THE CORRELATION BETWEEN VOCABULARY MASTERY AND DESCRIPTIVE PARAGRAPH WRITING ABILITY OF THE EIGHTH-GRADE STUDENTS OF SMPN 5 SUKAWATI IN ACADEMIC YEAR 2021/2022

This study delt with the correlation between vocabulary mastery and descriptive paragraph writing ability of the eighth-grade students of SMPN 5 Sukawati in academic year 2021/2022. The main purpose of the present research was to find out whether there was significant correlation between vocabulary mastery and descriptive paragraph writing ability. It made used of ex-post facto research design. The samples of the research consisted of 72 students which were chosen by means of cluster sampling method with lottery system. The researcher used two test to get the data of vocabulary mastery and descriptive paragraph writing ability, such as cloze task item for the vocabulary mastery and paragraph construction task for the descriptive paragraph writing ability. The techniques of analyzing data were descriptive statistic and inferential analysis using IBM SPSS 26. There were two steps in analyzing the data, namely, pre-requisite analysis and hypothesis testing. The hypothesis testing was conducted by applying Pearson product moment correlation and T-test. The result of the hypothesis testing showed that the alternative hypothesis, there was significant correlation between vocabulary mastery and descriptive paragraph writing ability of the eighth-grade students of SMPN 5 Sukawati, was accepted.