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
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
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
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER II: REVIEW OF LITERATURE ... 6
A. General Concepts of Reading ... 6
3. Comprehension Skill Question ... 11
a. Definition Comics Strips ... 12
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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