difficulties.These are pre-writing difficulties, such as choosing a writing topic, organizational, vocabulary difficulties, technical obstacles such as grammar, punctuation, and spelling.
Many students in junior high schools still find it difficult in learning English Writing.As stated by Amalia et al (2021), there are four difficulties that students face in learning writing, such as (1) students' lack of English grammatical competence, (2) students' incapacity of developing ideas for English writing, (3) students' limited English vocabulary knowledge, and (4)students' demotivation to learn English writing.Therefore, it can retard the students in doing their writing exercises.It is supported by Peter and Singaravelu (2020) stating that the majority of students' largest difficulty is grammar errors.Other issues include difficulty in organizing their writing, translation problem, spelling problem and incorrect vocabulary use.It can be happened because the teacher does not give them appropriate feedback so the students are not aware of these problems.They need more guidance from the teacher in order to reduce their writing difficulties.In addition, each student may face different difficulties in learning English writing.In accordance with Moses and Mohamad (2019), there were some difficulties faced by students in writing such as lack of 16 vocabulary has made it difficult for the students to learn how to write in English, students will face anxiety to write sentences with correct grammar because of having very limited knowledge in grammar, students are struggling with spellings, it will hold them back to move forward.Next, students' readiness.They will not be mentally prepared to learn writing in the classroom if they are not ready to get material from the teacher so the teacher needs to have to warm up first before going to explain the material to increase their motivation in learning writing.

RESEARCH METHOD Research Design
This research used a qualitative study.According to Creswell (2016), the qualitative study aimed to broaden phenomena by considering respondents' perspectives.It is also supported by Rukajat (2018) stating that qualitative study was conducted with the goal of better understanding of an event or human behavior within an organization or institution.Regarding to this, phenomenology was used as a qualitative research approach.Based on Morissan (2019), phenomenology was a qualitative research approach that focused on the common life experiences of people in a particular group.The approach is used to determine people's daily lives while suspending the researcher's prior opinions about the phenomenon.

Research Settings
This research was conducted at three junior high schools in Palembang.Namely, SMP Patra Mandiri 1 which is accredited A, SMP Nurul Qomar which is accredited B, and SMP Sejahtera which is accredited C. The reasons for choosing these schools were because these schools had a common experience of students' writing difficulties and they had more convenient access to conduct this research.The participants of this study were taken by using purposive sampling technique.There were 9 participants from 71 students on criteria 3 high achievers, 3 medium achievers, and 3 low achievers based on students' scores in writing exercises.Therefore, 3 students from each school that has high, medium, and low scores in writing exercises were taken as participants of this study.It is supported by Morissan (2019) stating that phenomenology did not necessitate a huge sample size.The most optimal number of participants for this type of study was no more than ten participants.In the study of phenomenology the number of these participants was essential.

Data Collection
According to (Nugrahani, 2014), data is the result of recording researchers, both in the form of facts and figures.Data collection can be done in various settings, various sources and various ways.In gaining the data, the researchers did the following technique, are observation, documentation, and interview.

a. Observation
Observation was one of the data collection techniques in which the researcher came to the class and observed what was going on in the field.By holding the observation, the researcher could find out students' writing difficulties.During observation, the researcher became a passive participant.The researcher was not involved in the subject activities in the classroom.The researcher did the observation until the researcher got the data that is needed.In this process, observation field note was used during observation.There were three types of learning activities that were being observed, which were pre-activities, while activities and post-activities.Researcher took notes in learning writing process in the classroom.

b. Documentation
Documentation was a type of formal paper that provided evidence-based information.As the document file, the researchers only analyzed the students' writing exercises from 9 students of the second grade at three junior high schools in Palembang.3 students' writing exercises from each school that has high, medium, and low scores were taken as document files of this study.The results of the students' writing exercises were collected and examined, in order to determine what students' difficulties in writing were.

c. Interview
An interview was a strategy for collecting further research findings.The interview was the last step in the data collection process in this study.The researchers used semi-structured interviews in this step.The reason for using a semi structured interview was because the interview was opened and permitting new ideas to emerge as a result of what the students said during the interview session.

Data Analysis
The data was analyzed after the data has been collected through observation, documentation and interview.The researchers employed thematic analysis in this study.Thematic Analysis is a straightforward, adaptable, and widely used method for analyzing qualitative data that provides qualitative researchers a foundation in the fundamental skills necessary to collaborate with other methodologies (Kiger & Varpio, 2020).

Establishment of Trustworthiness
This research used triangulation in establishing the trustworthiness of the data.According to Cohen et al (2017) has defined triangulation as the use of two or more methods to collect data on some elements of human behavior.The process of methodological triangulation entailed comparing information or data in multiple ways.To determine students' writing difficulties, the researcher employed three types of data collection: observation, documentation, and interview.The goal was to reduce the shortcomings and biases of any single method.To put it another way, the strengths of one strategy may compensate for the weaknesses of another.This suggests that the study was obtained from different sources of data that eventually helped to build trust in the study and increase the validity of the study.

FINDING
From the result of thematic analysis, the researcher found that there were some difficulties that second-grade students of three junior high schools in Palembang faced in writing such as difficulty in composing the content of writing, difficulty in organizing their writing, difficulty in choosing the diction in writing, lack of English grammatical competence, and difficulty in using mechanics in writing.These five themes are described as follows: -Students found it difficult to put the appropriate punctuation marks in writing.
-Students found it difficult to locate the correct capitalization in writing.
-Students also had difficulties writing the correct spelling of English words.

Difficulty in composing the content of writing
Students found it difficult to generate and develop ideas into sentence in paragraph writing.The data obtained from observations proved that the teacher did not give detail explanation to the students before they had writing practice so the students had hard time to comprehend what was asked by the teacher.Students were confused to start their writing.They got stuck and found it difficult to think and deliver the idea to their writing.Based on students' writing documents, researcher found that students did not compose the content of writing properly.For instance, it can be seen from the sentences written by the student with the initial RA, which is as follows: "Holiday is happy me, I holiday with my family I holiday very much…."From the results of the documentation in the form of students' writing, the information obtained was that students still had difficulties in determining the main ideas and topic.Besides, it was found that the topic or ideas the student wanted to develop in the writing was not clear.Moreover, the results of interview also revealed that the students of these three junior high schools had difficulty in composing the content of writing.Students did not have prior knowledge related the topic that is discussed therefore it made them difficult to generate and develop the idea.

Difficulty in organizing their writing.
Students did not have background knowledge of writing transition words to make their writing coherence.Based on the data from observations showed that the teacher did not explain about some transition words that the students actually needed in connecting each sentence or paragraph to make it organize in order to be easily understood by the reader.Therefore, the students just make their writing by their own without having well organization in their paragraph writing.It made their writing less organize and the students found it difficult to connect from one sentence to another sentence or paragraph to paragraph.It is supported by students' writing documents, researcher found that students did not use any transition words in their writing.For example, it can be seen from the sentences written by the student with the initial N, which is as follows: "The best day in my life was when my father gave me a new bicycle it make me so happy I use my bicycle to school I take care of it carefully.I loved my bicycle."From those sentences proved that students found it difficult to organize their writing because they did not use any transition words to connect each sentence.Moreover, the data from interviews also revealed that students found it difficult to organize their writing because of inadequate knowledge of transition words that is needed in writing.

Difficulty in choosing the diction in writing
Students found it difficult to select suitable word choices in writing.It was found from the data observations that students did not use the word that was appropriate in meaning in the sentence they have written.Students found it difficult to write some words from Indonesia to English because it usually has more than one translation.Researcher observed that students frequently asked the teacher about some words they were confused for example, the word "mendapatkan" they found so many translations from it such as: get, gain, obtain, acquire.Therefore, the teacher needed to choose the suitable English word for them to write.It was also supported by students' writing documents, researcher found that students had difficulty in English vocabulary.It can be seen from the sentences written by the student with the initial H: "My unforgettable moment in my life was when I and my family rised the jempol mountain.We carried some tools that we needed.I felt very tired at that event."From the result of the student's writing, it showed that the student did not choose an appropriate word such as, the word rise the mountain, the word "rise" is translated literally.The correct word choice should be "climb".Furthermore, the data gained from interviews also showed that students had difficulty in choosing the diction in writing.Sometimes, they used or wrote English words that did not match with the idea or purpose that they wanted to share.

Lack of English grammatical competence.
Students found it difficult to determine subject-verb agreement and tenses in writing.The data from observations revealed that students faced difficulties in using the correct grammatical structure in their writing because they did not have enough understanding about it.Before having writing practices, the teacher did not review about the tenses that students needed to use in their writing although they have studied about it in previous meeting but the students forgot about the formula from the tenses that they wanted to use.For Instance, Students were confused in putting the right subject and verb or tobe.There was a student initial JT that wrote "I were in Java last year" to make it correct, the student needed to use "was" instead of "were".Similarly, based on students' writing documents, researcher found that students still used present tense that actually they needed to use past tense because the topic of writing asked them to write about their past experience.Such as, the sentences written by the student with the initial F, which is as follows: "I go holiday to Jakarta last year.I go with my big family.We visits many places such as monas, kota tua, ancol…".From the result of student's writing proved that there were still grammatical errors such as lack of knowledge in verb II when using past tense.Furthermore, it is also supported by the data of interviews obtained that students had less understanding of grammatical rules so they found it difficult to use grammar properly in their writing.

Difficulty in using mechanics in writing
Students found it difficult to put the appropriate punctuation marks in writing.It was found from the data observations that students did not know how to locate the suitable punctuation marks when they had writing practices.They could not make their writing neatly because they were confused when they needed to use the correct punctuation such as comma, period, question mask, etc. Sometimes, they used comma that actually it was not necessary to put comma on it.It is revealed from students' writing documents.As an example, it took from the sentences written by the student with the initial L: "I played badminton with my friends in the park last week.We were happy.because our team, won the match."It was found from student's writing that the student still made mistake in putting the correct punctuation such as, the student put full stop before the word "because".As we know that "because" is the conjunction that have functioned as the connection of two sentences.The student should remove the full stop there before the word because and comma after the word our team.The data from interviews also supported that students found it difficult to use appropriate punctuation marks in their writing.They were still wrong in putting the right punctuation needed.
Students found it difficult to locate the correct capitalization in writing.From the data observation showed that students were confused when they needed to use capitalization in their writing.They did not have enough background knowledge about it.It is proved from students' writing documents.It took from the sentences written by the student with the initial B: "I went holiday to bandung.there were so many places I visited in bandung.for example tangkuban perahu.it was a popular place in bandung."From student's writing was found that they did not use capitalization properly because the students did not write uppercase at the beginning of each letter after full stop and for the name of a city , it should be used uppercase too such as, Bandung.The data obtained from interview also indicated that students had difficulty in using the capitalization in writing.
Students also have difficulties in writing the correct spelling of English words.It was found from data observations that the teacher told the students to be careful of writing the English words because the teacher frequently found misspelling of the word from students' writing exercises.They liked to guess the written of the word if they were lazy to look for the word in their dictionary.It is showed from students' writing documents.As an example, it took from the sentences written by the student with the initial D: "I had birthday party when I was faiv years old.My parents gave me a lot of gifts such as dol, bicycle, and other toys.I am so heppi."From student's writing was found that there were still misspelling of the words.Sometimes, the students just wrote it the same as its pronunciation.Moreover, it was also supported by the data of interviews obtained that students found it difficult to write the correct spelling in writing because of limited knowledge of vocabulary that they had.

DISCUSSION
The discussion of those points will be explained to see more information about them.Firstly, students had difficulty composing the content of the writing.Content includes the ideas that are collected in writing.The content refers to the writer's thoughts in writing, such as sentence development and relevance in making the topic.It could be defined as the main discussion when the writer wants to write in the text (Brown, 2015).Students found it difficult to compose the content of writing because calling a fresh idea came to mind, developing a topic from that idea, and choosing sentences that could connect each other was not an easy task to do.The finding was also similar to a previous study conducted by Pitri (2018) showed that students had difficulty developing ideas to compose paragraphs writing because they found it difficult to find initial ideas before going to write.It is supported by Octaviana (2016) that composing the content of writing is a difficult process that enables students to explore ideas and makes them clear and concrete.Ideas can be reviewed, reexamined, added, reorganized, removed, or changed once they are written down.It is significantly impacted by differences in linguistic structures, ways of conveying ideas, and writing styles of students when having writing practices.Therefore, students found it difficult to generate the idea because they did not have reflections in their mind on how to make a good content.
Secondly, students had difficulty in organizing their writing.According to Brown (2015) stated that the existence of the organization in writing is important because it gives a foundation for readers to examine the material to their own standards.It is easier for readers to follow the content in a well-organized piece of writing.It suggests that if a writer's skill to organize a text is lacking, the readers will be confused.It is related to the finding was found in this research that students did not have background knowledge of writing transition words therefore they did not use it to organize their writing.Furthermore, transition words are employed in writing to connect ideas, sentences, and paragraphs.Transition words help to make a piece of writing flow better and to show the continuity of ideas.In line with previous research conducted by Pitri (2018), the data revealed that students found it difficult to organize their writing since they could not make every paragraph interrelated one another.Thus, the existence of transition words was important to organize their writing.
Thirdly, students had difficulty in choosing the diction in writing.Students needed to use appropriate words in writing.In line with Hasan and Marzuki (2017), they claimed that students need to use suitable vocabulary based on the context in their writing to make the statements intelligible and clear.Students just knew some familiar words that they used in writing repeatedly.When they did not know the word that they wanted to use, they would look it up in their dictionary, but sometimes the words that they chose were not suitable for the context.They did not realize it because of inadequate knowledge of vocabulary.This finding was similar to a previous study conducted by Yuni (2015) who revealed that students had a lack of vocabulary so it made them difficult to use the right words in the right sentences in writing.Consequently, vocabulary difficulty that students face can retard them to produce a good writing.
Next, students were lack of English grammatical competence.Based on Hasan and Marzuki (2017) stated that grammar is required for proficient language users, students must remember the importance of grammar to use in their writing.The students found it difficult to construct grammar and sentence correctly.Students faced grammatical problems such as tenses, subject-verb agreement, regular and irregular verb, singular and plural nouns etc.In accordance to previous study conducted by Yuni (2015), it was found that grammar difficulties which students faced including tenses, word functions, articles, pronouns, prepositions, and adverbs would make them could not compose the writing properly.Thus, students' inadequate knowledge of grammar would make learning writing activities less than optimal.It was because the teacher did not give more additional time to reexplain about the function and the pattern of grammar before having writing practice.The last, students had difficulty in using mechanics in writing.Mechanics in writing is concerned with how a written text is formed, including whether a writer spells words correctly, uses proper capitalization and punctuates properly.It is supported by Brown (2015) that mechanics is an important consideration that should not be overlooked because it contributes to the specific assessment of writing's quality.It is related to the findings of this research that students still found it difficult to put the correct punctuation and capitalization in their writing.Besides, misspelling of the words also usually occurred because of limited vocabulary and time that they had in doing the writing exercises.These were students' writing difficulties of the second grade at three junior high schools in Palembang.

CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION Conclusion
Based on the findings of the study about the difficulties in writing of the second grade students at three junior high schools in Palembang.Namely, SMP Patra Mandiri 1 which is accredited A, SMP Nurul Qamar which is accredited B, and SMP Sejahtera which is accredited C. The researchers found some difficulties in aspects of writing that students faced such as: (1) difficulty in composing the content of writing; since the teacher did not give detail explanation to the students on how to compose the content of writing properly therefore student found it difficult to generate and develop the idea.Besides, they were confused to deliver what they thought in writing.(2) difficulty in organizing their writing; the students found it difficult to connect from one sentence to another sentence or paragraph to paragraph because they did not use any transition words to organize their writing.(3) difficulty in choosing the diction in writing; students' inability in choosing appropriate words, they used or wrote English vocabulary that did not match with the idea or purpose that they wanted to share in writing.(4) lack of English grammatical competence; students made grammatical errors such as using inappropriate subject-verb agreement.The last, (5) difficulty in using mechanics in writing; students had difficulty in punctuation, capitalization, and spelling, where those are three parts that exist in mechanics.

Suggestion
Based on the results of this study, the researchers would like to give some suggestions to the readers especially for the English teachers, students and other future researchers as follows:

For the English teachers
Due to the student's difficulties in learning English and discovery that the majority of the student's difficulties in this study were caused by the student's lack of understanding of aspects in writing, the teachers are expected to give their students more explanations and provide more examples related to the topic of writing that will be discussed in order to reduce their difficulties and make them comprehend it well.The teachers should encourage students to participate more actively in the learning writing process.

For the students
The students should be aware of the mistakes that they made in writing.The researcher suggested the students engage actively during the learning writing process, students should ask for the aspects of writing that they have not understood yet so the teacher can help them to give more explanation.

For the future researchers
This study can be utilized as a reference for future researchers who are interested in conducting related study about students' writing difficulties.At this time, there are still few related studies about students' writing difficulties of the second grade student at junior high school.The researcher hopes there will be many researchers who concern more about writing skills so they can develop the study and give more explanation in detail.Additionally, the future researchers can find out not only students' writing difficulties but also the strategy from the teacher to reduce it.