their teacher. The writer then ask the students how they learned the four language skills, and more specifically, how they learned grammar. After that, the writer
invited the students to share their experience of learning English in this course. Where the students make interesting comments on learning grammar, the writer
ask relevant follow-up questions to solicit more details. All the interviews were audio taped and each took about 30 minutes to complete.
2. Observation
After conducting the interview, the writer joined the course of the teachers as a non participant. The writer stayed in the class for three purposes: 1
observation of the teaching of some parts of course textbook enable him to see how the teachers approached the teaching of the four language skills, grammar,
vocabulary, pronunciation, as well as other activities which the teachers deemed to be important e.g. extensive reading, 2 a set of teaching reveal how the
teachers about the task of establishing continuity and integration among the various components in the curriculum, 3 observation in the class can reveal
whether for the participating teachers, grammar teaching permeates throughout their lessons or not. The underlying assumptions are that some teachers may not
restrict their formal instruction to grammar lessons and indeed, for some teachers there may be no such thing as a grammar lesson at all.
All the lessons are video recorded to get the detail information about what is exactly going on in the classroom during the course. During the
observations, the writer made copious field notes. In the first lesson, the writer perpustakaan.uns.ac.id
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drew a layout of the classroom. Then in each observation, the writer noted down any features which impinge on teaching and learning e.g. the students were
particularly noisy on a certain day, or they particularly de-motivated. As the lesson was in progress, the writer produced a summary of the major teaching
events. The writer also copied everything that the teacher or students wrote on the blackboard, and made an attempt to write out all students‘ utterances in full to aid
transcription later.
3. Questionnaire
Questionnaire is the most widely used research instrument in the field of teachers beliefs and cognition, because it is economic, direct, easier to administer,
efficient for collecting large amounts of data from a large number of respondents, and considered to be the least threatening tool. However, questionnaires have a
number of disadvantages, for example, participant teachers may interpret the questionnaire statements differently and provide inaccurate or superficial
responses as Kagan 1990, p. 427 states ―the standardized statements may mask or misrepresent a particular teacher‘s highly personalized perceptions and
definitions‖. This study utilized an anonymous self-report questionnaire to elicit
teachers‘ beliefs about grammar teaching and their stated classroom practices when teaching grammar. The questionnaire obtained both qualitative and
quantitative data as it contained close-ended statements on a five point Likert scale, as well as an open-ended question that was optional to add comments on an
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issue in detail. The questionnaire statements were mainly adapted from a similar study Lee Kit 2008, p. 81-82 on the basis of the research questions, the study
population and context, and the key characteristics of grammar teaching approaches.
The questionnaire consists of 27 close-ended statements in which participants were asked to rate their beliefs towards grammar instruction on a five-
point, Likert-type scale ranging from ―strongly agree‖ to ―strongly disagree‖. The
Likert-type scale is the most widely used method because it is simple, flexible, reliable and it doesn‘t require judges Karavas-Doukas 1996 Dörnyei 2003.
The statements covered three main themes regarding grammar teaching as follows; 1 beliefs about the role of grammar instruction, 2 beliefs about
approaches to grammar pedagogy, and 3 beliefs about error correction and feedback. These three themes will be discussed in further details in Chapter 4.
The questionnaire limits in- depth exploration of teachers‘ beliefs and
practices because they cannot capture teachers‘ behavior or actions, they can only
record what teachers report about their own actions and behaviors Borg 2006. Therefore, Pajares 1992: 327 stresses that questionnaires need to be supported
by additional instruments such as open-ended interviews, and observation of behavior ―… if richer and more accurate inferences are to be made‖. Thus, semi-
structured interviews were employed to attain more in-depth information and to better understand teachers‘ perspectives and practices.
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E. Validity Trustworthiness
