Theme-Based Instruction TBI Micro- and Macro-skills for Reading Comprehension

38 storybook presents language in familiar and memorable contexts. It is also frequently provided with high quality illustrations which help children understand. Although it is intended for children, it is also permitted to be used by other than children, as in this research is for teenagers or younger adults. The theme-based storybook for reading comprehension, therefore, is a book containing collection of stories based on the chosen topicsthemes to enhance the students ’ reading skill that comprises various types of exercises in order to make sure comprehension is fully achieved. Using storybooks as media in learning English has several important advantages. Among those are through the storybooks, learners have less pressure but more interactive and fun way in learning English. It is very essential to keep one’s brain active without stressing it out so that input and intake can be effectively delivered and absorbed. Ellis and Brewster 2002 state that “the overall aim of using storybooks with children is to foster positive attitudes towards learning English and to encourage general comprehension”. Basically, students enjoy stories in their L1. By this means, storybooks can provide an ideal introduction to the foreign language as it is presented in a context that is familiar to them. Storybooks can also act as a springboard to a wide variety of activities to develop students ’ English language skills. Furthermore, Ellis 2014 assumes that storybooks can help teachers to meet various needs of the students in an English classroom. It is so because 39 the overall meaning of stories can be easily understood by the students with diverse learning needs and at various levels of English skills with the help of attractive illustrations in the storybooks as commonly used. At the end of learning, all students can respond according to their linguistic level and cognitive ability. Benefits of using storybooks however are in line with the benefits of using stories in teaching and learning English proposed by Ellis and Brewster 2002. Those are: ● Stories are motivating, challenging and fun and can help develop positive attitudes. They can create a desire to continue learning. ● Children can become personally involved in a story as they identity with the characters and try to interpret the narrative and illustrations. This helps develop their own creative powers. ● Linking fantasy and imagination with the child’s real world, they provide a way of enabling children to make sense of their everyday life and forge links between home and school. ● Storybooks cater for individual interests and diversity by allowing children to respond at their own linguistic or cognitive level. ● Storybooks develop the different types of intelligences that contribute to language learning, including emotional intelligence. ● Storybooks reflect the culture of their authors and illustrators, thereby providing ideal opportunities for presenting cultural information and encouraging cross-cultural comparison. ● Storybooks develop children’s learning strategies such as listening for general meaning, predicting, guessing meaning and hypothesizing ● Storybooks address universal themes which go beyond the utilitarian level of basic dialogues and daily activities. They allow children to play with ideas and feelings and to think about issues which are important and relevant to them. ● Storybooks allow the teacher to use an acquisition-based methodology by providing optimal input according to Krashen. 40 ● Storybooks add variety, provide a springboard for creating complete units of work that constitute mini-syllabuses and involve pupils personally, creatively and actively in a whole curriculum approach. ● Storybooks offer positive concrete outcomes in the form of games, competition, quizzes, drama, songs, projects, book making, etc. ● Learning English through stories can lay the foundations for higher levels of school in terms of learning basic language functions and structure, vocabulary and language-learning skills. The ”When English Rings A Bell” textbook provided by the government for Grade VII students of the junior high school, however, is considered lacking in reading materials. Therefore, by conducting this research, a theme-based storybook is chosen as a medium accompanying the textbooks which contains a variety of reading activities followed by vocabulary and comprehension exercises. These can then be supplemented with additional information from the internet, newspapers and other sources. However, another approach is to use specially constructed resource books which contain collections of authentic materials or simplified versions. These can be about a particular theme such as drug use or care of the elderly, or about more general topics. It is possible to create some really interesting classroom materials as long as the need for comprehensibility is not forgotten.