into well-formed passages. As a result, the grammatical and lexical accuracy are slightly neglected Mennim 2003, Ferris 2002, Chuang 2005. Therefore, the
grammar accuracy should be considered in teaching second language writing, especially in sentence writing.
The purpose of sentence writing is that the students will be able to write grammatically correct sentences. Grammatically, a sentence should consist of at
least a subject and a verb. A sentence is composed by a group of words that are combined grammatically, while the combination of one sentence and another
sentence can create compound and complex sentences Birjandi
et al.
2004. In writing these three types of sentences, students need to develop their micro and
macro skills, in which most of them are about grammar.
ELTGallery
provides the syllabus of the course. The syllabus describes the goal and the objectives of the course, the class progress and activities, and the
evaluation of the course. In the evaluation part, students are also given the explanation about the scoring of their tasks. The evaluation is not only conducted
by the teachers, but also by their peers. This syllabus is used as the guideline for the students so that they will be able to monitor their progress see Appendix 1.
WRITING I 1. Credit : 1
2. Description : This course aims to help the students develop their ability to
write grammatically acceptable sentences and to write simple passages.
3. General Objectives: The students are able:
a. write grammatically acceptable sentences b. use punctuation correctly
c. write simple passages. Figure 2.1: Course Syllabus
b Grammar Practices: True and False ELTGallery
provide three main activities that should be conducted by the students. The first one is true and false grammar practices. True and False
grammar practice is also called as grammar mistake identification. This part is divided into twelve topics covering sentence, tenses, article and determiner,
personal pronoun, question, noun modifier, auxiliary verb, perfect and continuous, compound and complex sentences, relative clause, noun clause, and passive voice.
There are 250 items for each grammar topic and in each topic students are given 50 sentences and they need to identify whether the sentences are true or false. The
items are jumbled every time students try to do the grammar practices. Therefore, the possibility of students getting the same questions is very low. Since the answer
key of the true and false grammar practices is not shown and the sentences in the grammar practices are jumbled each time the students try to do them, students
really need to understand the grammar aspect that they learn.
Figure 2.2: True and False Practice
The students are given unlimited chances to do the grammar practices until they get the scores that they want. The minimum score that they have to achieve is
7. Otherwise, they will not be able to continue to the next task. Every time the PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
students finish doing the true and false grammar practices, they will be able to check their scores. If they get below 7, they have to redo the exercises. However,
if they already get 7, they are still able to improve their scores.
c Grammar Practice: Sentence Writing
The second grammar practice is sentence writing practices. The students who can conduct these exercises are those who pass the first exercise in the true
and false grammar practices. This part is divided into twelve parts as well covering sentence, tenses, article and determiner, personal pronoun, question,
noun modifier, auxiliary verb, perfect and continuous, compound and complex sentences, relative clause, noun clause, and passive voice. Students need to
compose 15 sentences based on the topic in the grammar aspect that they select. After that, students learn to evaluate their peers‟ work by commenting on the
sentences and passages that their friends have composed.
Figure 2.3: Sentence Writing Practice
Students nee d to judge whether their peers‟ sentences are grammatically
correct or not. They also need to provide their comments on their peers‟ sentences. They are to write “good” for grammatically correct sentences, and provide the
correct words for the incorrect ones. Students then may revise their sentences based on the comments that they get.
d Grammar Practice: Passage Writing
The final practice in the grammar practice is called Passage Writing. There are 6 topics in this exercise, which are
My Biography, My Unforgettable Experience, College Life, My Idol, My Future Job,
and
Free Topic
. In passage writing, students need to write at least 250 words based on the topic. Students are
to apply their knowledge in the 12 aspects of grammar that they have learned previously. The students may write more than 250 words as long as the topic
given is administered. The evaluation of the passages is based on the grammar and the story. The
scoring criteria are based on the number of sentences, number of mistakes, and the total words the students produce. The grammar evaluation focuses on the
technical things in writing, while the story evaluation focuses on the content. Since passage writing deals with grammar aspects as well as contextual topics,
therefore, grammatical competence and writing skill can be measured when students conduct Passage Writing.
Figure 2.4: Passage Writing Practice
The teacher then provides comments for the students so that they can revise the passage. The comments are based on their grammatical mistakes as well as the
message in the story. Students will be able to check their scores signed by the number of the stars that they get and check the evaluation from the teacher.
Figure 2.5: Passage Writing Evaluation
Based on the evaluation guideline in
ELTGallery
, the grammatical mistakes cover mistakes in word level, phrases level, and even sentence level, such as
missing and wrong article, tenses, part of speech forms and word choice, the order of verb and noun phrase, and missing subject and predicate. In addition, the
evaluation also covers technical mistakes, such as spelling and punctuation. The symbol [?] indicates other mistakes that are not covered in the evaluation
guideline. It may contain any other mistakes, such as preposition, transition words, and so on. These criteria are in line with the grammar aspects in web-based
grammar practice. Therefore, when the students write, students can relate to their grammatical competence trained in web-based grammar practice.
Students‟ passages are evaluated and scored based on this evaluation guideline. Students need to be careful not only in common mistakes, such as
tenses, but also trivial mistakes, such as article. These criteria are designed so that students‟ grammatical competence can be measured. The calculation of the
grammar score is as follows Dwijatmoko 2014: PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
Where, GS
= grammar score nu
= number of unit practically, number of unit = number of sentences nm
= number of mistakes 5
= maximum range value of 5
Figure 2.6 Grammar Scores in Passage Writing
Therefore, the grammar scores, which are influenced by the number of sentences and the number of mistakes, indicate that students with higher
grammatical competence are able to produce successful passages with more sentences and fewer mistakes than those with less grammatical competence.
Another aspect in measuring students‟ grammatical competence is by
measuring sentence complexity. Eouanzoui et al 2005 suggests that syntactic complexity, or sentence complexity, influences grammatical competence that
leads to writing proficiency. It deals with how words are combined to form a sentence. The longer words are in line with the complexity of the sentence. Thus,
sentence complexity is the mean length of sentences. The length of the sentences PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
is measured by the number of words in a sentence. A sentence, which has at least one subject and one predicate, may only consist of two words. Students who write
more sentences do not show that they write more words than those who write fewer sentences. It is because a sentence may consist of two words only.
Therefore, the number of words should be taken into account in measuring st
udents‟ grammatical competence, which is using sentence complexity score.
Figure 2.7 Sentence Complexity Scores in Passage Writing
Thus, sentence complexity score is formulated as follows Dwijatmoko 2014:
Where, SC
= sentence complexity wp
= words in passage mw
= minimum words in passage ns
= number of sentences 2
= minimum range value of 2 5
= maximum range value of 5 PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
3 = value of 5-2 maximum range-minimum range
Sentence complexity score is defined based on the idea that the more grammatical competence the students possess, the more words they write in a
sentence. Diessel 2004 suggests that the organization of grammar and grammatical development take into account on the complexity of the sentences
that students create. Diesel further explains that the structure and organization of grammar and the emergence of grammatical knowledge relate to the complex
sentences written by the students. Students with higher grammatical competence are able to organize grammar better. Therefore, those students may create more
sentence complexity than those who have less grammatical competence. Students with high grammatical competence write more than just two words
for a subject and a predicate. Instead, the students may use noun phrase indicating the subject and verb phrase indicating the predicate. In fact, they may add objects
and adverbs. Therefore, the sentence complexity scores, which are influenced by the number of words, ideally indicate that students with higher grammatical
competence are able to produce more complex sentences than those with less grammatical competence.
Passage writing indicates grammatical competence not only in terms of understanding and applying grammar rules but also in terms of conveying
message. It means that grammatical mistakes and grammar aspects are not only the measurement of passage writing. The evaluation is also based on the story or
the content of the passage. The story is evaluated as “excellent” if it is complete, interesting, and well-
written, “good” if it is complete and interesting, “fair” if it is PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
i nteresting, “bad” if it is short but not interesting, and “poor” if it is very short,
boring, and poorly written. It shows that students with high grammar score do not always obtain high passage writing score.
Figure 2.8 Passage Writing Evaluation
Web-based grammar practice, which is generated into 12 topics, is designed not only to measure but also to train students‟ grammatical competence. It is
because the grammar practices can be conducted over and over until the students are satisfied with their scores. The more the students conduct the grammar
practices, the more improved their grammatical competence they possess. Thus, the more improved the grammatical competence the students possess, the better
writing they produce. The three activities in
ELTGallery
enable the students to experience the grammar practices in a series of process, which are identifying, constructing, and
evaluating. In fact, students may also revise their work after receiving comments from their peers or the teacher. Therefore, autonomous and collaborative learning
are really promoted through the use of web-based grammar practice in sentence writing class.
D. Review of Related Research
