CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Research Background

The COVD-19 pandemic strucked and almost paralyzed all countries

including Indonesia in terms of social and economic activities. At present, the

Indonesian government has imposed warnings and prohibitions on leaving homes,

working, or going to school. Many schools and universities around the world are

closing down. The Indonesian government decides a distance learning system using

online or E-Learning.

Looking ahead to the decision of closing face to face interactions, most of the

universities in Indonesia employed online learning to cope this challenge. Online

Learning refers to the new format of learning delivery which allows the

tehcnological tools such as computer and internet bridging the transfer of learning

materials (Agarwal, 2020).

In recent years, technological development has allowed universities to

conduct innovative instructions with the involvement of online learning either fully

or partially. However, COVID-19 caused emergency situasion has forced universities

to massively employ online learning in order to maintain instructions.

Students still continue their educations, especially English learning through

online learning and via video call with their teachers, the online learning is confusing

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to adjust to as the students do not prepare through simulations or practice

beforehand. Students report the online learning program to be even more stressful

than regular classrooms. Some of the common reasons for this go along with the

sentence of: “Normal classes may have been difficult, but having friends makes it so

much more manageable and less stressful” (Cakrawati, 2017).

E-Learning is a system or concept of education that utilizes information

technology in teaching and learning, where learning is arranged using an electronic

or computer system to support the learning process (Mbarek and Zaddem, 2013).

These regulations undoubtedly affect the learning process. However, students still

have to keep learning even though it is done online. Many platforms of digital

sources have been implemented by many schools and universities, one of them is

WhatsApp Messenger.

WhatsApp Messenger has over one billion users, so it is impossible for such a

reach not to reach the educational arena. It is up to teachers and institutions to take

advantage of this for the benefit of educational process. WhatsApp allows

smartphone users to quickly exchange texts, audio messages, make a call and video

call for free (Fattah, 2015).

WhatsApp is cost-effective and easy to use, giving it competitive advantage

over the other social network platforms. WhatsApp in education is a reality.

Educators see the benefits of the WhatsApp application in the educational process.

Specialist advise the use of chat groups in order to share classes with students in
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virtual mode, Many interesting material of the study can be done with the messaging

application (Fattah, 2015). For example, allowing the users to share the materials

through WhatsApp Video Call.

In learning English, the students must capable or master not only the four

skills, those are speaking, listening, reading, and writing, but also language

components, such as grammar, pronunciation and vocabulary.

Structure is important part of language components. The structure of a

language sometimes refers to grammar. Learning English grammatically enable

students’ language to use linguistic form accurately, meaningfully, and appropriately

(Aqel, 2013).

Grammar consists of many parts that should be learned by the students. One

of the important one is tenses. Tenses have fundamental role in English, so the

inappropriate uses of tenses may obscure the meaning. The students know when the

action occurs, and understand or know the correspondence between the form of the

verb and their concept of time (Aqel, 2013).

The students are extended to learn some tenses including simple present

tense. The simple present tense is a verb tense with main uses. We use the simple

present tense when an action is happening right now, or when it happens regularly,

the simple present tense is formed by using the root form or by adding –s or –es to

the end of verb (Abdullah, 2013). The students must study about simple present tense
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because mastering simple present tense would help the foreign language learners to

better understanding in using English.

However, in this pandemic COVID-19, after the researcher observed teaching

and learning grammar at Intensive English Course UIN Antasari Banjarmasin, the

researcher found that in learning and teaching process by online learning, the

students have low score in grammar, the method in learning grammar makes the

students less of motivation or interest, many students think that grammar is a boring

subject, and the students got difficulties in memorizing form of grammar.

Teaching method by online learning in explaining the materials could cause

students’ difficulties in using the correct structure of grammar. In other words, the

students may find difficulties in memorizing grammar structure. This might be

because the students are influenced by teaching technique.

Based on the situation of learning grammar at Intensive English Course UIN

Antasari Banjarmasin, the researcher thinks that it is important to create suitable

techniques related to students’ condition, especially in online learning. The teacher

has to make the correct way for students to make them not only get the materials, but

also can appropriate method. The students need to be delivered a technique that

makes them intended to learn actively in online learning. In this research, the

researcher will use Jigsaw Technique in online learning by using WhatsApp Video

Call as an alternative way in teaching grammar.

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Cooperative Learning is not a new idea in education. There are a few teachers

use this method. In cooperative learning, students make a small group and work

together to meet common goals. The students can interact with each other to acquire

and practice a subject. Cooperative learning principles and techniques are tools

which instructor uses to encourage mutual helpfulness in the groups and the active

participation of all the students (Oludipe and Awokoy, 2010).

There are many techniques in Cooperative Learning but the researcher

chooses Jigsaw Technique in teaching grammar. In Jigsaw Technique, students are

assigned to five or six member study teams. Materials are presented to the students in

text form, and each student is responsible for learning the material. Then, when the

students finish learning material in expert team, they have to return to their home

teams and teach other members what they have learned (Kilic, 2018).

By online learning, the Jigsaw Technique is suitable by Whatsapp Video Call.

Whatsapp Video Call allows up to eight participants to video call each other.

Whatsapp is one of the most popular messaging apps in the world, isn’t just popular

for texting or voice calling, WhatsApp users also have the option to make video

calls. The video call feature is free on whatsapp and to get started all the needs is a

working internet connection. The best thing is that Whatsapp Web Video Call is

possible too. WhatsApp is considered easy to operate by users of all ages and

backgrounds. WhatsApp is also less problem connection than other applications such
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as Zoom, Google Meet, etc. So that the researcher thinks that WhatAapp Video Call

is the suitable media for online learning especially using Jigsaw Technique.

The researcher assumes that Jigsaw Technique is one of the techniques which

can improve the students’ achievement and will enable students to comprehend the

material more easily, because the students in Jigsaw Technique work collaboratively.

Hopefully, by using Jigsaw Technique in online learning, the students will enjoy

online learning activities, especially during this new normal.

Based on the explanation above, the researcher will do a research at Intensive

English Course for the first year students of UIN Antasari Banjarmasin. The

researcher uses Jigsaw Technique in online learning to teach grammar, especially

simple present tense. The title of this research is “The Effectiveness of Jigsaw

Technique in Online Learning by Using WhatsApp Video Call on Teaching

Grammar at Intensive English Course for The First Year Students of UIN Antasari

Banjarmasin during New Normal COVID-19”.

1.2 Research Problem

Based on the background of the study about the effectiveness of Jigsaw

Technique in teaching grammar, the researcher formulates the research problem as

follows: “Is the Jigsaw Technique in online learning by using WhatsApp Video Call

effective to improve students’ ability in grammar?”

1.3 Research Objective

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The objective of the study is to know whether or not Jigsaw Technique in

online learning by using Whatsapp Video Call is effective to improve students’

ability in grammar based on their understanding of simple present tense.

1.4 Research Hypothesis

This research will answer the question of “Is there any significant difference

on improving students’ ability in grammar by using Jigsaw Technique through

Whatsapp Video Call?”

To get the answer of the question above, the researcher proposes Alternative

Hypothesis (Ha) and Null Hypothesis (H0) as follows:

Ha: There is a significant difference of using Jigsaw Technique in online

learning on teaching grammar through WhatsApp Video Call.

H0: There is no significant difference of using Jigsaw Technique in online

learning on teaching grammar through WhatAapp Video Call.

1.5 Research Delimination

To avoid misunderstanding and to make the research clearly, accurate,

effective and understandable. The Jigsaw Technique will be applied in teaching

grammar by using Whatsapp Video Call to the first year students at Intensive English

Course of UIN Antasari Banjarmasin academic year 2020/2021 in odd semester. The

researcher limted the material that concerns on simple present tense including

positive sentence, negative sentence, yes/no question and WH question.

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1.6 Research Significance

The researcher hopes this research will be useful for teachers, students, and

also for the researcher. For teachers the result of this research will give contribution

to English teacher in teaching grammar especially in online learning through

WhatsApp Video Call, particularly to give an alternative way in selecting techniques

will be used in online learning. For students, the researcher hopes it will make

students know that study grammar is easy if they study grammar using Jigsaw

Technique in online learning through WhatsApp Video Call. And also the researcher

hopes this research will be useful for him to know this technique in teaching

grammar by using Jigsaw Technique in online learning through Whatsapp Video Call

is effective or not.

1.7 Clarification of Key Terms

There are some key terms of this research, as follows:

- Jigsaw Technique

The Jigsaw Technique is a method of organizing classroom activity that

makes students dependent on each other to succed. It breaks classes into

groups and splits classes into mixed groups to work on small problems that

the group collates into a final outcome (Kilic 2018).

- WhatsApp Video Call

WhatsApp Video Call is one of the features in WhatsApp Messenger that

allows to have face to face conversations. WhatsApp Video Call works across
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both Android and iOS. This makes WhatsApp is one of the best smartphone

apps for cross-platform video call (Fattah, 2015).

- Teaching Grammar

Teaching grammar is an important part of English learning. In order for

students to have a functional knowledge of a language. They must have at

least some knowledge about grammatical constructs of the language (Aqel,

2013).

- Intensive English Course

Intensive English Course is the program conducted to facilitate the students’

needs for enhancing their language skills. This program accomodates and

prepares the first semester and the second semester of the first year college

students at UIN Antasari Banjarmasin to learn English. It’s held by Language

Development Unit (Unit Pengembangan Bahasa or UPB) UIN Antasari

Banjarmasin.