THE CORRELATION BETWEEN STUDENTS’ GRAMMAR KNOWLEDGE

AND THEIR SPEAKING ABILITY

Dian Islamiati

S1 – English Education, Teaching and Education Sciences Faculty, Swadaya Gunung

Jati University, Cirebon

dianislamiati82@gmail.com

Abstract

Speaking is one of English skill that should be mastered by the learners which also called
the hardest skill between three others skill. As the hardest skill, some students faced some
trouble when speaking. Most of them are hesitate and bother which correct structure to
use when speaking. In the end, they tend to end their speaking quickly to prevent their
mistake in using the proper grammar in their speaking. Some expert has been stated that
having good grammar knowledge can help to speaking more effective and accurate. This
research aimed to analyze whether the students’ grammar knowledge has correlation with
their speaking ability, and to describe the speaking skill of the students in simple present,
past tense and simple future tense. The study was conducted in Department of English
Education Faculty of Teaching and Educational Science of Swadaya Gunung Jati
University which used descriptive quantitative methods. The sample was 28 students
which was taken by cluster random sampling. The instruments used to obtain the data
were multiple choice test and speaking (interview). The multiple choice test was used to
obtain the students’ grammar knowledge and the interview was used to measure the
students’ speaking ability. The results showed that the r value was 0.38 which can be
implied that there is correlation between students’ grammar knowledge and their speaking
ability but in a low relation. The findings showed that whether the students who got high
score in grammar did not mean they also got high score in speaking and vice versa. It can
be concluded that students’ grammar knowledge plays important factor in giving
contribution to their speaking ability.
Keywords: Speaking Ability, Grammar Knowledge, Correlation

INTRODUCTION strengthen the globalization and other

business not exception in Indonesia.
English as oral language has
English has been introduced as the
become international language in the
foreign language in Indonesia from
world. Many countries which have not
elementary school. Talking about
use English as their language try to learn
English will always relate to the four
English beside their mother tongue to
skills (Listening, Reading, Writing and
Speaking) that should be mastered by the
learners. Speaking is one of the difficult
skill among the other skills (Brown &
Yule as cited in Tuan & Mal, 2015).
Speaking, as a communicative
competence has categorized into four
components including grammar,
sociolinguistic, strategic and discourse
competence (Canale and Swain quoted
in Tuan & Mal, 2015). As Brown (2004,
p.141-142) stated that there are five
aspects of speaking; vocabulary,
pronunciation, grammar, fluency and
comprehension.
All of those aspects should be
good enough to be able in mastering
speaking ability as an effective speaker.
The purpose of speaking effectively is
being able to use a proper word, produce
every sentence in the right order,
pronounce a word just like a native and
the main purpose is being able to speak
as natural as possible. Speaking English
is interesting topic in Indonesia as
Gunawan (2016 in Tribun News)
published a news talking about Indonesia
is in 32nd rank of 72 countries in
mastering English based on English
Proficiency Index Survey that has done
by Steve Crooks, a director of
Educational Research and Development
of EF (English First) Global. The writer
found some causes and the main cause is
grammar.
Grammar is the study of the
classes of words, their infections and
their functions and relations in the
sentence (Merriam-Webster, 2017).
From that news, it means many
Indonesian learners face difficulty when
they asked to speak English. The big
problem is they are afraid to start
speaking because of their lacking in
grammar. They feel grammar is the big
obstacle for them to start speaking
English. Canale & Swain (1980 as cited
in Kumar, et al, 2015) proposed that
grammatical competence was
unseparated part of communicative
competence. One cannot communicate
effectively without having the
knowledge of grammar. Thornburry
(1999, p.15) also said that grammar is the
fundamental course machine generator
in every language in general. That means
learners need to pay attention on the
accuracy when they speech. If they fail,
their speech will be barely
understandable. Without good grammar
competence, learners will never be
certain of what to speak and how to
speak which in the end it will result in a
very halting speech.
Having good grammar
knowledge is being able to use the right
grammar in every situation. For
example, if the speaker wants to talk
about event in the past, the usage verb is
V2 and a sentence which is presented for
daily activity will use V1, etc. Look at
this example, “What did you do last
night?”. Sometimes, learners’ answer is
“I eat Pasta”. That answer is
grammatically wrong, because the
question refers to the action in the past,
they should use V2. “I ate Pasta” is the
right answer. So if one speaks
grammatically wrong, how can we say
he/she is effective speaker even though
his/her speaking is good? It means
grammar play important role in speaking
and indispensable for speaking ability.
Grammar is one of components that
should be included in speaking. With
grammar, the participant will know the
time, the word order and the structure
about something that you just speak
about. In order to speak English fluently,
the learners should know the right rules
to speak English or grammar
competence. That shows grammar and
speaking ability has relation one another
that can’t be separated.
Even though speaking and
grammar have relation one another, but
there are some possibilities that learners
have good score in grammar, they do not
good score in speaking or vice versa.
Priyanto and Amin (2015) found that one
has a good grammar score but cannot
perform well in speaking, otherwise one
performs well in speaking but
surprisingly has bad score in grammar as
Priyanti and Amin (20015) that students
quite difficult to take into account
various speaking strategies which are
crucial to overall comprehension in
speaking and struggle to find which
forms to use.
METHOD
The writer used quantitative
method because this method was
appropriate with the paper which analyze
the correlation between students’
grammar knowledge and their speaking
ability. The writer wanted to know a) Is
there any correlation between students’
grammar knowledge and their speaking
ability? b) How is the speaking skill of
the students in simple present, past tense
and simple future tense? The result of
this research showed a particular statistic
which was explained based on the fact.
This research had two variables
which consist of two independent
variables. The first independent variable
was the students’ speaking ability and
the second independent variable was the
students’ grammar knowledge.
The population of the study was
the first year students of Department of
English Education Faculty of Teaching
and Educational Science of Swadaya
Gunung Jati University which consist of
90 students. The sampling was done
randomly by clustered random sampling
technique in which she chose one of
rolled paper. Thus, the sampling was 28
students of class B.
The writer used test to measure
the grammar knowledge of the sample
while to know their speaking ability, the
writer did interview about themselves,
their experience and planning. The
grammar test consisted of 30 items of
multiple choice test about simple
present, past tense and simple future
tense. The test itself was taken from
English Grammar apps from Google
Play store. The test items scored either
correct or incorrect, with correct answer
as 1 and incorrect 0. The interview was
also done to know the students’ speaking
ability which is asked three questions to
the students in simple present, past tense,
and simple future tense. This activity
focused on their accuracy rather than the
other elements of speaking.
RESULTS whole sample who spoke with accuracy
The grammar knowledge of the and got high score. More than half of the
sample was tested by multiple choice test sample specially 15 students (53.6%)
which consist of 30 item and the sample speak inaccurate and got 60.
shows various scores. The highest score The researcher proceeded to
was 90 and the lowest score was 50. The calculate the r value using Pearson
mean was 63.18. The grammar score is Product Moment formula using SPSS. It
categorized by defining the high and low was discovered that significance level is
score limits. If they were higher to 76 as 0.044. It means the null hypothesis is
high and low if they were lower or equal rejected and alternative hypothesis is
to 76. accepted because the significance level
Table 1. Grammar Test Score is less than 0.05. Furthermore, the
Distribution coefficient correlation between grammar
Category Number of Percentage knowledge and speaking ability of first
Students (%) grade of Swadaya Gunung Jati students
Low 26 93% was 0.38. In order to interpret the
correlation strength that the value
High 2 7%
represents, it was referred to the
correlation criteria established by Bartz
Based on the established criteria,
(as cited in Priyanto & Amin, 2012),
there were 26 students or 93% of the
which described as follows:
whole sample who scored less than 76,
Table 3. Correlation Criteria
while there were 2 students (7%) who
The Criteria The Description
were found to score very high more than
Very high r .80 or above
76.
Strong r .60 to .80
Meanwhile the result of the
speaking shows various score, the Moderate r .40 to .60
highest score was 80 and 60 for the Low r .20 to .40
lowest score with the range was 20 and Very low r .20 or less
the mean was 66.79.
Table 2. Speaking Test Score Based on the table 3, the r value
Distribution of the result is 0.38, the correlation can
Speaking be categorized as low which starts from
Score Frequency Percent 0.20 to 0.40 based on Bartz. It can be
60 15 53.6% concluded that there is correlation
70 7 25% between students’ grammar knowledge
80 6 21.4% and their speaking ability. Aside from
Total 28 100% that results, there were another finding
which do not seem to conform to the
Based on the table above, there generalization described above. Among
were only 6 students or 21.4 % of the the sample, there were some subject who
got low score in grammar surprisingly of the students’ score distribution. The
got high score in speaking and in contrast result showed that grammar knowledge
some students who score quite high in of the students has contributed with their
the speaking yet performed poorly in speaking ability. One cannot speak
grammar test. Table 4 and 5 below list clearly and accurate without proper
these students. grammar as Thornburry (1999, p.15-17)
Table. 4 Grammar Score Higher than declared that good understanding over
Speaking Score such rules make people can
Subject Grammar Speaking communicate and use the language more
S-2 63 60 effective. In the same line that perception
S-9 83 70 also stated by Kumar et al (2015) that
S-13 70 60 effective speaking involves knowing
S-14 70 60 how to use the proper grammar of the
S-21 70 60 language. The speaking result of this
S-25 90 80 research showed various score. Even
though they got various score, some
Table. 5 Speaking Score Higher than subject still unconsciously use
Grammar Score inappropriate verb to express their mind
Subject Grammar Speaking while speaking. They are still mistaken
S-4 70 80 of using Verb 1, Verb 2, and to Be in the
S-5 56 70 specific tenses. In simple tense, they
S-12 66 70 should use Verb 1 but some of them still
S-15 66 70 misplace with the other verb. While, in
S-16 56 80 the simple past tense’s problem, they still
S-17 60 70 miss used the verb of the sentence. They
S-20 50 70 still used Verb 1 other than Verb 2 that
S-23 60 70 explained about their experience in the
S-26 70 80 past. Furthermore, all of the samples do
S-27 66 80 not face difficulties and hesitate for
S-28 66 80 answering the question which is required
simple future tense.
DISCUSSION According to the result, there are
The results of the study reveal some findings in which some subject
that there is correlation between who got low score in grammar
students’ grammar knowledge and their surprisingly got high score in speaking
speaking ability. Moreover, with the r and in contrast some students who score
value of the result is 0.38, the correlation quite high in the speaking yet performed
can be categorized as low. As for the poorly in grammar test. It looks like
reason why correlation coefficient is not while they try to comprehend many
very high, it is because of the variability English grammatical rules, they fail to
take the right rule into speaking
strategies. Moreover, it could be
probably because of the various
grammatical rules that they know, it
makes struggle which forms or structure
to use and they may be some extrovert
students who never come easy when
dealing with the speaking so they tend to
end the speaking quickly as Ur (1996,
p.121) point out some trouble of
speaking such as inhabitation, nothing to
say, low participation, mother-tongue
use. In contrast several students who
poorly in grammar but got high score in
speaking. It is maybe their understanding
over the various rules of grammar still
lack but they have a good grasp on
various speaking strategies, they did not
bother about which correct structure to
use and they did not just stop in silence
when they hesitated or thought about
what the next thing that they wanted to
tell. Both findings are indeed interesting
but it needs further investigation to
clearly explain what underlies both
phenomena.
Additionally, the similar result
also has been conducted and got
moderate correlation. The findings of
that result showed whether the students
who got minimum score in grammar test
did not mean they also got bad score in
speaking and vice versa. There are
students who got high score both in
grammar and speaking. It can be
concluded that grammar is a basic thing
to make affective communication but it
does not show all of grammar features
are useful in speaking (Priyanto & Amin,
2012).
In the same though as what
Priyanto and Amin’s statements that
grammar is a basic thing to make
communication more effective, it does
not mean all of grammar features are
useful in the speaking but grammar
cannot be detached from speaking.
Furthermore, speaking for the academic
purpose, all of grammar feature should
be paid attention because it requires
someone’s speaking ability which can be
assessed.
CONCLUSION
From the result that has been
examined and analyzed by using SPSS
(Pearson Correlation Product Moment)
formula, it was discovered that the
significance level was lower than α
(0.05) which means that the correlation
is significant. In addition, it was
discovered that the r value was 0.38
which implies the correlation between
two variables is low based on the
correlation criteria by Bartz (1976 as
cited in Priyanto and Amin, 2012). In
other words, there is a correlation
between students’ grammar knowledge
and their speaking ability of the first year
students in the English Education
Faculty of Teaching and Educational
Science of Swadaya Gunung Jati
University because the data showed the
significance result of correlation.
Even though almost all of the
students still made a mistake and
hesitated which correct form to use in
their speaking, the research findings also
showed interesting result which showed
number of students who got high score in
grammar but surprisingly performed speaking ability, good grammar
poorly in speaking and vice versa but it knowledge tends to go with the good
can be still inferred that students’ speaking ability and vice versa.
grammar knowledge give effect to their

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