IMPROVING STUDENTS’ GRAMMAR IN WRITING USING PEER-CORRECTION METHOD

Primanda Dewanti

English is taught in Junior High School in Indonesia as a foreign language. It has four skills, namely listening, speaking, reading and writing. Writing skill is an important part of communication. It is also an important part to learn for a seventh grader at the junior high school. Sometimes it becomes a big matter for some students to write something effectively. Most of them say that they cannot do it well. However, McKay in his article entitled Why Writing Skills Are Important says that writing effectively is a skill that can be learned. It is quite very different from writing literary works such as poetry, prose, or drama which are said talent-based writing. It is just a matter for the teacher to find the right method to teach it well. Teaching writing in junior high school, especially in the seventh grade, can be started by applying the simple words and structure. It is quite necessary for the teacher to use almost the same words and structure with the ones in the conversation. From the quotation above, it can be concluded that it is possible to teach writing effectively in the school especially using the easy and affordable materials. If the words or sentence structure are not convenient to speak, it is better for us to use another one in writing.

The next thing to discuss is about grammar. What is actually meant by grammar? Beverly Ann Chin in her article entitled The Role of Grammar in Language Teaching says that grammar is the sound, structure, and meaning system of language. Meanwhile, Vivian Cook in her article entitled The Role of Grammar in Language Teaching says “for what actually enables the dealers to communicate with each other but grammar.  Every bid they make relies on the grammatical system of language; it is at the heart of the activity. As it is at the heart of all human activity - declaring war, writing a love poem or a prescription, sentencing a prisoner to life imprisonment, advertising soap powder, praying, whatever their difference of motivation or seriousness, all would effectively be impossible without grammar.” It is clear now that grammar is something fundamental in conveying the message we intend to say both in speaking and in writing process. Without a grammatically accepted written sentence, people sometimes will find it difficult to get what is conveyed by the others. Grammar is one of the most important elements in English because everything done in the language includes it. Someone cannot write meaningfully and correctly without applying the right grammar. It should be a working knowledge, so it must be comprehended automatically by all English learners

Furthermore, in writing class, it is a suggested requirement for students to be able to apply the suitable grammar in his works. In SMP 20 Surakarta the passing grade for the writing skills is the same with the three other skills which are 75. The passing grade, which is said to be difficult to reach, will get harder to achieve without a complete understanding of grammar. Based on the genre-based approach, one of the genres taught here is the descriptive genre. Ideally, in learning this genre, the students are able to:

1)      write a grammatically accepted sentence constructed in the simple present tense.

2)      apply to be/relational process correctly to various models of sentences.

3)      apply the verb have and the other material processes correctly in various models of sentences.

4)      use some fundamental English articles such as a, an, and the.

5)      write the sentences with correct pronouns.

6)      write sentences with the right agreement between subject and verbs.

However, grammar is something difficult for most of the students in the school, including in the class the research is going to be conducted. Some grammar theories had been presented and taught. The students have also been given various exercise about it including in listening, speaking, reading and writing. Still, they have poor knowledge, skill, and attitude about it. It seems that it is difficult to apply what have been taught to them on the four skills. Writing becomes an interesting skill to be viewed because most of the students said that they get many difficulties in applying it. When the teacher asks them to write a paragraph, most of them cannot fulfill it well.

In junior High School, especially in the seventh grade, not all elements of grammar are taught. Especially in the second semester of seventh grade in which they have to study descriptive genre, they are not forced to study many parts of grammar. Here, they are just required to master simple present tense, use to be and verbs, use the article and the word correctly. Again, those mentioned in the previous sentence are still difficult for most of the students. Sometimes they are good in comprehending a text and in answering the questions related to it but they cannot make a text with the similar genre and grammar.

There are some causes going to be viewed by the researcher. The first is from the teacher’s point of view. Some teachers in Indonesia have not taught their students using the right method. Some of them apply the same method to all discussion. However, it can make the students bored and have no interest to study the language. Usually, all language skills and elements are taught in the reading form mostly. It is not enough because they also need to know and comprehend all included in the language, both from the decoding (listening and reading) and also from the encoding factor (speaking and writing). Another problem is that students’ competencies have been included in the curriculum. It is the teacher’s task to make a lesson plan and arrange the material based on the curriculum. However, some teachers do not have enough time and encouragement to arrange it. They prefer to employ Student’s Worksheet (LKS) to teach. Consequently, they do not teach them based on the competence standards but just based on the worksheet.

The second causes are seen from the student’s point of view. Most of the students in the class come from elementary schools whose English teachers focus on vocabulary only. It can be viewed that sometimes they know a word meaning correctly but cannot apply it in a grammatically accepted sentence. It makes them have no good confidence in writing English. Besides, they also come from the middle to lower society whose exposure to the broad information is very limited. Because of that, they just have a little knowledge of English.

The third point of view comes from the class condition. In the class, there are 32 students. Some of them are active in doing the exercises, including in writing, but most of them are not. Furthermore, there are few students who can be categorized as mischievous, which makes it more difficult to obtain the class attention. Besides, due to the number of the students, it is difficult for the teacher to assess the students’ works carefully. Another problem is that the class has no modern facilities, such as fan, LCD projector, pictures and notices related  to English. Sometimes they cannot concentrate well due to the hot air. The reality discourages some English teachers to give them a proper explanation in the class.

Every single problem must have its solution. In this case, some solutions can be applied to solve the problems. Learning writing using peer-correction seems to be one of them. Peer-correction is a is a method of error correction where other students in the class correct mistakes in their worksheets.  It hopefully by applying this method the students are able to understand the grammar better and can apply it to another new sentence. They are also hoped to be able to write a text, especially descriptive text, better that before. It is predictable that they may become more critical and increase their comprehension.

In relation to the number of the students mentioned above, peer-correction will be one of the solutions for the teacher. She does not need to assess all the students’ work. It does not mean that she will not include in the correction, but at least it reduces her job as well as increase the students’ knowledge. Here, the teacher is also supported to use her own material, not the ones taken from common students’ worksheet (LKS).

The class condition should also be re-arranged. It is very important to make its condition to be contextual based on the topic being discussed. A student learning simple present tense will be more encouraged when there is a sentence example hung on the class wall. Some pictures and notices on the context can be applied as well as some tools, for example, the picture and description of a place or a person. When the teaching and learning process are in accordance with the indicators in the curriculum and the class context is clear, it will be easier to gain the passing grade as well as the students’ competence.

References

Chin, Beverly Ann. The Role Of Grammar In Improving Student's Writing.  Available at http://www.uwplatt.edu/~ciesield/graminwriting.htm. Accessed on March 28th, 2013.

Cook, Vivian. The Role of Grammar in Language Teaching. Available at http://homepage.ntlworld.com/vivian.c/Writings/Papers/GhentGrammar.htm. Accessed on March 28th, 2013.

McKay, Dawn Rosenberg. Why Writing Skills Are Important. Available at http://careerplanning.about.com/cs/miscskills/a/writing_skills.htm. Accessed on March 28th, 2013.