The purpose of this study is to look into the effectiveness of dictogloss applied to highschool students in terms of syntactic complexity and accuracy in writing. The questions for achieving this purpose are as follows; First, to what extent do dictogloss and syntactic complexity have a correlation in terms of average T-unit length and total number of words? Second, to what extent will dictogloss enhance accuracy in terms of error analysis? This research is based on focus on form approach, which emphasizes the importance of teaching grammar for the purpose of meaningful communication and benefits of teaching grammar in a communicative manner. As one of the output-oriented teaching methods, dictogloss was implemented to show effectiveness in improving syntactic complexity and accuracy in writing. With compiled writings of students of high, mid, and low-levels of proficiency, there were meaningful results to show improvement of syntactic complexity and accuracy. Through pre-test and post-test from dictogloss activity, research was done to assess whether there was any change in average T-unit length and the total number of words. For measuring syntactic complexity, T-unit suggested by Hunt(1965) was applied and for accuracy, Error analysis was implemented with the help of average T-unit length and total number of words were introduced to make up for measuring structural complexity and fluency in a quantitative manner. For measuring accuracy, error analysis was implemented. Overgeneralization caused by improper application of language rules and interference of first language were also the focus of the research. In the process of analyzing errors, grammatical category was applied according to parts of speech, word order, lexicon, syntax, and sentence structure. For sixteen weeks, twenty four sessions of dictogloss practices and the total of ten error correction practices were implemented while measuring syntactic complexity: average T-unit length, and the total number of errors.
The results are as follows. Firstly, the analysis of t-unit show that dictogloss has not shown much influence on improvement of syntactic complexity while it has a close relation to accuracy. The total number of words has a relation to fluency in writing because it has a proportionate increase in relation to syntactic complexity and accuracy. Secondly, it is evident that dictogloss is very effective in enhancing grammatical accuracy. In the process of analysis and comparison between three groups of students, all of them have shown that they improved their accuracy remarkably. The mid-level students have shown most dramatic improvement among the three in the number of errors per word. This implies that students of mid-level proficiency surpass low-level students and have more grammatical knowledge and its proper application in restructuring a text while using complex sentence structures and wider range of lexicon compared to those of students of low-level proficiency.
In conclusion, dictogloss is one of the most effective methods in teaching grammar as a way of enhancing students' understanding of syntactic complexity and grammatical knowledge by restructuring sentence structures. With results of research on output-oriented focus on form teaching methods, understanding importance of grammar teaching and their implementation are not the same kind. For better communicative purposes, smaller size of English classroom is required and curriculum needs to be adjusted to benefit from dictogloss. For achieving fluency and accuracy, acquisition of grammar rules is required in advance and it should be done through meaningful and communicative activities. Writing class and correction practices are recommended not only for understanding grammar usage but also for the purpose of using it.