English is an international language
in the world that almost everyone knows about that statement. Almost every product,
and all about technology used this language as the direction of use, so that all
of the people need to learn English in order to update their knowledge and also
if they want to be communicated with other people from around the world. Since
the first time Indonesia become a freedom country, certainly Indonesia should
make a relationship with other countries in order to develop the natural
sources and also humans sources of this country to be better. In another case,
Indonesia is still a developing country that needs to be built from some
sectors such as educational side, economic side, political, and technology.
Developing country of course needs another developed country to improve the
system in government, at least having a bilateral relationship with a developed
country. So it cannot be ignored that no other way that can be done by having a
good relationship with other developed countries except mastery the
international language itself then a good communication will be able to be
expressed with other developed countries.
In
order to master the English language, there is an important thing that should
be paid more attention, it is grammar. Grammar is the whole system and
structure of a language or of languages in general, usually taken as consisting
of syntax and morphology. In another hand, grammar is a set of prescriptive
notions about correct use of a language (Oxford, 2008). Furthermore, Savage
(2010) suggested that at different times during the long history of
second-language instruction, grammar has been regarded as a set of rules
(“third person singular present-tense verbs take an -s for subject-verb agreement”;
“adjectives go before nouns”) to be memorized. Today, grammar is still taught
and tested this way in many parts of the world. By the explanations above, it
can be concluded that grammar is the important rule of language’s system that
fasten the general idea of a language so that by using grammar, all of the
types of idea that come from everyone will be understood each other between the
user of a language.
English
has four skills as in general, they are listening, speaking, writing and
reading. To be communicated clearly and efficiently by using those four skills,
of course a rule is needed. Grammar can be the rule that is needed as the requirement
of an efficient communication. Without grammar, there will be a big misunderstanding
for everyone who has just started to learn English. So that is the way, why
grammar is needed for mastering the English language to be the complete
knowledge. Therefore, further example can be seen in Savage (2010: 2). In
listening, it can be imagine when the teacher ask the students “Please bring me
the books,” only to have a student bring her just one book because the
student did not hear the plural -s or understand what it means. In this
case, a better understanding of the underlying grammar would have improved the
student’s listening ability. Afterwards in Speaking, when in a job interview, an applicant is asked,
“How long have you been working at your current job?” The applicant replies, “I
worked there for two years.” The interviewer wonders: Is the applicant still
working there or not? In this situation, knowledge of the present perfect would
have enabled the student to reply more accurately. Further example in Reading, when trying to follow
the directions for assembling a bookcase, a student reads Slide the bookcase
close to the wall after tightening all of the pieces. Not knowing that after
signals the first of the two actions in the sentence, the student performs
the actions in reverse order. In writing,
filling out a form at his job in an automotive repair shop, an
automotive tech student writes I check the brakes. Reading the report,
the supervisor is confused: Did the student already check the brakes? Is he
going to check the brakes? If the student had written checked on the
report, there would have been no ambiguity. From those illustrations above, it
can be concluded that grammar as the basic of the four skills should be
mastered well in the way of mastering English language because it will be
hardly understood as a good and efficient communication when the correct
grammar was ignored by the user of a language.
In
Indonesian, grammar is taught since the first time English was introduced to
the students in elementary school. It should be good because grammar needs to
be learned from the first step, such as alphabet, cardinal and ordinal which
included in the sentences “one ball and two balls”, these can be a good first
step for increasing the basic grammar of the students itself. Even thought
there are four basic of English skills, furthermore Rashtchi and Afzali focuses
the most important skills in mastering grammar are Spoken and listening. Listening
is the medium through which spoken grammar can be comprehended. Carter and
McCarthy (2006) claim that spoken grammar should be heard and not just read
from a written text. O’Keeffe, Carter, and McCarthy (2007) state that
“listening to spoken grammar, along with noticing tasks, can raise learners’
awareness of its features and this kind of listening is often best carried out
as ‘listening for something’ rather than ‘listening to something’”.
For another example, journalist
Jacquelyn Mitchard (2004) recently wrote about her observances during the 2004
presidential debates. She pointed out that President Bush said the enemy forces
in Iraq were fighting “vociferously,” meaning “with a great number of words.”
John Kerry repeatedly stated that he had “over” 20 years of experience, meaning
“above.” Mitchard conceded that she knew the President probably meant
“violently,” and Kerry probably meant “more than,” but she validly argued that
if immigrants are expected to learn and speak Standard English, then the
President ought to as well.
Speaking
skill needs to be practiced directly by using the sentence in a conversation or
speech, so that the students who are learning English will easily learning that
skill by doing practice. one of the current questions in terms of speaking
ability is the effect of learning grammatical rules on the level of speaking in
the target language (Kianiparsa & Vali, 2010). Same with speaking,
listening can be done directly by listen to the native who are performing a
speech. These two skills can be done at the same time and they can be performed
easily. However, reading and writing skills are still needed in order to
complete the mastery of English language because when all of them are completed
with the grammar that is learning, mastering English should be very facile.
Grammar
should be learned by many ways that is possible. One of those logically way is
learning by doing. In learning grammar, it cannot be done only in one skill
only, for example, grammar is only taught by using reading skill, almost all of
the material presented by using a text that should be read by the student. It
can be bet that learning process will be so bored and unattractive. In another
way, when the teacher used four skills that was collaborated to teach grammar,
so that the student will easily understand about grammar. One of the reasons is
because every student has an excess in one or more skills that they master, of
course every student has a weakness in some skills too.
In
conclusion, grammar has a very important role in mastery the English language.
Especially the basic four skills in English language, grammar played a very
important role. It cannot be argued that grammar has a very important role in
mastery English language because English has various speakers who come from
many countries. Every speaker has its own mother language, and different from
their culture, ethnic and race. So that, grammar comes to neutralizer the
difference system of language that they bring from their country to be one of
the legal system that is accepted by all of the English user in all countries.
Grammar is also crucial to be learned because some of the misunderstood of
interpretation occurred when grammar is not used as the guideline (Widodo,
2006).
The
last, despite grammar is very important for mastery the English language, it
should not break the passion and desire of the student to learn English because
learning grammar seemed to be bored. For this case, the teacher should
collaborate the grammar learning process with some game that can make the
students to be fun. Then finally, by have fun with grammar, many students will
be interested to learn grammar and so for the English learning. By having so
many students that are interested in English learning, it can be believed that
this country will have the genius youths who will built their beloved country.
LIST OF BIBLIOGRAPHY
Savage, K L
(2010) Grammar Matters. United States
of America: Cambridge University press
Widodo, H P
(2006) Approaches and procedures for
teaching grammar. English
Teaching: Practice and Critique (May)
pp.1
The Oxford
English Dictionary (2008)
Eleventh Edition, Oxford University Press
Kianiparsa, P and Vali,
S (2010) The Effect of Grammar Learning
on Speaking Ability of EFL Learners [http] EltWeekly.com available from: http://eltweekly.com/more/2010/03/53-research-paper-the-effect-of-grammar-learning-on-speaking-ability-of-efl-learners-by-parnaz-kianiparsa-and-sara-vali/ [accessed 12/o6/12]
Ponniah, R J (2009) The Role of Grammar: An
Insight into the Skill-Building and the
Output Hypotheses (September) pp.4
