ELVARIZA FALGUNA
NPM 208.07.3.0109
ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY OF MALANG
FACULTY OF TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION
ENGLISH EDUCATION DEPARTMENT
NOVEMBER 2011
CHAPTER II
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
This chapter
presents the teaching and learning English at SMP, the teaching and learning of
writing in SMP, the process of writing, the teaching media, and the advantages
of using comic books and previous study.
2.1. The Teaching and Learning English at SMP
The teaching of
English at SMP level cover all four language skill. Reading, listening,
writing and speaking, which are presented integrated and developed on the basic
of theme. However, the emphasis should be on the reading and writing skill.
Other language component such as grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation and
spelling can be taught to
support the development of the four languages skill.
Before we discuss
further about teaching and learning of writing. It is important to know what is
learning and what is teaching and how do they interact? Accroding to Cage, as
cited by Brown, teaching cannot be defined apart of learning (2001:269)
Learning is acquiring new or modifying existing knowledge, behaviors, skills,
values, or preferences and may involve synthesizing different types of
information, a search in contemporary dictionaries reveals that learning
is acquiring or getting of knowledge of a subject or a skill by study,
experience, or instruction (Brown, 2001:6).
2.2. The teaching and learning of writing in SMP
Learning to write a foreign language is learning to put down
at a speed greater than that of drawing the conventional symbols of the writing
system that represent the utterances one has in mind (Lado, 1964:143). In other
words, when someone start to write, basically he learns to state his opinion
that may derive from what he reads or sees in books, newspaper, or television
in a form of written text. According to Cahyono, learning to write is useful
not only for the sake of writing skills but also for improving the student’s
English skills as a whole. In other words, ignoring the skill to write, means
not only ignoring the writing skills themselves, but it is also ignoring the
contribution of writing skills toward the development of the student’s other
language skills and the component of the language (2004:85).
In fact, writing is a difficult subject, especially for the
Junior High School students. Byrne also argue as cited by Ozbek, that writing
is not easy nor spontaneous; it requires conscious mental effort (1995:13).
Furthermore, he divides the problems. The first, he calls psychological, caused
by lack of interaction and feedback between the reader and the writer. The
second category consists of linguistics problems. Byrne states that in speech,
grammar mistakes can be tolerated because of the spontaneous nature of the medium
which prevents the speaker from fully monitoring what they are saying in
particular, the sentence construction and the inter-connection of the speaker’s
sentences.
A majority of
students dislike writing because they think that writing is boring activity (
cimcoz, 1999). A teacher who didi not try to see the real message behind these
comments could easily become discouraged. Eventually, both the teacher and the
students will ‘hate writing’. To prevent this from happening the teacher should
consider what students actually mean when they say ‘boring’, and the
possibility that students are actually expressing their insecurity and lack of
confidence in completing the task.
In general condition, the teacher usually only asks the
students to write a paragraph bases on the topic, which is given. This task
often makes the students confused and not confidence to start doing their
writing activity. The topic seems very strange and uninteresting for them, so
how could they write something about the topic when they don’t have any
information about the topic. Furthermore, many students in Junior High School
are not good in writing. They are not able to express their own ideas related
to the topic easily, especially in form of paragraph. Abbot states that in
writing class it is not enough to use the teacher’s instruction only
(1981:142). It means that students need something in order to help them
expressing and improving writing ability.
From those situations, teachers should be able to provide and
create various techniques to help their students. It is stated that teacher is
responsible for providing a safe environment in which clients can learn and
grow (Richards, 1986:122). The environment is including the topic and material
sources that can arouse the student’s motivation to write. According to Puchta
(1993:3), it is true that teenagers are often less motivated that younger
children and adults. Also, they frequently present outright discipline
problems. This is partly due to teachers having missed opportunities to build bridges
between what they want to or what they have to teach and their student’s worlds
of thought and experience.
Cimcoz (1999) said that not everyone can become a writer.
However, everyone can learn to write better and to write, well organized,
flowing essays with clear language. He also stated that if our students want to
be a good writer, we should not only focus on grammar and sentence structure,
because grammar and sentence structure are not they key to making better
writers of our students, but also the students must be given what any writer
needs, an understanding of their capacity to write, motivation, self-confidence
and courage.
2.3. Writing
Writing is a method of representing language in visual or
tactile form. Writing systems use sets of symbols to represent the sounds of
speech, and may also have symbols for such things as punctuation and numerals (Wikipedia).
All writing use visible signs with the exception of the
raised notation systems used by blind and visually impaired people, such as
Braille and Moon. Hence the need to include tactile signs in the above
definition.
In A History of Writing, Steven Roger Fischer argues that no
one definition of writing can cover all the writing systems that exist and have
ever existed. Instead he states that a 'complete writing' system should fulfill
all the following criteria:
a.
it must have as its purpose communication;
b.
it must consist of artificial graphic marks on a durable or electronic
surface;
c.
it must use marks that relate conventionally to articulate speech (the
systematic arrangement of significant vocal sounds) or electronic programing in
such a way that communication is achieved.
Writing systems are both functional, providing a visual way
to represent language, and also symbolic, in that they represent cultures and
peoples. In The writing systems of the world, Florian Coulmas describes them as
follows:
“As the most visible items of a language, scripts and
orthographies are 'emotionally loaded', indicating as they do group loyalties
and identities. Rather than being mere instruments of a practical nature, they
are symbolic systems of great social significance which may, moreover, have
profound effect on the social structure of a speech community”.
2.4. The Process of Writing
The writing
process provide an opportunity for students to state and refine their thought
until they have expressed their self as clearly as possible (Curter,
2002:250) in addition, at this process, students are involved in the
construction of narratives on topics in which they have a personal interest. Learning to write is a process of
discovering and organizing the ideas, putting them on a paper and reshaping and
revising them. Writing is the most difficult lesson in the school since the
students have to produce the text by using English. They have to write about
what they think in their mind and state it on a paper by using the correct
procedure.
Thus, according to California Assessment Program (in
O’malley, 1996:140), in wring process. Each task for students writing
assessment should meet the following criteria: firstly is to invite the desired
type of writing or genre. Secondly is to engage the thinking, problem solving,
composing, and text-making processes central to the type of writing. Thirdly is
being challenging for many students and accessible to all. Fourthly is to
provide equitable opportunities for all students to respond. Fifthly is to
produce interesting, not just proficient writing. The last is liked by many students.
2.5. The Teaching Media
According to Kabudin, teaching media are instruments, which
are used to make the communication affective, so that the teaching objectives
can be achieved totally. An interesting situation of learning a foreign
language, in this case by using comic as teaching media will help the students
in making a narrative text.
Using comic as an aid in teaching and learning process, giving many advantages
for students especially in writing class activity in order to improve their interest
in learning English as the first step to increase their English ability. If
this teaching media is prepared accurately and set up carefully, the teaching
learning activities will run well (in Widayanti, 2004:12).
2.6. Comic
The word “comic”
is taken from French word, cacique, which means funny or cute. Thus comic is
defined as a picture story, which consists of a series of pictures, presented
in several boxes and completed by sentences that are printed in the callouts
over the speaker’s head to indicate the speaker’s speeches. In some story or
cases, it is completed by narration or explanation in order to explain and
entertain the reader (Ensiklopedi Nasional Indonesia, 1990:54).
2.7. The Advantages of Using Comic Books
Using comics as a
material in language teaching process have many advantages. Besides to give a
pleasure, comics also has a main function, it is to give information and
education, related to the correlation of reading and writing as mentioned in
the previous chapter. Moreover there are some advantages that can be gotten
from reading comic books. According to Heubener (in Marlina, 1999:5). There are
some advantages of comic books: first, comic books are easy to read and
encourage the students to read. Second, the subject matter of comic books are
entertaining an amusing, and the readers are attracted. Third, the plots
of the narrative of comic books are similar to those of the film. Fourth, comic
books are very expensive medium. They provide useful source of visual material.
Fifth, by introduction new words, comic books build vocabulary.
From the statement above, comic book will give some
advantages both for teacher and for students. The students’ interest to comics
emphasizes the potential of visual material for teaching (brown,2001:345). In
line with this statement, Harris also says that many teachers are concerned
over the great interest shown by students in comics, most of which contain
adventure tales or portray the explosion of super human character
(1972:457)Teacher will have a new method in language teaching process by using
an affective material as an additional source that will keep the students
interest to learn English and the students will be motivated to improve their
language skills.
2.8. Narrative text
Narrative text is
kind of text tells a story. It is developed in some steps: orientation,
complication, resoltion, evaluation, and reorientation. Narrative text can be
in the form of novel, short stories, poems, oral stories or song. Narrative
engages the reader in interaction with characters, event and themes have
potential to utilize and develop experience as well to provide “positive
evidence” for language acquisition. Mayer (2005:52) states that narrative is
one of the most powerful ways of communicating with others. Moreover Anderson
(1997:8) states that narrative is a piece of text tells a story and, in doing
so, entertains or informs the reader or listener. To make the student feel
enjoyable and pleasure in learning writing, teacher must select interesting
writing text to tech writing. I choose “narrative text” as the form of writing
material.
2.9. Previous study
Zulaikhah, 2009 improving students’ writing skills of class
VII-A SMPN 1 Nyunut Tulungagung through semantic mapping technique. The study
showed that teaching writing through semantic mapping technique turned out
giving better result to the students’ writing. The students showed better
writings in terms of grammar, vocabulary, and the content. Moreover, the
students showed better interest in writing
In this present study, I will try to study the improving
students’ ability in writing narrative texts by using comic at SMP BULULAWANG MALANG.
I chose the school based on the fact that their writing
ability is unsatisfactory. It meant that the students still had difficulty in
making narrative text.
Therefore, it was necessary to make use of potentially appropriate strategy,
comic as media to teach them narrative written text
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