Writing is one of the essential skills in English that students must master, especially in the context of English as a Foreign Language (EFL). Among various types of texts, descriptive writing is introduced at the senior high school level to develop students' ability to describe people, objects, or places. However, students often face significant challenges in writing descriptive texts, including issues in content development, organization, vocabulary use, grammar accuracy, and writing mechanics. This study aimed to investigate the difficulties faced by tenth-grade students at SMAN 4 Jember in writing descriptive texts and to explore the strategies they employed to overcome those challenges.
This research applied a qualitative descriptive method. The data were collected through classroom observation, student interviews, and document analysis of students’ handwritten descriptive texts. Data were analyzed using the Miles and Huberman model, which consists of data reduction, data display, and conclusion drawing.
The findings revealed that students experienced five main difficulties: limited elaboration in content, lack of coherence and structure in organization, repetitive or unnatural vocabulary use, frequent grammatical errors—particularly tense consistency and subject-verb agreement—and mechanical issues such as incorrect punctuation, capitalization, and spelling. Despite these challenges, students adopted several strategies, including using online references and digital tools, applying pre-writing activities like brainstorming, reading sample texts, seeking peer and teacher feedback, and utilizing AI-assisted tools such as ChatGPT.
In conclusion, although students struggled with multiple aspects of writing descriptive texts, their awareness and application of effective strategies indicate a positive direction for improvement. With continued guidance and practice, students can enhance their descriptive writing skills significantly.