Student-centered learning approach in teaching basic grammar

The study determined the effect of student-centered learning approach in teaching basic grammar of the tenth-grade students. Specifically, this study sought answers to following questions: 1). How does the result of the pre-test compare to that of post-test of the control and experimental groups? 2). Is there any significant difference in the results of the test between the control and experimental groups? 3). What is student-centered teaching guide in basic grammar that can be developed based on the findings of the study? It was applied an experimental research design in this study. The result in the post-test of the control and experimental groups showed that the computed the T value of 3.03 was higher than the tabular value of 2.03, at the degree of freedom of 34, at 5% level of significance. This condition rejects the null hypothesis that there is no significant difference in the mean scores in the post-test of the control and experimental groups. The student-centered teaching guide enhanced the students’ writing skill in the basic grammar of the tenth-grade students in the experimental group.

Journal on English as a Foreign Language, 7(2), 209-226 Copyright © 2017by JEFL, p-ISSN 2088-1657;e-ISSN 2502-6615 knowledge of writing skill.Besides, it is also apparent that in the literate culture nowadays, some degree of writing skill has become a prerequisite requirement for getting employment.
The Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia Number 20, 2003, mandate all schools and teachers to teach all Indonesian students to become creative, faithful, and to develop their potentials in the academics in any of the three kinds of education in Indonesia, i.e.Informal education, non-formal education, and formal education.It is the reason why the researcher finds an interest to do research about and use Student-Centered Learning approach in improving students' writing skill.
As an English teacher, developing students' writing skill especially in basic grammar is a great responsibility, because most of the students do not know how to choose the appropriate vocabulary and the part of speech, specifically the verb.This study expects to increase the student's understanding in choosing the appropriate vocabulary in every sentence.Writing is a macro skill that should be learned well and should be emphasized as it reflects the student higher thinking skills.It is in this point of view that student-centered learning approach is an effective way to make students understand about basic grammar creatively.Henry (2005, p. 1) mentioned that writing is one of the most significant cultural accomplishments of a human being.It allows us to record and convey information and stories beyond the immediate moment.Writing allows us to communicate at a distance, either at a distant place or at a distant time.
Meanwhile, Pethy (2012, p. 17) stated that writing is a mental and physical act of forming letter and word.It means that people can communicate to each other through writing.Dust and Newel (2007, p. 31) suggest that writing is further used as a tool for gathering, remembering, and sharing subject matter.It will help the students organize the most important information from lecturers, literature, and texts.It also will be available for later review and study.
Additionally, King (2002, p. 2) mentioned that writing skill is a program of comprehensive writing that is performed for beginning, struggling, at-risk writers.It is able to help someone becomes good writers.Writing skill also gives special instruction in spelling, handwriting, and keyboarding.Writing skill is able to build the fluency and confidence of students and providing the variety of strategy and opportunity in applying it.Anne (2006, p. 7) added writing is one of the skills that is connected with emotions, feelings, language thoughts, experiences, mechanical actions and different strategies.
There are a lot of definitions stated by experts; one of which is by Raymond in 1980.It was stated that writing is more than a medium of communication.It means that writing is not just a way to communicate to each other but also a means expressing ideas and emotions.Writing makes word permanent, and thus expands the collective memory of human beings from the relatively small store that we can remember and pass on orally to the infinite capacity of a modern library.
It is able to be concluded that writing is also a way of finding out what people know and what people need to learn.Spoken words disappear as soon as they are spoken, but writing freezes their thoughts, makes them visible and permanent so people can examine and test their quality.It can be seen that writing is a way of remembering because it makes word permanent and writing also is a good way to communicate because, in writing, it really thinks about what he or she wants to say.Rise and Charles (1983, p. 4) said that writing is a process of discovering and shaping meaning.Experienced writers rarely gather and understand immediately all the information they need.From the definitions above, writing is a process which must be surpassed by the writer, and a tool to share information or stories to others because someone can read it several times.Essential writing will need a long process from the planning, drafting, writing, and revising (Langan, 2006, p. 20).This process can be done by anyone, especially students.The stages of writing process help students learn writing, so they will be able to acquire this skill easily and be able to make a good writing output.
When someone writes, he or she has purposes.Each writer has his own purpose, in accordance with the text he or she was planning to write.In addition, based on Competency Standard (SK) and Basic Competency (KD), the second year students are expected to be able to express meaningful ideas in terms of functional text and simple short essay in the form of descriptive and recount to interact with people in their nearest environment.Braine and May (1996, p. 141) defined four common purposes in writing: writing to inform; writing to explain; writing to persuade, and writing to amuse others.First, writing to inform purposed to educate the readers about a particular topic.This writing provides interesting details and facts to hold an audience's attention.It means that writers share interest knowledge to readers knows.Second, writing to explain is to describe the topic which was not clear, by using examples or other facts.In other words, a writer takes what is unclear and makes it clear.Then, writing to persuade is more demanding and more ambitious than many other types of writing.It means that writers convince the readers to accept the ideas.The last, writing to amuse other means someone who uses language and established forms well to express his or her point of view.It is writing to entertain and give the reader something to enjoy.
Journal on English as a Foreign Language, 7(2), 209-226 Copyright © 2017by JEFL, p-ISSN 2088-1657;e-ISSN 2502-6615 Writing process includes learning how to write.This current emphasis in writing instruction focuses on the process of creating writing rather than the end product.The basic premise of the writing process is that all children, regardless of age, can write.The initial focus is on creating quality content and learning the genres of writing.Betty (2003, p. 25) stated that writing is a process that involves the following steps: Discovering a point-often through prewriting, developing solid support for the point-often through more prewriting, organizing the supporting material and writing it out in a first draft, and revising and then editing carefully to ensure an effective, error-free paper.
Prewriting is the first stage of the writing process, a time of discovering your ideas.In other words, prewriting is any activity designed to help students generate or organize their ideas before writing.The prewriting methods discussed are designed to get started: to generate ideas, to recall facts and anecdotes, to realize patterns (Donald & Buscemi, 2005, p. 40).However, these activities are preliminary before writing a draft; need to establish a structure for an essay.It also helps the writer to generate ideas and allows the writer to see the connections among those ideas.The second step is drafting.Drafting is making a draft of the goal to state the main idea clearly and develop the content with plenty of specific details.In addition, an essay gets stronger as the drafting process continues.As the essay evolves and develops, the writer also gets more and more invested in the process and its outcome.No one is able to write a perfect first draft, even people who tend to write very strong first draft essays realize the need for revision and redrafting.Then, revising is rewriting a paper, building upon what has already been done, in order to make it stronger.The last step is editing.Editing is the stage where the students are engaged in tidying up their texts as they prepare the final draft for evaluation by checking a paper for mistakes in grammar, punctuation, usage, and spelling (Richard, 2002, p. 319).
Writing is not easy.An experienced writer will often labor over a single paragraph for more than an hour-not counting the thought and research that went on before the actual writing (James, 2008, p. 7).Therefore, many problems are faced by teachers and students.
The writing skills are complex and difficult to teach.According to Kane (2004, p. 13), writing involves the following rules.Firstly, grammatical rules mean ability to write correct sentences.Secondly, usage rules mean the ability to make sentences and use language effectively.Third, mechanical rules mean the ability to use correctly those conventions peculiar to a written language.E.g., punctuation and spelling.
The first problem is "the less proficient writer" problem (Gebhard, 2006, p. 223).Less proficient writers jump the process of writing by skip the Journal on English as a Foreign Language, 7(2), 209-226 Copyright © 2017by JEFL, p-ISSN 2088-1657;e-ISSN 2502-6615 prewriting strategies to generate ideas.Students might take much time to write down their ideas.The suggestion for this problem is a teacher should teach less proficient writers the writing process.Teachers also need to give full attention to them, to show them how to plan a piece of writing through prewriting activities.The second problem is "I can't write English" problem.Students usually give up toward writing and believe that they cannot write.The solution is teachers should apply the writing process to the students.Teachers can lead students through prewriting, drafting, and revising activities.By doing this, students can see that writing is indeed a process of development that takes time and effort.The last problem is "teacher response" problem.Writing teachers often spend many hours reading and marking students' papers.The suggestion for this problem is teachers can work with students on developing their written work through student-to-student conferences.
When the teachers find the difficulty in teaching writing, according to Raimes (2005, p. 2) there are some principles in teaching writing: (1) Focus on Form.The current traditional approach is text-based; (2) Focus on the writer.The process approach concentrates on writer's writing process.(3) Focus on the reader.The genre approach is centered on the purpose of communication between the reader and the writer.
Active learning is an approach to instruction in which students employ the material that they study through reading, writing, speaking, listening, and reflecting.Student active learning or Students centered learning stands in contrast to "standard modes of instruction in which teachers do most of the active and the students are only passive.Bonwell and Eison (2006, p. 2) stated that defining students centered learning as the activity which involves the students in doing things and thinking about the things they are doing.It means that the students should do more than just listen to the teachers, they must read, write, discuss, or be engaged in solving problems.
Student-Centered Learning (SCL) is mentioned on Gibbs (2005, p. 1) describes that student-centered learning emphasized the students' activity rather than passivity; students' experience on the course outside the institution and prior to the course; process and competence, rather than content; where the key decisions about learning are made by the student through negotiation with the teacher.Moreover, Harden and Crosby (2000, p. 334) defined studentcentered learning as focusing on the students' learning and 'what students do to achieve this, rather than what the teacher does.
Student-centered learning (SCL) is an instructional method in which students influence the content, activities, materials, and pace of learning.This learning model places the student (learner) in the center of the learning process.
The instructor provides students with opportunities to learn independently and from one another and coaches them in the skills they need to do so effectively.The Student-centered learning approach includes such techniques as substituting active learning experiences for lectures, assigning open-ended problems and problems requiring critical or creative thinking that cannot be solved by following text examples, involving students in simulations and role plays, and using self-paced and/or cooperative (team-based) learning (Collins & O'Brien, 2003, p. 29).
In a traditional classroom, students become passive learners, or rather just recipients of teachers' knowledge and wisdom.They have no control over their own learning.Teachers make all the decisions concerning the curriculum, teaching methods, and the different forms of assessment.Duckworth (2009, p. 5) asserts that teacher-centered learning actually prevents students' educational growth.
In brief, the Student-Centered method is based on the hypothesis that students who are given the freedom to explore areas based on their personal interests, and who are accompanied in their striving for solutions by a supportive, understanding facilitator not only achieve higher academic results but also experience an increase in personal values, such as flexibility, selfconfidence, and social skills.This method, also known as experiential learning, requires specific personal attitudes on the side of the instructor who takes over the role of a facilitator.These attitudes are highly transparent, open communication, positive regard towards students and the seeking for deep understanding (Rodgers, 2013, p. 125).Collins and O'Brien (2003, p. 25) mentioned that the SCL method includes such techniques as substituting active learning experiences for lectures, assigning open-ended problems and problems requiring critical or creative thinking that cannot be solved by following text examples, involving students in simulations and role plays, and using self-paced and/or cooperative (team-based) learning.Properly implemented SCL can lead to increased motivation to learn, greater retention of knowledge, deeper understanding, and more positive attitudes towards the subject being taught.
In conclusion, Student-Centered Learning method (SCL) is a method that focuses on the students' activity rather than the teachers'.Student-centered learning is also known as learner-centered education, broadly encompasses methods of teaching that shift the focus of instruction from the teacher to the student.In original usage, student-centered learning aims to develop learner autonomy and independence.Student-centered learning puts students' interests first, acknowledging student voice as central to the learning experience.In a student-centered classroom, students choose what they will learn, how they will learn, and how they will assess their own learning.
This study was anchored on the Constructivism Theory espoused by Brunner (2002, p. 16) who gave significant insight in the formulation of the researcher's theory.Constructivism is basically a theory based on observation and scientific study about how people learn.It says that people construct their own understanding and knowledge of the world, through experiencing things and reflecting it with their previous ideas and experiences.
Writing is one of the most significant cultural accomplishments of a human being.It allows us to record and convey information and stories beyond the immediate moment.Writing allows us to communicate at a distance, either at a distant place or at a distant time.
The use of student-centered approach in teaching basic grammar is also backed up by the creative writing theory by Burges (2001. p. 3).It is stated that creative writing is any writing that goes outside the bounds of normal professional, journalistic, academic, or technical forms of literature, typically identified by an emphasis on narrative craft, character development, and the use of literary tropes or with various traditions of poetry and poetics.Due to the looseness of the definition, it is possible for writing such as feature stories to be considered creative writing, even though they fall under journalism because the content of features is specifically focused on narrative and character development.Both fictional and non-fictional works fall into this category, including such forms as novels, biographies, short stories, and poems.In the academic setting, creative writing is typically separated into fiction and poetry classes, with a focus on writing in an original style, as opposed to imitating preexisting genres such as crime or horror.
While Tracey (2008, p. 3) stated that the major purpose of this case study was to document the classroom management beliefs and practices of three teachers reputed to implement student-centered instruction and to examine the relationship between their instructional and managerial approaches.Results indicate that, although all three teachers used an eclectic approach, two teachers tended to be more student-centered while one was more teacher-centered with respect to classroom management.All three teachers' approaches also reflected the principles of "good classroom management" derived from studies conducted in the 1960's and 1970's in traditional transmission classrooms.Results also indicate that the teachers did think about the relationship between instruction and classroom management, but not in terms of using studentcentered management to support their student-centered instruction.Khademi (2014, p. 11) stated that most studies in the field of comparing traditional teaching methods and student-centered approach in medical science indicate that most students tend to the traditional method.However, evidence indicates increasing use of student-centered teaching styles.Some studies also show more effect and priority of student-centered approach on student learning.This indicates that there is a need to a student-centered learning environment, but in practice, its application is troublesome.Channa (2014, p. 18) stated that students are expected to know how to synthesize information, determine what's important, and present what they have learned and been able to answer any questions that may come up about the content and process of learning.In this way, Impact's assessment model, exhibitions, and defenses become the ultimate measure of whether a student fully understands a concept.Ghadah (2014, p. 9) stated that building students 'confidence that they "can do it" was the main goal of conducting the workshop.Giving the students' the first experience to live even though its struggles, gave them at the end the satisfaction and success feeling which they deserve because learning is fun.Which other students could not get as a result of their financial or political issues.Learning should be fun and enjoyable, not boring and killing the students' innovation and creativity.Learning should encourage students to express their voices to be heard and discuss with their instructors and peers.
All of these references above relate to the main topic in this paper about the way how to use and practice the student-centered learning in teaching, especially in teaching basic grammar.

METHOD
This research is an experimental research.Experimental research is a research that provides treatment (manipulation) of the variables (independent variables), and then observes the consequences of the treatment on the object of study (the dependent variable).The method that is used in this research is quasi-experimental methods (quasi).
In this particular design, before did the experimental and control groups were carefully selected by using appropriate randomization procedures, the researcher observed the class; it was to know the situation and the enthusiasm of students in learning process.Both of the experimental and control groups gave pre-test before the treatment and posttest after the treatment.The experiment condition or treatment was administered to the experimental group and not for the control group, keeping all conditions the same for both groups.This was necessary so that the only difference is the manipulation of the independent variable.The subjects were devided into two groups, the experimental group and control group.The experimental group is taught by using Student-Centered Learning approach whereas the control group is taught by using the traditional method.
The subject-respondents of this research were representative samples from seven classes.It utilized 70 students selected through simple random sampling technique.The selection of subject was determined by the use of fishbowl technique.
The result of pre-test and post-test of the respondents were the data used in evaluating the performance level of student-respondents.The formula for computing the performance level of the students was discussed under the statistical tools used.The T-test used for computing the data to determine whether there was a significant difference in the students' writing skills of the two groups and to accept or reject the null hypothesis.
Creswell (2008, p. 190) stated that descriptive analysis indicates general tendencies in the data (mean, mode, median), the spread of score (variance, deviation, and range), or a comparison of how one score relates to all others.The descriptive analysis is used to find the average score.In this research, the data were interpreted based on the mean and the standard deviation.In addition, Creswell (2008, p. 195) stated that hypothesis test is the procedure of making a decision about the result by comparing an observed value of the sample with population value to determine the difference or relationship between the values.

FINDINGS
Based on the results of the observation, it could be concluded that only 50% of the students were active and enthusiastic, but half of the students need more attention from the teacher in the learning process.Thus, the students found it difficult to answer and respond to the teacher's questions and explanations.
The researcher conducted the observation to find and assess the students' problems in English, especially in basic grammar.This finding was evident in the result of the writing test in basic grammar and their daily test provided by the teacher.The result was not good enough, so it made the researcher interested to try and find out ways or approach how to teach writing, especially in basic grammar, more interesting by the use of the studentcentered approach.
Most of the students find the difficulties in organizing their ideas to create a paragraph or sentences and made a lot of grammatical errors, and the sentences were influenced by the students' mother tongue.The students also Journal on English as a Foreign Language, 7(2), 209-226 Copyright © 2017by JEFL, p-ISSN 2088-1657;e-ISSN 2502-6615 found the difficulties in choosing appropriate vocabulary; they did not know the meaning of the words which made it difficult for them to express their ideas.
In addition, the condition of the class before the researcher facilitated the student-centered approach was also described in several conditions.Based on the observation sheet stated that the students' attitude and motivation towards basic grammar were low.It appeared that the students were not active, creative, and enthusiastic to ask the question about basic grammar.They were also shy and not confident to present their writings in front of the class.
After knowing the situation of the class, the researcher proceeded in administering the pre-test, the data was collected to measure the student's competencies along the components of writing skills in basic grammar.
Before the researcher gave the students material using student-centered learning approach, the researcher gave the students pre-test.A pre-test was designed to cover all of the topics to be learned during the study.Meanwhile, taking the pre-test means to know the students' knowledge regarding basic grammar.

Pre-test Result of the Control Group and Experimental Group
The pre-test was administered to both control and experimental groups to determine the entry level.Results of the mean performance in the pre-test are found in Table 1.The result shows that the mean scores of the control and experimental groups in the pre-test were 52.1 and 51 respectively, interpreted as satisfactory.The purpose of the pre-test given to the students in a form of multiple choices is to measure their writing skill in basic grammar which is the main focus of this study.Considering the scores of the students, it can be concluded that a large percentage of the students need to improve their basic grammar in writing skills although the interpretation was satisfactory.It was because the standard score for passed the subject of English grammar in high school of montessori Phillipines should be more than 70.
The findings imply that the students of the control and experimental groups had the same entry level in terms of their writing performance which was a very good indicator in determining the homogeneity of the groups (Table 2).The result of homogeneity test that was shown in the table above which stated that FO=1.071 and FTable=1.772with α= 5%, it appeared that FO < FTable.It meant that the experimental and control groups are homogeneous.Noel (2010, p. 19) supported this finding that since the two classes have almost the same performance level at the start of the experiment; they are much suited to the research subject of the study, which means that there is the homogeneity of the subjects that comprise the control group.

Post-Test Result of the Control and Experimental Groups
After the treatment, the post-test was administered and the same analysis with the pre-test was done, and the result is shown in Table 3.The main score in the post-test of the control group was higher than the score obtained in the pre-test.However, the mean score was only 64.91.Comparing the mean scores of the experimental class before and after the treatment, the score was higher after the treatment as indicated by 70.5 mean rating, interpreted as very satisfactory.This result implied that the treatment that was given to the experimental group had increased students' achievements performance, particularly in basic grammar.
Such findings were consistent with the study of Ambelu (2011, p. 14) which discloses that the use of the student-centered approach to improving students' graphical interpretation skills explained that by using studentcentered approach, the students feel happy and more active in the learning process.It can be concluded that the students can reach the minimum standard competence that is defined by the school.Thus, student-centered learning approach provided a positive result in teaching basic grammar.

Test of Significant Difference of the Mean Scores in the Pre-Test and Post-Test of the Control and Experimental Groups
The T-test was used to determine the effect of the student-centered learning approach in the experimental group as against the use of the traditional method to the control group.
Before comparing the result of pre-test and post-test between control and experimental groups, the researcher computed and compared the result of pretest and post-test in the control and experimental groups.Table 4 shows the comparison in the pre-test and the post-test result of the control and the experimental groups.Based on the table above, the researcher could conclude that there was a significant difference in the pre-test and post-test in experimental group after given the treatment by using the student-centered approach in teaching basic grammar.It was shown by T value=13.28which is higher that tabular value=2.03, at df=34, and the level of significance 5%.It meant that the use of student-centered approach had increased the students' writing skill significantly especially in basic grammar.While the result of pre-test and posttest in control group had also increased a bit.
Next, the findings reveal that computed T value based on the result of the pre-test in the control and experimental groups is 0.14, such as lower than the tabular value of 2.03 at df of 34, at 5% level of significance.Thus, the null hypothesis stated that there is no significant difference of the result between control and experimental group was accepted.Table 5 shows the comparison in the pre-test of control and experimental groups and the post-test result of control and experimental groups.However, the result of the post-test of the control and experimental groups showed that T value of 3.03 was higher than the Tabular value of 2.03, at df of 34 and 5% level of significance.This result rejected the null hypothesis that there is no significant difference in the result of post-test of control and experimental groups.The results showed that the performance in the post-test of control and experimental groups vary, revealing the positive effect of student-centered learning approach as the teaching guide in basic grammar.The use of student-centered learning approach had indeed improved the performance in basic grammar, from satisfactory to be very satisfactory.
These findings are confirmed by Ghadah (2014, p. 9) explained that building students 'confidence that they "can do it" was the main goal of conducting the workshop.Giving the students' the first experience to live even though they struggle, gave them at the end the satisfaction and success feeling that they deserve because learning is joyful.
Based on the aforementioned data, it could be deduced that studentcentered learning approach was an effective pedagogical approach that could meet the students' needs and learning objectives in any field of writing skills.Further, the student-centered approach demonstrated flexibility and could be adapted to the requirements of students and teachers in different subject areas.
The following were the salient findings of this research, such as the mean score in the pre-test of the control and experimental groups were 52.1 and 51 interpreted as satisfactory in both groups.The mean scores of the control groups in the post-test were 64.85, interpreted as satisfactory, while 70.5 in the experimental groups interpreted as very satisfactory.
The computed T value based on the result in the pre-test of the control and experimental groups was 0.14.It was lesser than the tabular value of 2.03, at df of 34, and 5% level of significance.This result indicated that there was no significant difference in the mean scores of the pre-test of the control and experimental groups.These findings proved that from the start, the mean scores were good in both groups.The result in the post-test of the control and Journal on English as a Foreign Language, 7(2), 209-226 Copyright © 2017by JEFL, p-ISSN 2088-1657;e-ISSN 2502-6615 experimental groups showed that the computed value of T value of 3.03 was higher than the tabular value of 2.03, at df of 34, and 5% level of significance.This condition rejected the null hypothesis that there is no significant difference in the mean scores in the post-test of the control and experimental groups.

DISCUSSION
This research determined the effect of student-centered learning approach in teaching basic grammar to the tenth-grade students.Specifically, this study sought answers to the following questions: 1) How is the result of the pre-test compared that of post-test of the control and experimental groups?, 2) Is there a significant difference in the result of the test between the control and experimental groups?.
This research assumed that: 1).The use of student-centered approach in teaching basic grammar has positive effects on learners writing skills.2).A student-centered teaching guide in basic grammar can be developed based on the finding of the study.
The research tested the null hypothesis that there is no significant difference between the students provided with the student-centered learning approach from the students under the traditional method to improve students' writing skills in basic grammar.
The investigation was delimited on the comparison of students' writing skill in basic grammar before and after the treatment of the students.There were two groups of this research, consisted of a control and experimental groups.They were taken from six classes of the tenth-grade students.Each group comprised of 35 students, taken randomly by using the fishbowl technique.
The result of the test before and after applying the treatment was computed to determine the student's performance in basic grammar and writing skills.The mean performance in the test was computed by adding the scores divided by the number of students in separate groups, while the T-test computation was done by using the statistical software, the Microsoft Excel Formulations.

CONCLUSION
Based on the findings, the following conclusions drawn from the research are the mean score of experimental group is higher than that of control group, the post-test result of the control and experimental groups varies significantly, and the use of student-centered learning approach in teaching basic grammar significantly improves the performance of students' writing skill in basic grammar, particularly in the experimental group.

Table 1 .
Pre-test Result of the Control and Experimental Groups

Table 3 .
Post-Test Result of the Experimental and Control Groups

Table 4 .
The Result of Pre-Test and Post-Test in Control and Experimental Group

Table 5 .
The Result of Pre-Test and Post-Test of the Control and Experimental Groups