The contribution of web based grammar practice to students` grammatical competence and writing skill

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THE CONTRIBUTION OF WEB-BASED GRAMMAR PRACTICE TO STUDENTS’ GRAMMATICAL COMPETENCE AND WRITING SKILL

A Thesis Presented to

The Graduate Program in English Language Studies inPartial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Magister Humaniora (M. Hum)

in English Language Studies

by

Agatha Pepy Yerinta Student Number: 126332050

SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY YOGYAKARTA

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DEDICATION PAGE

This thesis is dedicated to my Jesus Christ and Holy Mary, to whom I rely on, and my husband, my family and friends, who have supported me during my thesis days.

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STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY

This is to certify that all the ideas, phrases, and sentences, unless otherwise stated, are the ideas, phrases, sentences of the thesis writer. The writer understands the full consequences including degree cancellation if she took somebody else's ideas, phrase, or sentence without a proper reference.

Yogyakarta, February 7, 2014

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LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN PUBLIKASI KARYA ILMIAH UNTUK KEPENTINGAN AKADEMIS

Yang bertanda tangan di bawah ini, saya mahasiswi Universitas Sanata Dharma: Nama : Agatha Pepy Yerinta

NIM : 126332050

Demi pengembangan ilmu pengetahuan, saya memberikan kepada Perpustakaan Sanata Dharma karya ilmiah saya yang berjudul:

THE CONTRIBUTION OF WEB-BASED GRAMMAR PRACTICE TO STUDENTS’ GRAMMATICAL COMPETENCE AND WRITING SKILL

beserta perangkat yang diperlukan (bila ada). Dengan demikian saya memberikan kepada Perpustakaan Sanata Dharma hak untuk menyimpan, mengalihkan dalam bentuk media lain, mengelolanya dalam bentuk pangkalan data, mendistribusikan secara terbatas, dan mempublikasikannya di internet atau media lain untuk kepentingan akademis tanpa perlu meminta ijin dari saya maupun memberikan royalti kepada saya selama tetap mencantumkan nama saya sebagai penulis.

Demikian pernyataan ini saya buat dengan sebenarnya. Dibuat di Yogyakarta

Pada tanggal : 7 Februari 2014 Yang menyatakan

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to dedicate my deepest gratitude to God, my beloved Jesus Christ, and Holy Mary for the grace and blessing so that I finally accomplished my thesis.Hereby, I dedicate my gratitude to my family: my parents (Fx. Suhardi and Ch. Maryati), my brother (Yohanes Benny Marwastu) and his wife (AgustinaLusiAndriyani) for their love, support, and prayers for all the time. My special thanks go to Hillarion Nori Wibowo, my husband as well as my best friend, for his love, patience and loyalty. I thank him for his support, our wonderful times, and great experiences.

My greatest appreciation also goes to my sponsor, Dr. B.B Dwijatmoko, M.A. for his patience, advice and attention during the process of finishing this thesis and also for giving me the very detailed corrections, to all lecturers in English Language Studies, FX. Mukarto, Ph.D., Dr. J. Bismoko, and Dr. Fr. B. Alip, M.Pd., M.A. for their guidance and toMbak Lely providing me with her best services for these years.

My great thanks are addressed to my dearest friends in life, Uut, Indri, Lia, and Beni. I thank them for giving me support, suggestion in life and always go along with me in my good and bad times. For the moral and intellectual support, I thank all my lovely 2012 ELS friends, especially YustinaPriskaKisnanto and AdesiaKusumaWardani, for the laughter and support. Last, I also would like to thank Dea, Lia, and Nanda for their help and support.

May God always bless them.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

TITLE PAGE ... i

APPROVAL PAGE ... ii

DEFENSE APPROVAL PAGE ... iii

DEDICATION PAGE ... iv

STATEMENT OF WORK ORIGINALITY ... v

LEMBAR PERNYATAAN UNTUK PERSETUJUAN PUBLIKASI KARYA ILMIAH ... vi

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ... vii

TABLE OF CONTENTS ... viii

LIST OF TABLES ... xi

LIST OF FIGURES ... xii

LIST OF APPENDICES ... xiii

ABSTRACT ... xv

ABSTRAK ... xvi

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION ... 1

A. Research Background... 1

B. Problem Identification ... 6

C. Problem Limitation ... 7

D. Research Questions ... 9

E. Research Objectives ... 10

F. Research Benefits ... 10

CHAPTER II: THERORETICAL REVIEW ... 12

A. Writing Skill ... 12

1. The Nature of Writing ... 12

2. Significant Aspects in Writing ... 15

3. Teaching and Learning Writing at University Level ... 17

B. Grammatical Competence ... 19

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2. Grammar in Writing ... 21

C. Web-Based Grammar Practice ... 24

1. Web-Based Learning ... 24

2. Autonomous and Collaborative Learning ... 26

3. Web-Based Learning for Teaching Writing ... 27

4. Web-Based Grammar Practice in Sentence Writing Class ... 28

a. Sentence Writing Syllabus ... 28

b. Grammar Practices: True and False ... 30

c. Grammar Practices: Sentence Writing ... 31

d. Grammar Practices: Passage Writing ... 32

D. Review of Related Research ... 38

E. Theoretical Framework ... 39

F. Hypotheses ... 43

CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY ... 45

A. Research Method ... 45

B. Research Setting and Subjects ... 47

C. Data Gathering Techniques ... 48

1. Grammar Identification ... 48

2. Passage Writing ... 49

3. Final Writing ... 49

D. Data Processing ... 52

1. Scale Assumption ... 52

2. Assumption of Normal Distribution... 53

3. Linearity Assumption ... 53

E. Data Analysis and Verification ... 55

1. Validity ... 56

2. Reliability ... 57

CHAPTER IV: RESEARCH FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS ... 59

A. Data Presentation ... 59

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a. The relationship between web-based grammar

practice and grammatical competence ... 60

b. The relationship between web-based grammar practice and writing skill ... 67

2. Result of Qualitative Research ... 74

B. Discussion ... 80

1. Grammar Practices and Grammatical Competence ... 81

2. Grammar Practices and Writing Skill ... 83

3. The Contribution of Web- Based Grammar Practice to Students Grammatical Competence and Writing Skill ... 87

CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION ... 95

A. Conclusion ... 95

B. Implication ... 98

C. Suggestion ... 99

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LIST OF TABLES

Table Page

3.1 In-Depth Interview Blueprint ... 51

3.2 Correlation Coefficient ... 55

3.3 Independent Samples Test... 57

xii

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure Page

2.1 Course Syllabus ... 29

2.2 True and False Practice ... 30

2.3 Sentence Writing Practice ... 31

2.4Passage Writing Practice ... 32

2.5Passage Writing Evaluation ... 33

2.6 Grammar Scores in Passage Writing ... 34

2.7 Sentence Complexity Scores in Passage Writing ... 35

2.8 Passage Writing Evaluation ... 37

2.9Development of Grammatical Competence through Writing ... 42

3.1 Positive Correlation ... 53

3.1 Negative Correlation ... 54

3.1 No Correlation ... 54

4.1Test of Normality of Grammar Scores ... 61

4.2Q-Q Plot of Grammar Scores ... 61

4.3Scatterplot of Grammar Identification and Grammar Scores ... 62

4.4 Pearson Correlation Coefficient between Grammar Identification and Grammar Scores ... 62

4.5Spearman Correlation Coefficient between Grammar Identification and Grammar Scores ... 63

4.6 Test of Normality of Sentence Complexity Scores ... 64

4.7 Q-Q Plot of Sentence Complexity Scores ... 64

4.8 Scatterplot of Grammar Identification and Sentence Complexity Scores 65

4.9 Pearson Correlation Coefficient between Grammar Identification and Sentence Complexity Scores ... 65

4.10 Spearman Correlation Coefficient between Grammar Identification and Sentence Complexity Scores ... 66

4.11 Test of Normality of Passage Writing Scores ... 68

4.12 Q-Q Plot of Passage Writing Scores ... 68

4.13 Scatterplot of Grammar Identification and Passage Writing Scores ... 69

4.14 Pearson Correlation Coefficient between Grammar Identification and Passage Writing Scores ... 69

4.15 Spearman Correlation Coefficient between Grammar Identification and Passage Writing Scores ... 70

4.16 Test of Normality of Final Writing Scores ... 71

4.17 Q-Q Plot of Final Writing Scores ... 71

4.18 Scatterplot of Grammar Identification and Final Writing Scores ... 72

4.19 Pearson Correlation Coefficient between Grammar Identification and Final Writing Scores ... 72

4.20 Spearman Correlation Coefficient between Grammar Identification and Final Writing Scores ... 73

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LIST OF APPENDICES

Appendix Page

Appendix 1 : Course Syllabus ... 105

Appendix 2 : Interview Guideline #1 ... 107

Appendix 3 : Interview Guideline #2 ... 109

Appendix 4 :Grammar Identification and Grammar Scores ... 110

Appendix 5 : Grammar Identification and Sentence Complexity Scores ... 111

Appendix 6 : Grammar Identification and Passage Writing Scores ... 112

Appendix7 : Grammar Identification and Final Writing Scores ... 113

Appendix 8 : Transcribed Interview Result #1 ... 114

xiv ABSTRACT

Yerinta, Agatha Pepy. 2014. The Contribution of Web-Based Grammar Practice to Students’ Grammatical Competence and Writing Skill. Yogyakarta: Sanata Dharma University.

It has been long and widely believed that grammatical competence has significant influence in the development of writing skill. Communicative grammar teaching integrated with writing is believed to be the best way in developing grammar competence that leads to the improvement of writing skill. As the emergence of technology in education, ELTGallery is implementing web-based grammar practices for a writing course with the aims of developing students‟ grammatical competence as well as their writing skill. Starting from this notion, this research was conducted to find out whether the participants‟ (1) web-based grammar practices is related to their grammatical competence; (2) web-based grammar practices is related to their English writing achievement; and eventually it is aimed at (3) describing and interpreting the interview results of the research participants, particularly concerning their experience in conducting web-based grammar practices to find out the contribution of web-based grammar practices to their grammatical competence and writing skill.

Approaching the problems under the mixed-method approach, this research employed correlational study to answer the first and second research problems, and interview to answer the third research problem. The data were gathered through testing and interviews that were conducted to the students of English Letters in Writing 1 course. The data analysis was conducted through correlational analysis, followed by description and interpretation of participants‟ interview results regarding the contribution of web-based grammar practices for their grammatical competence and writing skill.

The research found out that: (1) there is positive correlation between students‟ web-based grammar practices and their grammatical competence (r=0.770 at p=0.00 for grammar score and r=0.453 at p=0.00 for sentence complexity score); (2) there is positive correlation between students‟ web-based grammar practices and their writing skill (r= 0.711 at p=0.00 for passage writing and r=0.913 at p=0.00 for writing final achievement). These results are also supported by the results of qualitative analysis through the description and interpretation of participants‟ interview results. The resultsshowed that web-based grammar practices improved students‟ grammatical competence and writing skill in some aspects, which are Article, Pronoun, and Tenses.

The research findings bring about some practical implications that web-based grammar practices can be used to develop and assess students‟ grammatical competence and writing skill. It is recommended for further research to focus more on the practical use of web-based learning.

xv ABSTRAK

Yerinta, Agatha Pepy. 2014. The Contribution of Web-Based Grammar Practice to Students’ Grammatical Competence and Writing Skill. Yogyakarta: Sanata Dharma University.

Kompetensi grammar sudah lama terbukti dan dipercayai memiliki pengaruh terhadap perkembangan keterampilan menulis. Pengajaran grammar dan pengajaran menulis yang diintegrasikan secara komunikatif dipercaya menjadi cara yang terbaik dalam mengembangkan kompetensi grammar, yang mengarah pada perkembangan keterampilan menulis. Perkembangan ilmu teknologi dalam pendidikan menjadi dasar terbentuknya ELTGallery, dengan menerapkan latihan grammar berbasis web (web-based grammar practices). Latihan grammar berbasis web dalam mata kuliah writing tersebut bertujuan untuk mengembangkan kompetensi grammar dan keterampilan menulis siswa. Bertolak dari gagasan tersebut, penelitian ini dilakukan untuk meneliti apakah (1) latihan web-based grammar siswa berhubungan dengan kompetensi grammar mereka; (2) latihan web-based grammar siswa berhubungan dengan keterampilan menulis mereka, dan pada akhirnya penelitian ini bertujuan untuk (3) mendeskripsikan dan menginterpretasikan hasil interview siswa tentang kontribusi latihan web-based grammar terhadap kompetensi grammar dan keterampilan menulis siswa.

Dengan menggunakan pendekatan mixed-method, penelitian inimenerapkanstudikorelasionaluntukmenjawabpertanyaan pertama dan kedua, serta menggunakan interview untuk menjawab pertanyaan ketiga.Data dikumpulkan melalui tesand interview untuk siswa program studi Sastra Inggris dalam mata kuliah Writing 1.Analisis data dilakukanmelaluianalisiskorelasional, yang diikutidengan deskripsi dan interpretasi hasil interview tentang kontribusi latihan web-based grammar terhadap kompetensi grammar dan keterampilan menulis siswa.

Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa: (1) ada korelasi positif antara hasil latihan grammar siswa dengan kompetensi grammar mereka (r=0.770 at p=0.00 untuk grammar score dan r=0.453 at p=0.00 untuk sentence complexity score); (2) ada korelasi positif antara hasil latihan grammar siswa dengan keterampilan menulis mereka (r= 0.711 at p=0.00 untuk passage writing dan r=0.913 at p=0.00 untuk final writing). Hasil tersebut didukung oleh hasil penelitian kualitatif dari deskripsi dan interpretasi interview siswa.Hasil deskripsi dan interpretasi ini menunjukkan bahwa web-based grammar practices meningkatkan kompetensi grammar dan keterampilan menulis siswa dalam beberapa segi, yakni Article, Pronoun, dan Tenses.

Hasil penelitian ini memberikan implikasi bahwa web-based grammar practices dapat digunakan sebagai sarana untuk mengembangkan dan mengukur kompetensi grammar dan keterampilan menulis siswa. Penelitian selanjutnya dianjurkan untuk lebih fokus terhadap penggunaan web-based learningsecarapraktikal.

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CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

This study would like to firstly, investigate the relationship between web-based grammar practice and grammatical competence as well as writing skill and secondly describe and interpret the contribution of web-based grammar practice to students‟ grammatical competence and writing skill in Writing 1 course. This chapter provides the research background, problem identification, problem limitation, research questions, research objectives, and research benefits.

A. Research Background

Nowadays, English as a second language is not only taught as an object of study, but also as a system of communication (Weigle 2002). It means that English is not only taught as a matter of knowledge, but also as skills, which are communication skills. The English skills taught at school cover listening, speaking, reading, and writing. As a means of communication, speaking and writing are the skills that are needed and used to share ideas and knowledge. However, in terms of teaching and learning speaking and writing, writing is still perceived as a difficult subject to learn since there are many writing aspects that need to be considered (Brown 2004). In the other hand, speaking is considered to be easier than writing, since the main point of speaking is the message. It means as long as the message can be conveyed and understood among the speakers, then it can be called as successful speaking. Brown (2004) proposes two aspects of writing skills, which are micro and macro skills. Micro-skills in writing cover grammatical system pattern and rule within sentences, while macro-skills include

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the construction among sentences. Thus, successful writing includes the ability in using correct organization, control of content, grammatical devices, mechanics (spelling, punctuation, and capitalization), and word choice (vocabulary).

Writing is categorized into some different levels. One of the levels is sentence writing. Sentence writing is the basic level of writing where students learn the inner aspects or elements within sentences. 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 (Birjandiet al. 2004). Those are what the students learn in Writing 1 course. This course focuses on the grammatical aspects of sentences. It aims at developing students‟ skills in identifying the inner and outer elements of sentences and creating their own sentences grammatically based on the topics provided. However, learning grammar can be frustrating since it deals with numerous elements. Teachers may also find difficulty in teaching those various elements within limited time provided in traditional learning. Therefore, there is a need to find an alternative way in teaching and learning grammar, especially in sentence writing.

The use of technology in education is growing recently. E-learning is used as a new way of teaching. As suggested by Masieet al. (2000), e-learning deals with both electronic media and internet (Munir 2009). It integrates the use of CALL (Computer Assisted Language Learning) and online internet. Kakasevski et al. (2008) assert that the advantage of e-learning is in its ability in making learning process independent of time and location or place. One of the applications of e-learning is shown by the number of websites that are available

for teaching and learning activities. Those websites offer modern learning processes that can facilitate both the students and the teachers.

ELTGallery is the website used in Writing 1 course that is designed to

facilitate the regular learning process in the classroom. Related to the goal of Writing 1, which is to develop students‟ skills in writing sentences grammatically,

ELTGallery provides grammar practices for the students that can be conducted at

any time and any place. These grammar practices include the micro-skills of writing, which are sentence agreement, tense, article and determiner, personal pronoun, question, noun modifier, auxiliary verb, perfect and continuous, compound and complex sentence, relative clause, noun clause, and passive voice. It is believed that by conducting the grammar practices continuously, students will be able to write sentences grammatically. ELTGallery enables the students not only to do exercises or practices but also to comment to their peers‟ work. Therefore it will enable the students to learn independently outside the class. However, teachers and students are still inexperienced with the latest technology and unresponsive to implement technology in the learning process (Mumtaz 2000, Ertmer 2006, Pope et al. 2002). Thus, implementing technology should be followed by evaluating it. In addition, the learning advantages provided by

ELTGallery should be clearly stated to the students so that they will be able to

make use of ELTGallery beneficially.

The principles of the integration between CALL and online learning provide benefits or advantages for the students. One principle of CALL is learner autonomy. Edge and Wharton defines learner autonomy as learners‟ responsibility in engaging in their own learning (Tomlinson 1998). Similarly, Sinclair (2000)

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suggests that autonomy involves the willingness to be responsible in the learning process. Furthermore, Sinclair (2000) also asserts that to develop learner autonomy, learners should be aware of the learning process. This awareness includes the reflection and decision-making process conducted by the learners (Borg 2012). It is conducted by reflecting the learning values into their own experience. By developing autonomous learning, learners will be able to control and monitor their own progress, and decide what they should do to improve and develop their progress (Lloyd 2000). Autonomous learning also deals with learner-centered learning, in which it covers individual as well as social dimension in creating independent and collaborative learning (Olesova&Meloni in Hubbard & Levy 2006). Taber (2006) also asserts that learner construct knowledge through collaborative interaction with others. In additional, learning should result from social interaction among learners through communication, activities, and interactions with others (Swan 2005). Jones and Youngs suggest that autonomous and collaborative learning is the key of successful online learning (Hubbard & Levy 2006). Therefore, by implementing ELTGallery, students will be able to develop their autonomous learning and collaborative learning with their peers. They will be able to work independently without being restricted by time and place. It means that they can monitor their progress and evaluate their learning by themselves.

Related to the advantages provided by using web-based learning,

ELTGallery is expected to be able to enhance students‟ autonomous and

collaborative learning in conducting the grammar practices. Grammar cannot be separated from writing since grammar is the one of the significant elements in

successful writing. Learning grammar can lead to the improvement of writing (Hudson 2001, Fearn and Farnan 2007). Therefore, ELTGallery provides online grammar practices that are beneficial for the students in improving their writing skills. It is believed that by conducting these grammar practices autonomously and collaboratively, students will be able to write their own sentences grammatically and improve their writing skills.

For that reason, this study is conducted to find out the relationship between web-based grammar practice and grammatical competence as well as writing skill. It also investigates the contribution of the grammar practices offered in

ELTGalleryto the students‟ grammatical competence and writing achievement in

Writing 1 course. It is then analyzed to validate the positive influence of web-based grammar practice in Writing 1 course. The data gathered are the students‟ scores of the grammar practices, grammar scores and sentence complexity in passage writing tasks, passage writing, and final achievement in Writing 1 course. This study conducts quantitative research to identify the relationship between web-based grammar practice in ELTGallery and students‟ grammatical competence and writing skill. It also applies qualitative research to dig more about how ELTGallery, especially grammar practices, contribute to students‟ grammar competence as well as writing ability. It is expected that web-based grammar practice has positive relationship and contribution to the students‟ grammatical competence and writing skill and that the application improves students‟ writing skills. The positive contribution of the grammar practices will provide new instrument to assess students‟ grammatical mastery, especially in sentence writing.

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B. Problem Identification

The relation between grammar and writing has been a wide belief in English education. Teaching grammar and writing should be integrated in order to optimize the learning process. It is strongly suggested that the most beneficial way in assisting students to improve their grammatical competence as well as writing skill is by integrating grammar and writing in a communicative approach. Since the early 1960s, research shows that grammar teaching that is separate from writing instruction does not show improvement on students‟ grammatical competence and writing skill (Braddock et al. 1963, Hillocks 1986). The use of students‟ writings as teaching materials to teach grammar in writing is believed to be the most effective way. Editing and revising are the possible ways in developing students‟ grammatical competence and writing skill at the same time. Integrating grammar instruction into editing and revising processes facilitate the students to make immediate applications that allow them to really pay attention to the relation between grammar and writing.

In order to be able to conduct editing and revising process, students need to be exposed to some major grammar topics first. These topics are the minimum requirements of grammar that students need to acquire, so that they are able to edit and revise their work optimally. Weaver (1998) proposes five grammatical concepts that enable students to show improvement in sentence revision and editing: (1) teaching concepts on subject, verb, sentence, clause, phrase; (2) teaching style through sentence combining and sentence generating; (3) teaching sentence through the manipulation of syntactic elements; (4) teaching both the

power of dialects and the dialects of power; and (5) teaching punctuation and mechanics for convention, clarity, and style.

As the rise of technology application in educational field, ELTGallery is implementing web-based grammar practice as one way in improving students‟ grammatical competence and writing skill. Web-based grammar practice allows the students to conduct editing and revising process for their writings. Web-based grammar practice offers 12 topics including sentence agreement, tense, article and determiner, personal pronoun, question, noun modifier, auxiliary verb, perfect and continuous, compound and complex sentence, relative clause, noun clause, and passive voice. These topics are carefully selected based on the minimum requirements of grammar that are suggested by previous studies in traditional learning. Web-based grammar practice integrates the traditional grammar practices in conventional learning with the technology that simultaneously allow the students to enhance their autonomous and collaborative learning more. Therefore, it is strongly believed that with the autonomous and collaborative learning supported in ELTGallery, web-based grammar practice and grammatical competence as well as writing skill are positively related. It means that students‟ with more web-based grammar practice have higher grammatical competence and writing skill.

C. Problem Limitation

The use of e-learning in educational field has shown positive influence. The use of technology in teaching learning activities is believed to be advantageous since students are more attracted in up-to-date techniques, which are technology applications, compared to traditional learning (McBrien, Jones, and Cheng

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2009).Web-based learning facilitates autonomous and collaborative learning and offers a variety of features such as messaging, forums, chat, and discussion board (Olesova&Meloni in Hubbard & Levy 2006). Students are able to work independently and develop their autonomous learning and collaborative learning with their peers. These advantages become the basic foundation of ELTGallery in assisting students to improve their grammatical competence and writing skill.

Benefited from autonomous and collaborative learning developed by the use of e-learning, ELTGalleryprovides web-based grammar practice that are integrated with sequential writing instructions with the aim at improving students‟ grammatical competence and writing skill. Three main tasks are developed in ELTGallery, namely Grammar Identification, Sentence Writing, and Passage

Writing. This study aims at investigating the relationship between

GrammarIdentification or web-based grammar practice and students‟ grammatical

competence, and between GrammarIdentification or web-based grammar practice and students‟ writing skill. This study, further, investigates the contribution of web-based grammar practice to students‟ grammatical competence and writing skill.

The contribution of web-based grammar practice is investigated through the implementation of students‟ learning strategy in dealing with web-based learning. It seeks to find out the real contribution of web-based grammar practice seen from the students‟ perspective. Students create their learning strategy with or without their awareness. Learning strategy consists of six categorizations of memory strategy, social strategy, meta-cognitive strategy, compensation strategy, cognitive strategy, and affective strategy (Oxford, 1990). Considering the purpose of the

study and the underlying principle of autonomous and collaborative learning in e-learning, the learning strategy is investigated in three categorizations of meta-cognitive strategy, meta-cognitive strategy, and affective strategy out of six categorizations.

With the underlying idea of teaching grammar in writing with the use of technology, this study was conducted to investigate (1) whether web-based grammar practice are related to grammatical competence, (2) whether web-based grammar practice are related to writing skill and (3) the contribution of web-based grammar practice to grammatical competence and writing skill. These were investigated in mixed-method research of quantitative and qualitative research. Testing was conducted to gain the quantitative data, while in-depth interview was conducted to gain students‟ perspective as qualitative data concerning the topics under investigation. The English Letter students of Sanata Dharma University were taken as subject of the research since Writing 1 Course in English Letter is the one applying ELTGallery.

D. Research Questions

By identifying the rationale of the research, the problem identification and the limitation of the problem, this study was conducted to find out:

1. Is there a positive relationship between web-based grammar practicein

ELTGalleryand the grammatical competence of the 1st semester English Letter

students?

2. Is there a positive relationship between web-based grammar practice in

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3. What is the contribution of web-based grammar practice to the grammatical competence and writing skill of the 1st semester English Letter students? E. Research Objectives

This study aims at finding out whether students who conduct more grammar practices achieve higher grammatical competence and writing skill. Further, it investigates whether students are able to write grammatically correct sentences after conducting grammar practices correctly in ELTGallery. It seeks to identify whether grammar practices provided by ELTGallery facilitate the students to be able to write sentences grammatically and thus lead them to improve their writing skill.

In addition, this study aims at investigating the contribution of web-based grammar practice to students‟ grammatical competence and writing ability. It means that this study investigates the real use or implementation of web-based grammar practice done by the students based on the learning strategies that they apply. Therefore, this study conducted in-depth interview to gain students‟ perspective of the contribution of web-based grammar practice to their grammatical competence and writing skill.

F. Research Benefits

This study is expected to provide some benefits and contributions to English education theoretically and practically. Theoretically, this study contributes to offer a supplementary way of teaching by implementing web-based learning. If the students‟ web-based grammar practice scores are in line with and contribute to the students‟ scores in passage writing and writing test, it will show that web -based learning is effectively used to improve students‟ writing skills. Hence, this

study will contribute to the study of web-based learning implementation, especially ELTGallery.

Practically, if the objective is achieved, ELTGallery is proved to be effective in improving students‟ writing skills. Therefore, this study shows that web-based learning application can be used as a media to facilitate writing class. In this case, this study provides an effective instrument to assess as well as to improve students‟ grammatical competence by using web application, which is

ELTGallery.

To sum up, this study is beneficial both for students and for teachers, as well as educators who are interested in the subject matter. By implementing this application, teachers will be able to use the online instrument to assess students‟ grammatical competence and writing skill, while students will be able to work autonomously and collaboratively outside the class to improve their writing skills.

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CHAPTER II

THEORETICAL REVIEW

Theories that are relevant to answer the problems are covered in this part. This part also discusses the conflicting theories concerning the problems. The discussion will be divided into three main points covering the nature of writing, the nature of grammar, and the implementation of technology in education, especially web-based learning.

A. Writing Skill

As a language, English is perceived as a communication means among human beings. Therefore, English as a second language in Indonesia is taught both as an object of study and as a system of communication (Weigle 2002).Among the four English skills taught at schools, which are listening, speaking, reading, and writing, writing is still considered as a difficult subject to learn. This is due to the nature of second language learners and the numerous aspects of writing that should be considered (Brown 2004). The writing aspects are taught at schools to develop students‟ writing skill.

1. The Nature of Writing

As a means of communication, writing is used to share ideas, knowledge, and messages. Therefore, writing is crucial in second language learning. Second language writing is considered to be more difficult than first language writing since it involves transferring message in a different language. It means that there are two significant aspects in second language writing. The first one deals with how message is conveyed, while the second one is on how to write in a different

language. Richards and Renandya (2002) suggest that the difficulty deals with both in generating and organizing ideas and in translating the ideas into readable texts. It involves more than just telling message; in fact it emphasizes on transforming information into texts in a different language (Myles 2002). In order to be successful in writing, students need to acquire proficiency in writing strategies, techniques, and skills. All of these relate to the development of writing performance in written production.

In the written production, Brown (2004) proposes four types of writing performance that relates to the writing skills in creating successful writing. The first one is imitative. It deals with the basic tasks of writing letters, words, punctuation, and very short sentences. In this category, the skills focus on the ability to spell correctly. This is the level at which the students try to master the writing mechanics. The context and the meaning or the message of the writing are still considered as secondary concern. The next category is intensive or controlled. In this category, the students are able to create appropriate vocabulary in a certain context. Students also learn about collocation and idioms. Grammatical features are able to be mastered only at sentence level. The focus is still on the form, but meaning and context are more developed than in imitative level. In the next category, which is responsive, students learn how to connect sentences into a paragraph and develop the paragraph into paragraphs. In this category, students have understood the concepts of genres and they are able to write brief narratives, responses, descriptions, short reports, lab reports, summaries, and interpretations of graphs or charts. Context and meaning are now more addresses than forms or grammar. The last category is extensive. In this category, students are able to

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process writing for all purposes, such as essays, papers, research project report, and thesis. Focus on grammatical forms is limited only for the proofreading and editing.

Those four writing performance types suggest the inner significant aspects in the writing development stages. These inner aspects include vocabulary, grammar, punctuation, writing techniques and so on. In developing writing skill, Brown (2004) proposes micro and macro skills of writing. Micro skills deal with the basic knowledge of writing, covering the inner elements of writing, such as mechanics and grammatical rules. The skills include the ability to (1) create graphemes and orthographic English patters. Second, (2) create writing at a well-organized rate of speed to adjust the objective, (3) create an acceptable words‟ core and use appropriate patterns of word order, (4) apply acceptable grammatical systems, rules, and patterns, (5) show a certain meaning in diverse grammatical forms, and (6) apply cohesive devices in written discourse. Meanwhile, macro skills deal with the ability to (1) apply the rhetorical forms and conventions of written discourse it, (2) undertake the communicative functions of written texts based on the form and purpose appropriately, (3) express the relations among the events in the story of the writing, in which usually the relations are called as main idea, supporting idea, generalization, and exemplification, (4) differentiate between word for word or literal meaning and inferred or implied meanings when writing, (5) express particular references correctly, and (6) improve and apply a series of writing strategies, such as prewriting devices, drafts, paraphrases, synonyms, and feedback.All of these skills are needed to be acquired by the students so that they will be able to produce successful writing.

2. Significant Aspectsin Writing

Based on the characteristics of micro and macro skills, it can be seen that the most influential aspect of writing is grammar. Micro and macro skills list the elements of grammar within a sentence and between sentences. In macro skills, students also need to be able to use feedback to revise and edit their works. It means that to develop writing skill, the inner and outer aspects of writing should be considered. Crème and Lea (2008) propose that to achieve successful writing, some aspects inside and outside the writing should be fulfilled. Those aspects include grammar and punctuation, writing techniques, and feedbacks for revision (Crème and Lea 2008). In other words, successful writing is not only determined by the inner elements of writing, such as the grammar and the techniques in writing, but also the outer element, which is feedback. Grammar in writing includes all aspects of grammar, covering tenses, compound and complex sentence, active and passive voice, and so on. Students often feel panic as well as neglect these particular concepts of grammar, and therefore, this will also lead to unsuccessful writing (Crème and Lea 2008). The next concept is about techniques in writing which deal with cohesion, punctuation, reference, and coherence. Techniques in writing more focus on how the message is conveyed through the writing and how the flow of the writing is organized. This is also supported by Kellogg (2008) who asserts that to produce effective text composition, extensive range of knowledge must be available in long-term memory of the writers. These include a large conceptual lexicon, developed grammatical competence, a variety of discourse structures, and domain-specific knowledge of the topic. Hereby, successful writing involves the knowledge of sufficient vocabulary, grammar, language use, and relevance to the topic.

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Since most of writing aspects deal with grammar, it is believed that grammar practices are needed to obtain successful writing. Grammar practices are best delivered in separate aspects, including subject-verb agreement, parts of speech, clause, sentences, tenses, and so on (Berger 2001). However, teaching grammar in separate aspects does not mean that it should be separated from the writing itself. Teaching grammar should be integrated with teaching writing. Therefore, the separate aspects of grammar should be learnt in the context of writing (Berger 2001).

However, some studies show the ineffectiveness of teaching grammar for writing. Teaching grammar has insignificant positive effects on improving students‟ writing (Wyse 2001). It has negative impact on students‟ motivation due to the ineffective approaches to grammar and common exercises that are demotivating for the students. Wyse (2001) argues if the teaching approach to grammar is clearly set and adjusted to the needs of the students and the arrangement of the exercises provides challenging and motivating exercises, teaching grammar for writing would be more effective. Furthermore, Wyse suggests that decontextualized grammar exercises are not interesting and challenging for the students. When students carry out writing with meaningful purposes, they will be more concerned and will pay more attention to the grammatical aspects in their writing (Norris and Ortega 2000, Ellis 2002). Weaver et al. (2001) propose that whether to teach grammar or not is not the main problem. Rather, the issue that should be addressed is on the selection of the grammar aspects that should be taught to enhance and improve students‟ writing

and the techniques in delivering the grammar practices (Weaver et al. 2001, Andrews 2006).

To build communicative writing, contexts of writing should be emphasized as well. Therefore, besides using grammar practices, developing writing skill should also pay attention to the communicative context and meaningful purposes. It means that topics should be carefully selected in such a way that the topics can enhance students‟ critical thinking to write contextually using appropriate grammar aspects. Hence, the grammar practices combine grammar aspects and meaningful topics to develop students‟ writing skill.

3. Teaching and Learning Writing at University Level

Students at university level belong to adult learners. Hammer (2007) suggests that adult learners have expectations about the learning process and already have their own set patterns of learning and a clear understanding of why they are learning and what they want to get out of it. It shows that students are able to develop their learning strategies in the learning process. Students understand their position as students and they are aware of their responsibility in developing their own learning process. Hammer (2007) further suggests that university students are able to deal with various activities as well as various assessments. It means that teaching writing at university level can be optimized using different types of activities and assessments to develop students‟ writing skills. With these two basic characteristics of adult learners, teaching writing at university level should set the learning activities and learning assessments that can enhance students‟ learning strategies as well as students‟ writing skill.

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University students understand their learning process. It means that learning writing can be directed to autonomous learning. Learning writing at university level is seen as reflective learning in which students intend to write and they are eager to build relationship between the students themselves and the tasks of writing (Lavelle &Zuercher 2001). It means that students really need to be aware of the writing process and perceive writing itself not merely as a task but more as intention. Lavelle and Zuercher (2001) further suggest that the activity of learning and how the students perceive the learning will affect the quality of the learning outcome. Therefore, students who are eager to write or who intend to write will have better learning outcome since they will do more effort than the others.

Hence, to develop writing skill at university level, the grammar practices should be carefully set to meet the characteristics of university students. Deep tasks need to be designed to facilitate the teaching writing at university level. These deep tasks emphasize on meaning, scaffolding, modeling and integrating writing across content areas (relevance) (Lavelle &Zuercher, 2001). In other words, the writing should focus on the message, have clear organization, show clear description and elaboration and be contextual according to the topic given. In addition, teachers at university level should provide meaningful feedback for the writings that the students have produced (Lavelle &Zuercher 2001). By given feedback, students will be able to reflect on their writings, evaluate their writings, and revise them.

Hereby, the grammar practices, which are best selected as the practices to develop writing skill, should be administered in such a way that students can enhance their autonomous and reflective learning as well as collaborative

learning. The grammar practices should be able to develop students‟ grammar competence and writing skill at the same time. In addition, the grammar practices should also enable the students to collaborate with each other. Feedback, as the additional aspect, should also exist in the implementation of grammar practices. B. Grammatical Competence

Language competence covers organizational competence and pragmatic competence. Organizational competence includes grammatical competence and textual competence. Grammatical competence is different from grammatical performance, in which the former deals with the knowledge of language and the latter deals with the actual use of language in concrete situation (Chomsky 1965). The knowledge of language deals with the knowledge of lexical items and the rules of morphology, syntax, sentence-grammar semantics, and phonology (Canale& Swain 1980). It can be concluded that grammatical competence is what knowledge of language that the learners possess.

The discovery of the nature of language is one of the important aspects in grammar teaching (Azar 2007). Language consists of predictable patterns that make human beings intelligible. It means that grammar makes words meaningful. Azar (2007) further asserts that grammar is not only about rules, but it is more about concepts. One of the most important concepts of grammar is that a sentence will have at least one subject and one verb. In other words, if students understand the basic concepts of grammar, they will be able to continue studying for the grammar rules. Therefore, students will possess grammatical competence if they understand first about grammar concepts; concepts that language consists of patterns that can be predicted and learned. Grammatical competence can be

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identified through several conditions and tasks. In the teaching of grammar, learners‟ grammatical competence can be measured using grammar-based tasks. 1. Grammar Teaching

With the development of communicative methodology, the role of grammar instruction in second language learning is reduced. Teaching grammar is also seen as dangerous. If students focus more on the grammar, it is believed that their communication ability will be disrupted. Krashen (1981) proposes that language should be acquired through natural exposure, not learned through formal instruction. However, Nassjai&Fotos (2004) suggest that there is still a need for formal instruction for the learners to attain high levels of accuracy. This is strongly related to the key to successful writing, in which accuracy is considered as one of the main points in successful writing.

Grammar teaching is also supported by Schmidt (2001). Schmidt (2001) suggests that conscious attention to form, which he calls as noticing, is an essential condition for language learning. Ellis (2002) supports that noticing or awareness of target forms plays an important role in second language learning. It means that target forms, or in this case grammar, should be taught as input since learners cannot process target language input both meaning and form at the same time (Skehan 1998, Tomasello 1998). This is due to the inability of the communicative language teaching to develop students‟ high levels of accuracy in the target language (Ellis 2002, Mitchell 2000). Therefore, grammar still needs to be taught in formal instruction so that learners are able to acquire them and process them to produce successful writing later on. Yet, Ellis (2002) asserts that teaching grammar in the classroom is still needed as long as it is conducted with a

communicative focus. In fact, corrective feedback is considered to be an effective means in conducting grammar teaching (Ellis, 2006)

Teaching grammar is effective if it is conducted in a learner-centered approach (Long, 2000). It means that students are aware of the learning process and they can control their learning and adjust it based on their own need in the learning process. Textual enhancement is believed to be able to draw students‟ attention to grammar (Calkins 1980, DiStefano&Killon 1984). It relates to the use of texts or writings as the media to teach grammar. With this way, teaching grammar can be less explicit and intrusive (Doughty & Varela 1998). Therefore, students will be able to learn grammar and writing at the same time. Grammar rules support their writing ability, and their writings will support their grammatical competence as well.

2. Grammar in Writing

The problems of the students‟ inability to produce acceptable writing are due to the relative absence of direct and focused grammar instruction and the lack of vocabulary progress (Hinkel 2002). The role of grammar in writing is mutually synergistic. Frodsen and Erying (2000) propose that focusing on form (grammar) can facilitate students to develop their linguistic resources that are needed to express their ideas in effective ways. Therefore, second language students need to pay attention to the form or grammar to develop their writing proficiency.

Writing proficiency is related to the lexical and syntactic complexity and grammar accuracy (Eouanzouiet al. 2005). Weaver et al. (2001) and Andrews (2006) suggest that teaching grammar for successful writing should consider the aspects of grammar that should be taught and the techniques of the grammar

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practices that should be delivered. Hinkel (2004) proposes that grammar practices are grammar-based tasks that focus on grammar rules and grammatical aspects in sentences or paragraphs. Hinkel (2004) suggest some aspects of grammar that should be taught in second language writing, including sentences, phrases and text construction, nouns and the noun phrase, pronouns, verb tenses and voice in text cohesion, lexical classes of verbs covering the meaning and the text functions, and adjectives and adverbs on academic discourse. These aspects are in line with the micro and macro skills proposed by Brown (2004).

It has now been identified that grammar practices influence students‟ writing ability. Andrews et al. (2006) suggest one of the grammar practices that are effective for the students, which is sentence combining. Therefore, grammatical mastery and competence is in line with writing performance. Richards (2006) suggest that grammatical competence is the knowledge that students possess about a language covering their ability to compose or construct sentences (production). Grammatical competence includes the knowledge about elements of sentences (parts of speech, tenses, phrases, clauses, and sentence patterns) and how sentences are formed. Writing skill belongs to the productive skill. It means that the focus of writing is more on the production in order to communicate well (Harmer 2007). In second language writing, grammatical competence is the knowledge that students possess about the vocabulary and the grammar or the structure of the sentences. Some research has proved the influence of grammatical competence to the production of writing (Nik 2011, Cheng 2013). Therefore, students who have grammatical competence, or the knowledge of grammar, will be able to produce grammatical sentences.

The common problems of learning grammar are due to the lack of varieties in the teaching techniques (Gardner 2008). Students who are excellent in doing grammar exercises may not be able to use the grammar well when they want to say something about themselves. It is because the teaching of grammar is still based on rules, not meaning. Therefore, teachers now have changed the techniques of traditional approach to a more communicative approach. It is an approach that teaches how to use grammar meaningfully in context (Gardner 2008). Fearn and Farnan (2007) assert that integrating grammar and writing should be defined in terms of grammar in writing, not grammar for writing. It means that the teaching of grammar is conducted altogether with the teaching of writing. Therefore, in integrating grammar and writing, grammar practices should be meaningful for the students so that they will be able to produce meaningful writing as well.

The recent development of technology has provided opportunity in integrating grammar and writing in the teaching learning process. Hegelheimer and Fisher (2006) suggest that the use of World Wide Web can develop the learning process that integrates and teaches grammar and writing at the same time. Technology can be helpful in creating an inventive online grammar resource designed to enhance students‟ awareness of difficult grammatical features. In addition, students‟ writings can be transformed and integrated into an effective online resource, in which students can make use of them by studying them more in terms of the grammatical mistakes that they can find.

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C. Web-based Grammar Practice

The development and revolution of technology that have developed with incredible speed have significant role in education field. Technology has been used in education over the decades. The use of technology in learning is called e-learning. As proposed by Masieet al. (2000), e-learning relates to both electronic media and internet (Munir 2009). It incorporates the use of CALL (Computer Assisted Language Learning) and online internet. Similarly, Jenkins & Hanson (2003) and Waller (2003) also proposed that e-learning is a learning process that is supported and facilitated by the use of information and communication technology, including electronic or digitalized media and internet (Munir 2009). In this era of information and communication technology, e-learning offers abundant benefits in education field. E-learning is a very crucial media utilized in conducting learning process currently. It is employed in creating learning materials, assignments, and evaluations. Internet provides abundant sources in obtaining knowledge. Hence, accessing information and knowledge with the use of internet is easy and quick. Kakasevski et al. (2009) emphasize that the benefit of e-learning is due to its capability in making learning process free of time and location or place.

1. Web-Based Learning

The implementation of e-learning in education is carried out with the use of Learning Management System (Newby et al.2011). Learning Management System (LMS) enables asynchronous and synchronous e-learning class for learners. It means that LMS can be used by the teacher and the students in the same time with different place (asynchronous) and different time with different place (asynchronous). It provides communication media for the teachers and the

learners in transferring and obtaining the knowledge easily. In LMS, learners must log in with an ID and a password so that only those who are enrolled in the class can access the information in the course. LMS enables the teachers to deliver course content as well as to track the learners‟ progress at the same time (Kakasevski et al., 2008).

One of the most widely used types of LMS is Moodle. Moodle stands for

Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment. It is used to create an

informational website or an interactive learning environment online. It is an online application that can be used both for synchronous (simulations, web-based data collection) and asynchronous (e-mail, threaded discussions) e-learning technology. The features in Moodle are communication tools, student collaboration, 24-hour access, student/teacher interaction, online learning, digital tools, discussion board, and assessment tools. Therefore, it combines and integrates applications including websites, chat, messaging, blogs, and forums. The use of e-learning using Moodle opens up more opportunities for the learners to be more active, independent, self-reflected, and collaborative participants (Kakasevski et al., 2008).

Taber (2006) suggests that learning is something that is conducted by the learner, and that learning cannot be imposed (Sjoberg2007). In this study, the users are university students. Harmer (2007) suggests that university students are adult learners who have expectations about the learning process and already have their own set patterns of learning and a clear understanding of why they are learning and what they want to get out of it. It shows that university students are

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able to develop and control their own learning, and they are responsible for their learning progress.

2. Autonomous and Collaborative Learning

One principle of CALL is students‟ autonomy. Edge and Wharton defines learner autonomy as learners‟ responsibility in engaging in their own learning (Tomlinson 1998). Similarly, Sinclair (2000) suggests that autonomy involves the willingness to be responsible in the learning process. Furthermore, Sinclair (2000) also asserts that to develop learner autonomy, learners should be aware of the learning process. This awareness includes the reflection and decision-making process conducted by the learners (Borg 2012). It is conducted by reflecting the learning values into their own experience. By developing autonomous learning, learners will be able to control and monitor their own progress, and decide what they should do to improve and develop their progress (Lloyd 2000).

Autonomous learning also deals with learner-centered learning, in which it covers individual as well as social dimension in creating independent and collaborative learning (Olesova&Meloni in Hubbard & Levy 2006). These dimensions are related to the idea of constructivism proposed by Piaget and Vygotsky, in which learning is an individual and social learning respectively (Sjoberg 2007). As suggested by Piaget and Vygotsky about individual and social learning, Taber (2006) also asserts that learner construct knowledge through collaborative interaction with others. In additional, learning should result from social interaction among learners through communication, activities, and interactions with others (Swan 2005). Jones and Youngs suggest that collaborative learning is the key of successful online learning (Hubbard & Levy 2006). Thus,

leaner autonomy and collaborative learning are the significant elements that should be developed in e-learning.

With the use of web-based learning, students will be autonomous or independent with their own learning and they will be collaborative with other students. First, web-based learning provides them with the ready materials for the whole semester that can be accessed every time. These materials cover the whole units with different sources. Therefore, students can improve and develop their learning progress by accessing the ready-materials autonomously or independently whenever they need them. Second, online chat, forum, and discussions are provided for the students so that they will make use of these applications to conduct collaborative learning (Jones &Youngs in Hubbard & Levy 2006). Sharing information via e-mail or messaging in asynchronous communication and chat in synchronous communication will enhance the solid collaboration (Hanson-Smith in Hubbard & Levy 2006). They may discuss the materials using these applications at any time

3. Web-Based Learning for Teaching Writing

Technology is seen to be a powerful means to enhance students‟ interest in learning process (Ellis 2000, Krause 2006). With the facilities that are provided in the web-based learning, students can explore their creativity and they will be able to do autonomous and collaborative learning. Warschauer (2007) also supports that e-mail, bulletin boards, chat, discussion forum that are available in web-based learning enable the students to be more active in the learning process. Teaching writing using web-based learning is more beneficial than in traditional learning. As students are able to see other students‟ works on the page of the web-based

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learning, they will be motivated by their peer‟s works. Thus, it will lead them to write more.

Web-based learning also enables the students to provide comments and feedback for their peers‟ works. Therefore, students are eager to revise their work more. It is seen that students make more revision if their works are commented by their peers (Schultz 2000). Hegelheimer and Fisher (2006) assert that students often feel unable to find grammatical mistakes in their own work. However, they find it easier if they identify the grammatical mistakes on their peer‟s works. It shows that peer feedback is effective as a way in improving students‟ motivation for evaluating and revising their works.

Besides its helpful facilities that can motivate students to learn more, web-based learning is also beneficial in its unlimited resources. Students can make use of internet resources as media in facilitating them whenever they met troublesome in grammatical features. Whenever they feel stuck and hard to understand the material they learn, they will be able to automatically access the internet and browse for information they might need to add.

4. Web-based grammar practice in Sentence Writing Class

ELTGallery is the website used in sentence writing class. The website is

used to facilitate the students to maximize their independent learning. It enables the students to improve their grammatical skills as they practice to do the grammar practices. It is hoped that by developing students‟ grammatical skills, students will automatically develop their writing skills.

a) Sentence Writing Syllabus

Writing at university level is considered as advanced level in which the focus of the writing is more on the managing and organizing ideas and sentences

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 (Birjandiet 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

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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

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 need 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

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correct word(s) 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.

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):

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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

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 students‟ 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)

In-depth interview #3

Q1 ELT kan untuk writing 1. Menurutmu tujuan akhir dari Writing 1 itu apa? N1 Tujuannya buat bisa nulis dengan baik.

Q2 Kalau kriteria nulis dengan baik itu apa?

N2 Kalau bahasa Inggris itu kan kaya ada subject predicate itu kan? Kalau ELT kayaknya ngajarin kita cara menggunakan itu dengan baik, menggunakan grammarnya.

Q3 Grammar berarti ya? Terus disitu kan ada true false, sentence writing, sama passage writing. Menurutmu gimana tu masing-masing.

N3 Susah, pertama aja dapat 6 aja. True false kan boleh memperbaiki gitu, jadi aku suka nyoba-nyoba gitu sampai dapat delapan. Tapi kadang penulisan kalimat di true false itu membingungkan. Harusnya kalau ga ada titiknya kan bukan sentence, tapi kalau aku salahin, malah dapat nilai jelek. Temenku yang ga merhatiin itu dan cuma ngecek grammarnya aja malah dapat bagus. Trus kalau sentence, aku ga gitu merhatiin ya, paling cuma komen komen aja. Kalau yang di passage itu, kadang aku baca baca punya temenku, kadang aku merasa dia ga bagus tapi nilainya bagus. Terus bintang-bintang di passage tu juga kadang ga ngaruh, soalnya bintangnya misal dapat empat, eh ternyata nilainya cuma enam gitu. Q4 Kalau kamu true false nya kan minimal harus 7. Kamu sering ngulang

ga?

N4 Waktu awal aku ngulang sampai 7 kali pa ya. Tapi kemarin-kemarin agak selo jadi bisa ngulang terus. Tapi kadang takut nyoba takut nilainya turun. Q5 Itu ada pembahasannya ga true falsenya?

N5 Ga ada. Jadi aku ga tahu mana yang bener mana yang salah.

Q6 Kalau topiknya sendiri cukup ga? Atau ada penambahan? Dari 12 itu? N6 Ga ada sih, dah cukup. Tapi ya mungkin kalau ada pembahasannya jadi

bisa lebih tahu gitu. Q7 Di kelas kegiatannya apa?

N7 Nerangin materi gitu, buat true false selanjutnya, tapi cuma sebentar, habis tu kita ngerjain true false sendiri.

Q8 Kalau materi dan contoh kan ada di web. Apa itu kurang? N8 Iya, menurutku kurang banyak contohnya.

Q9 Kalau ngerjain true false sendiri atau bareng temen?

N9 Bareng temen, biar rame dan kita jadi tahu kalau misal ada yang kurang ngerti gitu.

Q10 Trus kalau yang sentence writing, itu kan 15, trus ad komen good gitu. Kamu juga komen?

N10 Iya, trus kalau aku tahu benernya ya aku benerin, kalau ga tahu ya ga aku komen.

Q11 Trus dari hasil komen temenmu kamu benerinsentencemu ga? N11 Aku malah belum ngecekin mbak, hehe.

Q12 Trus dari true false, sentence writing, sama passage writing yang paling efektif yang mana?

N12 Kalau aku sih lebih suka yang passage.

N13 Kayak hampir sama sih. Yang membingungkan tu yang free itu, kalau dibebasin malah bingung. Jadi aku pilih experience lagi sih.

Q14 Yang paling gampang?

N14 Paling gampang tu future job. Kan tinggal ngomongin dulu mau gini, sekarang gini.

Q15 Trus di passage kan ada penilaiannya, misal ada missing article, missing subject, itu jelas ga?

N15 Kalau pas lagi niat sih aku lihatin, aku cek, tapi kebanyakan aku ga revise sih.

Q16 Kebanyakan kamu salahnya dimana?

N16 Ga merhatiin juga sih mbak. Tapi kayake paling banyak article mbak. Kayak pernah satu passage ada 3 atau empat gitu.

Q17 Selain menggunakan ELT, kamu belajar Writing dengan apa?

N17 Aku sambung-sambungin sama pelajaran structure sih, karena topik-topiknya kan ada yang sama gitu. Jadi kadang ngerjain true false sambil nginget-nginget structure gitu.

Q18 Trus, ini kan udah selesai, final testnya seperti apa?

N18 Ada gambar, trus kita menjelaskan gambar itu dalam kalimat. Q19 Jadi kaya mid ya?

N19 Iya, bedanya kalau ini ditentukan grammarnya apa. Q20 Dari 12 topik itu? Semua?

N20 Iya, dari 12 topik itu, tapi ga semua.

Q21 Kalau dari 12 topik itu, yang paling baru buat kamu yang mana? N21 Yang itu lho, yang who, which gitu.

Q22 Relative clause?

N22 Iya, pokoknya yang paling akhir-akhir itu. Sekarang aku jadi suka nulis pake itu.

Q23 Jadi kesimpulannya kamu selama ini yang paling sering ngerjainnyayang true false ya?

N23 Iya.

Q24 Trus menurutmu ELT itu kelemahan sama keuntungannya apa?

N24 Kadang tu yang 15 sentence itu pas aku submit, dikiranya baru 13 gitu. Trus log in nya juga terlalu cepat. Kadang yang true false itu kan 50 soal. Pas udah submit kadang ilang. Jadi kan haduh, udah 50, nilainya ilang gitu. Kan susah.

Q25 Kalau keuntungannya?

N25 Kelebihannya, manfaatnya, kalau aku kan males, tapi gara-gara ELT, pas mau true false, aku jadi buka buka buku structure gitu.

Q26 Jadi secara ga langsung bikin kamu belajar ya? N26 Iya.

Q27 Karena ini sudah terakhir, menurutmu kemampuanmu meningkat ga? Yang paling meningkat apa?

Appendix 9. Transcribed Interview Result #2 In-depth interview #1

Q1 Menurutmu grammatical competence itu berpengaruh ga pada kemampuan menulis seseorang?

L1 Menurutku, ngaruh sekali. Q2 Pengaruhnya gimana?

L2 Sangat ngaruh dalam penyusunan kata saat membuat kalimat. Karena kalau dalam menyusun kata tidak memperhatikan grammarnya maka tidak bisa dikatakan mempunyai writing skill yang baik.

Q3 Writing skill yang baik?

L3 Iya, writing skill yang baik jika grammatical competencenya sudah benar jadi saling berkesinambungan.

Q4 Trus cara mengembangkan grammatical competence gimana? Melalui ELT ini?

L4 Caranya ya harus rajin-rajin mengerjakan true false itu. Q5 Kalau cara mengembangkan kemampuan menulis?

L5 Semakin sering menulis, hasil tulisan jadi semakin bagus. Ya melalui passage writing itu kalau di ELT

Q6 Kalau menurutmu, kriteria menulis dengan baik itu apa? Minimal harus menguasai apa?

L6 Menurutku, untuk bisa nulis dengan baik, minimal harus menguasai tenses, karena itu sangat penting. Menguasai modal juga, noun, pronoun, subject, object, gitu.

Q7 Perbedaan latihan grammar di ELT dengan di buku apa sih?

L7 Kalau menurut aku, latihan grammar di ELT, true false itu lebih mandiri, praktis, simpel, dan menantang bagi kita yang mau mencoba.

Q8 Mandirinya gimana?

L8 Lebih mandiri karena disini kita dituntut untuk bisa mengerjakan true false dengan kemampuan kita sejauh mana kita mau usaha. Disini ELT tidak tersedia banyak contoh atau penjelasan-penjelasan materi secara detail seperti yang ada di buku. Tapi mau tidak mau dengan mengerjakan true false membuat kita mencari tahu dan belajar secara mandiri.

Q9 Kalau kelebihan true dan false apa?

L9 Lebih praktis dan simpel karena dengan mengerjakan latihan soal yang jumlahnya lumayan banyak dan berulang kali akan membuat kita terlatih dengan sendirinya. Menantang juga, karena ingin terus dan terus mencoba buat dapetin hasil yang maksimal.

Q10 Kalau yang di buku?

L10 Kalau latihan grammar di buku memang kelebihannya memuat penjelasan yang lebih detail, jadi sebelum mengerjakan soal-soal latihan kita sudah mempunyai panduan. Tetapi kadang bikin ngantuk.

Q11 Kalau kekurangan true false?

L11 Itu perlu sarana dan prasarana yang mendukung. Karena dikerjakan secara online maka membutuhkan laptop dan modem untuk menyambung ke internet, atau harus ke warnet juga. Jadi kemungkinan kita mempunyai

catatan yang mungkin bisa dibuka sewaktu-waktu sangat kecil. Q12 Latihan true false memotivasi kamu ga?

L12 Iya, sangat memotivasi buat belajar. Q13 Karena?

L13 Karena kalau pas pengambilan nilai pertama hasilnya ga bagus pastinya memotivasi buat dapat nilai yang lebih bagus lagi, itu ya karena ada kesempatan untuk mengerjakan berulang-ulang itu.

Q14 Cara dapat nilai bagus gimana?

L14 Caranya ya aku harus mencari kesalahanku sebelumnya dan belajar buat membenahi sehingga dapat hasil yang lebih baik. Penasaran juga sih karena di true false kita cuma tahu hasilnya, nilainya, tanpa tahu mana yang salah. Jadi ya bikin belajar sendiri untuk cari tahu itu.

Q15 Selain mandiri, apalagi manfaatnya?

L15 Bikin teliti. Karena salah sedikit saja sudah fatal akibatnya. Tapi kadang true false bikin bete juga kalau nilainya jelek-jelek terus.

Q16 Trus gimana biar menghilangkan bete? L16 Ditunda. Udahan dulu. Trus besok dilanjutin.

Q17 Kalau kelebihan true false dalam meningkatkan grammatical competence mu apa?

L17 Ya pas ngerjain true false banyak grammar yang salah, jadi menuntut kita buat teliti untuk benerin itu. Secara ga sadar juga kebiasaan itu akan meningkatkan grammatical competence kita.

Q18 Kalau untuk writing skill?

L18 Ga jauh bed sih, ya kalau grammatical competence naik ya otomatis bisa nulis lebih bagus.

In-depth interview #2(via chat)

Q1 Menurutmu grammatical competence itu ngaruh ga ke writing skill? Ngaruhnya dimana?

D1 ngaruh mba, soalnya jadi tahu cara penulisan atau tata bahasa yang bener.. ngga asal naruh istilah atau kata dalam sebuah kalimat.

Q2 Hoo yaa..menurutmu requirements minimal yang dibutuhkan orang buat bisa nulis pake bahasa inggris tu minimal harus bisa aspek grammar apa? D2 SPOK itu pasti ya mba hehehe terus...sama structure sih, mba (structure

masuk aspek grammar juga kan? hhehe) soalnya structure itu penting banget

Q3 Trus aspek structure apa yang paling penting buat bisa nulis yang baik dan benar? Misal: article, SV, atau apa gitu?

D3 bagian tenses mba soalnya, menurutku itu dasarnya pas dulu belajar bahasa inggris kan yg pertama diajarin ttg kalimat positif, negatif, interogatif, terus sama tenses (simple, past, dkk)

Q4 Begitu, berarti cara bikin kalimat ya, asal bisa positif negatif, interogatif dan penggunaan tenses gitu ya..

D4 iyaa... belajar tenses kan pasti awalnya yang gampang2 dulu, baru bertahap ke level yang lebih susah misalnya yang kalimat majemuk, bertingkat, setara, dll... nah, kalo misalnya tenses yang masih sederhana dan paling dasar aja nggak bisa, pasti kan susah untuk lanjut ke level yang lebih sulit

Q5 betulbetul... Trus menurutmu ni, latihan grammar true false di ELT sama latihan grammar biasa di kelas structure dari buku, bedanya apa?

D5 apa yah.. wkwkwk bentar mba, dipikir dlu.. aku ya agak bingung wkwkwk

kalo TF di ELT, menurutku lebih kaya menganalisis suatu kalimat itu benar atau engga... kalo latihan grammar di kelas structure dari buku itu bermacem2 modelnya, ada yang model T or F, ada yg modelnya isian... terus, contoh dan penjelasan yang ada di buku lebih jelas dan kalo sistem pembelajaran dari buku, dosen cenderung memberikan penjelasan dan pembahasan dibandingkan dengan sistem pembelajaran online

Q6 Berarti lebih lengkap yang di buku gitu ya..okeoke..

D6 iya mba... kalau di internet juga ada yang lengkap sih,cuma biasanya sumber yang dari internet kan ringkasan dari apa yg ada di buku. hhe Q7 Trus kan di TF ELT itu ada peraturan: bisa ngulang2, 50 kalimat random,

dan pengambilan nilai dr yg terakhir kali coba. Peraturan2 itu memotivasi kamu buat belajar ga sih?

D7 kalo bisa ngulang berkali kali itu memotivasi. tapi, kalo pengambilan nilai dari nilai yg paling terakhir, seharusnya, pengambilan nilai itu dari nilai yg tertinggi, bukan nilai yang paling terakhir

Q8

Hahhaa, betul betul itu...wkwkwkwk. Trus kelebihannya TF dalam meningkatkan gram competencemu apa dong?

D8 kelebihan TF dalam meningkatkan GC ituuu....jadi lebih teliti sih.. yangngefek di aku kayanya cuma jadi lebih teliti, mba. wkwkwk... kontribusi TF dalam GC itu mbikin lebih teliti. mau ngga mau juga kita

harus mempelajari suatu topik, biar TF-nya bisa minimal tuntas.. kalo Q9 Kalau buat writing skillmu? Buat passage writing

D9

kontribusi TF dalam WS itu ngasih inspirasi doang sih, mba.. Misal, gaya penulisan kalimat di TF menginspirasi buat nulis dg cara ky gitu..