By Elvariza Falguna
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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