The Structure and Adequate Development of English as a Foreign Language Learners’ Paragraphs: A Case Study
Katharina Rustipa

Abstract
Developing complete paragraphs with appropriate structure is not easy for many EFL tertiary students. Thus, investigating the EFL students’ paragraphs is needed in order to reveal the strengths and the weaknesses. This study explored how the students structured and completely developed the ideas of a paragraph. The data of the study were collected from the third semester students of Stikubank University (UNISBANK) Semarang, Indonesia. In analyzing the data, the sentences in the paragraphs were numbered for easy identification of the topic sentence, the supporting sentences, the concluding sentence. The completeness of paragraph development was revealed by examining how the supporting sentences developed the topic sentence. The study concludes that the EFL students under the study have problems with paragraph structure and paragraph development. Thirty percent of the students do not conclude or close their stand-alone paragraphs and merely 33% of the students are able to develop their paragraphs completely.

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