Students’ English Structure and Written Competence

This research aims to investigate the students’ English competence, the highest percentage of students’ mistake and their difficulties in responding to the TOEFL structure and written expression sections. All of the 6th semester students of the English Education Study Program of Universitas Bengkulu who had passed all structure courses were involved in this research. The data were collected through a TOEFL test and an interview. The results show that majority of the students’ English competence was poor. It also reveals that the most difficult topic in grammar section was redundancy. There were two factors that affected the students’ performance in redundancy, ambiguity and the interference of first language. In contrast, gerund and infinitives were the easiest topic in grammar section. Simple rules and the most common expression were contributed to the students’ performance in gerund and infinitives. In responding to structure and written expression section there were four factors that influenced students’ difficulties, poor understanding of grammar, less focus, lack of practice and limited vocabulary.


INTRODUCTION
English competence is very important in today's world. Many universities, agencies and other institutions use TOEFL scores to evaluate English competence. A number of universities determine TOEFL score as the graduation standard requirement in Indonesia. English Department Program in Universitas Bengkulu set a minimum requirement TOEFL Score, 450 to take their thesis exam. However, the students find it difficult to do the TOEFL test, especially in structure and written expression sections (Mahmud, 2014 There are two types of questions in structure and written expression sections. Phillip (2001) states that the first type is incomplete sentence in structure section and the second is sentence correction in written expression section. In structure section, the students will be asked to fill in the blank sentence to make it correct. In written expression section, the students will be asked to look for the error in the sentence.  The last factor that influences the students in responding to the structure and written expression sections was limited vocabulary. The students mentioned that they did not know certain words' meaning in

Discussion
Based on the results above, it can be stated that the average of students' English competence was poor. More than half of the students were placed in poor category. Similarly, Mayuasti (2018) in her study found that majority of the students in structure and written sections are placed in low level. Nurhayati (2016) also found in her study that the students' TOEFL score in structure and written expression sections is low.
Redundancy was found to be problematic in majority of the students.
In the TOEFL test, there were six questions about redundancy, item number 24, 25, 57, 58, 59, and 60. This topic got the highest percentage with incorrect answer. It was an evident that redundancy considered as the most difficult topic among others. Among all items, item number 5, 10 and 47 considered as the most difficult questions. Item number 5 was pronouns, item number 10 was auxiliary verb and item number 47 was point of view. Hambali (2008) stated that students will have problems in answering the TOEFL structure and written expression sections. Those problems included (1) identifying verbs, (2) Since redundancy is the highest percentage with incorrect answer, there are two factors contributing to the students' mistake. The first is ambiguity. The students seem to have problem in identifying which unnecessary word is redundant, it might happen because the difference between Indonesian and English grammar pattern. Then, the second factor is interference of first language. The students probably accustomed to using their first language sometimes while they are speaking in English. The interference may occur in grammar pattern since Indonesian and English grammar pattern are different. They also said that using more than one word or repetition word is very common in Indonesian, it could be ambiguous when it comes to identify redundant words in English. Mira (2018) in her study found that superfluous expression or using more than one word in a sentence is one of types of interference of the Indonesian students when speaking English. Similarly, Syarif (2014) in her study also found that grammatical interference affect the students' ability in English.
In contrast, gerund and infinitives are the lowest percentage with incorrect mistake. Simple rules and most commonly used expression are factors contributing to gerund and infinitives which considered as the easiest question among all topics. The students may use gerund and infinitives often in daily conversation when they are speaking English. They probably find gerund and infinitives in every aspect of English. It is in the line with Schwartz & Causarano (2007) who stated that gerund and infinitives are high frequently used in English. It means that gerund and infinitives are very common in English conversation.
However, there are some factors behind the poor achievement of the students in the TOEFL test. The first is poor understanding of grammar. The students probably do not have well understanding about the sentences' structure and format. They lack of practice and do not relearn the grammar material. Hajri (2018) in his study found that the reason behind the students' mistakes in answering structure and written expression was lack of grammar Hence, the students felt difficult to answer the questions because they did not understand the words' meaning. Akbari (2008) stated "without vocabulary speakers cannot comprehend meaning and communicate with each other in a particular language". It clearly shows that mastering vocabulary could influence the students' performance in answering structure and written expression sections.

Conclusion
It was found that the majority of the students were placed in poor category. From the test results, the researcher discovered that the most difficult topic in structure and written expression was redundancy. There are two factors influencing the students' failure in redundancy, ambiguity and the interference of first language. Meanwhile, gerund and infinites are considered as the easiest questions among all items. Simple rules and the most common expression are two factors influencing students' performance in gerund and infinitives. The factors which contribute to the students' difficulties in doing the TOEFL test come from several things, the first was poor