Optimizing Learning Management System to Teach English Grammar

This study aimed to investigate the use of the Learning Management System (LMS) to teach English Grammar subject in online learning during covid-19 outbreak. This study was descriptive qualitative research with second semester students as the subjects of the study. They were students from English department taking Structure 2 as the compulsory subject. The data were collected by conducting a survey to 71 students who were purposely selected to know the optimization of using LMS in teaching English Grammar during the covid -19 outbreak. Questionnaire was used to do a survey. The results show that the materials uploaded in the LMS are useful to help students understand about English Grammar, especially for the topic taught in the second semester. Furthermore, the use of quiz features in LMS can motivate them to learn since they can know the results and the correct answer directly from the LMS. It also can increase the students' confidence when doing the same test. However, it was found that the use of LMS cannot replace the direct explanation method from the teacher which is still stated as an effective way in teaching English Grammar subjects.


Introduction
Pandemic of Corona Virus Disease or Covid-19 have affected the whole aspects in life. One of most influenced is education system. Since there is social distancing issued by the government, all schools and campus are not allowed to conduct offline face-to-face of a teaching and learning process. This is based on notice from Ministry of Education number 36962/MPK.A/HK/2020 stating that to Vol 3 no 1 (2021): EDULINK (Education and Linguistics Knowledge) Journal 52 prevent the spread of Corona Virus Disease and to protect employees, students of university, students, teachers and lecturers, all activities should be done from home (Makarim, 2020). Moreover, tasks are done from home and students are asked to study from home as well. Any meetings are managed using video conference and the government said there will be facilities to support it. Therefore, the teaching and learning process should also be done online.
The shift from the study in the classroom to study from home brings consequences. The use of information technology during covid-19 outbreak might increase the quality of teaching and learning process itself. In addition, it might assist a collaborative learning circumstance, provide more chances for students to have practice and access to learning materials, and make the teaching and learning process effective and efficient (Chugh, 2010). Moreover, Alizadeh (2019) stated that information technology offers the students with numerous applications and systems in virtual learning environment. On the contrary, teachers need to be creative to find suitable teaching method and to choose an appropriate platform in conducting the online teaching and learning process, particularly in teaching language. Stable internet connection is also matters for it.
There are many available platforms that can be used by teachers. One of them that is widely used is Learning Management System (LMS) (Alvares et al. cited in Basal, 2016). According to Osmani, et.al (2016), LMS is a software application allowing the teachers to design online learning. In short teachers are able to create, manage, and deliver e-learning, and assign students to have interaction and learning in an interactive environment. By using LMS, teachers are able to upload the materials and give activities using features in LMS. LMS also Vol 3 no 1 (2021): EDULINK (Education and Linguistics Knowledge) Journal 53 offers many educational gains for the students and the teacher especially to improve their learning engagement and upgrade the interaction with the teacher (Alizadeh, 2019). Sayfouri cited in Alizedeh (2019) mentioned that LMS assists both teachers and students by eliminating time and space and provides them with teamwork and information exchange. Furthermore, it allows them to present various online resources and tools (Motteram cited in Alizadeh, 2019).
Organizing online teaching and learning process using LMS is quite challenging, especially in teaching grammar during covid-19 outbreak. Teachers have to prepare activities that provide students with various tasks and that allow them to practice using English grammar. It is in line with Chugh (2010) who stated that implementing online learning should be well-designed based on the situation and condition. Besides, a swift in conducting the teaching online in the middle of the semester made the teachers need to adapt the syllabus as well. They have to find and prepare the materials that assist the students to study by themselves. They also need to find the appropriate media for teaching grammar.
Nevertheless, there has been researches done on the use of LMS in language teaching. Rymanova et al (2015) who conducted a research on the LMS Moodle for English Language Teaching revealed that most teachers agreed that using LMS Moodle is appropriate for teaching English and constructively gain students in the learning process. A research also performed by Cakrawati (2017) (2014) disclosed that LMS is a useful tool supporting the English learning, but traditional learning is more useful; and the students' perceived in the moderate level.
Teaching grammar means equipping students to utilize the linguistic forms accurately, meaningfully, and appropriately (Larsen & Freeman, 2001). In another words, students should be taught the rules of language or sentence pattern, meaning and use (Widodo, 2006). Thus, since the use of video conference has not been familiar enough for online teaching, the issue of students' internet credit, and the students' internet connection, the researchers decided to use LMS to teach English Grammar. In short, the aim of this study was to look over the optimization of LMS in teaching grammar during covid-19 outbreak. It focuses on the students' believe on the advantages of using LMS i.e. NEO LMS and Moodle in learning English grammar, the use of quiz feature to provide practices, and their perception of using LMS comparing to offline learning.
Using LMS to teach English Grammar has been commonly used. Bikowski (2018) explained that using technology to teach grammar can be the most effective way integrated to the curriculum and lesson. To facilitate it, students need to be given appropriate activities or tasks. Larsen and Freeman (2001) clarified that activities in teaching grammar can be done inductively and or deductively.

Research Method
This study employed a qualitative approach. It is a method in which someone tries to explore people's life histories or everyday behavior using interpretation to analyze the data (Silverman, David & Marvasti, Amir, 2018). In this study, the researchers investigated the use of LMS to teach English Grammar.
In short, it is suitable for implementing this approach in this study.
This study was conducted two months from March until May 2020. It involved 71 respondents derived from three classes. They were the students of Diploma three and four of English Department Politeknik Negeri Malang taking English Grammar 2 (Structure 2) as the compulsory subject. They were in the second semester of their study. They were selected by the use of purposive sampling meaning that the respondents were chosen based on the need of the study.

Result and Discussion
There were 19 questions wrapped up in a questionnaire used to measure the use of LMS in teaching Structure 2. The questions were divided to 2 big parts, namely (1) the use of LMS in helping the students understand the materials and (2) the use of quiz feature in LMS.
The first part of the result shows that the materials uploaded in the LMS are useful to help students understand about English Grammar, especially for the topic taught in the second semester.  Figure 1 shows that 27% of the students is strongly agree that the use of LMS is really beneficial to study the lesson, while 46% of the students is agree. The other 22% of the students states that the use of LMS may be beneficial to study the lesson, while the 3% of the students is disagree, and the rest 1% of the students is strongly disagree that LMS is useful to help them study the lesson. It can be seen that most of the students agree with the statement stating about the benefit of LMS to study the grammar lesson.
The use of LMS can help them to study the lesson. They enjoy using LMS in studying Structure 2 lesson. The module, PPT file, and video uploaded in LMS can also solve their problem in doing the assignment from the lecturer. This is in line with the research done by Alizadeh. Alizadeh (2019) stated that LMS brings many educational gains for the students and the teacher especially to improve their learning engagement and upgrade the interaction with the teacher. Besides, Pumjarean, et al. (2017)  The use of LMS is really beneficial to study the lesson  shows that 25% of the students stated strongly agree that the quiz is helpful, 41% of the students stated agree that the quiz is helpful, 25% of the students stated fair about the use of quiz in LMS, and the rest 8% of the students stated the quiz feature is not useful. Furthermore, the use of quiz features in LMS can motivate them to learn since they can know the results and the correct answer directly from the LMS. It also can increase the students' confidence when doing the same test.
The students stated that the benefits of quiz feature in LMS is about how they can know the answer directly after submitting the quiz. 59 academics will benefit from using these easily attainable Moodle statistics to inform decisions while revising the quizzes and making assessments more autonomous.
However, it was found that the use of LMS cannot replace the direct explanation method from the teacher which is still stated as an effective way in teaching English Grammar subjects. It is in accordance with Srichanyachon (2014) that LMS is a useful tool supporting the English learning, but traditional learning is more useful. Besides all of the benefits of LMS and its features, the students still find difficulties related to the internet connection and time management. They prefer to study in the classroom because they are able to keep in touch with the other students and the lecturer. The students are able to have discussion with their friends, directly ask the lecturer related to the materials and assignment. The students prefer having direct explanation from the teacher to indirect explanation because they think that it makes them easy to understand the materials. They will never have the internet connection problem when they study in the class. It is in line with the result of the research done by Rymanova et al (2015) that the use of Moodle for ELT can effectively engage students in learning, but it effects the teachers to have extra work preparing the online teaching and learning. In short, beside the students, the teachers also have to do some additional work when using LMS to teach. They have to prepare the materials, tasks, exercises, and also the proper evaluation ways for the students.

Conclusion
The findings of the study revealed that the students agree if LMS is beneficial for them. They can easily download the file given by the lecturer to help Moreover, the quiz feature in LMS can help the students directly know the correct answer of the question given, so it can increase their motivation to study harder in order to be able to choose the correct answer. It also boosts students' confidence when doing the test since they can directly know whether their answer is correct or not. Besides all of the benefits, the students still prefer to study in the real classroom because they will be able to have direct interaction with their friends and also lecturer.