Investigating EFL Learners ’ Ability in Generating , Organizing , and Elaborating Ideas in an Argumentative Essay

This study aims at investigating EFL learners’ ability in generating, organizing, and elaborating ideas of argumentative essay. Quantitative method with descriptive quantitative design was employed in this study. To collect the data, the writing test and unstructured interview were used in this research. This research was conducted on April 2018 at Universitas Lancang Kuning, Pekanbaru. There were 46 learners selected as participants in this research. The result of the writing test showed that the learners’ mean score was 64.6 and it was categorized into low level of ability. Moreover, based on the interview the learners said that they felt difficult in elaborating ideas as well as organize the ideas in a good order. It was beacuse the learners had low alertness and carefulness in writing, low motivation to write an essay, low confidence when writing, and seldom to practice writing at leisure time. Therefore, appropriate writing strategy supported by suitable learning media is needed to facilitate and improve the learners’ ability in writing the essay. In conclusion, the learners’ ability in generating, organizing, and elaborating ideas is in low level of ability.


INTRODUCTION
Writing is one of the language skills that should be mastered by English Foreign Language (EFL) learners in university level, especially in English Study Program Faculty of Teachers Training and Education University of Lancang Kuning Pekanbaru.This is because the learners' achievement in writing can be used as a valuable contribution towards the development of English Language Teaching (ELT) in Indonesia, especially in the teaching of writing skill.
One of the writing skills that should be mastered by the students is writing an essay correctly.The better ability the students have in writing an essay, the better ability they have in writing another form of writing such as; academic writing, scientifc writing, argumentative essay, or various English text types.
In writing, there are two aspects that should be considered.First, writing process such as: prewriting, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing (Fachrurrazy, 2011: 90).Second, micro and macro skills of writing such as correct use of diction, grammar, and mechanics such as capitalization, punctuation, and spelling (Brown, 2007: 90).By considering those aspects of writing, writing activity will be easy and enable good improvement.
In line with those aspects, there are two another elements that should be existed in a composition.These two elements are unity and coherence.Oshima and Hogue (2006: 18) state that unity is single idea in a paragraph and coherence is the relationship between one sentence to another or one paragraph to another.So, good paragraph or essay should be developed by good unity and coherence.
Pertaining to the statement above, generating and organizing ideas in an essay are really important to be done by the writers in their composition.By having good idea generation and organization, the writing or composition will become good and perfect.It is also expected to be useful especially for: the learners, the teachers, and future researchers.
a. Learners The learners can get a reflection of their ability in writing an essay.

b. Lecturers
The lecturers can get clear description of the learners' ability in generating and organizing ideas in an argumentative essay.

c. Future researchers
The references used in this study can be used by the next researchers to conduct further research.

REVIEW OF LITERATURE
In writing, there are many kinds of composition that can be produced such as paragraph and essay.Paragraph consist of several sentences explaining the topic (Hornby: 2010).Paragraph is also a group of related sentences which develop main idea of the topic.In a paragraph, there are three structures that can be written in a paragraph.The three structures of paragraph are: topic sentence, supporting sentence, and concluding sentence (Oshima and Hogue, 2006: 3-4).So, a good paragraph is a paragraph which contains the three structures of paragraph.
Meanwhile, essay is a group of paragraph which explains the subject or certain idea (Hornby:2010).In addition, good paragraph and essay should consist of Unity and Coherence.Oshima and Hogue (2006: 18) state that unity is single idea in a paragraph.Meanwhile coherence means idea in one sentence to another or one paragraph or another is hold together.So, a good paragraph or essay should contains good unity and coherence.
In relation to the previous explanation, there are some aspects that should be considered in writing paragraph and essay.Those aspects are: Content, Organization, Vocabulary, Grammar, Mechanics (Brown, 2007: 90).As a result, by considering those aspects, the paragraph and essay will be well composed.
In this part, the researchers highlighted some previous research which relevant to this research in order to support the theories used in A Quantitative Study".The findings proved that the results of independent sample t-test located a significant difference between the experimental and control group regarding the overall writing performance, as well as the sub-components of content, organization, and vocabulary in the post-test.However, the obtained results did not reveal a significant effect of dialogue journal writing on language use and mechanics of writing performance.

METHOD
The research design used in this study was descriptive quantitative.In this study, the researchers analyzed the data quantitatively by using scoring rubric.
Then, the researcher described data descriptively.Moreover, the procedures of this research are as follow.1.The researchers prepared the writing test for the learners.2. The researchers analyzed the learners' ability in generating, organizing, and elaborating ideas.3. The researchers interviewed the students to get additional information about the factors that influenced the learners' ability.4. The researchers concluded the learners' ability in generating and organizing ideas.
The setting of this study was at English Education Department Faculty of Teachers Training and Education University of Lancang Kuning Pekanbaru, Riau Province, Indonesia.
The participants of this study were 46 learners.Moreover, the detail information about participants of this research can be seen at the Table 3.1.In this research, the researcher collected the data by using test.The test used was writing an argumentative essay.Then, the students were asked to write an essay for about 5 paragraphs (500 words) in 90 minutes length.After that, the researcher interviewed the students to gain additional information about students' ability in writing an essay, especially in generating, organizing, and elaborating ideas.
The data which has been collected through the test was analyzed by using scoring rubric of essay writing.Then, the result of students' interview was analyzed descriptively.Moreover, the scoring rubric can be seen in the table below.

FINDING AND DISCUSSION
In accordance with the data gained in this study, it can be stated that the learners' score in writing an argumentative essay was categorized into low level.It was because the learners' mean score was 64.6.For further information, the learners' score obtained from the test can be seen at the Table 4.1 below.In addition, the data from the Table 3.1 can also be presented in the Diagram 3.1 below.In accordance with the data obtained from the test, based on the result of interview, it can be explained that the learners difficulties in generating and organizing ideas in an argumentative essay were basically influenced by the alertness and the capability to write carefully in the essay.Mostly, the learners need to finish their writing as soon as possible, and it made them to become not alert with their writing especially in terms of generating, organizing, even in elaborating ideas.In relation to the previous statement, the students difficulties in applying writing mechanics were basically influenced by 3 factors such as: low motivation to write an essay, low confidence when writing, and seldom to practice writing at leisure time.This is in line with the research done by Gupta and Woldemariam (2011) about motivation and confidence toward writing a composition.

CONCLUSION
Based on the research findings, it can be concluded that the learners' score in writing an essay is categorized into low level score category.This is because the learners' mean score is 64.6.In addition, it can be stated that the students' achievement in generating, organizing, and elaborating ideas in an argumentative essay is influenced by several difficulties and factors such as: the students alertness and carefulness in writing, low motivation to write an essay, low confidence when writing, and seldom to practice writing at leisure time.
From this result, the students' difficulties or problems in generating, organizing, and elaborating ideas can be solved by considering appropriate or effective writing strategy.Therefore, it is suggested to future researchers to follow-up this research to become classroom action research or experimental research design as one of the solutions to overcome the students' problem in writing the essay or to see how effective the strategy in the teaching of writing.
above, it can be identified that 5 learners achieved very good score category with the score range 80-82, then 12 learners obtained good score category with the score range 72-79, 18 learners got fair score category with the score range 57-69, and 11 learners got poor score category with the score range 47-55.