AN ANALYSIS OF STUDENTS ABILITY IN CONSTRUCTING

COMPLEX SENTENCE: A CASE STUDY AT FOURTH SEMESTER

STUDENTS OF ENGLISH EDUCATION PROGRAM OF UNIVERSITY
OF MATARAM IN ACADEMIC YEAR 2015/2016

ARTICLE

SubmittedasaPartialFulfillmentof
theRequirementsforSarjanaPendidikan(S.Pd)DegreeinEnglishEducationProgramFacultyo
fTeacherTraining andEducationUniversity of Mataram

By:

ANDRE ARTARI
NIM : E1D 112 007

ENGLISH EDUCATION PROGRAM

LANGUAGE AND ART DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF MATARAM
2016
 AN ANALYSIS OF STUDENTS ABILITY IN CONSTRUCTING COMPLEX
SENTENCE: A CASE STUDY AT FOURTH SEMESTER STUDENTS OF ENGLISH
EDUCATION PROGRAM OF UNIVERSITY OF MATARAM IN ACADEMIC YEAR
2015/2016
Andre Artari, Drs. H. Sribagus, MA, Ni Wayan Mira S., S.Pd., MA

ABSTRACT
This study was aimed to analyze the students ability in constructing dependent
clause (adjectival, adverbial and noun), to explain about the students difficulties
in constructing dependent clause (adjectival, adverbial and noun), and to find out
the factors that may cause the students difficuties in constructing dependent
clause (adjectival, adverbial and noun) in complex sentences. The subjects were
students at IV A and IV B of afternoon class and consisting of 42 students. To
obtain and analyze the data, the researcher used random sampling technique and
descriptive quantitative method. The findings showed that: 1) The fourth semester
students of English education program of University of Mataram were fairly good
in constructing dependent clause (adjectival, adverbial and noun) in complex
sentences. It can be proved by the mean score was 61. There were 25 or 59.52%
of students who got score 56 they were categorized as pass and there were 17 or
40.48% of students who got score 56 they were categorized as fail. 2) The
sources of the problems were related to students difficulties in distinguishing
relative marker or subordinating conjunctions in complex sentences. 3) The
factors were caused by material, students and material and students.

Key words:Students ability, writing skill, grammar, complex sentence,

dependent clause.

ABSTRAK
Penelitianinibertujuanuntukmenganalisiskemampuanmahasiswadalammembuat
kalimat complex dependent clause(adjectival, adverbial and noun), menjelaskan
tentang kesulitan yang dihadapi oleh mahasiswa dalam membuat kalimat complex
dependent clause(adjectival, adverbial and noun), dan mencari tahu faktor-factor
yang menyebabkan mahasiswa sukar dalam membuat kalimat complex dependent
clause(adjectival, adverbial and noun). Sample dari penelitian ini adalah mahasiswa
semester IV kelas A dan B bahasa Inggris sore dan terdapat 42 mahasiswa. Untuk
memperoleh dan menganalisis data, peneliti menggunakan random sampling teknik
dan metode deskriptive quantitative. Hasil dari penelitian ini menunjukkan: 1)
Kemampuan mahasiswa bahasa Inggris semester IV dalam membuat kalimat
complex dependent clause(adjectival, adverbial and noun) dapat dikategorikan
cukup baik hal itu berdasarkan nilai rata-rata mahasiswa yaitu 61. Terdapat 25
mahasiswaatau59.52%mendapatnilai56 dikategorikantuntasdan 17 mahasiswaatau

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 40.48% mendapatnilai56 dikategorikantidaktuntas. 2)Kesulitan yang dihadapi oleh
mahasiswa adalah membedakan kata hubung dan penggunakan kata hubung yang
tepat untung induk kalimat dan anak kalimat. 3) faktor yang mempengaruhi
mahasiswa sukar membuat kalimat complex adalah materi, siswa dan materi
dan siswa.

I. INTRODUCTION

In teaching and learning the language, there are four skills that need to be
mastered, namely: listening speaking, reading and writing. Those skills are closely
related to learning a language. Tarigan (1996:2) stated that mainly, teaching and
learning a language is learning how to be skillful in listening, speaking, reading and
writing. Moreover, Widdowson (1978:2) explained that teaching and learning
language involves the ability to compose correct sentences. However, in writing skill
most students have difficulties when they have to construct sentences. It is because
English has different structures from their mother tongue.

Considering that, writing skill may be the most complicated skill among other
skills. In order to be a successful writer, someone has to have capabilities in language
structure, vocabulary and graphology. Bolton (1995) stated that the aspect of writing
includes language precision such as selected word, morphology, syntax and
orthography.

Udin, a lecturer of writing class at English education program of university of

Mataram said that there were many problems during teaching and learning in the
classroom. The first was that the students were not able to construct sentence for
instance complex sentence. He said that the students found it difficult to distinguish
between independent and dependent clause. The second was the students were not
able to use the subordinating conjunction. The third, the students were not able to
construct the dependent clause as the first clause. The fourth, the students found it
difficult to remember the formula of complex sentence.Besides, students had limited
vocabulary and the knowledge about English language. Furthermore, Udin explained
that constructing complex sentences was one of the most challenging areas in writing
practice for students in the fourth semester. He said that to construct complex
sentence, students needed more knowledge and vocabulary to support their
understanding. Based on Udins Experience, the researcher assumes that the students
had difficulties in producing sentences especially complex sentences.

Based on the phenomena above, the researcher is interested in analyzing the

students ability in constructing complex sentence at fourth semester students of
English education program of University of Mataram in academic year 2015/2016.

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II. LITERATURE REVIEW
a. The Nature of Teaching English
Teaching and learning English are closely related to language skills, those are
listening, speaking, reading and writing. However, from those skills writing skill may
be the most complicated skill. Most people tend to have the same opinion that
writing is the most difficult skill among the other skills. Writing requires more basic
skill than other skills such as listening, speaking ad reading. Furthermore, they
consider that the ability in writing is a talent. Everyone can write effectively if he/she
has good knowledge of grammar and organization. Oshima (1991:13) stated that
good writing in English requires good grammar and good organization. Moreover
Larsen-Freeman (1997:89) explained the aspects of learning writing English consist
of utterance vocabulary, grammars, and comprehension.
b. ThePlace and the Role of Grammar
Harmer (1991) stated our aim in teaching grammar should ensure that
students are communicatively efficient with grammar. Moreover, teaching grammar
has central role in teaching language because grammar is system of words in
sentences and utterances.
c. Teaching Grammar

Zheng (2009:184) defines grammar as the essential point in teaching and

learning language. If English language learners lack grammar, they fail to useboth
English language accurately to compose a correct sentence, and fail to speak English
accurately. Moreover, teaching grammar also a home work for English language
teacher to find the best method to construct good writing in order to help students to
master and understand the rule.

d. Writing English Sentences

In constructing correct sentence structure the students ought to understand how

units in sentences are combined grammatically. In constructing English sentence
structure, at least it must consistof subject and verb.Hornby (1995) stated that usually
a sentence contains a subject and a verb.
e. The Types of Sentence

There are many kinds of sentences. Razzak and Al-Hasan (2007:7) classified
the sentences into four traditional categories: simple sentence, compound sentence,
complex sentence and compound-complex sentence.
f. Complex sentence

Complex sentence is a kind of sentence which builds of two different clauses,

they are independent clause and dependent clause, Bossone (1977:57). A complex

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 sentence is a sentence which consists of one independent clause and one or more
dependent clauses: Independent clauseIndependent clause is the main clause of a
complex sentence. In other words, independent clause is a group of words that
contain a subject and a verb, expresses a complete thought, and could stand alone as
a sentence (Bossone, 1977) while dependent clause or subordinate clause is a group
of words that contain a subject and a verb. Dependent clause does notexpress a
complete thought, and cannotstand alone as a sentence. In other words, dependent
clause exists just to support independent clause in complex sentence. Moreover,
dependent clause usually modifies the adverb, adjective and noun.

III. RESEARCH METHODS

Method of the Study
This study used descriptive quantitative method. Quantitative method is used to
determine the students ability, the students difficulties and to find out the factors
that may cause the students difficulties in constructing complex sentences.
Population and sample
The population in this research wasthe fourth semester students of English
Education program of University of Mataram in academic year 2015/2016. There
were 175 students in 7 classes (each class consisted of 20-25 students). Based on
Arikunto (2006:107) stated that If the population is less than a hundred, it is better
to take all of the population as the sample of the research. However, if the number of
population is more than a hundred, it is suggested to take 10%-15% or 20%-25% or
more. Based on the statement above, the researcher took 25% of the number of
population as the sample. The number of population was 175 so that the researcher
got 44 students as the sample or two classes IV(A&B) afternoon and took by random
sampling technique.
Research Instruments
In collecting the data, the researcher used both research instruments written test
and questionnaires. There were 22 items in written test ant there were 15 items in the
questionnaires.
Data Analysis
In brief, method of analyzing the data in this research follows these steps:
1. Collecting the data
2. Scoring students answers
3. Findings the percentage of students answersand
4. Analyzing the data

IV. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

Findings
The students ability to construct complex sentences dependent clause.

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 Interval
No Number of students Category
deviation
1 80-100 6 students (14.28 %) A
2 72-79 9 students (21.42%) B+
3 65-71 7 students (16.66%) B
4 60-64 2 students (4.76%) C+
5 56-59 1student (2.38%) C
6 46-55 7 students (16.66%) D+
7 0-45 10 students (23.81%) D

The students difficulties in constructing complex sentence dependent clause.

Type of dependent Test Questionnaire

clause
Number of Percentage Number of Percentage

students (%) students (%)

Adjectival clause 9 students 25.17% 20 students 47.61%

(who, whom,
whose, etc)

Adverbial clause 17 students 40.47% 33 students 78.57%

(before, after, since,
whenever,etc)

Noun clause (what, 16 students 38.10% 26 students 61.90%

where, that,etc)

The percentage of the factors of students difficulties related to construct

Complex Sentences Dependent clause.

No Factor related to Number of students Percentage (%)

1 Material 29 students 69.04%

2 Students 37 students 88.09%

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 3 Material and Students 3 students 7.14%

Discussion

The students ability to construct complex sentences dependent clause.

Based onPedomanPenyelenggaraanPendidikan FKIP UniversitasMataram

2015, to know to what extent are the students able to construct complex sentence
dependent clause in writing English sentences, the researcher used 7 categories (see
table students ability above). If the students got score 56, they were categorized as
pass but if the students got score 56, they were categorized as fail. There were 25
students or 59.52% who got score 56 (pass) and there were 17 students or 40.48%
who got score 56 (fail). Besides, students mean score was 61. It can be said that
the fourth semester students of English education program were fairly good in
constructing complex sentence dependent clause in writing English sentences.

The students difficulties in constructing complex sentence dependent clause.

Based on table students difficulties above, the incorrect answers made by

students which related to constructingDependent clause adjectival clause (who,
whom, whose,etc), adverbial clause (before, after, since, whenever,etc) and noun
clause (what, where, that,etc) were different. It was found that based on the test
result, the students difficulties in each type were less than 50%. There were 9 or
25.75% of students who had difficulties in constructing dependent adjectival clause
(who, whom, whose,etc). There were 17 or 40.47% of students who had
difficulties in constructing dependent adverbial clause (before, after, since,
whenever,etc). The last, there were 16 or 38.10% of students who had difficulties
in constructing dependent noun clause (what, where, that,etc). However, in the
questionnaires results there were more than 50% of students who had difficulties in
constructing dependent clauses.It was found that there were 33 or 78.57% of students
who had difficulties in constructing dependent adverbial clause (before, after, since,
whenever,etc) and 26 or 61.90% of students in constructing dependent noun
clause (what, where, that,etc).

Based on phenomena above, it can be said that the students had difficulties in
constructing dependent clause related to adjectival clause, adverbial clause and noun
clause. Some of the students were able to answer the questions. While some of them
were not. It happened because they did not know the use of subordinating
conjunctions or relative marker of each type of dependent clause.

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 The factors contributing to the students difficulties

From the table of the factors contributing to the students difficultiesabove, it

can be seen that there were three things which caused the students difficulties in
constructing dependent clause, those were: Material, Students and Students and
Material.

Based on students answers in questionnaires (see table students difficulties),

it was rather difficultto constructdependent clause(adjectival, adverbial and noun) by
the fourth semester students of English education program of University of Mataram.
The problems caused by the types of dependent clause were rather complicated. It
made the students confused in determining a clause which had the same
subordinating conjunction or relative marker such as that and which whether it
belonged to adjectival, adverbial or noun clause. There were so many subordinating
conjunctions or relative markers so that they were confused to use the suitable one
which was related to the sentence that they wished to construct. The students had
also the difficulties to differentiate the relative markers (whom, whose, that).

V. CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION

Conclusion

The fourth semester students of English education program of University of

Mataram were categorized as fairly good in constructing complex sentence
dependent clause (adjectival, adverbial and noun). This can be proved by the mean
score of the students was 61. Based on PedomanPenyelenggaraanPendidikan FKIP
UniversitasMataram 2015 stated that if the students got score 56 they were
categorized as pass but if they got score 56 they were categorized as fail. There
were 25 or 59.52% of studentswho got score 56 they were categorized as passbut
there were 17 or 40.48% of students who got score 56 they were categorized as
fail. It means that the most of the students were capable to reach score 56.00.
However, the fourth students also had several difficulties in constructing complex
sentence dependent clause (adjectival, adverbial and noun). This can be proved by
the questionnaires result. The source of problems were related to the students who
had difficulties in constructing dependent clause (adjectival, adverbial and noun)
especially to identify the use of subordinating conjunction or relative marker in a
complex sentence. They were also lack of practice and the knowledge in writing
English complex sentences. Besides, there were some factors that may contributing
to the students difficulties in constructing dependent clause (adjectival, adverbial
and noun) such as material, students and students and material.

Suggestion

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 To maintain the students ability in constructing complex sentence dependent
clause the researcher would like to offer some suggestions for teachers, students and
next researchers as follows:

To the teachers:
Writing lecturers must try hard to teach students sentences especially in
constructing complex sentence dependent clause by using the suitable
method or like teaching some education media. After giving complex
sentence dependent clause lesson to the students, the lecturer must provide
more exercises in written or oral form.
To the students:
Students should consider that writing English sentences such as complex
sentence is important to be mastered in order to prove their leaning in the
higher level of English especially writing.Students should be more active in the
class by listening to the lecturer and try to make other sentences based on
lecturers example in written and oral form.
To the next researchers:
Next researchers are expected to analyze the other part of complex sentence
such as independent clause because in this study the researcher only focused on
students ability in constructing dependent clauses (adjectival, adverbial and
noun).

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