IMPROVING STUDENTS’ WRITING ABILITY BY TEACHING GRAMMATICAL COHESIVE DEVICES AT THE THIRD-SEMESTER STUDENTS OF STKIP YPUP
MAKASSAR
Yohana Maria Nirma STKIP YPUP Makassar Email: Achevaaguu@gmail.com
Abstract
This research aimed to find out whether the use of grammatical cohesive devices improve the students’ writing skill at the third semester students of English Department STKIP YPUP Makassar. This research used pre-experimental method. The data were collected quantitatively by applying statistical analysis. The result showed that pre-test mean score was lower than post-test mean score (54.4<78.8.). It means that grammatical cohesive devices can improve the students’ writing skills significantly. It was also showed by the score of t- test value was greater than t-table (11.04>2.145).This research concluded that grammatical cohesive devices can improve the students’ writing skill which was showed by the result of pretest and posttest based on five component criteria in writing. From the posttest it showed that the students explore their idea relevant with the topic, the idea from their writing was showed clearly. in other hands, the students used the effective words with a correct grammatical, punctuation and also capitalization.
Keywords: writing, grammatical cohesive device
Abstrak
Penilitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui apakah perangkat kohesif dapat meningkatkan kemampuan menulis siswa semester tiga di STKIP – YPUP Makassar. Penelitian ini menggunakan metode pre-eksperimental. Analisis data dilakukan secara quantitative dengan mengaplikasikan analisa statistik. Hasilnya menunjukkan bahwa nilai dari pre- test lebih rendah dari nilai post-test (54.4 < 78.8). Ini menunjukan bahwa dengan menggunakan perangkat kohesif dapat meningkatkan kemampuan menulis siswa secara signifikan. Hal ini juga ditunjukkan nilai score dari t-test value lebih besar dari t- table (11.04>2.145). Peneliti menyimpulkan bahwa perangkat kohesif dapat meningkatkan kemampuan menulis siswa dalam bahasa inggris. Hal ini dapat dilihat dari hasil pretest dan posttest yang diambil dari lima komponen penilaian. Dari hasil test posttest menunjukan bahwa siswa dapat mengembangakan ide mereka sesuai dengan topik yang diberikan selain itu ide pokok dalam tulisan mereka terlihat sangat jelas dan juga terlihat dari pemilihan kosa kata, grammatical, tanda baca dan huruf kapital sudah tepat.
Kata kunci: Menulis, Perangkat Kohesif Tata Bahasa
INTRODUCTION
English is used in many countries as a meaning of communication and it has a great function in many aspects of life such as in politics, business, trade, and diplomatic relationship, Furthermore English also cannot be separated from the development of technology, science, economics, and education. In education system in Indonesia , English is included in curriculum for elementary school, junior high school , senior high school level, vocational school and university. Based on Competence Curriculum , the teaching learning of English has the purpose to develop four
language skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing. Those are skills enable the students to master the four skills of English language is not easy task.
Writing is one of the important skills in academic life particularly. Why, because by writing you can communicate with clarity that conveys acquired knowledge in a specific field of study , learn more, gain awareness of your reality and focus to think critically. When the students understand the written they would be able to perform specific writing assignment , for example easy to write about the text. The lack of increasing writing makes the student are difficult to create for writing and they are unconscious the advantages of writing.
Compared to the other skills, it was quite possible that writing will come out as the hardest one to master. Blanchard and Root in Hidayat (2016) stated that in learning new language, writing was the most difficult skill to achieve. There were many things to be considered when producing a written product. One of them was grammar knowledge. Someone was considered successful in learning a language when they were able to communicate with ease in both oral and written.
Well-structured and understandable sentences were the clear sign of a good grammatical competence. Richards (2006:3) states that grammatical competence refers to the knowledge we have of language that accounts for our ability to produce sentences in a language. Beside grammar knowledge , there are other factors contribute to the quality of a writing product , such as cohesion, or coherence , is the intangible glue that holds paragraphs together. Having good coherence in a writing project means that your ideas stick together and flow smoothly from one sentence to the next, so that readers of your work can easily understand where you are taking them.
Based on the researchers’ experience , she found that there were many students do mistake in writing such as: they couldn’t use an appropriate grammar, word and punctuation in sentences and they also have lack of vocabulary and knowledge in writing . The researcher focused her attention on the cohesion or cohesive devices found in and essay . Cohesion concerns the flow of sentences and paragraphs from one to another. It involves the tying together of old information and new. Based on the explanation above, the researcher motivated to conduct the research with title “ Improving Students Writing Ability By Using Grammatical Cohesive Devices At The Third – Semester Students Of STKIP YPUP Makassar”.
B. REVIEW OF LITERATURE
Grammatical Cohesive Devices
According to Halliday and Hasan in Hidayat (2016) Grammatical Cohesive Devices is refers to grammatical items which are used to connect clauses in a text to make the meaning cohesive and there are four items are attached which are reference, substitution, ellipsis and conjunction.
Hussein (2014) grammatical cohesion assuming that any sentence in a text is grammatically structured; researchers presuppose that all individual sentences in a text are linked together in a
way which contributes to the construction of the whole text. Thus, denoting the linguistic structure established in a text as a whole, grammatical cohesion can be achieved by using grammatical cohesive devices to fix pieces of text together in a particular way, so that the reader can perceive the items referred to, replaced, or omitted (Harmer 2006) .Found within and between sentences ,these cohesive devices help a text function as a text through constructing cohesive relations among all of its pieces .
The connection between sentences may play a role in connected discourse. To connect the
sentences together, a writer’s need cohession.
Exist in a good writing is cohesion or the other word cohesion is a grammatical and lexical linking within a text or sentence that holds a text together and gives it meaning.
Cohesive devices are useful English language conjunctions, transitional phrases, synonyms and pronouns that express ideas in a cohesive manner. They are used to join sentences together to make ideas more understandable to the reader. It is a series of lexical, grammatical and other relations which provide links between the various parts of a text. In cohesion there is a distinction between grammatical cohesion consists of reference, substitution, ellipsis and conjunction and lexical cohesion which are repetition and collocation.
According to Halliday and Hasan in Bahaziq (2016). Grammatical cohesive devices, there are four items are attached which are reference, substitution ellipsis and conjunction. Each of them stands as grammatical cohesive device that has its own character.
1.Reference
Reference could be identified as the situation in which one element couldn’t be semantically interpreted unless it is referred to another element in the text. Pronouns, articles, demonstratives, and comparatives are used as referring devices to refer to items in linguistic or situational texts.
Exospheric reference requires the reader to infer the interpreted referent by looking beyond the text in the immediate environment shared by the reader and writer. For example, in the sentence:
That is a wonderful idea! To retrieve the meaning of that, the reader must look outside the situation.
On the other hand, endophoric reference lies within the text itself. It is classified into two classes:
anaphoric and cataphoric. According to Paltridge (2012), “Anaphoric reference is where a word or phrase refers back to another word or phrase used earlier in the text” (p. 115). In the previous example: Amy went to the party. She sat with Sara. She refers back to Amy; therefore, she is an anaphoric reference.
Cataphoric reference looks forward to another word or phrase mentioned later in the text. For instance in the following sentence, he is a cataphoric reference that looks forward to Mike. As soon as he arrived, Mike visited his parents.
2. Substitution
Substitution occurs when an item is replaced by another item in the text to avoid repetition. The difference between substitution and reference is that substitution lies in the relation between
words, whereas reference between meanings. There are three types of substitution: nominal, verbal, and clausal.
Nominal substitution is substituting a noun or a nominal group with another noun. Elements of this type are one, ones, and same. In the following example, one substitutes car. This car is old. I will buy a new one. Verbal substitution involves substituting a verb or a verbal group with another verb.
The verb element used to replace items in this type is do. For example: I challenge you to win the game before I do! Here, do is the substitution for win the game. Clausal substitution is substituting clauses by so or not. This is illustrated by the following: A: Do you think the teacher is going to be absent tomorrow? B: No. I don’t think so. In this example, so substitutes the clause going to be absent.
3. Elipsis
Ellipsis is the process of omitting an unnecessary item, which has been mentioned earlier in a text, and replacing it with nothing. It is similar to substitution because “Ellipsis is simply substitution by zero. Normally, it is considered as an anaphoric relation because the omission takes place within a text. When ellipsis occurs, the item that is omitted from the structure of the text can still be understood.
Alike substitution, ellipsis has three types: nominal, verbal, and clausal. In nominal ellipsis, the noun is omitted. This is exemplified by: My brothers like sports. In fact, both love football. In the second sentence, the nominal my brothers is omitted. www.ccsenet.org/elt English Language Teaching .Verbal ellipsis involves the omission of the verb.
In the following example, the verb been studying is left out in B. A: Have you been studying? B:
Yes, I have been studying. Clausal ellipsis occurs when the clause is omitted. In the example mentioned below, the clause writing on the board is excluded in B. A: Who is writing on the board? B: Alice is writing on the board.
4. Conjunction
Conjunction words are linking devices between sentences or clauses in a text. Unlike the other grammatical devices, conjunctions express the ‘logical-semantic’ relation between sentences rather than between words and structures.
In other words, they structure the text in a certain logical order that is meaningful to the reader or listener. Conjunctions are divided into four types, namely additive, adversative, causal, and temporal. Additive conjunctions connect units that share semantic similarity. Examples of additive conjunctions are, and, likewise, furthermore, in addition, etc. Adversative conjunctions are used to express contrasting results or opinions.
This type of conjunction is expressed by words such as, but, however, in contrast, whereas, etc.
Causal conjunctions introduce results, reasons, or purposes. They are characterized by the use of items such as, so, thus, therefore, because, etc. Temporal conjunctions express the time order of events such as, finally, then, soon, at the same time, etc.
Procedure of Teaching Grammatical Cohesive Devices
According to Halliday and Hasan in Hidayat (2016) there are procedures of teaching Grammatical Cohesive Devices are:
a.The researcher explained to the students about grammatical cohesive devices and its types. The researcher also gave some examples of grammatical cohesive devices to the students .
b.The researcher deliver the material by using recount text to identify grammatical cohesive devices in the text.
c.After explanation, the researcher gave the exercise with asking the students to wrote the recount text.
C. RESEARCH METHOD
The method used in this research was pre- experimental method. This method consisted of the three steps namely: pre-test, treatment and post-test. It aimed to know the using of grammatical cohesive devices on students’ writing.
The research design of this research presented as follow:
O1 X O2 Where:
O1 :Pre-test X :Treatment O2 :Post-test
Gay L.R. (2012) In analyzing the researcher through the test of the data were collected by using the following procedure:
1.Scoring the students answer:
a.Content
Table Content
Score Classification Criteria
27-30 Very good Knowledgeable substantive, thorough development of thesis, relevant to assigned topic.
22-26 Average Some knowledgeable of subject, adequate range, limited development of thesis, mostly relevant to topic, but lacks detail.
17-21 Poor Limited knowledgeable of subject, title substance, inadequate development of topic.
13-16 Very poor Not show knowledgeable of subject, non- substantive, non-pertinent, or not enough to evaluate
b.Organization
Table Organization
Score Classification Criteria
18-20 Very good fluent expression, ideas clearly stated, succinct, well-organized, logical sequencing, cohesive.
14-17 Average somewhat choppy, loosely organized but main ideas standout, limited support, logical but incomplete sequencing.
10-13 Poor not-fluent, ideas confused or
disconnected, lacks logical sequencing and development.
7-9 Very poor does not communicate, no
organization, or not enough to evaluate.
a. Vocabulary
Table Vocabulary
Score Classification Criteria
18-20 Very good sophisticated range, effective word/
idiom choice and usage, word form mastery, appropriate register.
14-17 Average adequate range, occasional of word/
idiom form, choice, usage, bit meaning is not obscured.
10-13 Poor limited range, frequent errors of word/ idiom form, choice, usage but meaning confused or obscured.
7-9 Very poor essentially translation, little knowledge of English vocabulary, idioms, word form, or not enough to evaluate
b. Language Use
Table Language Use Score Classification Criteria
22-25 Very good–
Excellent
effective complex construction, few errors of agreement, tense, number, word order/function, articles, pronouns, prepositions.
18-21 Good –Average effective but simple construction, minor problems, in complex construction, several errors of agreement, tense, number, word order/function, articles, pronouns, preposition but meaning seldom obscured.
11-17 Fair - poor major problems in simple/ complex construction, frequent errors of negation, agreement, tense, number, word order/function, articles, pronouns, prepositions and/or fragments, run-ons, deletions, meaning confused or obscured.
5-10 Very poor virtually no mastery of sentence construction rules, dominated by errors, does not communicate, or not enough to evaluate.
c. Mechanics
Table Mechanics
Score Classification Criteria
5 Very good Demonstration mastery of convention no problems of spelling, punctuation, capitalization and paragraph
4 Good – Average occasional errors of spelling, punctuation, capitalization, paragraphing but meaning not obscured.
3 Fair - poor frequent errors of spelling, punctuation, capitalization, paragraphing, poor handwriting, meaning confused or obscured.
2 Very poor no mastery of conventions,
dominated by errors of spelling, punctuation, capitalization, paragraphing, paragraphing, handwriting illegible, or not enough to evaluate.
Calculating the mean score by applying the formula X" =∑ "#
Where:
X" = Mean Score
∑ X= The Sum of all Score
N = Total Number of Samples
(Gay L.R, 2012)
Finding out the significant difference between the mean scores of the pre-test and post-test by calculating the value of the test by using formula:
𝑡 = 𝐷"
'∑ 𝐷$−(∑ 𝐷)$ 𝑁(𝑁 − 1)𝑁 Notation:
t : Test of significance
𝐷": The mean score of difference between pre-test and post-test (X2-X1)
∑ 𝐷 : The sum of difference score 𝑁 : Total number of students
(Gay L.R, 2012) D. FINDING AND DISCUSSION
The findings of the reseach was dealing with the students’ score of pre-tests (X1) and post-test (X2), the frequency and the rate percentage of the students’ score in pretest and posttest, the mean score of pretest and posttest, the t-test value and hypothesis testing. The aimed of the research was to know whether the use cohesive grammatical could improve the students’ writing ability for the third semester students at STKIP YPUP. These finding provided the following clarification as follows:
The students score of pre-test (𝑿𝟏) and the post-test (𝑿𝟐) Gain/Difference between the matched pair (d) and the Square of the gain
NO NAME PRETEST X1
POSTTEST X2
DIFFERENT (D) (X2-X1)
DIFFERENCE (D2)
1 RJ 50 81 31 961
2 MA 56 88 32 1024
3 RR 51 77 26 676
4 AB 61 70 9 81
5 YY 56 90 34 1156
6 FIS 55 82 27 729
7 PS 65 78 13 169
8 THN 51 75 24 576
9 SI 51 88 37 1369
10 AK 58 79 21 441
11 AF 51 81 30 900
12 EF 55 65 10 100
13 KR 61 83 22 484
14 RD 45 75 30 900
15 EMP 51 71 20 400
N = 15
The Rate Percentage Pre-test
No Categories Classifying Number of
Students Percentage
1 Very Good 85 – 100 0 0
2 Good 75 – 84 0 0
3 Average 65 – 74 1 6%
4 Poor 55 - 64 7 47%
5 Very Poor 00 – 54 7 47%
TOTAL 15 100%
Based on the table of the data above showed that none of the student (0%) got very good. There was none of the student (0%) got good and one student (6%) got average, and there were 7 (47%) of students got poor, and there were 7 students (47%) got very poor.
The Rate Percentage Post-test
No Categories Classifying Number of
Students Percentage
1 Very Good 85 – 100 3 20%
2 Good 75 – 84 9 60 %
3 Average 65 – 74 3 20%
4 Poor 55 - 64 0 0
5 Very Poor 00 – 54 0 0
TOTAL 15 100%
Based on the table of the data above showed that three of the students (20%) got very good, there were 9 students (60%) got good, there were 3 students (20%) average, and none student (0%) got poor and none of students (0%) got very poor.
The mean score of the students in pre-test and post-test
Test Mean Score
Pretest 54.4
Posttest 78.8
! 817
!"
! 1183
!#
! 366
$ ! 9966
$#
Gain 24.4
Based on the table 4.5 above, the mean score of pre-test stuents was 54.4 from the total score of 817 an the mean score of of posttest was 78.8 from the total score 1183. The mean score of gain was 24.4 from the total score was 366. It was revealed an increasing score , it is proved by the students post-test showed that there was a slight improvement from pre-test and post-test. It could be concluded that the mean posttest score was greater than the mean score of pretest.
In this section, the researcher discussed the result of the grammatical cohesive devices as a strategy in teaching writing in relation to the research question. Research in collecting the data, the researcher chose the third semester students of STKIP YPUP. The implementing grammatical cohesive devices can improve the students writing skill in Makassar. In prestest, the researcher gave the students some topics that there are two topics with the tittle Covid 19 in Indonesia and Weekend highlight. The test of pretest was given before the students have had treatments. It aimed to found out he prior knowledge of students in writing ability. The researcher provided the question and asked the students to answer the question following the instruction.
Post-test of the students was given after treatment. It aimed to found the outcomes of the students ability to write after being taught cohesive grammatical. The test took by given the students topics to write down by following the topics with th tittle of embracing and happines experince in 2020 and the last about omnibus law in Indonesia. The test takes around 60 minutes to write down their information.
Based on the research of statistical analysis, the researcher found that the students score in pre- test and post-test can be seen in the following paragraphs.
In table of chapter four showed that the total of the students’ score in pre-test (X1) was 817 and in the total students’ score in post-test (X2) was 1183. The gain of students score between pre- test and post-test (X2- X1) was 366 and square of gain (D2) was 9966,it can be concluded that the students’ total score of post-test was higher the students’ total score of pre-test after they had been taught by using Grammatical Cohesive Devices.
The discussion deals with interpretation of the findings derived from the data analysis . The description of the data collected through writing test was explained in the previous showed that the students’ English writing was improved. It was supported by the result of frequency and rate percentage of the students pre-test and post-test the students score after presenting material by using Grammatical Cohesive Devices in writing was better before treatment that given to them.
According the data shown in previous section, it is known that the students’ minimum score of pre-test was 45,and the maximum score of pre-test was 65. While the minimum score of post-test was 65 , and the maximum score of post-test was 90. It also known that the students’ total score of gain was 366 and the student total score of square of gain was 9966. The minimum score of gain was 9 and maximum score of gain was 37. While the minimum score of square of gain was 81 , and maximum score of square of gain was 1369. Therefore, it can concluded that the use of grammatical cohesive device could improve the students’ writing skill.
The table above also shows that the students mean score of pre-test and post-test. The students mean score in post-test was (78,8) while in pre-test was 54,4. It can concluded that students’
score in post-test was higher than pre-test.
The table above also shows the test of significance. It consisted of T-test and T-table. The T-test of this research was 11,04 while the T–table was 2.145. It seen the T-test was higher than T-table (11,04>2.145). it means that the two mean scores are significantly different. So statistically there is not enough evidence to accept the null hypothesis (H') and not enough evidence to reject the alternative hypothesis (H() . In the other words , from statistical analysis there is an increase in the score of students’ writing.
That this phenomenon is evident in the classroom at the third and fourth meetings. At the third meeting the improvement has begun to be seen from the students being able to correctly identify of the grammatical cohesive devices and While at the fourth meeting the improvement was clear from the students’ increased work, where students were able to correctly identify all grammatical cohesive devices from the text recount and it was clear that they could calculated and correctly classify the grammatical cohesive devices on the text. The results of this study are in line with the results of previous studies which also examined writing and Grammatical Cohesive Devices.
E.CONCLUSION
Based on the result of data analysis, it could be concluded that the result of the test that the students were taught using grammatical cohesive devices got higher score than before. The total score in pre-test were 817 and the total score in postest 1.183. The mean score of the students pretest was 54.4, while in post-test was 78.8. for the level significance 0.05 and the degree of freedom (df) = 15 and t-test value was higher than t-table value was (11.04>2.145). So the alternative hypothesis (H1) was accepted and the null hypothesis (H0) was rejected. It can be concluded there were significance differences between the result of pre-test and post-test which indicated that using cohesive grammatical devices could help the students to improve their writing ability. Furthermore, Cohesive Grammatical Devices improves writing ability at the third semesters students of STKIP YPUP Makassar.
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