Teaching Grammar Through Data-Driven Learning (DDL) Approach

摘要

Although English has been taught as a compulsory subject from elementary to college level, many students consider English a challenging one especially when dealing with grammar. This paper reported an implementation of teaching grammar to students specialized in midwifery by integrating a Data-Driven Approach (DDL) into grammar teaching. DDL approach has gained popularity in English Language Teaching (ELT) in the last decade considering its benefits to empowering students to learn grammar inductively, and encourage students to be active. This research was qualitative at large and conducted in an EFL class of midwifery major at a state university in Karawang regency, West Java. Thirty students participated in this research. It lasted two months, in which students prepared and worked on specific grammar items, for example, conjunction, countable and uncountable nouns, and possessive pronoun, for about ninety minutes in the class hour. Student responses were drawn to reveal their attitudes and responses towards the implementation of the DDL approach in teaching grammar. The results showed the way the DDL approach was implemented in teaching grammar through four stages of teaching procedures, as proposed by Oghigian and Chujo (2010), including hypothesis formation through inductive DDL tasks, explicit explanation from the teacher to conform or to correct these hypotheses, hypotheses testing through follow-up exercises (homework) and teacher feedback on homework, and production through follow-up exercises (in class) and teacher feedback on homework. In addition, most students responded positively towards the implementation of DDL in learning grammar. The research concluded that DDL approach can be an effective learning approach to teaching and learning grammar for its incentives to encourage students to be active language learners.