Actualizing Learning English Grammar Strategy Using New Inventory for University Students

Learning grammar strategies have been explored by students and teachers. Moreover, research on this issue has been done by several researchers. However, new inventory to measure learning English grammar strategy has been developed and not implemented to identify students’ learning strategy. Thus, the present study aimed to implement and identify the students’ English learning grammar strategy by using new inventory. Besides, this study also wanted to know the challenges of students in implementing those strategies. This study used Mixed method with sequential explanatory. The participants of this research were 30 students of English Language Department in one of the universities in Bengkulu. The instrument of this study used questionnaire of Grammar Learning Strategy Inventory (GLSI) and the interview guideline. Those instruments have been validated by two expert judgments and tried out to another class. The quantitative data were analysed by using simple statistic calculation and using percentage for every learning strategy type. However, the qualitative data analysis comprised several steps namely data collection, data condensation, data display, and conclusion. The result shows that students used all strategies in learning grammar, but the dominant one is cognitive strategy, while the least one is social strategy. The challenges in implementing learning strategy or in learning grammar were poor knowledge of grammar, ineffective time management, less group work, and less sociable because of Covid-19 .


Introduction
Grammar is one of difficult sub-skills in English that faced by the students (Iqbal, Akbar & Ahmad, 2017;Renandya, 2020). Several students faced problems in learning grammar, such as tenses, modal auxiliary, pronoun and other barriers. Those problems must be solved by the teacher or lecturer because grammar is one of the basic sub-skills which support students in learning productive and receptive English skills, namely listening, speaking, reading and writing. It is in line with Debata (2013) who figured out that grammar is essential in English language teaching because grammar could help students in mastering other skills. Dalil (2013) added that grammar plays a role in the implementation of language. Besides, he explained three main roles of grammar in English language teaching namely an enabling skill (Grammar enables the user to process and produce the correct sentence either spoken or written and supports four skills in English), meaning conveyance (Grammar conveys the meaning to the reader or audience), and sentence making machine (grammar enables us to generate sentences based on the structures and rules).
In learning grammar, students need learning strategy to comprehend their understanding about grammar learning material. Learning Grammar strategy is needed as one of the strategies that can assist the students

Learning Grammar Strategies
Learning grammar strategies are strategies used in learning grammar for students. Oxford (1990) followed by Vicenta (2002) and developed by Pawlak (2018) classified learning grammar strategies into cognitive, metacognitive, affective and social strategies. Cognitive strategy is a strategy that using information to enhance learning. This strategy consists of an action which students obtain the information from several sources, where those actions can be using resources, using notes, and organizing information. Besides, the activities for this cognitive strategy are preparing for learning grammar, focusing on form, thinking, key word, understanding, induction and deduction, correction, translation, imagery, resourcing, repetition, transfer, inference, elaboration and contextualization. Metacognitive strategy is a strategy that can help the students to clarify the learning objectives, suitable techniques, evaluate and feedback on the learning results. This strategy can be directed attention, advance preparation, self-regulating, and self-evaluating. Furthermore, Affective strategy defined as a strategy that assists the students to control and adjust their emotion in teaching and learning grammar. Several things in this strategy are cultivating interest, positive attitude, confidence, lowering anxiety, encouraging others, care of others' emotion, regulating own emotions, and being helpful. Moreover, social strategy is a strategy in learning grammar which focuses on the social communication. The parts of this strategy are communication, clarification, cooperation, fluency and accuracy.

Challenges in Learning Grammar
Learning grammar is not easy as you think. It needs effort to understand the English grammar. Several studies researched on challenges of learning grammar. Iqbal, Akbar & Ahmad (2017) found that less knowledge of the teacher or lecturer becomes one of the problems in teaching grammar. Besides, teacher or lecturer does not have adequate techniques or strategies in teaching and learning grammar. Widianingsih & Gulo (2016) had the same research as Handayani & Johan (2018) who added the information that the problems or challenges in learning grammar are not only from the educators, but also students. The students faced challenges in terms of tenses, plural markers, articles, word class and other materials in grammar. Effendi, et.al. (2017) found some aspects that can be problems for students in learning grammar are natural difficulties, mother tongue, students' aspects, lecturers' aspects, and the method and timing aspects.

Methods
The mixed method with sequential explanatory was employed by the researcher to know the learning strategies implemented by students used a new grammar learning strategy inventory (GLSI) proposed by Pawlak and the challenges faced by learners in learning and lecturer in teaching. The mixed method design was taken from Creswell (2014), Ary, et al. (2010) and Frankel, et.al (2012) who combined between quantitative and qualitative design.
The participants of this research were 30 students of English Language Department in University of Bengkulu. The students were in the fourth semester. The participants comprised 17 female and 13 male students. They had passed Grammar 1 Course. The researcher employed a purposive sampling technique because the researcher had a purpose to know their learning grammar strategies because in the previous semester in grammar 1, majority of students obtained "A" for grammar subject.
The instrument of this study used questionnaire of Grammar Learning Strategy Inventory (GLSI) to identify the learning grammar strategies and the interview guideline to know the challenges that learner and lecturer faced. Those instruments have been validated by two expert judgments and tried out to another class. Moreover, the instruments have used indicators from learning grammar strategies, such as cognitive strategy, social strategy, metacognitive strategy and affective strategy. Every strategy had sub indicators. These instruments have been adapted by Oxford (1990) and Pawlak (2018). The questionnaire used a Likert scale from 1 until 5. 1 is strongly agree (SA), 2 is agree (A), 3 is neutral (N), 4 is disagree (D), and 5 is strongly disagree (SD). These instruments have been validated by experts.
The procedures of this research were (1) permitting to the head of English Department in one of the universities in Bengkulu; (2) preparing the instruments; (3) validating the instruments; (4) distributing the questionnaire or GLSI to students in Google form; (5) interviewing several students and a lecturer about the challenges in learning for students or in teaching for lecturer.
The quantitative data were analyzed by using simple statistic calculation and using percentage for every learning strategy type. These steps were data collection, data condensation, data display, and conclusion. The first, data collection refers to the data were obtained by the researcher from instruments. The second, data condensation means that selected data must be referred to the research objectives. Hence, the researcher opted the transcript of the interview. The third, data display means that the data have been interpreted and displayed based on the research questions. The last step is a conclusion. Conclusion is the final summary of the data collected. This stage was important to find out the research questions have been answered or not.

Results and Discussion
The results cover two research questions or objectives namely new inventory learning grammar strategies and students' challenges in learning grammar.

Metacognitive strategies
In online survey for cognitive strategies, there are eight sub-indicators. The details can be seen in table  Table 1 shows that majority students choose strongly agree and agree. It was proved by 28.46% and 51.31% students chose strongly agree and agree. However, there were still students who choosing neutral and disagree. In this case, 19.8% students opted neutral, while 1.67% chose disagree. Students disagreed for item 7 and 8.  Table 2 shows that 14.6% chose strongly agree, 52.5% agree, 26.02% neutral and 0.79% disagree. It means that most of students agree that grammar learning Strategy (GLS) used to assist the production and comprehension of grammar in communication tasks.  Table 3 indicates that most students had positive responses on this part because students chose 16.56% agree, 50.44% agree, 27.56% neutral and 0.10% disagree. In this part, students disagree on several items, such as item 19, 20, 23, 28, 31, 32, and 35. Then, student chose strongly disagree on item 21 because the student was difficult to memorize the rules by using linguistic forms or structure.  Table 4 shows that students chose 18% and 53.9% for strongly agree and agree, while 18.26% for neutral and 4.7% for disagree. It means that majority students opted agree and strongly agree on GLS can be used to develop implicit knowledge of grammar. In this case, some students disagreed for several items, such as 43,46,48, 49 and 50.  Table 5 shows that 28.53% and 50.83% of students who chose strongly agree and agree. Then, students chose 18% for neutral and 2.63% for disagree. This indicates that most of students still agreed that GLS used to deal with corrective feedback on errors in the production of grammar. In this part, some students disagreed on item 56 and 57. In this case, some students could not negotiate grammar forms with the teacher when giving clue and they could not correct on grammar in spontaneous communication. While, some students almost chose a neutral for all items.  Table 5 displays the affective learning grammar strategy. In short, the mean score, most of students agree about affective strategy as English grammar strategy in learning grammar. It is proved by 28,57% strongly agree, 48,87% agree, 20,31% neutral, 4,52% disagree and 0% strongly disagree. This means that students had positive responses on it.  Table 6 consists of five items from 66 until 70. In short, the mean score of this part indicates that majority of students strongly agree and agree to use social strategy as a strategy for learning English grammar. It is proved by the means score results namely 28,44% strongly agree, 52,6% agree, 14,76% neutral, 4,22% disagree and 0% strongly disagree.  Table 7 shows that cognitive strategy is the most dominant strategy used by students in learning English grammar. It was followed by social strategy, metacognitive and affective strategy. It was proved by the results of mean scores of those strategies. The mean scores of cognitive strategy are 19,42% strongly agree, 64,4% agree, 18,59% neutral, 2,82% disagree, 0,025% strongly disagree. The second position is social strategy, where, 28,44% strongly agree, 52,6% agree, 14,76% neutral, 4,22% disagree, 0% strongly disagree. The third position is metacognitive strategy where 28,46% strongly agree, 51,31% agree, 19,8% neutral, 1,637% disagree, 0% strongly disagree. The last position is affective strategy, where 28,57% strongly agree, 48,87% agree, 20,31% neutral, 4,52% disagree, 0% strongly disagree. This results showed that most of students had positive responses toward the implementation of all strategies in learning English grammar. Even though several students had negative responses on this the implementatiof thoses strategies, but the percentage is under 5%.

Students' Challenges during the Implementation English Grammar Learning Strategies
This second objective or research question could be answered by interviewing several students on it. There were 6 students to be interviewed by the researcher. The first student and the second student had almost the same answer about the challenges during the strategy in learning English Grammar. They said that they seldom to repeat the grammar material at home, thus they were difficult to understand the rules in grammar. They think it is little bit hard to do it. As it is proved by the student 1 and 2 says." I am not often to repeat the lesson at home and I always misunderstand the grammar rules, and I always forgot". Moreover, student 3 though that it is doubt for to apply affective strategy in learning grammar because she is seldom to express her feeling when learning grammar by herself. She may be afraid of being known by other people that she does not understand some parts in grammar, for example, when conditional material type 3, she misused the use of past perfect and modal past. This statement can be seen in the student's 3, statement, " To be honest, sir, I am little bit not understand to implement affective strategy because I am shy to say to other people that I can not do it, I can not well understand the material in grammar, because sometimes my friends laugh at me when I am wrong".
Furthermore, student 4 thought that the challenge in applying English grammar learning strategis when she needed to work in pair or work together to find grammar rules because she thought she was not usual to work in group and discover grammar formula, as she said, "I am not usual sir …hmmm to work with others to find a grammar pattern because I realize that I can not do it…I am difficult to do it". It is different with the student 5, he got problem in terms of asking questions to the teacher because he seldom to ask the teacher when he did not understand the grammar rules. As a result, he can not comprehend the materials and apply in speaking and writing. Besides, he was also shy to ask the high achiver students in grammar, As he said, " I am seldom to ask the teacher about the rules or I never ask my clever friends sir in grammar, because sometimes my friend also ignore me and do not know about it". Student 6 had different statement with the previous students. He argued that the challenges of implementing learning strategies were commitment to apply those strategis in learning grammar because he thinks that time to learn for him is limited because he must do part time job. Besides, he seldom to work together or work in group or learn together with friends to discuss about his learning grammar problems, even during this pandemic is difficult for him tobe one place with his friends for studying. Those statements can be proved by student 6's answer in interview, " hmmm…the challenge is commitment sir.. sometimes I have strong commitment to apply learning strategies in grammar, but sometimes I broke because I need to do my job. ..During this pandemic covid-19, I never meet my classmate because we are in different regency".

Discussion
Learning English grammar strategy needs to be known by the students to assist them in studying grammar. Hence, In relation to the results of this study, this discussion covers two main points namely English grammar learning strategy used by students and the students' challenges. The first, all students have applied those learning strategies in learning English grammar from metacognitve, cognitive, affective and social. However, based on the result, majority of students implemented cognitive strategy in learning English grammar, then it is followed by social strategy, metacognitive and affective strategy. It was proved by the mean score of the calcultion shows that 19, 42% strongly agree and 64,4% agree for cognitve strategy. Based on the subindicators, this strategy could help students in producing and comprehending of grammar in communication task, developing explicit and implicit knowledge of grammar and dealing with corrective feedback on errors in the production of grammar. The students chose more cognitive strategies because cognitive strategies could be used by students to develop explicit knowledge of grammar, assist the production and comprehension of grammar in communication task, develop implicit knowledge of grammar, deal with corrective feedback on errors of grammar. This finding is in line with the research by Zekrati (2018) who found that cognitive strategy is the dominant used by students in learning English grammar. However, the finding is in contrast with the Mulugeta & Bayaou (2019) and Juniar (2019), where Mulugeta and Bayaou found that Compensation strategy was the dominant strategy used by students and affective is the least strategy used, while Juniar's research result showed that social strategy is the most strategy applied by the students in learning English grammar and the lowest one is memory strategy.
The result of the research can be different in one place to another place based on the students itself. According to the Oxford (1990), students can use cognitive, metacognitive, social and affective in learning English grammar, however, students can opt the strategy and combine the strategy in learning grammar. The results of this research showed in fact most of students used all strategies; however, the cognitive is the dominant, but actually, the range between mean score of every strategy is not quite far. The result of this first question can be implied that students' majority used cognitive may be caused by cognitive strategy can give students feedback, implicit and explicit knowledge and also comprehend their understanding about grammar itself because cognitive is something to do with the mind or knowledge (Pawlak, 2018).
The second, even though majority of students employed those strategies in learning grammar, but students still had a problem or challenges in implementing it. Several challenges that students in implementing those strategies were hard to understand the material, lack of time management and not optimum to be independent learner. In terms of grammar comprehension, several students cannot maximize to get good understanding of grammar material because they were lazy to repeat at home. Furthermore, time management became one of the problems for students in learning grammar and implementing those strategies because some students had a part time job. Moreover, some students cannot work individually. They need to discuss together with friends, but they were difficult to meet because of covid-19. Some students were still shy to ask the lecturer and his or her friend if they got problems. These findings were almost the same as Widianingsih & Gulo (2016) and Effendi, Rokhyati, Rachman, Rakhmawati, & Peritwi (2017) who found some problems in learning grammar, such as students' aspect, time, less knowledge, and grammar materials. In brief, the students' problems can be categorized in cognitive problem and social problems because it is in relation to the understanding of the material and social life of the students itself.

Conclusion
Based on the explanation previously explained, the teacher implemented a variety of platforms to support in conclusion, students had implemented learning English grammar strategies namely cognitive, metacognitive, affective and social strategy. However, the proportion of every learning strategy is different. The result shows that cognitive strategy is the most dominant strategy applied by students in learning English grammar whether inside or outside classroom. Then, the second position is metacognitive, followed by social strategy. The minority one is social strategy. Every student had their own reason why they used those strategies. The main point is those leaning strategies could help students in learning grammar. Another result of this study shows that students had challenges in implementing learning strategy or in learning grammar. Those challenges can be divided into several items, such as inadequate knowledge of grammar, ineffective time management, less group work, less sociable because of Covid-19. In brief, this research has been beneficial for students in learning English grammar.