Indonesian EFL Journal (IEFLJ) p-ISSN 2252-7427, e-ISSN 2541-3635 Volume 7, Issue 1, January 2021 https://journal.uniku.ac.id/index.php/IEFLJ/index 97 A STUDY CORRELATION BETWEEN STUDENTS’GRAMMAR MASTERY, THEIR WRITING AND LISTENING COMPREHENSION ACHIEVEMENT Sanday Jamaludin English Language Education Department, Faculty of Education Pancasakti University, Tegal Indonesia Email: sandayjamalusin@gmail,com Dede Nurdiawati English Education Department, Faculty of Educational Sciences and Teacher’s Training Peradaban University, Brebes Indonesia Email: dedenurdiawati7@gmail.com APA Citation: Jamaludin, S. & Nurdiawati, D. (2021). A study correlation between students’ grammar mastery, their writing and listening comprehension. Indonesian EFL Journal. 7(1), 97-104. https://doi.org/10.25134/ieflj.v7i1.4020 Received: 29-09-2020 Accepted: 27-11-2020 Published:30-01-2021 INTRODUCTION English is a foreign language in Indonesia which is learned in almost all academic levels. In learning English, there are four language skills to be mastered. In Indonesia, English is taught since elementary school, although in the curriculum 2013 English is taught only for junior high school and senior high school, there are some elementary schools where English is taught to their students. English itself is used for national examination in junior high school and senior high school. Since the pandemics is still going on whether like or dislike the students must practice their listening skills, writing skills and also grammar by themselves. Listening is a challenging skill for many EFL learners. They seem to do the assignment without showing good comprehension on their answers. This research aims to find out the students' problems in listening comprehension and identify the factors contributing to the problems. Listening comprehension is an active skill that has many processes. The problems which had been analyzed in this research deals with academic learning that is the students’ problem in listening comprehension which can be measured and known by the lecturer. The active skill produces the language. The learners know how to express the language. Meanwhile, according to Nurdianingsih and Purnama (2017), writing is a complex process of an activity that allows one in transforming thoughts, constructing ideas, discovering meaning and organizing them into sentences and paragraphs which focuses on content first using the appropriate language through several stages rehearsing, drafting, and revising. Writing required not only cognitive aspect but also affective aspect that could influence students. Alnufaie & Grenfell (cited in Nurdianingsih and Purnama, 2013) writing is Abstract: Listening and writing are the challenging skill for EFL learners. It aims to find out the students' problems in listening a nd wr i ti n g c omprehension through the grammar mastery. The population of this research is 70 students which are divided into three classes. In taking sample from the population, the researchers selected randomly 10 students from each class so there will be 30 students on joining it, mostly they got some problems with grammar and listening also writing. From that case, we try to make a correlation between the listening comprehension and writing achievement through the grammar mastery. From the whole of actions that we had conducted, we have some great result that they have improved their abilities. It is connecting each other. It means that the three variables is strong enough. The conclusion that can be drawn based on the findings of this research is there is positive correlation between students’ grammar mastery and their writing achievement. In other words, the better students’ grammar mastery, the better their writing and listening comprehension achievement will be. Keywords: A study correlation; grammar mastery; writing; listening comprehension Sanday Jamaludin & Dede Nurdiawati A study correlation between students’ grammar mastery, their writing and listening comprehension 98 claimed to be an emotional as much a cognitive activity. Its affective constituents including emotions, apprehension and motivation influence all stages of the writing process. Yavuz et.al (2015) the 7th World Conference on Educational Sciences stated for language teachers the main problem is either not to know what to do with the listening skills or absolute obedience to the course book they have selected. If they cannot adopt, edit or change listening activities for their learner, the listening skill becomes the main anxiety source for them and instead of supporting the learners with a kind of comprehensible input it may become the reason for learners’ discouragement. The solution of making listening skills digestible for learners is in two ways: at word level and sentence level. Horvathova (2014) stated that there are also skill- related strategies that cut across all four skill-areas, such as vocabulary or grammar learning. Learners need to learn new words or new grammar structures to be able to understand them when they hear them, while others are needed for speaking or writing. Receptive strategies-aural reception (listening) and visual reception (reading)-involve identifying the context and knowledge of the world relevant to it, activating in the process what are thought to be appropriate schemata. Productive strategies-oral production (speaking) and written production (writing)-involve mobilizing resources, balancing between different competences - exploiting strengths and underplaying weaknesses-in order to match the available potential to the nature of the task. Based on some definitions above, grammar is an important aspect of writing and listening comprehension skills and it is not easy to study, even for college students. Many students think that grammar is difficult because there are many rules in usage. Based on the explanation above, we know that grammar is one of the language aspects Writing is one of the language skills that have an important role. Writing cannot be separated from our lives, especially in daily activities such as when we want to make status in social media, dairy books, notes, or assignments for students. There are some things that must be expressed and one of them is how a sentence is arranged just like the other languages, English has also patterns to make sentences in other words, we need grammar in writing. Garrison (cited in Omar, 2019) stated that writing is what you have in your mind to say and your search for the right combinations of words to say it. Bartholome (cited in Omar, 2019) believes that writing is “a solitary activity and writers are limited by the assumptions they carry with them to the act of writing. They are limited, that is, by the limits of their ability to imagine what writing is and how writers behave. The challenges of writing at university is often difficult based on Allen and Britton (cited in Omar, 2019) not only for the learner; for some kind of writing, in fact the difficulties may actually increase as the writer becomes more proficient. For English students especially in Pancasakti University, grammar, writing and listening comprehension are the subjects which must be learned simultaneously but a lot of students find the hardness in learning them. We take the third- semester students of English Education Program Teacher Training and Education Faculty at Pancasakti University as the object of the research. The third-semester students’ of English Department have learned listening comprehension, writing and grammar, then the writer intends to study the correlation between, the students’ grammar mastery and their writing also listening comprehension achievement. Grammar In writing, grammar is the basic knowledge on structure for making the good sentences. It has some text meaning and contextual meaning. From the writing and listening comprehension, based on those statements the grammar and writing also listening comprehension are related on making the great sentences. According to Nurdianingsih and Purnama (2017), it is a multi-functional view of language in which each meta fiction assigns a structure to the clause. Systemic Functional Grammar view language as a r e s o u r c e for making meaning. This grammar attempts to describe language in actual use and so focuses on text and their context. There are three types of meaning within grammatical structures in grammar as resource for making meaning, they are experiential/ideational meaning, interpersonal meaning, and textual meaning. Textual meaning is relevance to the context: both the preceding (and following) text, and the context of situation. The textual function of the clause is that of constructing a message. Based on that statement, grammar include the important component that we need to make a good Indonesian EFL Journal (IEFLJ) p-ISSN 2252-7427, e-ISSN 2541-3635 Volume 7, Issue 1, January 2021 https://journal.uniku.ac.id/index.php/IEFLJ/index 99 writing. In addition to these definitions of grammar, Weaver divides grammar into two definitions. First, grammar is a description of the syntax of a language, and the second is a set of rules or prescription of how to use language. Based on the some definition of the experts, the writer conclude that grammar has two definition as grammar is structure (syntax) of phrase and sentences that considered it s order in language, and the second is a set prescription of how to use language. Grammar especially in structural there are about twelve tenses that to be causing the hardness of students to learn grammar even when they will start to write. As many of the tenses, grammar needs to practice and pratice. Writing According to Arbain (2017), writing is a language skill that is used for indirect communication. the students can communicate their ideas and thoughts to others through written form such as letter, message, or invitation for communication. Writing is not language. Language is a complex system residing in our brain which allows us to produce and interpret utterances. Writing involves making an utterance visible. Our cultural tradition does not make this distinction clearly. Thomas, Gerde, Piesta, Logan, Bailet, and Zettler-Greeley (2020) believed early writing is comprised of related, yet distinct, component skills; procedural knowledge; conceptual knowledge; and generative knowledge. Procedural knowledge, reflecting transcription skills includes both handwriting (i.e. letter formation). Conceptual knowledge includes a child’s understanding of concept related to print (e.g. relation between verbal and written output. Generative knowledge, composing, captures how children generate ideas for what to write (e.g. selection of words). Writing is an activity of pour ideas into paper. In daily activities, we often find some kind of writing, such as newspaper, magazine, novel, dictionary, even status in social media. Writing is not to be something hard, not everyone has good skills in writing but it can be learned. The writing process is a learned skill. It comes from many hours spent writing a lot. It comes from a mind-set that whenever you write, you consider not only what you will write about but also how you will write well (Calkins & Ehrenworth, 2016). In English skills, writing is one of the hardest after skills to do mostly for students in Indonesia. In addition, writing is a system of graphic symbols that can be used to convey meaning. Here is the topics related to the writing system as follows; alphabet, graphemic, handwriting, ideogram, language, and letter. Also writing is the act of composing a text and they are topics related to composition as follows; Academic Writing, The Advantages of Slow, Reading and Slow Writing, Basic Writing, Business Writing, Collaborative Writing, Composition-Rhetoric, Drafting, Online Writing, Overwriting, Prewriting, Revision, Technical Writing, Writer, Writing Process, Your Writing: Private and Public. Writing is an important learning activity in expressing opinions about a certain topic, in reorganizing our opinions about a topic and in partly discovering our ideas and dream. The learner should be prevented from copying the information written by their lecturer; rather, they should be given the opportunity to make use of their ability to think so that they can write using their own voice of expression. The lecturer also needs to establish an appropriate learning environment and must encourage students to become engaged inn writing activity. Listening comprehension Bano (2017) stated that listening involves understanding a speaker’s accent or pronunciation, his/her grammar and vocabulary, and grasping his/her meaning. According to Brown and Yule (cited in Gilakjani & Sabouri, 2016), listening comprehension means that a person understands what he/she has heard through hearing and understand it. There are four skills taught in the EFL classroom, reading, writing, speaking, and listening. They are all very important skills in the EFL classroom. But many researchers believe that the most important two skills are Listening then speaking. Therefore, teaching the listening skill should be considered an important component of the language learning. Mart, et al (cited in Gilakjani & Sabouri, 2016) express that there are three types of strategies in listening comprehension. They are cognitive, metacognitive, and socio-affective. Cognitive strategy related to understanding input in short term memory or long term memory for later use. Metacognitive strategy are management techniques to control their learning through planning, checking, and changing. Meanwhile, socio-affective strategies are techniques Sanday Jamaludin & Dede Nurdiawati A study correlation between students’ grammar mastery, their writing and listening comprehension 100 that listeners use to cooperate with others, to check their comprehension and reduce their appreciation. According to Bingol, et al. (cited in Gilakjani & Sabouri, 2016), major problems that learners face with listening comprehension are (1) quality of recorded materials, (2) cultural difference, (3) Accent, (4), unfamiliar vocabulary, and (5) length and speed of listening. Underwood (cited in Gilakjani, 2016), there are some barriers to effective listening comprehension process. First, listeners cannot control the speed of speech. Second, listeners cannot have words repeated and this can cause critical difficulties for them. Third, listeners may face an unfamiliar word which can stop them and think about the meaning of that word and miss the next part of speech. Fourth, listeners may lack of contextual knowledge. Fifth, it is not very easy for listeners to concentrate on the listening text. Graham (cited in Gilakjani & Sabouri, 2016) says that there are some other factors that increase learner’s listening comprehension problems such as restricted vocabulary, poor grammar, and misinterpretation about listening task. Many English students believe that the most difficult things in listening comprehension is that the lack control the speed of the speaker by the students when listening activity. There is an impossible thing for the listeners to control the speed from source which cannot be controlled. Such as, the students are listening to a radio or television broadcast, here they cannot ask for a slower speed through the media. Secondly, the inability to get repetition often becomes problem for the learner. No repetition is the condition the listeners must get when listening to an uncontrolled source because listeners cannot always listen to the speakers for repeating the speech. They cannot ask for repetition when listening to the radio or watching television, and etc. Puspitasari (2019) was to find out the effect of grammar mastery toward student’s writing skill. The result said that (1) both grammars learned by the students and critical thinking ability have effects on the student’s writing skill. This was evidence of the value both independent variables are F count = 339.539 and sig as big as 0.000 < 0.05. (2) The grammar learnt by the students has effect on the student’s writing skill, this was evidence by t count = 26.037 and sig as big as 0.000 < 0.05. (3) Critical thinking ability has no effect on the student’s descriptive writing skill, this was evidence by t count = 0.858 and sig as big as 0.393 > 0.05. Etfita (2019) was to find out the correlation between student’s grammar mastery and news writing ability of the fourth semester students of English Language Education at Universitas Islam Riau. She concluded that the result of calculating correlation between student’s grammar mastery and their achievement in news writing was r = 0.874. It meant that there was a significant correlation between student’s mastery of grammar and news writing ability. Fatikhah, Martono, & Asrori (2018) were found the result of their analysis of correlation between learning motivation, vocabulary mastery and listening comprehension. They concluded that there was positive correlation between (1) learning motivation and listening comprehension, (2) vocabulary mastery and listening comprehension, (3) learning motivation, vocabulary mastery simultaneously, and listening comprehension. It cannot be neglected that learning motivation and vocabulary mastery give contribution toward listening comprehension. METHOD The quantitative approach was used to describe the characteristic of the data. In this case, the qualitative research is a case study because of its characteristics and result descriptive data. This study attempts to explore certain information about a phenomenon or case of a subject. The case of this research was students’ correlational study between students’grammar mastery and their writing and listening comprehension achievement at Pancasakti University Tegal. The population of this research is 70 students which are divided into three classes. In taking sample from the population, the researchers selected randomly 10 students from each class so there will be 30 students. It is analyzed by using Pearson correlation product moment (r) and from the result of that analysis the value of r is 0. 503. Meanwhile the value of coefficient table with 5% level of significance and N 30 lies in 0.361. RESULT AND DISCUSSION Result Based on the data which have been submitted, the writers analyzed the score lists of all the students from three classes that consist of 70 students. Because of that, the writers took 30 students from three classes consisting of 10 students in every class. The writers didn’t do the validity and reliability of Indonesian EFL Journal (IEFLJ) p-ISSN 2252-7427, e-ISSN 2541-3635 Volume 7, Issue 1, January 2021 https://journal.uniku.ac.id/index.php/IEFLJ/index 101 the data since must be trusted because the data is from the legal institutions and the data already exist, thus the writer can not manipulate them. For this research, the writers calculate the R-test to determine there is correlation between two variables and answers the hypothesis. Here is the data that the writers have been gotten. Table 1. The score list of grammar (X) and writing and listening (Y) No Name Score Grammar (X) Writing and Listening (Y) 1 LA 72,6 78,6 2 SH 80 85,7 3 MY 79,5 84,7 4 RZ 78 82,5 5 CD 73 77,5 6 AT 81 80,2 7 RS 81,5 81,8 8 DC 72,6 76,3 9 AL 86,4 81 10 NR 81,5 81,2 11 AU 86,4 79,8 12 SA 72,6 84 13 AC 72 79,5 14 DD 73 78,3 15 DA 74,6 82,4 16 IL 72,6 77,8 17 TA 72 75 18 TN 77,5 86,6 19 MA 72,6 72,1 20 MJ 73 79,1 21 EO 72,6 72,5 22 SI 72,6 75,1 23 NL 86,4 85,7 24 NN 72,6 75,5 25 FA 76,6 77,1 26 LL 75,1 79,4 27 CS 70 70,5 28 DA 74,5 77,6 29 MD 72 77,3 30 VA 81 81,2 Table 2. The table for calculating the formula No Name X Y X² Y² Xy 1 LA 72,6 78,6 5270,76 6177,96 5706,36 2 SH 80 85,7 6400 7344,49 6856 3 MY 79,5 84,7 6320,25 7174,09 6733,65 4 RZ 78 82,5 6084 6806,25 6435 5 CD 73 77,5 5329 6006,25 5657,5 6 AT 81 80,2 6561 6432,04 6496,2 7 RS 81,5 81,8 6642,25 6691,24 6666,7 8 DC 72,6 76,3 5270,76 5821,69 5539,38 9 AL 86,4 81 7464,96 6561 6998,4 10 NR 81,5 81,2 6642,25 6593,44 6617,8 11 AU 86,4 79,8 7464,96 6368,04 6894,72 12 SA 72,6 84 5270,76 7056 6098,4 13 AC 72 79,5 5184 6320,25 5724 14 DD 73 78,3 5329 6130,89 5715,9 Sanday Jamaludin & Dede Nurdiawati A study correlation between students’ grammar mastery, their writing and listening comprehension 102 15 DA 74,6 82,4 5565,16 6789,76 6147,04 16 IL 72,6 77,8 5270,76 6052,84 5648,28 17 TA 72 75 5184 5625 5400 18 TA 77,5 86,6 6006,25 7499,56 6711,5 19 MA 72,6 72,1 5270,76 5198,41 5234,46 20 MJ 73 79,1 5329 6256,81 5774,3 21 EO 72,6 72,5 5270,76 5256,25 5263,5 22 SI 72,6 75,1 5270,76 5640,01 5452,26 23 NL 86,4 85,7 7464,96 7344,49 7404,48 24 NN 72,6 75,5 5270,76 5934,3 5481,3 25 FA 76,6 77,1 5867,56 5944,41 5905,86 26 LL 75,1 79,4 5640,01 6304,36 5962,94 27 CS 70 70,5 4900 4970,25 4935 28 DA 74,5 77,6 5550,25 6021,76 5781,2 29 MD 72 77,3 5184 5975,29 5565,6 30 VA 81 81,2 6561 6593,44 6577,2 Amount 2285,8 2376 174839,9 188890,6 181384,9 N = 30 ∑x = 2.285,8 ∑y =2376 ∑x²=174.839,9 ∑y²=188.890,6 ∑xy= 181.384,9 Rxy = 𝑁∑𝑥𝑦− (∑𝑥)(∑𝑦) √(𝑁∑𝑥2−(∑𝑥)²(𝑁∑𝑌2−(∑𝑌)2) Rxy = 30(181.384,9)−(2.285,8)(2.376) √⦋30(174.839,9−(5.224.881,64)⦌⦋30(188.890,6−(5.645.376)⦌ Rxy = 5.441.547−5.431.060,8 √(5.245.197−5.224.881,64)(5.666.718−5.645.376) Rxy = 10.486,2 √(20.315,36)(21.342) Rxy = 10.486,2 √433.570.413,12 Rxy = 10.486,2 20.822,3536 Rxy=0,503 Based on the calculation above, it was shown that ro = 0,503 and r table = 0,361 with a standard of significant 5%. The value of correlation product moment is bigger than r table (0,503> 0,361). It means, the alternative hypothesis (Ha) of the research is accepted, but Ho is rejected. Thus there is positive correlation between students’ grammar mastery and their writing and listening achievement. Sarwono (cited in Nasution 2017) says that correlational analysis is used to see the strength and weakness of the dependent variable and to determine the degree of relationship between two variables, we must judge it based on the Criterion Correlation Coefficient interval as follows: 0: There is no correlation between the two variables > 0 - 0.25: Correlation is very weak > 0.25 - 0.5: Correlation is sufficient > 0.5 - 0.75: Strong correlation > 0.75 - 0.99: Correlation is very strong 1: Perfect correlation Meanwhile based on the classification of the table of Pearson correlation coefficient values as follows: Table 3. Pearson correlation coefficient values Coefecient Interval Level Correlation 0,80 – 1,000 0,60 – 0,799 0,40 – 0,599 0,20 – 0,399 0,00 – 0,199 Perfect Very Strong Strong Low Very low Based on the criterion above, the correlation of the data is strong because the coefficient value is 0,503 in coefficient interval 0,40 – 0,599. It indicates, there is strong positive correlation between students’ grammar mastery also their writing and listening achievement. Discussion Indonesian EFL Journal (IEFLJ) p-ISSN 2252-7427, e-ISSN 2541-3635 Volume 7, Issue 1, January 2021 https://journal.uniku.ac.id/index.php/IEFLJ/index 103 This research, the writers used secondary data from English Department of Pancasakti University that form a score list. The documents of final semester score are taken from grammar and writing scores, in which grammar final test score is meant to measure the variable of grammar mastery, and writing final test score is meant to represent the students’ writing achievement. The writers examined the correlation between the two variables through the final test score of grammar and writing lessons by using Microsoft Excel and Pearson Correlation Product Moment (r) as the statistical procedure for this research and from the result of that analysis, it is found that the value of r is 0.530. Meanwhile, the value of the coefficient the table with 5% level of significance and N 30lies in 0.361. Therefore, the value of coefficient correlation (r) is higher than coefficient table (0.503> 0.361). From that inferential statistic, the writer concluded that there is positive correlation between students’ grammar mastery and their writing achievement. It is found that at the interval coefficient or the criterion that determines the degree of relationship between variables, the value of r 0.503 lies in between 0.40- 0.599. It means that the degree of relationship between two variables is strong enough. The conclusion that can be drawn based on the findings of this research is there is possitive correlation between students’ grammar mastery and their writing achievement. In other words, the better students’ grammar mastery, the better their writing achievement will be. CONCLUSION As previously explained in the previous chapter, the research aim is to find out the correlation between students’ grammar mastery also their writing and listening achievement through data analyzing. The score of grammar and writing also listening are considered the result of the learning process. To determine of the correlation, the writer calculates the sample use Pearson correlation product moment, and the result shows the value of Pearson correlation product moment (r) is 0,503 and table coefficient 0,361 in standard of significant 5%. The value of r is bigger than table coefficient (0,503 > 0,361) it means there is a positive correlation between students’ mastery and their writing also listening achievement, and the value of r 0.503 lies in between 0.40-0.599. It means that the degree of relationship between two variables is strong enough. Based on the statement, the increasing of grammar score is followed by writing and listening scores in other words, students that are good at grammar they will be good at writing and listening. REFERENCE Arbain. (2017). Students Narrative Essay Construction Ability. JELE (Journal of English Education) 3(1). Bano. (2017). Towards Understanding Listening Comprehension in EFL Classroom: The Case of the Saudi Learners. English Language Teaching. Canadian Center of Science and Education. 10(6). Calkins, L & Ehrenworth, M. (2016). Growing Extraordinary Writers: Leadership Decisions to Raise the level of Writing Across a School and a District. The Reading Teacher. 70(1), pp. 7-18. 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