THE EFFECTIVENESS OF TEACHING USING COMIC STRIPS TO FACILITATE STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION ACHIEVEMENT ON NARRATIVE TEXT.

THE EFFECTIVENESS OF TEACHING USING COMIC STRIPS TO

FACILITATE STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION

ACHIEVEMENT ON NARRATIVE TEXT

A THESIS

Submitted to the English Department, Faculty of Language and Arts, State University of Medan in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

for the Degree of Sarjana Pendidikan

By:

PUTRI RAHAYU HARAHAP Registration Number 2103321030

ENGLISH AND LITERATURE DEPARTEMENT FACULTY OF LANGUAGES AND ARTS

STATE UNIVERSITY OF MEDAN 2014

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

First and foremost, the writer would praise and thank God, Allah SWT, the Almighty and Most Beneficial for His Grace, Guidance, Praise, Honor and Mercy that has been given to writer so that she finally accomplishes her thesis entitled “The Effectiveness of Teaching Using Comic Strips to Facilitate Students’ Reading Comprehension Achievement on Narrative Text”

This thesis is submitted to the English Department, Faculty of Languages and Arts, State University of Medan as a partial fulfillment of the requirements for taking the degree of Sarjana Pendidikan. During the completion of this thesis, the writer realized that she had received a lot of help, and suggestion. Therefore, the writer would like to express her sincerest gratitude for:

 Prof. Dr. Ibnu Hajar Damanik, M.Si., Rector of State University of Medan.

 Dr. Isda Pramuniati, M.Hum, the Dean of Languages and Arts Faculty.

 Prof. Dr. Hj. Sumarsih, M.Pd., the Head of English Department, Dra. Masitowarni Siregar, M.Ed., Head of English Education Study Program.

 Dr. Rahmad Husein, M.Ed., her Thesis Consultant, Drs. Johan Sinulingga, M.Pd., her Academic Adviser.

 All Lecturers who have taught him in this English Department,for giving knowledge, advices and amazing study experiences.

 Drs. Jumansyah, the Principal of SMP Negeri 3 Rantau Utara and the English teacher for giving permission and helping the writer to do this research.

 Sersan Mayor Hamdan Harahap and Nurjani, her beloved parents, Rahmad Hariadi Harahap her beloved brother, Aisah Maulida Harahap and Rejeki Anjani Harahap her beloved sisters, and all my big family for their pray, love, support, and everything they have given to the writer not only in completing this thesis but also in her life.

 Her beloved friends,the students of English Department, Eka, Ayu, Putri Rezki, Putri Nurul, Vivi, Rapicha, Saddam, Vhandy, Yohana, Dahlia, Winda and her special one Tengku Irdian Arya Wijaya Aziz and also the other students in Extension A, B, C 2010 for always be there when she needed their supportand motivation. And Her beloved close friends Nanda, Ridha, Anggi.

The writer hopes this thesis will be useful for those who read it, especially for the student of English Department.

Medan, Agustus 2014 The Researcher,

Putri Rahayu Harahap Reg. Number 2103321030

TABLE OF CONTENTS

TABLE OF CONTENTS ... i

LIST OF TABLES ... iii

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION ... 1

A. The Background of the Study ... 1

B. The Problem of the Study ... 4

C. The Objective of the Study ... 5

D. The Scope of the Study ... 5

E. The Significance of the Study ... 5

CHAPTER II: REVIEW OF LITERATURE ... 6

A. General Concepts of Reading ... 6

1. Reading ... 6

a. Stude ts’ Achieve e t ... .6

b. Definitions of Reading ... 6

c. Reading Purpose ... 8

2. Reading Comprehension ... 10

3. Comprehension Skill Question ... 11

a. Definition Comics Strips ... 12

b. Comics Strips as Reading Material ... 13

c. The Use of Comic in Teaching ... 15

4. Concept of Genre ... 17

a. Defenition of Text ... 17

b. Types of Text ... 17

5. General Concept of Narrative Text ... 18

a. Defenition of Narrative Text ... 18

b. General Structure of Narrative Text ... 19

c. Language Features of Narrative Text ... 21

B. Theoritical Framework ... 22

C. Hypothesis ... 23 Page

CHAPTER III: METHOD OF RESEARCH ... 25

A. Research Design ... 25

B. Population and Sample ... 25

1. Population... 25

2. Sample ... 26

C. Instruments for Collecting Data ... 26

D. Scoring System ... 26

E. The Research Procedure ... 27

a. Pre- test ... 27

b. Treatment ... 27

c. Post test ... 28

F. The Technique for Analyzing Data ... 29

G. Statistical Hypothesis ... 29

CHAPTER IV: DATA AND RESEARCH FINDINGS ... 30

A. Data Description of Findings ... 30

1. Data Analysis ... 30

a. Experimental Group ... 31

b. Control Group ... 32

c. The Advantages and Disadvantages of Comic Strips .... 32

2. T-Test Formula... 33

B. Testing Hypothesis ... 33

C. Research Findings ... 34

CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION ... 35

A. CONCLUSIONS ... 35

B. SUGGESTIONS ... 35

REFERENCES ... 36

LIST OF TABLES

Page Table 3.1 Research Design ... 24 Table 3.2 Teaching Procedure in Experimental Group ... 26 Table 3.3 Teaching Procedure in Control Group ... 27

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION A. Background of the Study

As we enter to a new era which is called information and globalization age, productive and educated citizens require stronger literacy abilities especially in English, not only as global language but also as the language of science, technology and advanced research. As a result, the man with stronger and wider knowledge will be more valuable. This is match with Islamic perspective. Allah suggests to engage in a committee. He will rise the degrees of people who believe and who have been granted knowledge.

`In Indonesia, English is known as the first foreign language with very limited use including the place, time, and environment. However, the age of information growth is likely demands on people’s reading ability in English language. It plays an important role in the process of globalization as international language. This is why the Indonesian government chooses english as first foreign language to be taught in Indonesian school. By putting it as one of the subject in the curriculum, hopefully students will have an ability to use it and when they have interested on it, the way for them to get in touch with the international community is widely opened. In applied language over the last decades, it has been common to divide language into the four skills and then to add grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation to them. Hence the curriculum of KTSP (Kurikulum Tingkat Satuan Pendidikan) is seeing language as linguistics system or a set of skills rather than describing language in term of how it is used

in communication. As a result, the scope of teaching language at senior high school includes four language skills; listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Those four skills are taught in an integrated way.

In this research, the topic will deal with reading skill based on the consideration that success in reading will be very important for students both for academic and vocational advancement. For more than a quarter of a century language teachers have been dominated by the idea that speech is the primary form of language, writing is secondary. So, it is logic that there is such a common sense that teaching language is nothing more than a remedial stage of preparation to the more rigorous. Moreover, reading is regarded as somewhat dull because today’s generation gets philosophy from the movie. In fact, studying literature can assure intellectual stimulation even at the beginning stages of learning.

According to the statement above, there is a challenge on the foreign language teachers to provide exposure to language and to provide opportunities for learning through classroom activities. In class, teachers have significant rule to bring out the fun class to the students. So, teachers should try to get students read and develop their skills that are aimed to improve their ability and will to read. They should be a good facilitator in creating and building an effective reading class. One way to conduct the class to be more interesting is by using a fresh and interesting material to be brought to class. Practically, it is not easy for students to read material in foreign language. They are forced to face new vocabulary and grammar that are definitely different from their mother language. It is hard for them to guess and predict the correct cues behind the texts because of their

imperfect knowledge of the language. Rather recalling cues with which they are familiar, they are forced to recall cues that they either do not know or know imperfectly. Because of this, readers will forget those cues much faster than they would remember the cues in their native language. Here, the object is very important. So, the object of all readers is, or should be, comprehension of what they read. Therefore, it is clear that the goal of reading is the comprehension of meaning. Every teacher has different ways to present the material. In relation to this, some teaching methods have been used to make students interested in learning English.

Teacher also uses several kinds of media to teach English such as picture, game, song, poster, realia, etc. in order to make them work well. Young learners, for example, Junior High School students usually respond well to being asked to use their imagination, they may well be involved in puzzle-like activities, in making things, in drawing, in games, in physical movement or in songs. It means that English teacher should not remain passive or give up all efforts to make improvements. Many reading comprehension studies consider the extent to which visuals, that is any graphic display that portrays all or some accompanying text’s content, help reader to comprehend factual information. Comic is an art form using a series of static image in fixed sequence. There are two kinds of comics, comic strips and comic books. A comic strip is defined in this study as series of pictures inside boxes that tell a story. While comic books are collection of stories that have picture consist of one or more titles as themes.

In other words, comic is unification, work of art among fine literary works in which there are usual forms are the verbal explanation in fixed sequence and has cartoon story as theme. Reading comics is more than the material in hand, that it involves a certain immersion into the culture of the comics that one reader which involves any number of choices to be made. Comic can help readers to get the right visualizations.

Teacher should be selective in choosing teaching media/aids. In the writer’s opinion, teaching English on reading skill using comic strips was one of teaching aid in which students’ were given chance to learn English more fun. The writer thought that comic was such supplementary cues that provide a conceptual basis for organizing the input, the second language comprehension process would be facilitated since learners would be better to make imagery system when encountering words and expressions in a passage with which they were unfamiliar. It combines pictures and sentence, so it will help the students to understand content and context that teacher has taught easily. By using comic strips, it is hoped that it can motivate students to read and pay attention to the material. It will create fun learning in English.

B.The Problem of the Study

In the expectation of teaching reading, it is expected that the students are able to understand text in some genres including narrative text. However, the students still find it difficult to read the narrative text especially in transforming the ideas into reading matter. Therefore, to solve the problem, comic stripes will

be to improve students’ reading achievement. In line with the background of the study, the research problem is formulated as follows: “ Is there any significant

effects by using comic strips to the students’ reading narrative text achievement?

C.The Objective of the Study

Comic strips is defined in this study as series of pictures inside boxes that tell a story. In other words, comic is unification, work of art among fine literary works in which there are usual forms and the verbal explanation is in fixed sequence and it has cartoon story as theme. In relation to the problem of study mentioned previously, the objective of the study is to find out whether the use of comic strips significantly improves the students’ reading narrative text achievement.

D.The Scope of the Study

There are strategies that can be applied to improve the students’ reading achievement. One of the strategies is comic srtips that can persuade students to read well. This study is focused on the application of comic strips in teaching reading narrative text to the students of Junior High School.

E.The Significance of the Study

It is expected that this research will give some significances.

1. For teachers, it might show teacher that comic and other forms of interesting material could be used for teaching reading. This study also

could give motivation to the English teacher to create new ways or media in teaching learning English.

2. For students, it might motivate students to improve their interest in reading since they would find out that English reading material was not complicated, boring, and monotonous.

3. For teacher and researcher, the result can be used as process to improve the teaching performance.

CHAPTER V

CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS A. Conclusions

After applying Comic Strips in this research, it is known that t- observed value 1.54, with the degree of freedom (df) 58 is higher than the value of t-table 1.29 at the level of significance of 0,1 of two tailed test. This findings shows that the alternative hypothesis (Ha) is accepted. Therefore, it implies that Comic Strips is appropriate to be applied for reading narrative text.

B. Suggestions

This study showed that using Comic Strips could improve students’ achievement in reading narrative text. Some suggestions are pointed out as follows:

1. For the teacher, it is suggested to use comic strips in teaching reading, comic strips practice the students to identify keyword and construct outline, so it can guide to read better.

2. For the students, Comic Strips should be applied in learning English. The activities of this approach can make teaching learning process more enjoyable and communicative.

3. For other researchers, to develop the research by using Comic Strips on other genres or language skill in conducting further research as it significantly affects the students’ reading achievement.

REFRENCES

Anderson J.C. 2005. Assessing Reading. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Callahan F and L.H. Clark. 1982. Teaching in the Middle and Secondary School.

Planning forCompetence. USA: Mc Millan po.co.inc.

Cameron Lynne. 2002. Teaching Language to Young Learners. Cambridge:

Cambridge University press.

Carnine D, J. 1980. Indirect Instruction Reading. Ohio: Meril Publishing, co.

Cohen Louis and Manion Lawrence. 1994. Research Methods in Education, 4th

Ed. New York: Routledge.

Derewianka Baverly.1990. Exploring How Text Work. Australia: Primary English

Teaching Association.

Eisner. 2003. The Practice of English Language Teaching. Harlow: Pearson

Education Ltd.

Harmer Jeremy. 2001. The Practice of English Language Teaching. Harlow: Pearson

Education Ltd.

Heaton J.B. 1975. Writing English Language Test. London: Longman.

Hennings Dorothy. 1990. Reading with Meaning, Strategies for College Reading, 4th ed.

New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.

Koller. 1973. Language Teaching in Context, Proficiency-Oriented Instruction,

Boston: Heinle & Heinle.

Liu Jun. 2004. Effects of Co ic Strips o L2 Lear ers’ Readi g Co prehe sio .

Minnesotta: Graywolf Press.

Meyers Alan. 2005. Gateways to Academic Writing: Effective Sentences, Paragraph and

Essays. New York: Longman, Inc.

Omaggio Alice. 1986. Language Teaching in Context, Proficiency-Oriented

Pearson and Johnson, Teaching Reading Comprehension, (New York: Holk-Rineheart & Winston, 1978), p. 9

R.K. Sadler and T.A.S Hayllar. 2000. Text in Action I, an English Workbook.

Macmillan: Macmillan.

Sven Birkets. 1999. Readings. Minnesotta: Graywolf Press.

William Grabe and Fredericka L. Stoller. 2002. Teaching and Researching

Reading. Harlow: Pearson Education Limited.

http://understandingtext.blogspot.com/2014/03/text-types-complete-overview.html. retrieved on July 15, 2014

In other words, comic is unification, work of art among fine literary works in which there are usual forms are the verbal explanation in fixed sequence and has cartoon story as theme. Reading comics is more than the material in hand, that it involves a certain immersion into the culture of the comics that one reader which involves any number of choices to be made. Comic can help readers to get the right visualizations.

Teacher should be selective in choosing teaching media/aids. In the writer’s opinion, teaching English on reading skill using comic strips was one of teaching aid in which students’ were given chance to learn English more fun. The writer thought that comic was such supplementary cues that provide a conceptual basis for organizing the input, the second language comprehension process would be facilitated since learners would be better to make imagery system when encountering words and expressions in a passage with which they were unfamiliar. It combines pictures and sentence, so it will help the students to understand content and context that teacher has taught easily. By using comic strips, it is hoped that it can motivate students to read and pay attention to the material. It will create fun learning in English.

B.The Problem of the Study

In the expectation of teaching reading, it is expected that the students are able to understand text in some genres including narrative text. However, the students still find it difficult to read the narrative text especially in transforming the ideas into reading matter. Therefore, to solve the problem, comic stripes will

be to improve students’ reading achievement. In line with the background of the study, the research problem is formulated as follows: “ Is there any significant effects by using comic strips to the students’ reading narrative text achievement?

C.The Objective of the Study

Comic strips is defined in this study as series of pictures inside boxes that tell a story. In other words, comic is unification, work of art among fine literary works in which there are usual forms and the verbal explanation is in fixed sequence and it has cartoon story as theme. In relation to the problem of study mentioned previously, the objective of the study is to find out whether the use of comic strips significantly improves the students’ reading narrative text achievement.

D.The Scope of the Study

There are strategies that can be applied to improve the students’ reading achievement. One of the strategies is comic srtips that can persuade students to read well. This study is focused on the application of comic strips in teaching reading narrative text to the students of Junior High School.

E.The Significance of the Study

It is expected that this research will give some significances.

1. For teachers, it might show teacher that comic and other forms of interesting material could be used for teaching reading. This study also

could give motivation to the English teacher to create new ways or media in teaching learning English.

2. For students, it might motivate students to improve their interest in reading since they would find out that English reading material was not complicated, boring, and monotonous.

3. For teacher and researcher, the result can be used as process to improve the teaching performance.

CHAPTER V

CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS

A. Conclusions

After applying Comic Strips in this research, it is known that t- observed value 1.54, with the degree of freedom (df) 58 is higher than the value of t-table 1.29 at the level of significance of 0,1 of two tailed test. This findings shows that the alternative hypothesis (Ha) is accepted. Therefore, it implies that Comic Strips is appropriate to be applied for reading narrative text.

B. Suggestions

This study showed that using Comic Strips could improve students’ achievement in reading narrative text. Some suggestions are pointed out as follows:

1. For the teacher, it is suggested to use comic strips in teaching reading, comic strips practice the students to identify keyword and construct outline, so it can guide to read better.

2. For the students, Comic Strips should be applied in learning English. The activities of this approach can make teaching learning process more enjoyable and communicative.

3. For other researchers, to develop the research by using Comic Strips on other genres or language skill in conducting further research as it significantly affects the students’ reading achievement.

REFRENCES

Anderson J.C. 2005. Assessing Reading. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Callahan F and L.H. Clark. 1982. Teaching in the Middle and Secondary School. Planning for Competence. USA: Mc Millan po.co.inc.

Cameron Lynne. 2002. Teaching Language to Young Learners. Cambridge:

Cambridge University press.

Carnine D, J. 1980. Indirect Instruction Reading. Ohio: Meril Publishing, co. Cohen Louis and Manion Lawrence. 1994. Research Methods in Education, 4th

Ed. New York: Routledge.

Derewianka Baverly.1990. Exploring How Text Work. Australia: Primary English Teaching Association.

Eisner. 2003. The Practice of English Language Teaching. Harlow: Pearson Education Ltd.

Harmer Jeremy. 2001. The Practice of English Language Teaching. Harlow: Pearson Education Ltd.

Heaton J.B. 1975. Writing English Language Test. London: Longman.

Hennings Dorothy. 1990. Reading with Meaning, Strategies for College Reading, 4th ed. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.

Koller. 1973. Language Teaching in Context, Proficiency-Oriented Instruction, Boston: Heinle & Heinle.

Liu Jun. 2004. Effects of Co ic Strips o L2 Lear ers’ Readi g Co prehe sio . Minnesotta: Graywolf Press.

Meyers Alan. 2005. Gateways to Academic Writing: Effective Sentences, Paragraph and Essays. New York: Longman, Inc.

Omaggio Alice. 1986. Language Teaching in Context, Proficiency-Oriented Instruction. Boston: Heinle & Heinle.

Pearson and Johnson, Teaching Reading Comprehension, (New York: Holk-Rineheart & Winston, 1978), p. 9

R.K. Sadler and T.A.S Hayllar. 2000. Text in Action I, an English Workbook. Macmillan: Macmillan.

Sven Birkets. 1999. Readings. Minnesotta: Graywolf Press.

William Grabe and Fredericka L. Stoller. 2002. Teaching and Researching Reading. Harlow: Pearson Education Limited.

http://understandingtext.blogspot.com/2014/03/text-types-complete-overview.html. retrieved on July 15, 2014