The Disadvantages of Using Picture

the use of picture as medium of teaching learning activities needs a lot of time and costs. And the last, size of picture is important because small and unclear pictures are not suitable for big group students. It can cause problem since the students do not understand about the picture. In addition, Sadiman dkk gave another opinion about some disadvantages of pictures as follows: a. The pictures only focus at the sight perception. b. The pictures that are too complex are ineffective in teaching learning process. Students do not know how to read the pictures. c. The lack of size is not suitable for the big group. 22 Based on Sadiman dkks view above, the students sometimes do not understand of what the pictures describe about. It is because pictures are too complex. That is why, to make the use of pictures to be effective, the teacher should choose simple pictures to describe something. Another opinion stated by Vernon S. Gerlach that picture also has a significant problem. It can be caused by the size and distance or it is too small and the distance is too far. So it is too difficult to be seen clearly by the students. The lack of color in some pictures will also restrict proper interpretation. Besides that, students do not always know how to read the pictures. Those reasons above can make misunderstanding. 23 Furthermore Nick Under Hill pointed out about the disadvantages of pictures are: 1. With a visual stimulus there is a danger. That the learner will miss the point of pictures or story, for personal or culture reason. 2. Unless vocabulary items in the pictures are supplied, the learner who knows the names of only two or three crucial item 22 Arief S. Sadiman, dkk, Media Pendidikan: Pengertian, Pengembangan, dan pemanfaatan, Jakarta: PT. Raja Grafindo Persada, 2007, p. 31. 23 Vernon S. Gerlach, Using Pictures As Teaching Aids., p. 227. will be at strong. Advantage over those who do not. Even if the items are supplied on request and mark not deducted, it is physiological demodulating, to have to ask for vocabulary before you begin. 3. Suitable cartoon stories are hard to find and difficult for an amateur to draw. Even deciding on a good storyline can be difficult task. Particularly in situation where learner can and find several alternative. 24 In summary, there are some disadvantages of using pictures as a media of teaching and learning process; picture can cause misunderstand and hard to see if the pictures are unclear and too small. Thus, the student’s attention and interest to the material will lose. It also seems that the use of picture make the students pay attention to the picture more rather than the material, and the use of attractive picture also takes time and costs much. Moreover, the pictures that are too complex are ineffective in teaching and learning process because students do not know how to read or to explain the pictures. To avoid this problem and to make the use of pictures to be effective, the teacher should use clear, simple, and big pictures to the students in order to make teaching and learning process more attractive. 24 Nick Under Hill, Testing Spoken Language: A Handbook of Oral Testing Technique, Cambridge: Cambridge Universily press, 2002, p. 67.

B. The Degree of Comparison 1. The Definition of Degree Comparison

Before the writer discusses and gets the understanding about degree of comparison, he believes that it is important to know about the meaning of comparison first. There are some definitions about comparison which stated by the some experts. Larsen-Freeman and Celce-Murcia in Grammar Book stated that “One of the most basic and powerful of human cognitive processes is the ability to comprehend and express the fact that two things are similar of different, often such similarity or difference is expressed in terms of degree, extent, or quantity”. 25 As stated by Larsen-Freeman and Celce- Murcia above, it clearly shows that the ability to comprehend and to show two things are similar or different which is expressed in terms degree of comparison both in adjective and adverb are essential for English learners. Another opinion , according to Danesi “Comparison of adjectives and adverbs can be used to indicate that something or someone has relatively equal, greater, or lesser degree of some quality or feature”. 26 From this statement, it clearly shows adjective and adverb are used to compare the quality of people or things whether they are equal, greater or lesser degree of a quality or feature. The process involves comparing dissimilarity or similarity of people or things by using adjective or adverb. Adjective are words which give extra information about noun. They do not change their form except when they are comparative or superlative. 27 An adjective changes the meaning of a noun by giving more information about it. The adjective usually comes immediately before nouns; for example: a good book, 25 Marriane Celce-Murcia Dianne Larsen-Freeman, The Grammar Book: An ESLEFL Teacher’s Course, Rowley: Newburry House, 1999, Second Edition, p. 717. 26 Marcel Danesi, Basic American Grammar and Usage: An ESLEFL Handbook, New York: Barron’s Educational Series, 2006, p. 71. 27 Mark Foley Diane Hall, Advanced Learners’ Grammar, Essex: Pearson Longman, 2003, p. 216. beautiful flowers, a tall woman, etc. 28 While for adverbs, Murphy highlighted that adverbs tell us about a verb; how somebody does something or how something happens. 29 From the statement above it clearly shows that an adjective does not change its form except when they are in comparative and superlative forms. Although adjectives can be compared but not all adjectives lend themselves to the comparison. Some adjectives cannot be compared because the positive simplest form expresses the only degree possible. Here the list of incomparable adjectives; perfect, unique, fatal, universal, dead, wrong, straight, blind, final, vertical, right, left. 30 “Degree of comparison in English grammar are made with the adjective and adverb words to show how big or small, high or low, more or less, many or few, etc., of the qualities, numbers, and position of the nouns person, things, and place in comparison to the others mentioned in the other part of a sentence or expression” 31 For example: a. Michael is as tall as Winston b. Winston is taller than Robert c. Paul is the tallest person in his class The example of sentence a above shows that the words as tall as mean both Michael and John have the same height. The word taller than in sentence b shows that John and Paul have different height. Their height difference such as John is 180 cm and Paul is 170 cm. So, John’s height is above from Paul’s height. Then, the word the tallest in sentence c shows that George’s height is above among his friends in the class. 28 Betty Schramfer Azar, Fundamentals of English Grammar, New York: Longman Pearson Education, 2003, Third Edition, p. 166. 29 Raymond Murphy, English Grammar in Use, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994, p. 198. 30 http:www.esldesk.comgrammaradjectives, retrieved on November 7 th , 2013 31 http:www.weblearneng.comthe-degree-of-comparison, retrieved on November 7, 2013 th , 2013