-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ASYNCHRONOUS ONLINE COMMUNICATION OF THE LEARNING MANAGEMENT SYSTEM FOR STUDENTS' WRITING ABILITY

: The Internet is one solution to the communication problems during the covid-19 pandemic. Online activity, especially English, is preferable to be synchronous and asynchronous online communication. This research focuses on using the learning management system asynchronous online communication to enhance students' writing ability in pre-intermediate writing subjects during the covid-19 pandemic. The research method is a quantitative method with One-Group Pretesa t-posttest design. The research population is second-semester students, and the research sample is pre-intermediate writing class C. The data analysis results show that the student's average score on the pre-test is 76.96, and the mean score of the post-test is 79.83, which means that the mean score of the post-test is higher than the mean score of the pre-test. In other words, the gained score is 2.87. Wilcoxon test for non-parametric statistics is applied to decide the hypothesis. The calculation of the test statistic showed that the z tests-test is 2.62 test 2-tailed significance is 0.009. It indicates that the result is significant since 0.009 is less than 0.05 (0.009 < 0.05). It means that the Null hypothesis (H 0) is rejected, while the Alternative hypothesis (H 1) is accepted. Therefore, it can be concluded that there is a significant effect of using asynchronous online communication of the learning management system (www.schoology.com) on students' writing ability. The study implies that this LMS model is visible in ELT, especially to improve the students' four skills, such as writing ability.


INTRODUCTION
Few studies did report the use of Schoology as a type of LMS to enhance the writing ability of university students. Many scholars reported the use of other learning management systems (LMS) such as SPADA (Hudha et al., 2018), Moodle (Lambropoulos, Faulkner, & Culwin, 2012), blackboard (Lin, 2008), MOOCS (Greene, Oswald, & Pomerantz, 2015;Keshavarz & PJEE Ghoneim, 2021;Luik & Lepp, 2021). Their study had positive benefits other than the students' writing ability in a different learning context. Therefore, visible potential gaps were identified to disclose in the current study.
The current study focused on investigating the other LMS types, such as Schoology( www.schoology.com ), in the context of ELT at the university level. The study's objective is to investigate if the Schoology the effect of using an asynchronous learning management system (LMS) of Schoology on the students' writing ability. Many other scholars reported the use of synchronous media, such as Zoom (Serembus & Kemery, 2020), Google Classroom (Syakur, 2020), and Microsoft Team (Rojabi, 2020). However, their studies were other than writing ability in qualitative and quantitative methods. Henceforth, this study's context is in the English Education study program of FKIP Universitas Lampung during the covid-19 outbreak 2019-2022. This study is to harvest empirical evidence of how Schoology influences the students' writing ability. It is also to share knowledge with international scholars as part of the author's contribution (Turmudi, Saukah, & Cahyono, 2020) and update the development of the Schoology use in a specific context. In this regard, the authors share knowledge in English amid the massive development of English scholarly publishing in Industrial Revolution 4.0 (Turmudi, 2020a) to build authorship, authority, and authorization (Rathert & Okan, 2015, pp. 364-365). However, the scope is limited to the English Education study program at the University of Lampung. The students were assigned to write the cause and effect and a comparison and contrast paragraph.
The expected outcomes are essential for the author and scholars concerned about developing writing ability at the university level using the Schoology website. The disappearing covid-19 outbreak does not guarantee that students' mood insisted on choosing offline learning since the culture of synchronous and asynchronous have changed over time (Hockly, 2014(Hockly, , 2015(Hockly, , 2018Hockly & Dudeney, 2018). Moreover, the current context occurred during the covid outbreak.
During the covid-19 pandemic, all learning activities at all levels of education changed to online learning. The teaching and learning activity usually occurs face-to-face and changes into online activities (Serhan, 2020). The possible way to adapt to this situation is the changing
The perspective of writing in ELT has been a concern for many scholars. Hyland (2003) states that writing is a way of sharing personal meanings and writing courses emphasize the power of the individual to construct his or her views on a topic. The writer can generate ideas to construct their views of the topics (Hyland, 2003, p. 9). This process is not merely an easy task for students since writing is considered a complex task that needs the writer to originate content, organize structure, formulate goals and plans, execute writing mechanics and revise (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1982), as cited in Kulikowich (Kulikowich, Mason, & Brown, 2008). The writing product should be constructed with good content and structure, clear goals and plans, and good mechanics by doing such revision to make good results (Turmudi, 2017).
The students' writing problems occurred because they could not generate ideas and construct good writing, despite many ungrammatical sentences. Saddler (2006) confirms that poor writers usually deal with significant difficulties at two levels. The lower levels tend to make grammar, spelling, and punctuation mistakes, while the higher levels find it difficult to cope with generating ideas, sequencing the content, and revising. To some extent, the student's writing level still has various ability levels. So, the teacher must have an appropriate method of teaching writing (Saddler, 2006).
Scholars also voice further proposals concerning writing. Nunan et al. (2003) state four principles for teaching writing. It can be adapted to any learning situation, understanding students' reasons for writing, providing many opportunities for students to write, making feedback helpful and meaningful, and clarifying how their writing will be assessed (Nunan, D., Terrell, T. D., and Brown, 2003). Teaching writing in online classes should focus on four points such as learning outcomes, students' activity in writing, making feedback not only
Online teaching should be defined since it needs the Internet for conducting the process. Stephenson (2001) describes online teaching as a more productive approach to education, which comes as a new medium to share new resources with the larger community.
It has successfully eliminated the limitation of time and space for conducting a learning process (Stephenson, 2018). In line with this definition, Heuer and King (2004) propose the theory about online instruction that shares unique attributes-flexibility at any time and place.
The students can conduct the learning in various situations without coming to the class since they can learn at home (Heuer & King, 2004). It makes students less effort to go to Campus at risk of being infected with the coronavirus.
In teaching writing from an online perspective, two modes of communication are In asynchronous communication, participants do not have to be online simultaneously.
The message sender does not expect the recipient to be able to respond immediately. It gives participants time flexibility in responding (Wang & L.G., 2007, p. 69). The students have time flexibility to write a draft, edit and revise the draft, and publish the final product. Before the students begin to write, they should follow the steps to generate or brainstorm ideas and outline. This process needs higher thinking ability so that they will decide on suitable topics for their writing. Examples are video conferencing, text chat, file transfer, and whiteboard (Hassan, 2021). I believe that the designated examples can trigger the students' learning mode.

Sholihah
Upon all, I meant to investigate the students' writing ability; therefore, I formulate the research questions as follows: what is the effect of using an asynchronous learning management system of Schoology on the students' writing ability?.

Design
The research method is quantitative research with one group pre-test and post-test design. In this research, the researcher utilized the One-Group Pretest-posttest design (Setiyadi, 2018). This research aimed to determine whether there is any significant effect of using asynchronous online communication by comparing the results between pre-test and posttest. The Independent variable or X variable is the treatment of using schoology.com, while the dependent variable or Y variable is the students' writing ability.

Participants
The research population is the second-semester students of the English Education study program at the University of Lampung for 2019/2020. The writer took the research sample by using the cluster random sampling technique. After the researcher did the lottery for the three classes of the total population, Class C was chosen as the research sample, with the total number of students being 23 students.

Instrument and Data type
The research instrument is the writing tests. The test consisted of two kinds, namely pre-test and post-test. The students' worksheets for both pre-test and post-test were prepared as writing activities. The students were asked to write a paragraph on the causeand-effect relationship and a comparison and contrast paragraph. However, the data output

Data Collecting Technique
The researcher conducted pre-test, treatment, and post-test. At the beginning of the research, the researcher gave a pre-test, then continued the treatment process, divided into four meetings. The treatment applied during the teaching process utilized a learning management system called www.schoology.com. The writer asked the students to be ac actively participate in the discussions' teaching process by brainstorming ideas, outlining, comparison contrast paragraphs, and cause-effect paragraphs. Having done After, the researcher continued to give a post-test to the students.

Data Analysis Technique
After getting the pre-test and post-test data, the following steps tabulated the result of both tests by obtaining the means score of the pre-test and post-test. Then, the data were analyzed to know the normality distribution of the test. Hypothesis testing was done using SPSS 2020 to know whether there is any positive effect of asynchronous online communication of the learning management system (www.schoology.com) on students' writing ability. In addition, a statistics test was applied to know the result in both pre-test and post-test. For that reason, I used Kolmogorov Smirnov to know the normality distribution of the data. Then I used another test, knowing that the data was not normally distributed. The statistics test was Kolmogorov Smirnov to know the normality distribution of the data (Hatch & Farhady, 1981).
Finally, I used Mendeley referencing tool to manage the intext and list of references called offline automatic citation (Turmudi, 2020a).
Since the pre-test has no normal distribution, the researcher decided to utilize statistic non-parametric, the Wilcoxon test.

Discussion
The current study reveals that schoology.com influenced the students' ability to write a paragraph of cause and effect and compare and contrast. Prior studies are confirmed that any LMS had a significant influence on the students' learning outcomes of Basic Physics online lecture using SPADA (Hudha et al., 2018), the quality of active participation embedded in Moodle (Lambropoulos et al., 2012), hybrid learning using blackboard (Lin, 2008), Predictors of Retention and Achievement in MOOCs (Greene et al., 2015). All of these LMS are not only different in the use of the x variable but also various y variables. It means that the use of schoology.com in the current context is rare, particularly in the experimental method.
As for the use of other tools, such as Zoom, it was reported to provide philosophical and pedagogical background in creating dynamic learning rather than using Zoom for writing context (Serembus & Kemery, 2020). It was also reported that the use of Google Classroom but the context was in the English learning media (Syakur, 2020), and the use of Microsoft teams in online learning rather than writing in specific (Rojabi, 2020). Hence, I realize that the current study is novel in both media and focus variables and the research design. I conclude that the current study has a clear contribution to knowledge development. However, the subsequent study using the otherwise method is recommended to harvest more solid empirical evidence.
Further, the process of online learning using asynchronous online communication of a learning management system (www.schoology.com) has a valuable contribution. The success of this research leads the students to gain the ability to write, especially in generating ideas and writing drafts, editing and revising their drafts, and publishing their writing due to the students' time flexibility in writing a draft and teachers' access to the threads. The flexibility of access is considered the most significant advantage (Barnes, 2000;Ellis, 2001;Tiene, 2000). Secondly, in the learning process, the students have to post a message on the thread given by the teacher.
It also helps the teacher monitor the student's access to the teacher; students do not have to be online simultaneously. The teacher had to keep posting her views and asked for more ideas and thoughts on the subject to motivate the students to post more. There are many follow-up responses to the threads, and the thread shows a synergistic interaction pattern. It indicates collaborative learning and social networking in this forum (Jyothi, McAvinia, & Keating, 2012). Besides, asynchronous online communication can also increase a person's ability to