TEACHERS’ TECHNIQUES OF TEACHING GRAMMAR IN JUNIOR

HIGH SCHOOLS IN SALATIGA

THESIS

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirement for Degree of

Sarjana Pendidikan

Luthfi Retriansyah

112009158

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT

FACULTY OF LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

SATYA WACANA CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY

SALATIGA

2013

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iii

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COPYRIGHT STATEMENT

This thesis contains no such material as has been submitted for examination in any course or

accepted for the fulfillment of any degree or diploma in any university. To the best of my

knowledge and my belief, this contains no material previously published or written by any

other person except where due reference is made in the text.

Copyright@ 2013. Luthfi Retriansyah and Prof. Dr. Gusti Astika, M.A

All rights reserved. No part of this thesis may be reproduced by any means without the

permission of at least one of the copyright owners or the English Department, Faculty of

Language and Literature. Satya Wacana Christian University, Salatiga.

Luthfi Retriansyah:

1

TEACHERS’ TECHNIQUES OF TEACHING GRAMMAR IN JUNIOR

HIGH SCHOOLS IN SALATIGA

Luthfi Retriansyah

Abstract

The way of teaching grammar may be different for elementary, secondary,

tertiary, and undergraduate students. This study focused on the teaching

grammar in secondary schools, especially in junior high schools because the

curriculum said that the teaching of grammar in junior high school is not clearly

stated. Students will not master the grammar without any help. Therefore, a

teacher has a crucial role to help their students. This study aimed to describe

teachers‟ techniques of teaching grammar in junior high schools in Salatiga. The

research participants were four English teachers from four different schools in

Salatiga. The data were collected using a nonparticipant observation and a semi-

structured interview. The results of this study found seven different techniques

used by the teachers in teaching grammar to their students. This study also

revealed two main reasons why the teachers used those techniques to teach

grammar to the students, which were to make the grammar more understandable

and to make students more enthusiastic in learning grammar.

Keywords: Grammar teaching, techniques, junior high school

INTRODUCTION

Background of the Study

Grammar is an important thing to be taught to English as Foreign Language‟s (EFL)

students. It gives not only the formula or structure, but also the basis for language skills;

reading, speaking, listening, and writing. Harmer (2003) as cited in Nunan (2005) said that

grammar is the way in which the words change themselves and group together to make

sentences, for example, when a student understands the grammar, he or she can read an

English text, speak to foreigners, listen to conversations, and write paragraphs well.

Whyldeck (2003: VI) stated writing and speaking could be helped by the understanding of

grammar. Besides, it will make us more aware of the way other people use the language in a

communication. Canale-Swain (1980) and Brown (2007) also affirmed that the use of

language could definitely become confusing and might not be understandable without

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grammatical structure. Nunan (1991) supported grammar teaching since grammar helps

learners perform their target languages better. He also adds that students cannot communicate

well if they do not have a fundamental level of grammar.

Students will not master the grammar without any help. Therefore, a teacher has a

crucial role to help their students. The teaching of grammar can be done based on the

students‟ needs. There are some techniques to teach grammar; such translation, drilling,

brainstorming, etc.

The way of teaching grammar may be different for elementary, secondary, tertiary,

and undergraduate students. This study focuses on the teaching grammar in secondary

schools, especially in junior high schools. In addition, there are two reasons of doing this

research. The first one is that the curriculum says that the teaching of grammar in junior high

school is not clearly stated. The second one is my experience showed that it was difficult to

get a better understanding about grammar when I was in junior high school.

Apparently, some secondary schools in Salatiga have students whose skills and needs

are different in learning English. Thus, the English teachers do not always use the same

technique in each school. The most important is to make the students have a better

understanding toward grammar.

Aim of the Study

The aim of the study was to find out the teachers‟ techniques to teach grammar in

junior high schools in Salatiga. This study focused on some techniques used by the teachers

in teaching grammar to their students nowadays, and the reason why the teachers used the

techniques.

Significance of the Study

This study hopefully will provide knowledge about techniques in teaching grammar at

junior high schools. Also, it is possible for the teachers of junior high schools in other places

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to know and implement the techniques. In addition, it will enable other people to expand

another research or create other questions about suitable techniques of teaching grammar in

Salatiga‟s secondary school.

Research Question

As the writer interested in studying these techniques of teaching grammar, my research

question for this study was, “What are the techniques used by the teachers to teach grammar

to the students?”

Literature Review

It has become a controversy whether grammar should be taught or not. According to

Baron (1982) as cited in Al-Mekhlafi and Nagaratnam (2011), an English teacher is often

portrayed as an "unattractive grammar monger whose only pleasure in life is to point out the

faults of others". Often, the students feel discomfort and even terror when they learn about

grammar. The efforts of many teachers to make grammar teaching a non-threatening,

imaginative and useful activity within the English curriculum have been tried. Previous

studies on students' and teachers' attitudes and perceptions of grammar instruction in the

context of language teaching and learning suggest a difference between students and teachers.

While students favor formal and explicit grammar instruction and error correction, teachers

favor communicative activities with less conscious focus on grammar (Al-Mekhlafi and

Nagaratnam, 2011).

According to Morelli (2003) as cited in Al-Mekhlafi and Nagaratnam (2011), students

perceived themselves as having a better attitude towards grammar instruction in context,

while performing slightly better after having experienced the traditional grammar instruction.

Elkilic and Akca (2008) as cited in Chang (2011) reported mostly positive attitudes of

students studying English grammar at a private primary English as Foreign Language (EFL)

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classroom towards studying grammar. In particular, however, a little over 50% of their

subjects claimed to enjoy grammar very much and only about 10% reported finding some

difficulty in learning and remembering grammar.

Theories of teaching grammar

There are two basic ways to introduce a new grammar item, deductively and

inductively (Nunan, 2005). Nunan (2005) stated that the intention of a deductive approach is

the presentation of grammar rule and students exercises in which they apply the rule. Ezzi

(2012) added that a deductive approach gives a presentation of a rule which is followed by

example drills. Another one is inductive grammar teaching in which learners are given many

examples in different contexts and they are asked to work out the rules by themselves, and

then apply them to various exercises to learn how they actually work in real language use

(Nunan, 2005). In addition, Ezzi (2012) stated that in the inductive approach, the teacher

presents samples of language, and the students have to come to an intuitive understanding of

the rule.

Techniques in teaching grammar

There are some techniques in teaching grammar, especially for secondary schools‟

students. The first technique to teach grammar is translation. This technique is aimed to

translate the grammar taught from the source language into the target language (Thornbury,

2006). He added that the use of translation is probably the most economical means of

conveying meaning, and it is certainly easy, requiring no resources such as visual aids or

texts, so it only needs little or no preparation. Stem (1992) as cited in Chang (2011) indicated

"... translation in one form or another can play a certain part in language learning". Thornbury

(2006) stated that translation is not only used to translate the rule of structure, but the

sentence from the structure itself. Translation helps us understand the influence of one

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language on the other, e.g., areas of potential errors caused by negative transfer from the first

language (Chang, 2011).

The second technique of teaching grammar is drilling. Freeman (2000) said that

students are asked to repeat the teacher‟s model as accurately and as quickly as possible.

Thornbury (2006) said that grammar practice is often associated with drilling which involves

repetition or imitation inside the drilling. In addition, there are expansions of drilling that is

simple substitution drill and variable substitution drill. In the simple substitution drill, the

element of the model is replaced by an item that fills the same slot while in the variable

substitution drill; the response will vary according to the prompt. Thornbury (2006) stated

that drilling is easy to do, once students are used to it and the teacher has mastered a few

basic techniques. Besides, it is the economical way of practicing grammar, since it requires

little effort on the part of the teacher but quite a lot on the part of the students. Learners who

come from educational backgrounds where rote learning and repetition are common practice

will feel comfortable with drilling.

The third technique is brainstorming where the students are given a single stimulus

which serves as the cue for a large number of responses (Ur, 2007). In brainstorm, the

stimulus may be a question with plenty of possible answers. The advantage of this technique

is to make the leaners produce a larger volume of language practice (Corry, 2003). Besides, it

will allow students to compose utterances at levels convenient to them. Moreover, originality

and humor are encouraged by using brainstorm; also it produces interesting and amusing

results.

The fourth technique is reception with no overt response which is initial presentation

of grammar is often done through showing learners the structure within a written or spoken

context, without demanding from them any immediate response beyond general

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comprehension (Ur, 2007). This technique can also be used to provide some useful

techniques at the early stages.

The fifth technique is reception with minimal response. Ur (2007) said that the

learners are given a written or spoken text – which may be an isolated sentence or a longer

passage of discourse – and asked to react to some aspect of it by physical gesture, brief

answers, or written symbol. As well as giving the teacher an opportunity to monitor their

learning, the necessity to make responses helps learners to concentrate on the exercise as a

whole, and focuses their attention on the particular points being taught.

The sixth technique is about teacher-student exchange which is the most common

kind of verbal interaction in the classroom. Ur (2007) stated that thus technique involves

teacher-student „ping-pong‟ exchange: the teacher asks a question or elicits responses in some

other way, a student responds, the teacher approves or corrects and asks again, another

student responds, so on. The variation of this technique can be two or more students answer

together as the performances where the students recite longer given texts or dialogues in

response to teacher requests.

The seventh technique is student-teacher exchange where the student iniates the

exchange and the teacher responds although there is also the possibility of a reverse “ping-

pong”. This is a useful technique which is rarely used – perhaps because the teachers do not

like to forgo the initiative (Ur, 2007). Furthermore, while the teacher can still monitor

learners‟ utterances and provide good models of acceptable grammar, the learners themselves

can decide on the content and initiate their own ideas.

The eighth technique is chain where the instruction and an initial cue are given by the

teacher, resulting in a large number of responses by the learners. Ur (2007) also added that

whereas in a brainstorm all these responses relate to the original cue, in a chain only the first

does, and thereafter each learner utterance is made in response to the one before. Besides, this

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technique produces a high proportion of learner talk, while allowing the teacher to monitor

(Freeman, 2000). The variation of this technique is where each student has to repeat all the

previous contributions, in order, before making his or her own addition.

The ninth technique is transformation which is the teacher asked the students to form

the positive sentence into negative and interrogative ones (Freeman, 2000). The advantage of

using this technique is that the learners can focus on the sentence they make without

considering about the rule of reforming the different form first. However, this technique can

also apply to maintain the rule of the other forms first and then the productive sentence.

Other research or findings about teaching grammar in secondary schools

There had been a movement for a communicatively-based approach to grammar

instruction that was more meaning-focused than rules-focused and was more learner-centered

than subject-oriented (Hasan, 2001). According to this approach, the need for introducing a

certain grammatical rule arises in the first place because of the need of the learner to

communicate. In this way, grammar instruction has also become more content-based,

meaningful, and contextualized. Examples of this new approach to teaching grammar are

provided in looking at Egyptian secondary schools in particular.

Current research stated that traditional structure-based grammar teaching approaches

has been replaced by treatments which might or not include an explicit discussion of target

forms and the rules for their use, but present the forms in numerous communicative contexts

designed to promote learner awareness of meaning–form relationships and to permit

processing of the form to occur over time. (Fotos and Nassaji, 2004)

Chang (2011) revealed his study about teaching grammar to college‟s students in

Taiwan, the Grammar Translation Method was a suitable approach for teaching grammar to

college students. The students in the experimental class became more interested in grammar

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lessons. The result of the experiment also indicated that the Grammar Translation Method

was a suitable teaching approach that can meet students' needs. On the contrary, the

Communicative Approach is no longer suitable for the current English teaching situation due

to its inefficiency and ineffectiveness.

Many in-service teachers who teach in primary and secondary schools in Yemen

strongly disagreed that students can acquire English without teaching grammar and grammar

can be taught naturally through communication. Thus, when the component of the way of

learning English grammar was highlighted, it was found that many teachers believed that

learning English could not occur without teaching grammar and grammar was best learnt

formally, not naturally. (Ezzi, 2012)

Ezzi (2012) found that majority of the teachers did not believe in giving the practice

of grammatical structures the main role in a grammar lesson. They did not care for accuracy

and the practice of language within communicative contexts. In addition, they did not believe

in drills to teach grammar and were not with explaining how separate structures work in a

grammar lesson, while many teachers were with the belief that grammar could be taught

incidentally (i.e. without pre-planning the grammar lessons).

The study of (Ezzi, 2012) revealed that many teachers in Yemen were with the idea of

integrating grammar in all English lessons, as an important part of all English lessons, not

with the idea of focusing on grammar as the whole in the English courses, as it was not a

guarantee of English mastery. Many teachers believed in correcting all students' oral

grammatical errors and this might negatively affect students' communication and production

of new sentences. (Ezzi, 2012)

Teachers who were following inductive approach (50%) were more than those

teachers (37.5%) who were following deductive approach to grammar teaching while few

teachers (12.5%) combined the two approaches and none of the teachers was using neither

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deductive nor inductive approach to teach grammar. Furthermore, few teachers used the

strategies of translating English grammatical rules into Arabic and comparing English

grammar with Arabic grammar. (Ezzi, 2012)

Yemenies‟ teachers appreciated the importance of grammar as a part of any grammar

lesson rather its importance to be the main component of an English course, as a whole. It is

revealed that inductive approach may not be understood well by teachers as many of them do

not make students infer the rules from the given examples. Also, many teachers avoided

specific strategies although they thought they were effective. (Ezzi, 2012)

THE STUDY

Method of the Study

This study was a descriptive research. It was aimed to describe the teachers‟

techniques to teach grammar in secondary schools. The setting of the study was four junior

high schools located in Salatiga, Central Java, Indonesia.

Participants of the Study

The participants in this study were four English teachers in four junior high schools in

Salatiga. All of the teachers came from several different public schools in Salatiga. I selected

the teachers based on a convenience sampling; accessibility and residence. Thus, it enabled

me to contact them easily. Besides, I also selected the teachers based on the purposive

sampling or criterion-based selection (Blackledge, 2001) as cited in (Zacharias, 2011); the

teachers who had experience of teaching English at least for five years.

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Research Instrument

This study aimed to describe the teacher‟s technique to teach grammar in secondary

schools in Salatiga. In order to gather the information from the teachers, this study used

observations and interviews. In addition, the type of observation that was used was a non-

participant observation. As the instrument, I used field notes which described the teachers‟

techniques in teaching grammar. Meanwhile, a semi-structured interview or “interview

guided approach” (Patton, 1990) was another technique for collecting the data. The

instrument of this study was the interview questions that elicited of teacher‟s reasons of using

the techniques.

Data Collection Procedure

The observation was conducted three times in each school with their English teachers.

A non-participant observation was used because I focused more on what was happening in

class, and had enough time to get the data from the class. Besides, I did not participate in any

students‟ activities that the teachers gave to the students. Furthermore, I used that kind of

observation because I had an intention that the teachers and students were not affected with

my presence in class. I got the main data of this study about teachers‟ techniques to teach

grammar from the observations. In addition, I used video-recorder to record the data because

I was able to get the contextual features when noting down the information in class. Then, the

transcription of video-recordings was also done.

After I have finished the observations in each school, I did an interview to the same

teachers that I had observed before. The semi-structured interview (Patton, 1990) was the

technique to collect the data. My intention of using this kind of technique was to make

greater flexibility like changing the order of the questions to provide opportunity for follow-

up questions. In addition, individual diversity and richer data were obtained through this

technique, and it made me easier to analyze the data. The data collected from this interview

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allowed me to compare responses among the teachers. In order to record my data, I used a

tape recorder in the interview process. The transcription of the recording was needed to make

the study was valid and reliable.

Data Analysis Procedure

I used clean transcription method in transcribing the data gathered from observations

and interviews. As stated by Zacharias (2011), a clean transcription of interview focuses on

the content of the interview. Then, the transcriptions were coded as the main source of this

study. Some main points emerged from the interview were grouped. The quoted examples

from the data collected were given to support each point in the process of analyzing the data.

The data was analyzed descriptively, and some supporting theories were included to do the

analysis.

FINDING AND DISCUSSION

This section discusses seven techniques that were used by four different teachers in

teaching grammar to their junior high school‟s students in Salatiga. Based on Thornbury

(2006) and Ur (2007), there are some techniques to teach grammar: drilling, translation,

chain, reception with no overt response, reception with minimal response, teacher-student

exchanges, student-teacher exchanges, brainstorm, and transformation. I presented the

findings based on the type of techniques identified and the reasons for using the techniques.

The techniques that the teacher used in teaching grammar

When I observed the teaching-learning process in class, the teachers used some

techniques in teaching grammar for their students. I found seven techniques that the teachers

used in teaching grammar.

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Drilling

The first technique that the teacher used to teach grammar was drilling. Grammar practice is

often associated with drilling which involves repetition or imitation inside the drilling

(Thornbury, 2006). This technique was presented by teacher A, as seen in this following

excerpt:

1. Teacher A : Oke. Took. Ok repeat after me take took, is was, direct speech

indirect speech.

Student : take took, is was, direct speech indirect speech.

Teacher A : Okay, repeat after me! The cows were also full.

Teacher : The cows were also full

Drilling used by teacher A was intended to teach simple past tense. She told the students to

repeat the words or sentences she said. This technique is found in Freeman (2000) who said

that in drilling students are asked to repeat the teacher‟s model as accurately and as quickly as

possible. The use of drilling in teaching grammar to junior high school‟s students was

supported by the teacher‟s opinion why she used that technique. Teacher A explained in the

interview that drilling is an important technique to teach grammar to junior high school‟s

students because the students could memorize the grammar taught well through repetition. In

the interview, she said,

“Ok in my mind, drilling the students of SMP is very important because drilling

makes them perfect in something. So, we call it repetition, repetition, and repetition

again. It can make them stab in their heart.”

The teacher believed that drilling might be an economical way of practicing grammar and

could make students perfect in learning grammar although they had different ability. In line

with teachers‟ statement, Thornbury (2006) stated that drilling is the economical way of

practicing grammar, since it requires little effort on the part of the teacher but quite a lot on

the part of the students. Besides, drilling might make the students feel comfortable and could

help the students memorize the grammar better. Freeman (2000) said that learners who come

13

from educational backgrounds where rote learning and repetition are common practice will

feel comfortable with drilling.

Translation

The second technique that the teachers used to teach grammar was translation. Translation is

generally aimed to translate the grammar taught from the source language into the target

language (Thornbury, 2006). As I observed 4 teachers, only teacher C and D used this

technique, as follows:

2. Teacher C : “Oke rules yang pertama, a lot of, artinya apa?”

Students : “Banyak”

3. Teacher D : “Ok yang pertama apa maksudnya, Hangga?”

Students : “Aku sedang menjahit baju ketika dia datang”

Teacher D : “Ok yang kedua, coba Rudi!”

Students : I was crossing the street when the accidents happened

Teacher D : “Ok berarti?”

Students : “Aku sedang me....?”

Teacher D : “Crossing apa artinya? Zebra cross?”

Students : “Menyeberang”

Teacher C translated the meaning of quantifiers using Bahasa Indonesia. In addition, teacher

D asked the students to translate the English sentence with simple past continuous tense into

Bahasa Indonesia. In the interview, the teachers revealed their reasons in using translation in

teaching grammar to the students. The purpose was to make students have good

memorization and make the grammar taught understandable. In the interview, teacher C said,

“My students here are completely different from others in this city. And it is hard for

them to follow and know English. They only knew few words in English. And if use

English all the time, they will not know what I‟m saying, so it will be useless. Ok,

English should be taught in English, but in this context, I have to make them

understand about what I‟m teaching, so they would not know if I use English all the

time.”

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Teacher D also had the same opinion to teacher C, he said,

“Because my students is Indonesian people, and most of them didn‟t know the

meaning, and the class is low class not the high class, so they will know the rules of

grammar easily if I translate the grammar. If the class is higher, I sometimes translate

not all times, because they are still Indonesia, so it is to make them clearer. Besides, I

can translate the grammar anytime I want because it is easy to do.”

Teacher C said that translation was an important strategy to make the students understand

about the grammar. It was supported by Stem (1991) as cited in Chang (2011) who said that

translation in one form or another can play a certain part in language learning. In accordance

with teacher C, teacher D said that translation could be easily done because there was little or

no preparation. Thornbury (2006) said that translation is probably the most economical

means of conveying meaning, and it is certainly easy, requiring no resources such as visual

aids or texts, so it only needs little or no preparation.

Teacher-student exchange

The third technique that the teacher used to teach grammar is teacher-student exchange which

is the common interaction in the classroom. Ur (2007) said that this technique is called „ping-

pong‟ exchange: the teacher asks a question or elicits responses in some other way, a student

responds, the teacher approves or corrects and asks again, another student responds, so on.

The variation of this technique can be two or more students answer together as the

performances where the students recite longer given texts or dialogues in response to teacher

requests. As I observed 4 teachers, only teacher A used this technique, as follows:

4. Teacher A : You can see here. It is lick. If in the past form we call: it was lick,

jika di indirect sentence. ”Tapi karena itu direct speech jadi pakai it is

lick.” Joko Panjer take the cows home. “Take jika di indirect speech

jadi?”

Student : Took

Teacher A : The cows are also full. “Indirect atau in the past tidak are tapi

jadinya?”

Student : Were

Teacher A : Okay, stand (write it on the board). I will stand beside you. Except

stand, what should you do then? (Student did not know the verb)

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Teacher A : I..will....I...will...

Student : Be.

Teacher A : Very good, I will be beside you. (Write the appropriate sentence on

the board) Okay. Read it together.

During the interview about her reason of using teacher-student exchange, teacher A said,

“I usually ask to the students about what, and the students will answer about that, and

so on. My intention is to make the students more active in class, give attention about

the grammar taught, and know how far they understand about the grammar I taught.”

Teacher A believed that the use of teacher-student exchange would make the students

become more interested in learning grammar. Teacher A also added that the grammar could

be understood when the students had motivation toward the materials given. In line with

teacher‟s statement, Ur (2007) said that teacher-student exchange implies to check students‟

understanding about the grammar taught, attract students‟ attention toward the lesson, and

make the students more active in the class toward the grammar taught by the teacher.

Chain

The forth technique that the teacher used to teach grammar was chain. (Ur, 2007) said that

Chain technique is where the instruction and an initial cue are given by the teacher, resulting

in a large number of responses by the learners. Ur (2007) also added that in a chain only the

first does, and thereafter each learner utterance is made in response to the one before.

However, in the observation, the learners‟ utterances were made in response to the teacher‟s

command by pointing other students. As I observed 4 teachers, only teacher A used this

technique when teaching modal will, as seen in this following excerpt:

5. Teacher A : You must make a sentence word the word “will”. Ok, ready?

5,4,3,2,1...Ok Ready? Bima!

Student 1 : I will kill him.

Teacher A : Ok, very good. (Point another student)

Student 2 : I will help you.

Teacher A : I will help you. Good. (Point another student)

Student 3 : I will say sorry.

Teacher A : I will say sorry, so I will say “sorry”? Good. (Point another

student)

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During the interview about the reason of using chain, the teacher explained,

“Usually, the students‟ attention sometimes fluctuates, so this can catch their

attention. In addition, because it is given randomly, so it makes the students should be

ready with the questions. And finally, it is aimed to know students‟ understanding

about who have learning‟s difficulty. Besides, I make use chain something like that in

order to let my students have the same opportunity to talk. It doesn‟t matter when they

made some addition besides the example given. But the most crucial point is to give

them more chance to talk about grammar, especially will.”

Thus, the teacher believed that chain was able to make the students ready with the materials

given, and let the teacher know the students‟ difficulty in learning the grammar taught. It was

supported by Freeman (2000) who said that chain produces a high proportion of learner talk,

while allowing the teacher to monitor. Another researcher, Ur (2007), also revealed that the

variation of this technique is where each student has to repeat all the previous contributions,

in order, before making his or her own addition.

Brainstorming

The fifth technique that the teacher used to teach grammar was brainstorming. Brainstorming

is where the students are given a single stimulus which serves as the cue for a large number

of responses (Corry, 2003). In brainstorm, the stimulus may be a question with plenty of

possible answers (Ur, 2007). In the observation, the teacher used brainstorm when teaching

simple past continuous tense to the students. This technique was presented by teacher D, as

seen below:

6. Teacher D : Now what happened when you were having breakfast last day?

Students : My sister watching TV, my father and mother chatting, my brother

watching TV

Teacher D : Karina what happened when you were having breakfast?

Students : My brother is watching TV.

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During the interview about his reason of using brainstorm, teacher D explained,

“I want the students make the sentence of simple past continuous tense based on their

creativity. It can be seen from my teaching that there are variety answers of the

students when I asked what happened when she was having breakfast. Even, you can

see that the students may answer the unpredictable one that makes their answer

laugh.”

Teacher B believed that brainstorming could let the students make the variety of sentences

based on the grammar given; even they could make the unpredictable sentences. In line with

teacher‟s statement, Corry (2003) said that the advantage of this technique is to make the

leaners produce a larger volume of language practice because it allows them to compose

utterances at levels convenient to them. Moreover, Ur (2007) said that originality and humor

are encouraged by using brainstorm; also it produces interesting and amusing results.

Transformation

The sixth technique that the teacher used to teach grammar was transformation.

Transformation technique used by the teacher asked the students to form the positive

sentence into negative and interrogative ones (Freeman, 2000). Teacher A and C used this

technique when they taught about simple past tense, as seen in this following excerpt:

7. Teacher A : Ok, it is habit. In negative we use past tense here. How if the

negative one?

Student : They didn‟t live in the jungle.

Teacher A : Ok. How about the first sentence? Raise up your hand. Dea?

Student : Long time ago, there didn‟t was a kingdom

8. Teacher C : The prince kissed snow white. “Gimana kalau negatif?”

Students : The prince did not kiss snow white

During the interview about the reason of using transformation, the teacher C said

“Actually the use of transformation when teaching grammar is only to develop the

material. Thus students will not feel bored about the grammar. Besides, I will be able

to see how the students make another form of sentences.”

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Based on the teacher‟s statement, it could be said that the transformation aimed to develop

the materials and made the students able to use the rules in another form of sentences. It was

supported by Freeman (2000) who said that the advantage of using this technique is that the

learners can focus on the sentence they make without considering about the rule of reforming

the different form first. (Ur, 2007) also added that the student can make some sentences

although it is aimed in the development of the teaching process.

Reception with minimal response

The seventh technique that the teacher used to teach grammar is reception with minimal

response (Ur, 2007) in which the learners are given a written or spoken text – which may be

an isolated sentence or a longer passage of discourse – and asked to react to some aspect of it

by physical gesture, brief answers, or written symbol. Teacher B used this technique when

teaching noun, as seen below:

9. Teacher B : “Ok, sekarang temukan noun dalam bacaan!”

Students : Window, table, classroom

Teacher B : Ok, any question? “Kalau has juga subjek orang ketiga tunggal. Oke

sekarang lihat di buku.” Besides mirror, I also hang the mirror. My

bedroom is fresh and cool, It is white bedroom. “Oke dari contoh

ada pertanyaan? Jadi apa main ideanya?”

Students B : My bedroom is my favorite in my house.

Teacher B : Can you find any noun?

Students : Bedroom

During the interview about his reason of using reception with minimal response, the teacher

B explained,

“I tell the students to find the grammar that I taught through the text. It is aimed to

make the students understand when the grammar is used in a sentence or paragraph.

This is only to ensure the students if they have understood about the use of noun,

adjective, etc. because the words have been taught for many times. So, instead of

reviewing the material, it can be used to help the students to have a good

memorization about the grammar taught.”

19

From the interview, it could be said that reception with minimal response aimed to give

students the knowledge how the grammar was used in a sentence or paragraph, so they could

focus on the grammar taught from the text. In line with the teacher‟s statement, Ezzi (2012)

said that as well as giving the teacher an opportunity to monitor their learning, the necessity

to make responses helps learners to concentrate on the exercise as a whole, and focuses their

attention on the particular points being taught. Besides, (Ur, 2007) also added that the teacher

only required minimal response.

In brief, this study found seven out of nine techniques of teaching grammar in junior high

schools. These seven techniques were almost often used by the teachers in four junior high

schools. I thought the teachers realized that those techniques could attract their students‟

attention in learning grammar (Ur, 2007) because it gave students more opportunities to

speak about the grammar taught. Besides, I could interpret that those were the most practical

techniques that the teachers could come up with. Moreover, the situation of each school,

which meant they had students with different backgrounds and skills of English, enabled the

teachers to use more than one technique at the same time.

CONCLUSION

This study would like to find out the teachers‟ techniques to teach grammar in junior

high schools in Salatiga. As the analysis presented before, there were seven techniques of

teaching grammar that emerged from the observation done; drilling, translation, chain,

brainstorming, transformation, reception with minimal response, and teacher-student

exchange. The teachers used those techniques to teach grammar to the students with two

main reasons: to make the grammar more understandable and to make students more

enthusiastic in learning grammar. As a pedagogical implementation from the findings, it

would be better if English teachers of junior high schools use the techniques of translation,

20

drilling, and teacher-student exchange in teaching grammar because it was often used by

most of the teachers and it could be more motivating to the learners in learning grammar.

English teachers have to create interesting and creative ways to attract the learners in learning

grammar considering their feelings, needs, and emotion. In this way, the objectives of the

teaching and learning process will be achieved, and the students will also be more motivated

to learn English, especially about grammar.

There are two limitations in this study. The first one is this study only focused on

teaching context in Salatiga. Secondly, this study involved a small number of participants.

Further research may include participants to reveal more issues in teaching grammar. I

would also suggest that it needs to do further research that looks at what techniques that the

teachers used in teaching grammar to senior high schools‟ students.

21

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

This thesis would not have been finished without the support of many people.

I would like to praise ALLAH SWT who has given me the life and always gives me

blessings. I wish to express my gratitude to my supervisor, Prof. Dr. Gusti Astika, M.A,

who were abundantly helpful and patience in guiding me to finish this thesis in a limited

time. Deepest gratitude is also referred to Maria Christina Eko Setyarini, M.Hum, my

thesis examiner. Without whose knowledge and assistance this study would not have been

completed. I would like to thank to the English teachers of junior high schools who were

willing to share all their thought, experiences and knowledge to support this thesis. I also

wish to express my love and gratitude to my beloved family: Bapak, Ibu, Mbak Fafa who

always support me. Special thanks also go to “my tour guide”, Mbak Ika, and especially

Niners who also support me with their prayers.

22

REFERENCES

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Canale, M., & Swain, M. (1980). Theoritical bases of communicative approaches to second

language teaching and testing. Applied Linguistics, 1(1), 1-47.

Chang, S.C. (2011). A contrastive study of grammar translation method and communicative

approach in teaching English grammar. ELT Journal, 4 (2), 13-24.

Corry, T.R. (2003). Brainstorming: techniques for new ideas. Detroit: iUniverse.

Ezzi, N. A. A. (2012). Yemeni teachers' beliefs of grammar teaching and classroom practices.

ELT Journal, 5 (8), 170-184.

Farrel, T. S. C., & Lim, P. C. P. (2005). Conceptions of grammar teaching : A case study of

teachers' beliefs and classroom practices. Teaching English as A Second or

Foreign Language, 9 (2), 1-13.

Fotos, N., & Nassaji, H. (2004). Current developments in research on the teaching of

grammar. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 24, 126-145.

Freeman, D.L. (2000). Techniques and principles in language teaching. Oxford: Oxford

University Press.

Hassan, B. A. (2001). New trends in teaching grammar in the secondary school: A review

article. [S.l.]: Distributed by ERIC Clearinghouse.

Littlewood, W. (2006). Communicative language teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press.

Nunan, D. (1991). Language teaching methodology: A textbook for teachers. Hemel,

Hemstead: Prentice Hall.

Nunan, D. (2005). Practical English language teaching: Grammar. New York, NY:

McGraw-Hill.

Patton, M. Q. (1990). Qualitative evaluation for the human sciences. Thousand Oaks,

CA:Sage Publication, Inc. In. Zacharias, T. N. (2011). Qualitative Research

Methods for Second Language Education: A Coursebook

Thornbury, S. (2006). How to teach grammar. Oxfordshire: Bluestone Press.

Ur, P. (2007). Grammar practice activities: A practical guide for teachers. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press.

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Coursebook. Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

23

Appendix A

Observation transcript

Context : The teacher asked the students to do story-telling as the assignment from the

last week, and after some students have performed one by one, the teacher

discussed about some techniques and wrong expressions in the story telling.

Teacher : Just to remind you here. You have to choose the right diction, like Kamu

harus memuaskan dia. You must satisfy him. It can make negative meaning,

so you have to use appropriate diction. Because English and Indonesia

sometimes has different meaning if it is translated.

Student : Yeah...

Teacher : So don‟t use this one for something positive. The next thing is you must

differentiate spoken and written, In spoken, you do not force to use perfect

grammar, but in the written it must be perfect.

Context : After that the teacher discussed about the use of will in th story telling.

Teacher : You must make a sentence word the word “will”. Ok, ready? 5,4,3,2,1...Ok

Ready? Bima!

Student 1 : I will kill him.

Teacher : Ok, very good. (Point another student)

Student 2 : I will help you.

Teacher : I will help you. Good. (Point another student)

Student 3 : I will say sorry.

Teacher : I will say sorry, so I will say “sorry”? Good. (Point another student)

Student 4 : I will bring the book.

Teacher : Ok, now rise up your hand!

24

Student 5 : Bu, kalau verb nya di depan gak papa?

Teacher : No problem.

Student 6 : I will thank to you,

Teacher : I will thank to you. (Point a student who rise up her hand)

Student 7 : I will stand up.

Teacher : I will stand up. (Point another student)

Student 8 : I will call you tomorrow.

Teacher : I will call you tomorrow. (Point another student)

Student 9 : I will go to your home tonight.

Teacher : Okay, I will go to your home tonight. (Point another student)

Student 10 : I will borrow your book tomorrow.

Teacher : I will borrow your book tomorrow. (Point another student) Okay. I will...

Student 11 : I will say love to you

Teacher : Ooo..I love you. Repeat once more

Student 11 : I will say love to you

Teacher : Oooo...I will say....

Student 11 : I love you

Teacher : I love you too. (Point another student)

Student 12 : I will do it

Teacher : I will do it. Very good. (Point another student)

Student 12 : I will always beside you

Teacher : I will always beside you. Be careful.

25

Appendix B

Questions for the interview

1. What is your reason of using drilling?

2. What is your reason of using translation?

3. What is your reason of using chain ?

4. What is your reason of using transformation?

5. What is your reason of using teacher-student exchange?

26

Apendix C

excerpt from a thesis participant

Would you like to give the reasons why you used translating and drilling the materials?

Ok in my mind, Drilling the students of SMP is very important because

drilling makes them perfect in something. So, we call it repetition, repetition, and repetition

again. It can make them stab in their heart. Can you tell once more, the question? Translating

O ya, Translating, but not translate a certain word, but the meaning of a sentence like “I am

hungry” and “I was hungry”, They should not know the meaning of hungry but the meaning

of the sentence. I would translate that I am hungry means you still hungry, but I was hungry

means you aren‟t hungry anymore. I never ask the students to write or translate the meaning

the grammar in the term of the context. For example, “Students, write it down! I was hungry”

and they shouldn‟t write “saya tadinya lapar” but I would let them know at glance, and then

they will know more by themselves, so I would repeat repeat and drill it in order not to make

them forget it, but know it and write down in their note.

What is your reason of using Chain?

Usually, the students‟ attention sometimes fluctuates, so this can catch their

attention. In addition, because it is given randomly, so it makes the students should be ready

with the questions. And finally, it is aimed to know students‟ understanding about who have

learning‟s difficulty.

Why do use transformation?

Mainly, the teacher will always make new variations in teaching something,

and the students usually think twice, so the negative form of the sentence is like that. Thus,

they will think more, not only answer the questions with the same words all the time and it

will not make them feel threatened, and they will; have a comprehensive understanding.

Why do use Teacher student exchange?

The goal is to make the students wake up, so there should be some varieties to

teach the grammar.