258 EEJ 13 (2) (2023) 246-268 English Education Journal http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/eej Evaluation of Students' Mastery of Semantic Entailment as Reflected in Their Descriptive Text Writing Rika Setyawati ✉, Januarius Mujiyanto, Zulfa Sakhiyya Universitas Negeri Semarang, Indonesia Article Info ________________ Article History: Accepted 30 January 2023 Approved 8 March 2023 Published 20 June 2023 ________________ Keywords: Semantic entailment, descriptive text, writing ____________________ Abstract ___________________________________________________________________ Some challenges in teaching writing are making students interpret, analyze, and build reasoning for a coherent text. To address this issue, such research is included in a branch of linguistics, namely semantics. This research evaluates the students’ mastery of semantic entailment as reflected in their descriptive text writing. The research method applied was a descriptive qualitative design. The data was taken from the 30 explanatory texts written by the eighth-graders of MTs Ar Ridlo Pekuncen 2022/2023. The technique of collecting data was document text. The method of data analysis was triangulation. The results revealed that the evaluation of students’ mastery of one-way entailment is 90%; there were 27 of 30 students. Almost all of the students (generally) are very masterful. Next, the evaluation of students’ mastery of two-way entailment is 36.67% (N=11). Furthermore, only 30.00% of the students (N=9) can master negative entailment. The least (a fraction) mastered was metaphorical entailment, 13.33% (N=4). The easiest for students to master was the one-way entailment. In contrast, the metaphorical entailment was the most difficult. Thus, it can be safely said that the students have difficulty imagining the object in their sentences. For that reason, future research may investigate the factors that cause problems in metaphorical entailment among students. ✉Correspondence Address: Kampus Pascasarjana Unnes, Jl. Kelud Utara III Semarang 502 Semarang, Indonesia E-mail: rikasetyawati67@gmail.com p-ISSN 2087-0108 e-ISSN 2502-4566 Rika Setyawati, et al./ English Education Journal 13 (2) (2023) 258-268 259 INTRODUCTION The students must learn English independently since online learning has been devoted nowadays. According to the World Bank (2020), 646,192 schools and 62,561,660 students are 0affected by this policy. This causes the knowledge of English is also less than optimal. The main challenges in teaching writing are making students interpret, analyze, and build reasoning for a coherent text. We can find reason and logic in the semantic entailment material from one sentence to another. Then, according to Rahayu (2016), students' difficulty in conveying ideas in written form is no longer a secret. Students' ability in writing cannot be separated from the guidance and direction of the teacher himself. Getting more skilled in conveying this writing will make it increasingly clever for students to arrange sentences to form essays. The researchers also observe the important role of writing in the 2013 Curriculum, such as the students trained to think creatively, critically, and innovatively. It is necessary to apply the study of semantic entailment. To stimulate the students to reason and logically write the descriptive text, the English teacher must first explain or give examples about the sentences containing entailment. Entailment is a term that refers to a relation between a pair of sentences. The truth of the second sentence necessarily follows the fact of the first. Furthermore, Kreidler (1998) in Sa'adah (2014) illustrates this entailment. The researchers interviewed the English teacher in MTs Ar Ridlo Pekuncen. The grade eight students in MTs Ar Ridlo Pekuncen still struggled to express ideas logically and construct sentences in their descriptive text writing. The researchers also feels challenged to be able to evaluate the contents of their descriptive text in terms of semantic entailment. Therefore, it is also important to know how researchers determined the logical relationships in sentences related to each other in their descriptive texts. From the background above, this study was conducted to evaluate students’ mastery of semantic entailment while writing a descriptive text. According to Kortmann (2020), the definition of semantics is the only branch of linguistics that is exclusively concerned with meaning. He adds that semantics studies the meaning or meaning potential of various kinds of expressions: words, phrases, and sentences. Students struggle when connecting sentences with the meaning of other sentences or words that are appropriate. Students know a sentence that contains a truth, so that sentence also has ties to other sentences in line with the meaning of the truth of the previous sentence. It is commonly known as entailment in semantics. Writing skills are mostly more difficult for students to master, especially regarding reasoning and logic. Nunan (2003) stated that the most difficult task in language learning is to produce coherent, fluent, and lengthy writing, which is even more challenging for second language learners. The 2013 curriculum syllabus teaches twelve text genres to junior high school students. These are descriptive, recount, narrative, procedure, explanation, discussion, exposition, news item, information report, anecdote, and review. The researchers focused on the grade eight students at MTs. Ar Ridlo Pekuncen because of MTs. Students have less time learning English than junior high school students. MTs still use the 2013 curriculum, while junior high schools use the Merdeka curriculum. So, the English lessons at MTs are more limited. Moreover, the researchers chose descriptive text writing because the teacher taught descriptive text to eighth graders of MTs Ar Ridlo Pekuncen. It relates to the Syllabus in MTs Ar Ridlo Pekuncen. The researchers also interviewed the English teacher of MTs Ar Ridlo Pekuncen, who said that the eighth graders still struggle to write descriptive text, especially connecting and logicalizing sentences. It is necessary to apply the study of semantic entailment. Following semantic entailment, the students are expected to make the sentences coherent. It is related to the theory of Kreidler (1998), who explained entailment as two statements that may be described in such a way Rika Setyawati, et al./ English Education Journal 13 (2) (2023) 258-268 260 that if one is true, the other must be true. We can conclude that entailment is a relationship that shows the connection from the truth of the first sentence, which necessarily implies the fact of the second one. He also gave an example that if the first sentence, my jacket is navy, is true, and the second sentence, my jacket is blue, is true. But, if the first sentence, my jacket is blue is true, and the second sentence, my jacket is navy, is not always true. Thus, this study investigated students’ mastery of semantic entailment as reflected in their descriptive text. The researchers present several studies that some researchers have conducted. This study analyzed the kind of semantic entailment conducted by Rahmawati (2017) studied semantic entailment in The Da Vinci Code movie. This study aims to identify the types of entailments, describe the orders of entailment, and explain the approaches to detect entailment uttered by the characters in The Da Vinci Code movie. Her research data were in the form of utterances performed by the characters in The Da Vinci Code movie. In contrast, the context of the data was monologues or dialogues between the characters. By semantic approach, her study reveals that all types of entailments, i.e., one-way entailment, two-way/mutual entailment, negative entailment, and metaphorical entailment, are found in The Da Vinci Code movie. Then, the researchers also conducted this study about semantic entailment from Malewa et al. (2018); the study explained entailment in Lady Gaga's song lyrics. Their research aims to analyze Lady Gaga's song lyrics in terms of a pragmatic study. Therefore, the data in this research are in the form of utterances conveyed by Lady Gaga. The source of the data is seven song lyrics by Lady Gaga. The data were collected by identifying, reading, coding, and classifying the data and then analyzed by presenting, describing, interpreting, and concluding the data. This research showed that among four types of entailments, the data involved all the types of entailments in Lady Gaga’s song lyrics. They are one-way entailment, two-way entailment, negative entailment, and metaphorical entailment. Thus, those types of entailments are found in seven song lyrics of Lady Gaga. Next, the study of Septiani (2017) also studied the entailment of the Dead Days comic. This research analyzed the linguistic phenomenon of entailment in the Dead Days comic and the conversation of all characters in the Dead Days comic. The present study was conducted based on some previous research conducted by Rahmawati (2017), Malewa et al. (2018), Septiani (2017), Sa’adah (2014), and Darmonegoro (2019). The findings showed that semantic entailment is found in their research object. Through Semantics, language is a communication link with others. The meaning of the word or the meaning of the existing sentence proves that, as social humans, we cannot escape the use of language. Without "meaning," language in the form of utterances will not have any meaning. Following the previous research of Rahmawati (2017), she found four types of semantic entailment in the form of utterances performed by the characters in The Da Vinci Code movie. In her research, one-way entailment reaches the highest frequency, so the researchers concludes that one-way entailment is the simplest entailment model than the other types of semantic entailment. Moreover, Setianingrum et al. (2020) explained the use of three types of semantic lexical relations: synonyms, antonyms and hyponyms in Rowling’s novel “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.” Synonym is in line with two-way entailment in this study. Meanwhile, some studies also focused on writing skills. Those are Jayanti (2019), Siregar and Dongoran (2020), Zulaikah et al. (2018), and Mendale et al. (2019) considered the importance of mastering writing skills to produce descriptive text, the teacher must provide some indicators for writing. According to Rofi'I et al. (2014), the teacher also needs to improve students' motivation by giving mind mapping techniques, especially in descriptive text with a systematic arrangement of sentences, containing truth and linkages between sentences by the application of semantic entailment. After concluding the previous research above, the researchers choose semantic entailment to evaluate how far the students’ mastery is reflected in their descriptive text writing. Rika Setyawati, et al./ English Education Journal 13 (2) (2023) 258-268 261 Because studies of semantic entailment in Indonesia focus on a song lyric, comic, and movie, few or none explore students’ mastery of semantic entailment. Studies of semantic entailment could highlight the students’ mastery of semantic entailment competencies and their skills in communicating their feelings, touch, and imagination in their descriptive text writing. So that is why this study would like to address this gap in the literature. Following semantic entailment, the students could convey their ideas in a good structure to write their text logically and coherently. The researchers found them in descriptive text because it was taught to Eighth Graders at MTs Ar Ridlo Pekuncen in the Academic Year 2022/2023. This study is expected to provide contributions in some areas. Theoretically, the findings of this study could give input regarding the theory and concepts related to semantic entailment. Practically, this study could be significant for other researchers to imply the semantic entailment in evaluation or to make their academic writing products. Pedagogically, this study is expected to help English teachers use semantic entailment explicitly in teaching English, especially teaching descriptive texts. Considering those phenomena, it can be assumed that students’ mastery of semantic entailment needs to be evaluated, especially as reflected in their descriptive text. The evaluation contributed to several aspects of students’ mastery. In this study, the researchers find out the results of the extent to which students’ mastery in writing the descriptive text of semantic entailment. Researchers also feel challenged to be able to evaluate the contents of their description text in terms of the semantics of entailment. Therefore, it is also important to know how the researchers determine the logical relationship in sentences bound to each other in their descriptive text. Another problem also arises for students who find it difficult to compose appropriate and sequential sentences in making descriptive text. In addition, another reason is that teachers need to know the evaluation results of the extent to which students' mastery of semantics entails writing their descriptive texts. Due to the reasons above, it is necessary to conduct this research. METHOD This study evaluated the students’ mastery of semantic entailment as reflected in their descriptive text. It was a case study that leans towards descriptive qualitative. This case study related to the theory of Yin (2003), which mainly sought the answers to ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions. A case study could also be said as a qualitative study. Qualitative research deals with observing the participants’ knowledge and understanding. In this study, the type of data used was qualitative research. Furthermore, according to Clemmens (2003), the object of the study could be books, magazines, documents, regulations, meeting minutes, diaries, and even historical objects such as inscriptions and artifacts. The eighth graders of MTS Ar Ridlo Pekuncen were the subjects of this study. Meanwhile, the object was students' descriptive text writing. In this study, the researchers conducted some procedures of data collection: (1) giving the code of the student’s name and evaluating the students’ writing based on components that have been determined, (2) reading carefully the results of their descriptive text writing, (3) separating the sentences according to the categories, (4) categorizing it in the list of components to be analyzed, (5) recapping and adding up the total research data obtained by each component. Then, the data obtained was analyzed by looking at the percentage of each category. The interpretation of the data used the data interpretation method as put forward by Pradini (2014). Data interpretation used two decimal digits, as follows: Rika Setyawati, et al./ English Education Journal 13 (2) (2023) 258-268 262 Table 1. Percentage Category Percentage (%) Note 0.00 None 0.01- 24.99 A fraction 25 - 49.99 Almost half 50 Half of it 50.01 - 74.99 Most 75 - 99.99 Generally 100 Entirely Moreover, this study should fulfill its validity. According to Duff & Anderson (2015), a case study could be considered accurate and trusted if the data the researchers presented adequately fits the research questions. In this study, the researchers used a triangulation source and triangulation method. Triangulation of data sources comes from students, whereas triangulation method, namely data from document collection and written test results. This study used document analysis to fulfill its trustworthiness. In addition, to triangulate the data, the researchers validated the findings and interpretation of this study through expert judgments or analyst triangulation. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS The researchers have found similarities to previous studies. There were four types of semantic entailments. They were one-way entailment, two-way entailment, negative entailment, and metaphorical entailment. It is in line with previous research studies, one of which was the research conducted by Rahmawati (2017), which also obtained that one-way entailment had the highest results among other types of entailments. However, her study only focused on a movie. It was very different with the researchers using students’ descriptive text writing to evaluate their mastery of semantic entailment. This research was conducted at the eighth grade of MTs Ar Ridlo Pekuncen from June 7th, 2023, to July 3rd, 2023. The eighth grade was chosen. It is based on the syllabus of the 2013 curriculum that the eighth graders can compose descriptive text, oral or written, very short and related to an object with notice of social function, text structure, and linguistic elements, correctly and according to context. The researchers got the data that there are two classes for the eighth grade with 30 students, namely 13 male students and 17 female students. So, the researchers took all of the students. There are 30 students. The researchers found the findings from the data analysis. The data analysis in descriptive texts written by students contains types of semantic entailment. Table 2. Analysis of the types of entailments No. Code Analyzed Components OE. TE. NE. ME. 1. A01 ✓ 2. A02 ✓ ✓ 3. A03 ✓ 4. A04 ✓ ✓ ✓ 5. A05 ✓ 6. A06 ✓ ✓ 7. A07 ✓ ✓ 8. A08 ✓ 9. A09 ✓ ✓ 10. A10 ✓ ✓ 11. A11 ✓ ✓ 12. A12 ✓ ✓ 13. A13 ✓ 14. A14 ✓ 15. A15 ✓ 16. A16 ✓ ✓ 17. A17 ✓ ✓ 18. A18 ✓ 19. A19 ✓ ✓ ✓ 20. A20 ✓ ✓ ✓ 21. A21 ✓ 22. A22 ✓ ✓ 23. A23 ✓ 24. A24 ✓ 25. A25 ✓ ✓ 26. A26 ✓ ✓ 27. A27 ✓ ✓ 28. A28 ✓ Rika Setyawati, et al./ English Education Journal 13 (2) (2023) 258-268 263 29. A29 ✓ ✓ 30. A30 ✓ ✓ TOTAL 27 11 9 4 *OE: one-way entailment; TW: two-way entailment; NE: negative entailment; ME: metaphorical entailment From the table above, it can be analyzed that 27 students mastered one-way entailment, then 11 students mastered negative entailment. Furthermore, nine students mastered negative entailment, and finally, there were only four students who mastered metaphorical entailment- most of the sentences in their descriptive text- align in line with the theory of order. The sentences in the descriptive text can show the phenomenon of types of semantic entailment. In this section, there are four types of semantic entailment. The findings are presented in the table below. Table 3. Percentage of the types of Entailments (N=30) N o. Types of Entailments F P(%) Note 1. One-Way Entailment (OE.) 2 7 90,00 General ly, 2. Two-Way Entailment (TE.) 1 1 36,67 almost half 3. Negative Entailment (NE.) 9 30,00 almost half 4. Metaphorical Entailment (ME.) 4 13,33 a fraction Total 3 0 100 From it can be concluded that there were four types of entailments. The phenomenon that often appears is one-way entailment, with a percentage of 90.00%, with 27 students out of a total of 30 students mastering one-way entailment. From these data, it was found that most of the eighth graders of MTs Ar Ridlo Pekuncen were generally able to master the one- way entailment. Furthermore, the student's ability to master two-way entailment is 36.67%. From the research, the researchers found that 11 out of a total of 30 children mastered two-way entailment. It can be concluded that only almost half of them can master the two-way entailment. In addition, only 30.00% of negative entailment is founded, which consists of 9 children who have negative entailment out of a total of 30 children. It can be said that it is almost the same as the two- way entailment that the eighth graders of MTS Ar Ridlo Pekuncen can only master almost half of the total students. Meanwhile, the least (a fraction) dominated by students of class VIII Mts Ar Ridlo Pekuncen was metaphorical entailment, namely only 13.33%, with details of only four students being able to master metaphorical entailment. That way, the ability dominated by students is composing one-way involving sentences. And the most difficult is the metaphorical entailment. According to the results contained in Table 2, one-way entailment appears most dominantly compared to other types of entailments. The researchers take from the data, such as: I am younger than my brother. I am thirteen, and he is twenty-three years old. OE. P1. S2-3/11 The student (11) describes a text about his brother in the above datum. He explains that he is younger than his brother. Then, in the next sentence about the truth. He compares his age and his brother’s age. So that he writes that he is thirteen years old and his brother is twenty-three years old. The first sentence entails the second sentence. Both sentences above show one-way entailment. The sentences above suit the theory from Crystal (1998) that one-way entailment is a term that refers to a relation between a pair of sentences. He clarifies this by saying that the the second sentence's truth necessarily follows the first theory from Kreidler (1998) illustrates this kind of entailment. It is when two propositions are labeled ‘p’ and ‘q.’ If ‘p’ is true, ‘q’ must also be true. So, from the datum, the first sentence is true, and the second sentence follows the truth of the previous sentence. Rika Setyawati, et al./ English Education Journal 13 (2) (2023) 258-268 264 Most of the students can choose many methods, such as by giving examples and descriptions or by explaining the idea they want to deliver in their descriptive text writing. There may be some other way other ways of expressing this one-way entailment besides what is mentioned in this research. Next, Table 2 shows that the student’s mastery is almost half of all students can interpret two-way entailment in their descriptive text writing. The easiest way to express a paraphrase is in active-passive pair form. The easiest way to tell a sentence is in active-passive pair form. The researchers got the data such as: She plants many flowers. The beautiful flowers are planted by her. TE. P3. S4-5/30 In the datum above, student (30) writes about her neighbor planting many flowers. Then, the student explained the detail about the flowers, which is the beautiful flowers planted by her neighbor. The two sentences are about two-way entailment. The sentences above suit the theory from Fromkin, Rodman, and Hyams (2003) that paraphrasing or two-way entailment is sometimes expressed in terms of active-passive voice. The first sentence above is the form of active voice, and the second is the form of passive voice. Besides that, the other way of expressing a paraphrase is by substitution. The researchers take the example from the data in this research, such as: She can use many languages. She can communicate in English and French. TE. P3. S3-4/16 The student (16) describes the diva’s ability from the sentences above. The diva can use many languages, which entails the second sentence that the diva can communicate in English and French. The researchers conclude that both sentences above reflected the theory from Fromkin, Rodman, and Hymas (2003) that a phrase in a sentence can also be substituted into a single word to create a two-way entailment. The sentences above explain the diva's ability to use many languages like English and French. Moreover, two-way entailment is also called mutual entailment. When the two sentences have the same meaning and the last one explains the first in more detail without giving any additional idea. It is such a way of delivering ideas to ensure the readers get what the student wants. Lusi sits beside Tia in the class. They are benchmates. TE. P2. S1-2/27 From the datum above, the meanings employed by the two sentences are the same. The student (27) describes the position of Lusi and Tia in the class. It is explained in the first sentence. However, the second is clearer since it concludes that Lusi and Tia are benchmarks. So, the sentences above are mutual or about two-way entailment. It relates to the theory from Murphy (2003) defines mutual entailment as synonymy among propositions, not words. Both sentences' ideas are the same, but the way of delivering them is different. That is why two-way and mutual entailment are categorized into one type of semantic entailment. Through the data above, the data from negative entailment is found to be less than one- way entailment and two-way or mutual entailment. It shows that almost half of them can master writing descriptive text that contains negative entailment. In other words, negative entailment is a relation between two sentences showing the truth, although it is from the negative sentence. For more explanation, the researchers serve the example of negative entailment. She wears glasses. She does not see clearly. NE. P3. S2-3/08 From those sentences above, there are two sentences. The student (08) describes her sister’s appearance. The first sentence is about her sister wearing glasses. It entails that with the second sentence, she does not see clearly. The second sentence uses a negative form. Both rulings show causality. She wears glasses because of her eye condition. She does not see clearly without glasses. The datum above shows negative entailment. Because the second sentence is in Rika Setyawati, et al./ English Education Journal 13 (2) (2023) 258-268 265 negative form, they are concluded in negative entailment. The researchers evaluates that almost half of the students master negative entailment. They use negative forms in their sentences. Those examples above relate to the theory of Murphy (2003) about negative entailment as entailment, which is expressed in a negative state. Most people use the negative form by adding the word ‘not.’ The word ‘not’ is commonly put after the auxiliary verbs to show that the sentence is negative. Lastly, Table 2 above shows that the student’s mastery is low in writing descriptive text, which contains metaphorical entailment. The sentences which contain metaphorical entailment are described below. That’s why they are called twins. Like two peas in a pod. Because there are many identical things between these twins. ME. P3. S1-3/19 In the above sentences, the student (19) describes twin brothers. They have many of the same characteristics and are called identical twins. That is written in the first sentence. Next, the student used metaphorical sentences to document and describe the twin brothers in the second sentence. After that, the student provides the meaning of a metaphorical image in the third sentence. So, from the example above, each sentence entails another sentence. The researchers take the other sentence from the students’ descriptive text writing. Such as; He is very talented. He can sing and dance. He is like a star scattered in the sky. ME. P3. S3-5/26 The student (26) writes descriptive text about her idol from the datum above. Her idol is Kyungsoo, one of EXO’s members. The student describes the idol’s ability. In the first sentence, the student writes that her idol is very talented. Next, she notes that her idol can sing and dance in the second sentence. In the last sentence, she describes the achievements achieved by his idol, like the stars scattered in the sky. Even though the student does not write an explanation of the metaphor, it can be concluded that the idol has a very bright career. This is explained in the sentence before (in the first and second sentences). In conclusion, with the data, the researchers evaluate that only a fraction of students can master metaphorical entailment. Every metaphorical entailment consists of a metaphorical image and its meaning. According to the students’ results, a metaphorical image can be presented before or after its purpose. The researchers evaluate the students who find it difficult to give strategies for conveying ideas in their sentences. 4 students can relate to the theory of Lakoff and Johnsen (2003). According to Lakoff and Johnson, metaphor can be found easily in our daily lives, not only in language but also in language thinking and acting. We often find metaphorical words in everyday conversation. Lakoff and Johnson (2003) also add that the basis of a metaphor is understanding and experiencing things in another way or understanding and interpreting something using other terms. The researchers concludes that students who use the metaphor of involvement have a deeper understanding and experience to express the meaning of sentences so that readers more easily understand them. And, of course, students who present metaphorical sentences in their writing indicate that they have mastered language expressions in their descriptive texts. Based on the findings that the researchers have examined, the researchers explain the result of the evaluation of students’ mastery of semantic entailment as reflected in their descriptive text writing. In this study, a semantic type of entailment has been found, namely one-way entailment. This aligns with previous research studies, one of which was the research conducted by Rahmawati (2017), which also obtained the highest results among other types of entailments. Likewise, what happened in other research studies such as Malewa et al. (2018), Septiani (2017), Nurfitriani (2013), Griffith (2006), etc. In this study, it can be said that one-way entailment is the semantic form of entailment that is most commonly found in research objects. One-way entailment in this study was found in the highest number, namely 27 students out of 30 Rika Setyawati, et al./ English Education Journal 13 (2) (2023) 258-268 266 students. This is in line with the conclusions of previous theories that one-way entailment is one of the easiest and simplest forms of entailment to be found in one's work. Like in movies, poetry, and comics, commercials. Of course, the researchers found that through writing student description texts, one-way entailment was the most dominant form of entailment to be applied. Almost all of the students mastered one- way entailment because this type of entailment is easiest and simplest to apply for eighth graders in MTs Ar Ridlo Pekuncen. Because, in principle, one-way entailment is easy to find and use in everyday life. Especially in the description paragraph, which contains a general and subjective description from a writer to the object being described. Most students can interpret their sentences and think logically using a simple form, one-way entailment. Furthermore, this study also found the semantic type of entailment, namely two-way entailment. In this study, two-way entailment is also in line with previous studies, one of which was research conducted by Sa'adah (2014), which also obtained the same ranking as this study, namely that almost half of the data obtained showed the use of two-way entailment. This also occurs in other studies, such as those conducted by Darmonegoro et al. (2022), Indarti (2016), and others. In this study, it can be concluded that a two-way entailment is a semantic form of entailment that is often used and found in research objects. Because in this study, there were similar forms of the elements of sentence meaning, similarities in active and passive structures in sentences, and two-way entailments were found with a total of 11 students out of 30 students. Through this, the one-way entailment in this study is still in line with previous studies. It is half of the students mastered two-way entailment because this type of entailment is more difficult and more complex to apply for eighth graders in MTs Ar Ridlo Pekuncen. Two- way entailment applies to various sentence forms. According to the findings that the researchers has obtained, the result is that most of the students are able to use various forms of two-way entailment sentences, such as forms of similar meaning or synonyms and active-passive forms in sentences. Most students are able to write descriptive text with a variety of writing techniques through the state of similar purposes and the form of active and passive sentences. Not all students are able to reason and think critically in writing descriptive text. Moreover, this study also found a type of semantic entailment, namely negative entailment. In this study, negative entailment is also in line with previous research, one of which was research conducted by Murphy (2003), which also obtained the same rating as this study, namely that almost half of the data obtained showed the use of negative entailment. This also occurs in other studies, such as those conducted by Muthia (2021), Maelani and Budiwati (2023), and others. In this study, it can be concluded that negative entailment is a semantic form of entailment that is also often used and found in research objects. In this study, there are similarities in using the negative form, and negative entailment was found with a total of 9 students out of 30 students. Through this, the negative entailment in this study is still in line with previous studies. Nearly half of the students also mastered negative entailment because this type of entailment is also more difficult and complex to apply to class VIII students of MTs Ar Ridlo Pekuncen. Based on the findings that the researchers obtained, the result was that only nearly half of the students were able to apply negative entailment, namely by using negative sentence forms. In addition, the last research is metaphorical entailment. The research also found a type of semantic entailment, namely metaphorical entailment. In this study, metaphorical entailment is also in line with previous research, one of which is research conducted by Maulana (2016), which also obtained the same rating as this study; namely, only four students out of a total of 30 students were able to use this type of entailment in their writing. Rika Setyawati, et al./ English Education Journal 13 (2) (2023) 258-268 267 This also occurs in other studies, such as those conducted by Ratri (2017), Astuti (2019), and others. In this study, it can be concluded that metaphorical entailment is a form of entailment The most difficult for students to master because students have to use ideas, logic, and imagination to make sentences that contain metaphors. From the data found, there were only four students out of 30 students who mastered this type of entailment Because this type of entailment is the most difficult and most complex to apply to class VIII students of MTs Ar Ridlo Pekuncen. CONCLUSION From the results, the researchers concluded that the students are most master one- way entailment and could choose many methods, such as by giving examples and descriptions or by explaining their ideas. Next, the students almost half mastered two-way entailment by applying passive voice and similar meanings in their sentences. Furthermore, almost half of them can master writing descriptive text that contains negative entailment. 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