Theoretical Description: Approaches in Teaching Grammar

14 conversation. The teacher can give specific language practice to the students. The third reason is that dialogues provide recreation such a skit. Dialogues provide spontaneous use of learners’ knowledge Wood, 2002. Role play is for practicing structures Doff, 1990. Role play is less controlled practice. Therefore, students may not use the target structures as much as the teacher would like. However, role play is considered as the opportunity for students to practice a range of speaking and listening skill Doff, 1990. So, there are so many activities that can be used in practicing grammar deductively. Some activities are good for improving certain skills. The teacher may choose the suitable activities based on the materials and the type of students Doff, 1990. 2. Inductive Approach Learning English by using inductive approach is a learning process that starts from particular aspects to the general Felder Henriques, 1995. One type of inductive grammar teaching involves consciousness-raising, sometimes known as CR. Rutherford 1987 says that consciousness-raising is task-oriented. The learner is actively engaged in solving problems cited in Butler-Tanaka, 1998. It focuses on aspects of grammar without necessarily using explicit rules. Instead of presenting the rules and principles directly, it helps the learners to discover the rules by themselves Butler-Tanaka, 1998. Nunan 2005 suggests some vital principles for teaching grammar to beginning learners. The first suggestion is that the learning activities and materials should be manageable in a way that simplifies the grammar for beginning 15 learners. Therefore, Nunan 2005 suggested implementing consciousness-raising activities. The activities help them to notice patterns that can be developed over time. The second suggestion is emphasizing inductive over deductive teaching because of the lack of linguistic ability to comprehend grammatical explanations at the beginning stages. In fact, Ellis 1996, Nunan 2005 and Thornbury 1999 agree that inductive approach is better to be implied in teaching grammar, especially for young learners. They believe that the students can learn grammar deeper. Moreover, the students can also be more active in teaching learning activity. That was considered as the advantage of inductive approach. However, inductive approach also has disadvantages. One of the disadvantages is that the inductive approach is time and energy-consuming. Widodo 2006 also explains about the advantages and disadvantages of inductive approach that are explained in Table 2 on the next page. According to Brown 1999, teacher should provide various learning activities. The activities should not require students to think very hard. Otherwise, they would reject the activities Brown, 1999. When young students learn what they are curious about, they go faster, cover more territory than we would everything of Faw, 1980. It is like the inductive approach. The students learnt grammar through activities and let them understand the materials without explain it explicitly. The following table explains about the advantages and disadvantages of inductive approach. 16 Table 2. The Advantages and Disadvantages of Inductive Approach Advantages 1. Learners are trained to be familiar with the rule discovery; this could enhance learning autonomy and self-reliance. 2. Learners’ greater degree of cognitive depth is “exploited”. 3. The learners are more active in the learning process, rather than being simply passive recipients. In this activity, they will be motivated to learn English. 4. The approach involves learners’ pattern- recognition and problem solving abilities in which particular learners are interested in this challenge. 5. If the problem-solving activity is done collaboratively, learners get an opportunity for extra language practice. Disadvantages 1. The approach is time and energy-consuming as it leads learners to have the appropriate concept of the rule. 2. The concepts given implicitly may lead the learners to have the wrong concepts of the rule that is taught. 3. The approach can place emphasis on teachers in planning a lesson. 4. It encourages the teacher to design data or materials that will be taught carefully and systematically. 5. The approach may frustrate the learners with the students’ personal learning style, or their past learning experience. Grammar is an area of knowledge that linguists and language teachers study Larsen-Freeman, 2003. It is more helpful to think about grammar as a skill rather than as an area of knowledge. This underscores the importance of developing students’ ability to do something. So, the students are not only storing knowledge about the language or its use, but also using it in real life. Therefore, teachers are expected to be able to teach grammatical knowledge and the use of 17 grammar to the students in the right way. The teachers should not only ask the students to merely memorize rules, but also ask the students to practice through speaking and writing. Skill development and learning grammar need practices. The researcher used inductive approach in this research. Grammatical resources are limited and precious. They are distributed in a non-arbitrary manner. It means that in conveying meaning, a language uses a particular form from the vantage point of a single point in time. One of the examples is making simple present tense sentence. In positive sentence, -s-es should be attached to regular verbs. Therefore, grammar is arbitrary Larsen- Freeman, 2003. This is the reason that inductive approach is effective to teach grammar.

C. Theoretical Framework

This research dealt with the students of the elementary school grade VI. The students in this grade were introduced to an English grammar lesson. In the first semester, they learnt about simple present tense. The use of certain approaches to teach grammar at this level helped them in mastering the intended lesson. In this research, the researcher used deductive approach and inductive approach to teach English grammar. From the discussion in the previous part of this chapter, the researcher concluded that the implementation of deductive and inductive approach is effective to improve students’ grammar mastery. Deductive approach is the most common approach that is used for teaching grammar. Deductive approach is considered to be called as the rule- 18 driven learning. In teaching grammar, deductive approach helps the students to understand about the materials that are given by presenting grammatical rules and then presenting the examples of sentences. However, Thornbury 1999 also states that deductive approach has advantage and disadvantage. Deductive approach gets to the point but can make the students confused. In this research, the researcher taught simple present tense by implementing deductive approach to one of the classes. The aim was that the students understood and mastered the simple present tense. From the brief explanation above, implementation of certain approach can help the students to master grammar effectively. There is another approach of teaching grammar which can help the students mastering English grammar. It is inductive approach. Inductive approach is an approach that lets the students to learn grammar through activities and let them understand the materials without explaining it explicitly. The implementation of this approach can motivate the students. The learners are more active in the learning process, rather than being simply passive recipients. This approach brought more advantages than the deductive approach, especially in teaching young learners. As Nunan 2005 suggests, there are some vital principles to teach grammar for beginning learners. They are implementing consciousness-raising activities and emphasizing inductive over deductive teaching. Through teaching grammar by implementing inductive approach, the students can reach deeper understanding of English grammar. 19 In English grammar teaching and learning, inductive approach led to a better grammar mastery of the students. The result of learning can be seen from the students’ achievement. Inductive approach was more effective to teach grammar than the deductive approach in the sixth grade of Aisyiyah Full Day Elementary School. 20

CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY

In this chapter, the researcher presents the research methodology. The discussion is divided into eight parts. The first part explains about the methodology that was implemented in the research. The second part is about the variables being observed in the research. The third part is about the research participants. The fourth part is talking about where and when the research was conducted. The fifth part is discussing the research instrument or how the data were gathered. The sixth part is discussing the data analysis technique. The seventh part discusses about the data validation. The last part discusses about research procedure or how the research was conducted.

A. Research Method

The researcher conducted the research in order to see the comparison of the effectiveness of deductive approach and inductive approach in teaching grammar, especially simple present tense. It was conducted in sixth grade of Aisyiyah Full Day Elementary School. The researcher adopted quasi-experimental comparison-group method in conducting this research. Quasi-experimental research was conducted when the true experiment could not be done Yaunt, 2006. The researcher used non-equivalent control group design. However, in order to find the answer of the research question, the researcher used comparison group and the following research design. 20 21 I O1 X1 O2 II O1 X2 O2 According to Hadjar 1996, there is an alternative method; the researcher can use comparison group design, without using control group. The steps are the same with non-equivalent control group design. The difference is in the third step, each group is given different treatment. The researcher used two experimental groups. In one group Group A, the researcher used deductive approach and in another group Group B, the researcher used inductive approach. The teaching and learning activity in both groups were conducted inside the classroom. There were two classes that were observed. They were six Tholhah and six Hamzah. In this research, Tholhah class was called as group A and Hamzah class was called as group B. The researcher used deductive approach in Group A and inductive approach in Group B. The pre-test was conducted in both classes. The researcher compared the result of the pre-test as the pre-test data. The researcher used deductive approach in Group A. In the same week, the researcher also taught group B by using inductive approach. The teaching learning activities was done around 2 weeks. The researcher used GTM and CLT in teaching grammar. Grammar Translation Method GTM was used to teach grammar, especially simple present tense, in Group A. Meanwhile, the researcher used Communicative Language Teaching CLT in Group B.