Student’s Difficulties in Writing Descriptive Text: A Case of One Senior High School in Batanghari

Writing descriptive texts is an essential skill for senior high school students, yet many still struggle to express their ideas in written English. This study aimed to analyze the difficulties students experience in writing descriptive texts. A descriptive qualitative design was employed with 34 eleventh-grade students of SMA Negeri 3 Batanghari, Jambi Province. Data were collected through a descriptive writing task completed by all participants and semi-structured interviews with six students selected according to their writing performance, from the best to the weakest, and were analyzed using Braun and Clarke’s (2006) thematic analysis. The findings show two main themes of difficulties: cognitive and linguistic problems. Cognitive problems consisted of difficulties in generating ideas, organizing ideas, and translating ideas from Indonesian into English, whereas linguistic problems consisted of limited vocabulary and grammatical errors, especially in the simple present tense, the verb to be, and subject–verb agreement. Translating ideas from Indonesian into English emerged as the most dominant difficulty. The study concludes that students’ difficulties are shaped by the interaction of cognitive and linguistic factors. Teachers are therefore encouraged to provide process-based writing practice, strengthen students’ vocabulary and grammar, and encourage students to think directly in English.