The Correlation between Students Mastery of Simple Present Tense and Their Ability in Writing Descriptive Text

Hilda Meidya Astuti (2011-36-019)

Background

Theory of writing
Writing is the one of the English four skills that is learnt by students in the school. According to Nunan

Facts of the students

practical
writing
descriptive text in the
school

(2003:88) Writing is the mental work of inventing ideas, thinking about how to express them, and organizing
them into statements and paragraphs that will be clear to a reader. In other words, writing is a way to express

ideas, feelings, or experiences. It is a tool to communicate with others by record of spoken language.
Theory of descriptive text
Descriptive text is one of genre that is taught to the senior high school students. It is a text with says what

Most of students face

some problems as they
are in the process of
learning
writing
and
descriptive text such as;

a person or a thing is like. Its purpose is to desribe and reveals a particular person, place, or thing. It is clear

that descriptive text only shows the fact.

Theory of writing descriptive text ability
The students who have writing descriptive text ability, means the students have a good English mastery.
According to Hornby (2000: 2) Ability is the mental or physical capacity, power, or skill required to do
something. In other hand, writing descriptive text ability is the skill to express ideas and thought (in this case
for descriptive text) in written symbols to make others understand of the way students describe something.

Lack of vocabulary.
Difficult
to
write
something.
(descriptive text)
Difficult in arranging
descriptive text.
Do not understand

Therefore, based on the

all explanation before, the
researcher

conduct

correlational
method

to

research
find

relationship

out

the

between

students mastery of simple

present tense and writing
ability especially in terms of

The concept of simple present tense

There are 16 tenses of English tense. One of the tenses is simple present tense. According to Azar (2005:

60) Simple Present Tense is generally used to express event or situations that exist, always, usually, habitually.
It is the most popular tense using since it is the basic tense of the most academic writing. Simple present tense
is necessary to write a descriptive text.

The concept of simple present tense mastery

The mastery of simple present tense is important and a must, since it is a basic tense. The mastery is
necessary in order to write accurately especially for descriptive text. It also help students use the target
language in communication either written or spoken forms. By mastering simple present tense, students will be
able to express the idea of descriptive topic appropriately at the present time.

Facts of the students

practical
simple
present tense in the
school.

Most
of
students
get
confused when they try to
make a simple present
tense sentense to arrange
descriptive text.

Their

They found a difficulty in

arrange sentence using
simple present tense.

descriptive

entitles

The

text

which

Correlation

between Students Mastery

of Simple Present Tense and
Ability

in

Descriptive Text

Writing