they have often used their knowledge of sentence structure grammar, they can increase their reading comprehension.
Based on Rodney Huddleston and Geoffrey K. Pullum, compare with the pronunciation and the words’ stock, grammar of the Standard English is much more
stable and uniform; there is remarkably little dispute about what is grammatical in compliance with the rules of grammar and what isn’t.
7
It showed that the rule of grammar in Standard English is constant and there was little disagreement in deciding
which the sentence that was grammatically corrects or no. For instance: the phrase “the lucky boys” is a well-formed phrase in English, but the following two phrases
are not at all well-formed. boys the lucky
lucky boys the The asterisk used to indicate that the form is ungrammatical or unacceptable
The example above showed that in English, it has strict rules of a language grammar for combining words into phrases. In addition, those strict and many rules
are difficult to be mastered by the students in fast way. For instance, some rules in well-formed phrase are the position of the article the which must go before the
adjective lucky and the adjective which should have to go before noun boys. It can be concluded that to be grammatical correct, those type of phrase must have the
sequence article + adjective + noun. In other words, if the students had mastered the English Grammar, it would
be easy for them to master English. A student can be said as a good language student if he can communicate with their partner well without finding any confusing
utterances. A good communication in English showed that the students have mastered the English Grammar.
Due to the explanation above, the researcher would like to research about: “The Correlation between The Students’ Grammar Mastery and Their Reading
7
Huddleston and Pullum, op. cit., pp. 1-2.
Comprehension A Correlational Study at the Sixth Semester of Department of English Education of State Islamic University Syarif Hidayatullah Jakarta.
B. Identification of the Problems
Based on the background of the study above, the researchers found some problems which are developed into the following statements:
1. In reading comprehension, the students often get difficulties concerning the types and length of the reading texts.
2. Moreover, in the reading test, they face the problem of having limited time to comprehend the text.
3. The problems that the students often face in reading comprehension are the unknown words. In fact, beside the vocabulary mastery, the grammar
mastery can also be helpful for the student to comprehend the reading texts due to in understanding a text containing many combined words; the readers
should have mastery about the sentence structure. 4. In
English, it has strict rules of a language grammar for combining words into phrases. In addition, those strict and many rules are difficult to be
mastered by the students in fast way.
C. Limitation of the Study
This research focuses on the correlation of the students’ grammar mastery
and their reading comprehension at the 6
th
semester of Department of English Education of State Islamic University Syarif Hidayatullah Jakarta in academic year
20152016.
D. Formulation of the Problem
Based on the background of the study above the problem of this research can be formulated as follows.
Is there any significant correlation between the students’ grammar mastery
and their reading comprehension at the 6
th
semester of Department of English Education of State Islamic University Syarif Hidayatullah Jakarta in academic year
20152016?
E. Objective of the Study
By virtue of the formulation, the purpose of the study is to know the significant
correlation between the students’ grammar mastery and their reading comprehension at the 6
th
semester of Department of English Education of State Islamic University Syarif Hidayatullah Jakarta in academic year 20152016.
F. Significance of the Study
The result of this research is hopefully going to help teacher or people who are interested in education to be aware of the importance of teaching grammar in
order to help the students in understanding the texts. For the language teachers, by knowing thei
r students’ grammar mastery, they will know how to help them in order to increase their ability in reading
comprehension. For the students, by knowing the importance of grammar mastery for their
reading comprehension, they will be aware that beside vocabulary they also need grammar mastery in order to understand any kinds of texts which not only contain
simple or short sentences but also complex or long sentences that cannot be understood by translating the sentences word by word.
7
CHAPTER II Literature Review
A. Grammar 1. The Concept of Grammar
Every language has its own rules and it is needed to make it understandable. By understanding the rules in the target language, it can ease the student in language
learning process. In learning a language, it cannot denied that the knowledge about grammar has important part in successful in language learning due to it is a basic
knowledge that the student should master, beside the vocabulary of the target language. It is supported by
Darmono who stated Fromkin and Rodman’ statement in his article, he explained that in order to understand the nature of language, it is a must
for student to understand the nature of this internalized unconscious set of rules which is part of every grammar of every language.
1
The statement showed that in learning a foreign language, it is a must to master grammar due to it is the essential
part of the language . By understanding the foreign language’s grammar, the student
can use the foreign language in the right structure or grammatical correct. Without grammar knowledge, the student will get difficult in using the language correctly.
Following to Peat, Elliot and Baur, grammar is on the subject of knowing the reason why something reads improperly and know how to fix it.
2
It can be concluded that if the sentences are in ungrammatical pattern, it can made the reader difficult to
get the ideas yet if the reader have knowledge of grammar they can easily fix them and catch the ideas of the sentences. While Kolln and Funk defined grammar into
three definition:
3
1
Darmono, A Correlation between Grammar Achievement and Reading Comprehension Achievement, JP3, Vol. 1, 2013, pp. 25-26.
2
Jennifer Peat, et al., Scientific Writing: Easy When You Know How, London: BMJ Books, 2002, p. 214.
3
Martha J. Kolln and Robert W. Funk, Understanding English Grammar, USA: Pearson Education, 2012, 9
th
Ed., p. 5.
a. Grammar is the system of rules in our heads. Additionally, your language competence is that subconscious system and those internalized rules differ
from one language community to another. b. Grammar is the formal description of the rules. It refers to the branch of
linguistic science which concerned with the formal description of language - identify the form and the structure of sentence.
c. Grammar is the social implication of usage or linguistic etiquette - do’s and
don’t’s of usage, rather than grammar. For instance, there are some certain words which are thought of as bad manner in a particular context and this
description also applies the terms like “poor grammar” and “good grammar”.
Based on Rodney Huddleston and Geoffrey K. Pullum, grammar deals with the sentences’ form and the smaller units, such as clauses, phrases, and words.
Compare with the pronunciation and the words’ stock, grammar of the Standard
English is much more stable and uniform; there is remarkably little dispute about what is grammatical in compliance with the rules of grammar and what isn’t.
4
It showed that the rules of grammar in Standard English is constant and there was little
disagreement in deciding which was the sentence was grammatical correct or no. In other words, if the students had mastered the English Grammar they will ease to use
language and it seemed that by mastering English Grammar would not be confusing anymore in understanding English language usage. A student could be said as a good
language student if he can communicate with their friend well without finding any confusing utterances.
It is supported by Gana Kumara and friend who stated Cristal definition about grammar in Sharaf’s article, that grammar is as the structural foundation of
peoples’ ability in order to express their ideas. The more students be familiar with and
comprehend the language grammar, the more structural and grammatical their
4
Rodney Huddleston and Geoffrey K. Pullum, A Student’s Introduction to English Grammar, UK:
Cambridge University Press, 2005, pp. 1-2.
