TEACHING ACTIVE AND PASSIVE VOICE BY USING INDICATIVE

STRATEGY TO THE SECOND YEAR STUDENTS OF THE SENIOR

HIGH SCHOOL 2 OF ULU MUSI

1. Background

In Indonesia English is taught as compulsory subject to high-school

students and college students. At some elementary school, English has been

introduced as a local content subject to their fourth grade pupils. The objective of

teaching English to Indonesian students is that the students are able to

communicate in English both orally and in writing. To achieve the objective, the

students should have the four language skills, namely listening, speaking, reading

and writing. Besides, to support their language skills, the students should master

the language components, such as pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary.

Grammar is one of the language components that the students should

master. Grammar is a linguistic description of a particular language, a set of

statements or rules that explain how the language works (Calderonnello,

1986:481). It is important to master grammar because person who has a good

grammar mastery would be able to understand utterances/sentences produced by

other people and to produce grammatical utterances/sentences understood to other

people.

One English grammar that is taught to the second grade students at senior

high school is passive voice. Passive voice is the original “receiver”, the action

the grammatical subject, and the original “doer” of the action. There are two

special form called voice (Marcella, 1972:55), they are:

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1. Active Voice

2. Passive Voice

1) The active voice is the “normal” voice. This is the voice that we use most

of the time. In the active voice, the object receives the action of the verb,

for example: *Cat eat fish.

2) The passive voice is less usual. In the passive voice, the subject receives

the action of the verb. The object of the verb becomes the subject of the

passive verb, for example: “Fish is eaten by cat.

The form of the voice especially the passive, is not easy to be understood

by the students. The passive voice is less usual than the active voice. The active

voice is the normal voice, but sometimes we need the passive voice. In this case

the teacher should give instruction to the students how to construct the passive

voice, when to use it and how to conjugate it. The indicative strategy represents a

more modern style of teaching where the new grammatical structures or rules are

presented to the students in a real language context (Goner, Phillips, and Walters

135).

Indicative grammar teaching is based on trial and error, experiments.

The students learn from trying different things, seeing what works and what does

not. Through experimenting, they figure out the grammatical rules. The

indicative strategy is also known as the discovery learning approach where lesson

begin by the teacher providing examples to demonstrate how the language is

employed. In doing so, the students derive the rule by themselves and the

language is practised in further activities (Thornbury, Scott, 2006, p.29-48).

Based on the above statement, the writer intended to conduct a study to find out

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whether or not indicative strategy is effective in teaching active and passive voice

to the students.

The reason for choosing this topic, because the writer experienced to see

most of the students of Senior High School faced difficulties in learning passive

voice. For example when they have to change the active sentence in present

tense, they still put the verb in active form and also they do not understand in

changing the “be” form of the voice. Using indicative strategy might help them of

overcome the problem in learning English grammar. For this study the writer

would like to use the second grade students of SMA Negeri 2 of Ulu Musi as the

sample of this study. This study would be entitled “Teaching Active and Passive

Voice by Using Indicative Strategy to the Second Grade Students of the State

Senor High School 2 of Ulu Musi.

2. Problem

It is understandable that grammar plays an important role in learning

English Language. Having a good, command of the language means not only to

master the four language skills of reading, waiting, listening and speaking but also

to achieve grammatical competence. When students face problems in acquiring

the language, teacher should make an attempt to male their lessons as interesting

as possible and not resort to the traditional “chalk and talk” method, which can be

dull, and predominantly teacher centered.

This study tried to find out whether indicative strategy has effects on the

students’ learning of the use of the structure especially active and passive voice,

through practice of the language in context of expressing the meaning in various

language system, orally and accurately in the context of daily need in identifying

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the subject of a sentence and then forming the pattern of active voice and its

changing into passive voice in the form of positive, negative and interrogative.

The students then understand to construct the active and passive voice with in

correct sentences.

2.1 Limitation of the Problem

The study is limited in the following points;

1) The grammar that will be taught to the students are the active and passive

voice in the Simple Present Tense and Simple Past Tense, through the practice

of the language in context of expressing of daily need in a report text, narrative

and analytical exposition, and letter realize the rules of changing of the verb,

the verb form of the active and passive voice in the Simple Present Tense and

Simple Past Tense from the practical examples.

2) The learners learn from trying different things, seeing what works and what

does not thorough experimenting they figure out the grammatical rules

especially active and passive voice.

3) The verb that will be taught to the students are:

1. Go 6. Ask 11. Attack 16. Serve 21. Sings 26. Pay2. Walk 7. bring 12. Be 17. Tell 22. Steal 27. Stay3. See 8. Buy 13. Guide 18. eat 23. Tear 28. Leave4. Take 9. Visit 14. Guard 19. Say 24. Sit 29. Put5. Give 10. Make 15. Watch 20. Tell 25. Kill 30. Stir

2.2 Formulation of the Problem

This study is formulated in the following “Is it effective to teach active and

passive voice by using indicative strategy to the second grade students of the State Senior

High School 2 of Ulu Musi?

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3. Objective of the Study

The objective of the Study is to find out the effectiveness of indicative

strategy in teaching active and passive voice to the second year students of of the State

Senior High School 2 of Ulu Musi?

4. Significance of the Study

The significance of this study emphasized on the following points:

(1) To the writer

This study would increase her knowledge to know how the active and passive

voice is taught to the students by using indicative strategy is tested and how

to measure their achievement.

(2) To the Teacher

By giving the written test using indicative strategy, the writer expects, it

would encourage their students to learn English grammar, so that from now

on they can self-access study on it and the indicative strategy can be the

supplementary material for classroom now.

(3) To the Students

For the second year students of the State Senior High School 2 of Ulu Musi,

they are expected to keep on learning English grammar correctly by following

the indicative strategy rules, as they should be. In addition, this study may

attract them to learn the grammar of English better.

(4) To the Institution

This study could be one of the informative references, so by doing the

indicative strategy, the students’ grammar would be better.

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5. Literature Review

This part will present (1) the concept of teaching, (2) the concept of active

and passive voice, (3) the concept of grammar, (4) the concept of indicative

strategy, and (5) related previous study

5.1 The Concept of Teaching

Teaching is profession conducted by using a combination of an art, science

and skill. It is an art because it relies on the teacher’s creative provision of the

best possible learning environment and activities for his/her students. It is science

since it is a system, an ordered set of ideas and methods used by the teachers in

doing their main jobs: planning a lesson, implementing the plan in the classroom

and evaluating the outcomes of the activities. It is skill because it demands the

ability attained from relevant theories and practice to assist students expertly in

learning so that they are able to gain linguistic and communicative competence in

the target language (Saleh, 1997:16). While Brown (1994) states teaching is

showing or helping some one to learn how to do something, giving instructions,

guiding in the study of something, providing with knowledge, causing to know or

understand.

Base on the definition above, the writer can conclude that the meaning of

teaching is a process of a transferring knowledge from someone to another one in

order to make people know or understand about something. For example, in this

case teacher will be transfer about active and passive voice by using indicative

strategy to her students.

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5.2 The Concept of Active and Passive Voice

(Wren and Martin, 1982:91) give definition that the active and passive

voice is usually more direct and vigorous than the passive. The need to make a

particular word the subject of the sentence will often determine which voice is to

be used. The active voice is the “normal” voice. This is the voice that we use

most of the time. The voice is used to indicate that the grammatical subject of the

verb is performing the action or causing the happening denoted by the verb. We

are probably already familiar with the active voice. In the active voice, the object

receives the action of the verb, for example:

active

subject verb object

  >

Cats

Everybody

eat

drinks

fish.

water

The passive voice is less usual. In the passive voice the subject receives

the action of the verb. The voice used to indicate that the grammatical subject of

the verb is the recipient (not the cource) of the action denoted by the verb, for

example:

passive subject verb object

<  

Fish are eaten by cats.

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The object of the active verb becomes the subject of the passive verb:

  subject verb object

active Everybody drinks water.

passive Water is drunk by everybody.

5.2.1 Construction of the Passive Voice

The structure of the passive voice is very simple (Wren and Martin,

1982:92): subject + auxiliary verb (be) + main verb (past participle). The main

verb is always in its past participle form.

Look at these examples:

subjectauxiliary verb (to be)

 main verb (past participle)

 

Water is   drunk by everyone.

100 people

are   employedby this company.

I am   paid in euro.

We are not paid in dollars.

Are they   paid in yen?

5.2.2 Use of the Passive Voice

We use the passive when:

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- we want to make the active object more important

- we do not know the active subject

  subject verb object

give importance to active object (President Kennedy)

President Kennedy

was killedby Lee Harvey Oswald.

active subject unknown My wallethas been stolen.

?

Note that we always use by to introduce the passive object (Fish are eaten by

cats).

Look at this sentence: - He was killed with a gun.

Normally we use by to introduce the passive object. But the gun is not the

active subject. The gun did not kill him. He was killed by somebody with a gun. In

the active voice, it would be: Somebody killed him with a gun. The gun is the

instrument. Somebody is the "agent" or "doer".

In this study, the tenses of active and passive voice that will be taught to

the students are in Simple Present Tense and Simple Past Tense.

5.3 The Concept of Grammar

Grammar is defined by Ur (1992:4) as “the way language manipulates, and

combines words (or bit words) in order to form longer units of meaning.” Thos

definition is quite close to the common understanding of what grammar is. The

main difference is that it tells us how the rules of language actually work- they

arrange and shape words. Nevertheless, knowing what these rules di is not a very

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motivating factor alone. Crystal (2004:5) says, “Grammar is the structural

foundation of our ability to express ourselves. The more we are aware of how it

works, the more we can monitor the meaning and effectiveness of the way and

others we use language. It can help foster precision, detect ambiguity, and exploit

the richness of expression available in English. Additionally, it can help

everyone, not only teachers of English, but teachers of anything for all teaching

grammar is ultimately a matter of getting to grips with meaning.

Maugham (1938:176) adds, “It is necessary to know grammar, and it is

better to write grammatically than not, but it is well to remember that grammar is

common speech formulated. Usage is the only test.”

As it can be seen from the above definitions, grammar is not an

unimportant set of rules that can be ignored without consequences. It is a very

complex phenomenon and even though learners may find it difficult thing to

master, the time devoted to is that is certainly not wasted. Making students realize

it, however, is only the first step in teaching grammar, and the following activities

can take many different forms, based on a selected approach and method.

5.4 The Concept of Indicative Strategy

An indicative strategy is a strategy to study the grammar through the

practice of writing the sentence and then forming the sentence in the correct

grammar guided by the teacher and then practice by themselves about the

sentence, expressing the verb forms, and forming active and passive in correct

pattern (Felder & Henriques1995). Indicative approach can also be called rule-

discovery learning. The teacher presents the examples of the active and passive

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sentences and explains to the students the meaning, the pattern and the use of the

structure, then the students discovering grammar rules while working through

exercises of active and passive voice.

In this sense, learners understand grammatical rules from the examples.

The presentation of grammatical rules can be spoken or written. Eisenstein (cited in Long

& Richards, 1987) maintains that the indicative approach tries to utilize the very

strong reward value of bringing order, clarity and meaning to experiences. This

approach involves learners’ participating actively in their own instruction. In addition, the

approach encourages a learner to develop her/his own mental set of strategies for dealing

with tasks. In other words, this approach attempts to highlight grammatical rules

implicitly in which the learners are encouraged to conclude the rules given by the

teacher.

The main purpose of teaching grammar at the undergraduate level is to

provide remediation as there is not much ‘new grammar’ to be taught at this level.

As said before, since the students are not able to produce grammatically correct

sentences in connected texts, there is a need to make a journey from the teaching

of formal grammar to the teaching of functional grammar. It must be remembered

that the ultimate aim of teaching grammar at the undergraduate level is to enable

students to take part in communicative interaction and so an attempt that must be

made to bring grammar closer to students’ life. Context plays a very significant

role in the teaching of grammar. Topics that can give an opportunity to the

students to practice a particular grammatical item must be given and students can

be motivated to speak on those topics. The following examples reveal how a

teacher can move from the teaching of formal grammar to the teaching of

functional grammar:

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- After teaching the simple past tense, students can be asked to speak on

topics like “The Happiest Day of My Life” or “The First Day of My

Colledge”.

- After discussing the rules of the active-passive voice, the teacher can

ask students to write a paragraph on “How is tea prepared at home”.

5.4.1 Teaching Active and Passive Voice by Using Indicative Strategy

According to Krashen (1993:33-44) offers steps in teaching active and

passive voice by using indicative strategy, which can be roughly characterized as

the following four steps:

STEP 1: Students are given a representative set of sentences about active and

passive voice.

- Students are given a mixed group of grammatical and ungrammatical

sentences regarding the use of the active and passive voice, as

exemplified:

a. Cats eat fish (active)

b. *Cats eats fish

c. Fish is eaten by cats (passive)

d. *Fish is eat by cat

STEP 2: Students are asked to generalize active and passive forms.

Students are asked to produce or generalize a grammatical rule from the

active and passive sentences to account for both its grammatical and

ungrammatical sentences. Based on their grammatical judgments about the two

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sentences students would formulate a tentative grammatical rule which governs

the use of the active and passive voice.

STEP 3: Students are asked to check and test the active and passive sentence.

Students are asked to check and test the rule of the voice sentence

involving the use of the active and passive, and to find out whether this

grammatical rule can be applied in the sentence.

STEP 4: Students are asked to revise the grammatical rule of the voice to

accommodate the new sentences.

The students check the result of the sentence, and check whether the

sentence is grammatical or not.

This steps involves learners’ participating actively in their own instruction.

In addition, the approach encourages students to develop her/his own mental set

of

strategies for dealing with tasks. In other words, this approach attempts to

highlight grammatical rules implicitly in which the students are encouraged to

conclude the rules given by the teacher.

5.3.1 The Advantages and Disadvantages of Indicative Strategy

(Krasen, 1993:33-44) The inductive approach offers advantages and

disadvantages as seen in the Table 1 below.

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TABLE 2

THE ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF INDICATIVE STRATEGY

5.4 Related Previous Study

There are quite many theses discussed about pronunciation and songs, but the writer will take only one thesis which closely related to this thesis with the tide

"Efektivitas Penggunaan Lembar Kerja Siswa pada Pokok Bahasan Passive Voice dan Active Voice untuk Siswa Kelas VII MTs NU 01 Kramat Kabupaten Tegal

Tahun 2009/2010", written by Rosita, Imut Diah in 2010. The objective is to find out to know whether using media of Work Sheet to Student has positive effect on structure ability Passive Voice and Active Voice for Students at Class VII MTs NU

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01 Kramat Tegal Regency in Academic Year 2009/2010. The research result shows on degree significance of 5% (0,05), there is significance difference between mastery in English Writing skill of student who are taught by using work sheet of student, and

those who are taught without using work sheet of Student at MTs. The result of t-test

is 6,5254 and t-table is 2,021. So, it is higher than t-table. The similarities and

differences are found, they arc:

1) The similarities are:

a. Both talked about active and passive for the topic of the study.

2) The Differences arc:

a. The previous thesis was Written in 2010 while the writer in 2011

b. The previous thesis used the work sheet media to know its effect on the

students structure ability passive voice and active voice

c. The previous thesis population was 120 students and the samples was 40

students, the writers' population was 70 from two classes and the sample will

be all with one class as the experiment and the other class as the control

group.

d. The previous study used the true experimental method while the writer will

use experimental method.

6. Hypotheses

In relation to the objective of the study as mentioned above, the writer

formulates the following two hypotheses.

Ho : It is not effective teaching active and passive voice to the the second grade

students of the State Senior High School 2 of Ulu Musi.

HA : It is effective teaching active and passive voice to the the second grade

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students of the State Senior High School 2 of Ulu Musi.

7. Criteria for Testing the Hypotheses

For testing the hypotheses formulated above, the writer will use critical value

of the students of the t-test distribution table (Hatch and Farhady, 1982:272). Due to

the fact that the writer will use 35 pairs students as the sample of the study, and the

degree of freedom (df) was 34 (35-l ), therefore to accept the alternative hypotheses

with 0.5% significance the writer will use the t-distribution table (Hatch and Farhady,

1982:272) with one tailed test, the result of the matched t-test oft-obtained should

exceed 1.684. If the t-table is lower or smaller than 1.684, the null hypothesis (Ho) is

accepted and the alternative is rejected. On the other hand, if the result of the t-table

is higher than 1.684, the null hypothesis (Ho) is rejected and alternative hypothesis is

accepted (Hatch and Farhady , 1982:272).

8.2 Research Variables

A variable is a type of concept that can take or different values or have

categories, such as tree, house, desk, teacher creativity, and school. There are two

kinds of variables in this study: independent variable and dependent variable. The

independent variable is a variable which influences other variables and come first,

such as teaching method, teacher behavior, methods of instruction curriculum,

individual characteristics, SES (Social Economy Status) and peer group behavior.

Dependent variable is the one that is affected by or predicted by the independent

variable, such as achievement attitudes, values, self concept, a social development

(Dane, i990:22)

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In this study, the independent variable of the research is the teaching media

that is songs and pictures, and the dependent variable is the students' vocabulary

achievement.

8.3 Operational Definitions

The title of this study is "Teaching Active and Passive Voice by Using

Indicative Strategy to the Second Grade Students the State Senior High School 2

of Ulu Musi. From the title of this study, the dependent variable is students'

grammar achievement and the independent variables is indicative strategy.

Therefore, it is necessary to clarify the terms used. In this study, in order to avoid

misunderstanding in writing, the writer tried to find out the key words relating

with this title. They are teaching, active and passive voice, and indicative strategy.

1) "Teaching" is the teacher's activities in transferring knowledge or skill to

he/his students. This study will teach active and passive voice by using

indicative strategy

2). "active voice” is the subject of the sentence performs the action denoted by the

verb, and “passive voice” is in which the subject of a sentence or clause

denotes the recipient of the action rather than the performer.

3) "Indicative strategy" is.the strategy for teaching the students learn the use of

the structure through practice of the language in context, and later realize the

rules from the practical examples.

8.4 Population and Sample

8.4.1 Population

According to Arikunto (1993:2), population is all research subjects." The

population of this study will be all of the second year students of the state Senior

17

High school 2 of Ulu Musi, in the academic year of 2010/2011. The number of

the population is 105. There are three classes in the population as follows:

TABLE 2THE POPULATION OF THE STUDY

No. Class Total Students1 VIII.1 252 VIII.2 253 VIII.3 25

Total 75Source: The State Senior High School 2 of Ulu Musi in the academic year 2011/2012

8.4.2 Sample

According to Arikunto (1993:104) sample is a part of the population that

will be investigated. Because of the limited of time and the suggestion from the

headmaster, the writer will used purposive sampling to take the sampling.

Purposive sampling is one of the most common strategies, groups, participants

according to preselected criteria relevant to a particular reserch question (Bernard:

1995:205). The sample of this study is only one class that is class 11.1, which

consisted of 25 students. It could be seen in table 3.

TABLE 3

THE SAMPLE OF THE STUDY

No. Class Total Students1 VIII.1 25

Total 25Source: The State Senior High School 2 of Ulu Musi in the academic year 2011/2012

8.5 Techniques for Collecting the Data

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In teaching active and passive voice by using indicative strategy, the writer

will only use one technique that is a test. The writer will give a pre-test and

posttest in teaching active and passive voice to the students by using indicative

strategy. The test will be 30 questions which 15 items of active and passive voice

in the form of multiple choices, changing sentences, and sentence completion, in

the Simple Present and Past Tense.

8.5.1 Validity

The most important variable in edging the adequacy of a measurement is

its validity. Validity refers to extent to which the result of an evaluation procedure

serves the particular uses for which they are intended to measure (see

Tinambunan, 1988:11). It can be said, for example, a ruler is used to measure

height, watches to measure time and scales to measure weight.

There are three types of validity: content validity, criterion related validity,

and construct validity. However, the most important concern for the classroom

achievement testing is content validity (Tinambunan, 1988:12-13). Therefore, the

discussion is focused on content validity. The test item will be specified in table

3.

TABLE 3TEST SPECIFICATION

Objective Indicators Material Content of the Test Number of items

Item

To measure the students’ achievement to answer the grammar

The students are able to answer the questions by using indicative strategy

Active and Passive Voice

1. Go 16. serve2. Walk 17. tell3. See 18. eat4. Take 19. say5. Give 20. buy6. Ask 21. sing7. Hide 22. steal

1 – 10

11-20

Multiple Choice

Changing sentences

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8. Bring 23. tear9. Visit 24. sit10. Make 25. kill11. Attack 26. pay12. Help 27. put13. Guide 28. stay14. Guard 29. stir15. Watch 30. drive

21-30 Sentence Completion

3.4 Reliability of the Test

Reliability is a measure of degree to which test gives consistent result.

Fraenkel and Wallen (1993:149) say that for the research purposes, a usual clue is

that reliability should be at least 0.70 and preferably higher. The following

formula was used in testing reliability.

(Fraenkel and Wallen, 1993:149)

Where: KR 21 = Kuder-Richardson Reliability Coefficient,

K = Number of Items in the Test

M = The Number of the Students’ Correct Answers

SD = Standard Deviation of the Set of Test Scores

The Formula is: SD=

(Hatch and Farhady, 1982:59)

Where: SD = Standar Deviation

X = The Number of the Students’ Correct Answers

= The Average Number of the Correct Answers

N = The Number of the Students

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TABLE 4THE STUDENTS’ SCORES IN THE TRY-OUT TEST

No Number of Items

Number of Correct Answers (X)

1 30 11 -7,4 54,762 30 12 -6,4 40,963 30 13 -5,4 54,764 30 15 -5,4 54,765 30 17 -4,4 19,366 30 17 -4,4 19,367 30 18 -3,4 11,558 30 1 -3,4 11,559 30 11 -2,4 5,7610 30 11 -2,4 5,7611 30 11 -2,4 5,7612 30 12 -1,4 1,9513 30 12 -1,4 1,9514 30 12 -1,4 1,9515 30 13 -0,4 0,1616 30 13 -0,4 0,1617 30 14 -0,4 0,1618 30 14 0,6 0,3619 30 16 0,6 0,3620 30 16 0,6 0,3621 30 17 1,6 2,5622 30 17 1,6 2,5623 30 18 1,6 2,5624 30 18 2,6 6,7625 30 19 2,6 6,76

505 183.04

Average =

21

= 13.9

SD =

=

=

= 2,70

=

=

=

=

=

= 0.75

The reliability coefficient of the test material is 0.75,it was suitable for the

eighth grade students of the State Junior High School 3 of Lais MUBA. It means

that the test material is reliable to be used as the test instrument for collecting

data.

3.5 Techniques for Analyzing the Data

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There will be two kinds of techniques in analyzing the data, they are:

1) Percentage Analysis

The data obtained from the test will be analyzed by using percentage

analysis. The percentage analysis formula is as follows:

Where: X = Score of Percentage Result

R = Total Number of Correct Answer

T = Number of Sample

N = Number of Test Items

In order to get the percentage scores the total of students' choices divided

by the total number of the sample students and multiplied by 100%. The criteria

are as

follows:

Ranges Category9.6 – 108.6 – 9.57.6 – 8.56.6 – 7.55.6 – 6.60 – 5.5

ExcellentVery GoodGoodSufficientPoorVery Poor

Source: The State Senior High School 2 of Ulu Musi in the academic year 2011/2012

2) T-Test

The test is probably the most widely used statistical for the comparison of

two means (Arikunto, 2002:267), there are several kinds of t-test, but we can

choose a suitable depending on the case concerned. To know the significant

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difference between the students’ achievement in the experimental group and that

in the control group, the independent t-test was applied. T-test was done to find

out the homogeneity the result of the test. The formula is as follow:

T The value of t obtained

= Mean of the Experimental Group

= Mean of the Control Group

N1 = The Number of Students in the Experimental Group

N2 = The Number of Students in the Control Group

S = Standard Deviation

(Sudjana, 1986:232)

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[1] William F. Mackey, Language Teaching Analysis, (London: Longman, Green and Co. Ltd, 1966), p. 138.

Nancy Thuleen, "The Grammar-Translation Method." The article is accessed on April 26th, 2007 at http://www.nthuleen.com/papers/720report.html

Diane Larsen-Freeman, Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), p. 18

.

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