Improving Students Reading Ability By Using Local Folklore Comics

ADRI International Journal Of Language, Literature and Culture 1 (2017) 1-6 Improving Students Reading Ability By Using Local Folklore Comics ISSN : 2549-4422 (online) ISSN : 2549-4443 (print) Fransiska Dwi Mulyani Wijayanti 1) 1) SMAN 4 Pontianak, Jl. Dr. Wahidin Sudirohusodo, Pontianak,West Kalimantan, Indonesia E-mail: dwi_wijaya89@yahoo.com Received February 2017; accepted April 2017; published online may 2017 Abstract. The purpose of this research is to improve the students reading ability by using local folklore comics. Local folklore comics are used as teaching materials by considering the aspects of cultural and historical of west Kalimantan heritage which is relevant to the students narrative understanding in learning English. The aspects of reading ability that had been revealed positively through this Classroom Action Research are improvements in the interest of reading, understanding in generic structure of narrative reading as well as understanding in its language features. Based on the provided data from the two cycles, it can be concluded that the use of local folklore comics is able to improve the students understanding and interest of narrative reading, arose the students culture of reading literacy, and has met the criteria of contextual teaching and learning ( CTL). Keywords: Contextual Teaching Learning, Local Folklore Comics, Narrative Generic Structure * Corresponding Author. Email Address: dwi_wijaya89@yahoo.com

- 2 - F. D. M. Wijayanti / ADRI International Journal Of Language, Literature and Culture 1 (2017) 1-6 I. INTRODUCTION Reading literacy skill is needed to be trained and taught in school learning environment, as well as the students interest in reading that is also needed to arise. Reading is the process of the grap knowledge of words and matches the word meaning in sentences. Moreover, reading acquires skill in order to have analytical thinking in understanding text. By having reading skill, students are able to have some information and as the result of the reading process, they are able to understand the text and message which is included from the reading that they read so it can enlarge their point of views about something, experience the changing of life behaviour, gain entertainment and learn to find out solution in their lives. The activity of reading book is very rare in SMA Negeri 4 Pontianak. It is proved base on the data provided in students visit to the school library each month which is only 16% and if they borrow the books, they are only books concerning with certain subjects only. The students tend to find out instant information from the internet which can not solve the problems deeply rather than a book. In fact, if the students read diligently, they will gain benefit; that is the acquisition of something and solving the problem. Besides, there are many factors which create the students uninterested in reading in SMAN 4 Pontianak. One of them is less interesting of the reading text in learning which tends too long so it makes the students bored and confused to understand the reading text, difficult to find out the main idea and explicit information from the text and difficult in identifying the generic structure of the text. In addition, the reading text much more presents the folklore from other places rather than the folklore relating to the local place where the students exist. Then, another problem comes from learning media; such as book, picture, or photo which are not interesting in English learning process. In fact, English is the international language which should be mastered well by the students. Due to those problems faced by the students which the material of reading text tends to ignore the element of local wisdom and is not interesting in the learning process, make the writer assume that the students need creative material through local folklore comic to increase their reading skill, their interest in reading, and their understanding of the reading material. By using local folklore comic from West Kalimantan as a learning media, the writer intends to prove that there is a significant improvement in students reading understanding, especially on narrative text. The local folklore from West Kalimantan is chosen in order to introduce the students own culture and enlarge their point of view about their cultural and historical ancestor in their memory. The local folklore comics media are designed especially for teenagers of Senior High School ages. Another reason is that the pictures in comic illustrate the ideas so when the students read the text, they will clearly understand the reading. The illustration, plot, simple them and the character existing in the comic can invite the readers attention to read. So it can make the students easier to understand the reading text through pictures and ease the students to grasp the main points of the story and find out the meaning of words. II. METHODS In this research, the writer applies Classroom Action Research (CAR) as Irais [1] explains that Classroom action research is carried out by teachers in their context, in their classrooms. Teachers identified a problem or an area they wish to improve and based on theory or experience or a hypothesis they think of an intervention. In this study, the writer focuses on improving students reading comprehension on a narrative text by using local folklore comic. The participant of this research was purposively taken from XI IPS4 class. XI IPS4 class was from second-grade students of the senior high school that had low motivation in reading English text. XI IPS 4 was the class that also had a lack of vocabulary. They got difficulties in grasping and memorizing the meaning of the words because they seldom used them and weren t motivated by reading the text. It is because they were unable to understand the essence of the text and difficult to identify the generic structure as well as the language features. The figure of actions can be illustrated as follows: Reflection Observation action Plan Revised Plan

- 3 - F. D. M. Wijayanti / ADRI International Journal Of Language, Literature and Culture 1 (2017) 1-6 Reflection Observation action Next Fig. 1 Model of Classroom Action Research Modified from Kemmis and Mc Taggart cited in Hopkins (2008:51) 4 th Ed. Based on the model above, the procedure of classroom action research can be described as follow: a. Planning the Action Planning was identified the problem area. The writer prepared everything related to the action such as; made a lesson plan about a certain topic, material, media, time, schedule and instrument. The topic of reading comprehension in lesson plan was based on the syllabus in the curriculum. The media that used was local folklore comics; such as, Splited Stone (Batu Balah Batu Betangkup), The Origin of Mountain Senujuh ( Asal Mula Gunung Seujuh ), The legend of piantus hills ( Legenda Bukit Piantus ) in teaching reading comprehension. Recording, observation checklist and field notes were used by the writer as an instrument of observation. While the material which was chosen by the writer was narrative text concerning with local folklore of West Kalimantan. The last is a test. It was done to know whether students reading comprehension improved or not. b. Implementing the Action In this step, the writer did the teaching process based on the lesson plan. In this case, the writer became the real teacher who had the authority and responsibility to manage the class. The collaborator used observation checklist and field notes to see and to know about the condition of the class and students during the teaching and learning process. c. Observation After doing the teaching process, it is time to gather the evidence. The collaborator observed the effect of the action which had been done by the writer, analyzed the media whether the solution was successful or not. In this step, the writer gave a test by giving multiple choice questions based on the story that had been read by students. d. Reflecting the Action Here, the writer analyzed the evidence that she had gathered. Was the problem solved or not? If not, what steps would she try to apply for the next meeting? In this research, the cycle would have been stopped if the students had reached the target of a successful process, including a score. In this research, observation checklist table was a tool to observe the teaching and learning process. It was conducted to get information about classroom environment, class condition, and teaching learning process by using the media of local folklore comic. In the implementation, the observation had been done by both of the writers as the teacher and the collaborator. In this study, the writer also recorded the students behavior in teaching and learning process by using video recorder. The activities were recorded, in terms of; what the students did during the classroom action research with the object of reading comprehension using comic. Its aims are to know how high the student s motivation and the student s enthusiasm for learning reading comprehension. In addition, in this research, the writer took notes to all activities during the lesson and noted the students response to the learning reading comprehension using comic. The writer acted as the teacher who taught the students. Field note was used by the writer s collaborator. The collaborator helped the writer to take some notes, evaluate and offer suggestions about the implementation of media. In order to accomplish the goals of this study, the data were analyzed by using qualitative and quantitative approaches. According to [2], Qualitative analysis is a process of reviewing, synthesizing and interpreting data to describe and explain the phenomena or social worlds being studied. Qualitative here has been derived from observation technique that was observation checklist, field notes, and recorded. In observation checklist, the writer has analyzed the condition of the classroom during the teaching and learning process; the observation sheet was filled by the collaborator and analyzed by the writer systematically. The data from observation checklist was categorized based on two categories; they are, Yes and No. Yes was for statements that showed students response and No was used if there was no students response. Then the field note was completed after finishing teaching and learning process by the collaborator, meanwhile, the writer was written a description based on the result of the field notes such as the student's activities or what students did during the teaching and learning process

- 4 - F. D. M. Wijayanti / ADRI International Journal Of Language, Literature and Culture 1 (2017) 1-6 and the students response to the learning reading English. While, concerning with the data, it had been measured by quantitative and qualitative data. 1. Quantitative Data Quantitative here is to measure the students English achievement which would be taken from multiple-choice item or test. In this research, the writer analyzed the students individual score according to the reading test given. After the researcher has obtained the individual score and calculated it, the next step is to calculate the number of students in the class, to compute the class test the researcher used the formula of mean score [3] 2. Qualitative Data Qualitative data is used by the writer in order to observe the students behavior during teaching and learning process. Qualitative data of the research was collected by using some techniques of data collection including field notes, observation checklist and recording. In this research the process of analyzing the qualitative data was made simply which contained 3 components, they were; reduction of data, coding the data, and conclusion or verification [4] III. RESULT AND DISCUSSION The implementation of teaching reading comprehension by using the media of local folklore comics consisted of two cycles. Each cycle consisted of two meetings, one meeting for presenting the material and one meeting for conducting the test. Meanwhile, for each meeting took 2x45 minutes. For the first cycle, the writer used local folklore comic of The Legend of Splitter Stones (Batu Belah Batu Betangkup) to teach reading comprehension with topic Analysing the generic structure and language features of the story. For the second cycle, the writer continued giving another local folklore comic of The Origin of Senujuh Mountain ( Asal Mula Gunung Senujuh) on the topic Find out the generic structure, explicit and implicit, and the main idea. Every cycle consisted of a series of steps; identifying the problem, planning the action, implementation the action, observing the action, reflecting and evaluating the result of the observation and revising the plan. Moreover, the research implementation contained the implementations of the actions that was teaching by using local folklore comic based on theories from some experts. During the teaching and learning process, the writer worked together with the collaborator. The collaborator observed the students behavior by using checklist and notes on the sheet. 1. First Cycle (Cycle 1 ) a. Qualitative Data Based on the data which has been obtained from field notes and observation checklist, the writer and collaborator found that the students were impressed and excited with the material from local folklore comic. Relating to the reading comprehension, some students could actually explain the writer s questions concerning with generic structure and language features, implicit and explicit information, and main idea but there were some of them could not explain at all. They forgot and they had no idea about it. After the students gave good responses, The writer explained to them what they should comprehend in reading a narrative story by using comic. At the first time of learning reading comprehension by using local folklore comic as a media, it seemed that the students were curious to know more about their own local folklore since they have never read and even used the media of comic in the learning reading comprehension. The writer explained the procedure of learning process before the lesson began. The students were enthusiastic in listening to the writer s explanation and interested to join the learning process. But some of them still did not enjoy with the writer s explanation. They were busy with their own conversation and their own business. They were still confused what they should do. b. Quantitative Data Based on the data gained from the reading test result on the first meeting, the students achievement was still too far from the expectation target. They still had difficulties in understanding the reading material and solved the item problems. It can be shown from the percentage score of students reading understanding below: 50 40 30 20 10 0 2,77% 41,66% CYCLE I 25% 30,55% Excellent Good Average Poor Fig.2 The Percentage Score of Students Reading Understanding From the data figured above, the writer found out the problems faced by the students which indicated that they were still confused about the plot of local folklore The Legend of Splitting Stone comic. They tended to answer the questions based on their feelings. They still faced difficulties in finding out

- 5 - F. D. M. Wijayanti / ADRI International Journal Of Language, Literature and Culture 1 (2017) 1-6 the main idea, finding implicit and explicit information, and identifying the generic structure and language features of the text. Besides, they still had weakness in vocabulary which made them difficult understand the comic given. c. Reflecting the Action Based on the discussion with a collaborator, and analysing the students percentage score on reading understanding, it could be concluded that Cycle 1 wasn t satisfied yet and still needed some efforts to achieve the objectives from the material given. Based on the result analysis of observation checklist, field notes, and the recording, it could be concluded that the students still far from being serious and still confused how to understand reading comprehension using comic. They still had less focus during the teaching and learning process. In doing the test, the students still made any noise and tried to disturb their friends. They still had no idea how to answer these questions well. Based on the result, the writer concluded that the students showed confused about the usage of the comic in the reading comprehension and the way how to understand the story. 2. Second Cycle (Cycle 2) a. Qualitative Data In the second cycle process, the writer has revealed the following evidence of students significant progress in understanding the story of The Origin of Senujuh Mountain (Asal Mula Gunung Senujuh ). Moreover, the writer learned much from the previous phase, so in this second cycle, she well prepared for everything related to the media, teaching strategy, procedure, and test. First, the writer needed to explain to the students how to understand the content of the story of The Origin of Senujuh Mountain; such as the students should know about the tittle of that story, in order to make students easier to understand its plot. Second, students should know about the message conveyed by each image in the comic. So that they were able to conclude the content of the story. They also had to pay attention and know the characters of the story. b. Quantitative Data On the second cycle, the writer gave the test to measure the students understanding of reading comprehension. The result of the second cycle test showed that there was significant progress if it was compared with the first cycle. The result could be seen below: 100 0 CYCLE 2 38,88% 52,77% 8,33% 0% Fig. 3 The Percentage Score of Students Reading Understanding The above figure means that the students had significant improvement in understanding the reading comprehension by using comic. It was considered that the students had achieved the criteria of success. c. Reflecting the Action In this phase, almost all students could achieve the learning objectives. Based on the data, it showed that the application of comic not only had improved students behavior but it could also influence students a better understanding of the reading text positively. It meant that using comic could influence the students reading understanding positively. The weaknesses on the first cycle could be minimalized on the second cycle so the students score had much increased. Thus, the teaching learning process also became much better than the first cycle, so the cycle could be stopped. IV. CONCLUSIONS Based on the provided data, it can be concluded that the use of local folklore comics is able to improve the students understanding and interest of narrative reading, arose the students culture of reading literacy, and has met the criteria of contextual teaching and learning ( CTL). The result showed that on the first cycle only 2,77% students interest and understanding of narrative reading that was considered excellence, and on the second cycle showed the increasing become 38,88% of students interest and understanding of narrative reading that was considered excellence, and no students were considered in the poor category. REFERENCES Excellent Good Average Poor [1] Burns, Anne. 2010. Doing Action Research in English Language Teaching. A Guide for Practitioners.New York: Routledge. [2] Davidson, Larry et all. 2002. Understanding and Evaluating Qualitative Research. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry No. 36.Pp.711-732.

- 6 - F. D. M. Wijayanti / ADRI International Journal Of Language, Literature and Culture 1 (2017) 1-6 [3] Kurpius and Stanford. 2006. Testing and Measurement. A User- Friendly Guide. USA (United States of America): SAGE Publications. [4] Miles and Huberman. 1994. Qualitative Data Analysis. London: SAGE Publication; International Educational and Profesional Publisher. [5] Kimberly. 2002. The content Analysis Guided Book. USA ( United State of America ): SAGE Publication.