ResearchinEnglishandEducation(READ),1(2),137-145,December2016
E-ISSN2528-746X
TheApplicationofComicStripsinTeachingVocabulary
LisaDarsalina*1,ArifinSyamaun1,DianaFauziaSari1
1SyiahKualaUniversity,BandaAceh
*Correspondingauthor:[email protected]
Abstract
This quantitative study was conducted with the aims to find out students’
vocabularymasterybeforeandaftertheapplicationofComicStripsatreading.The
samples were 21 eight-grade students of junior high school. Vocabulary test was
givenbeforeandafterComicStripshasbeenappliedforfourmeetings.Thefindings
showedthattherewassignificantimprovementofstudents’vocabularymasteryin
reading.Itwasfoundonthestudents’pre-testscorewithlevelsignificancedegree
(a)=0.05resultedintscore=13.23>ttablet(20,0.05)=2.086.Sincetcountwashigherthan
ttable(tcount>ttable),thusHowasrefusedorHawasaccepted.Itindicatesthatstudents’
vocabulary has been increased or improved after the application of teaching
readingbyusingComicStrips.Basedonthefindings,theteachersshouldconsider
usingthistechniqueasanalternativeoneinreadingclassroomandactivities.The
writer also recommends that the other researchers should conduct an analysis
study concerning on the students’ point of view regarding to the use of Comic
Strips.
KeyWords:Comicstrips,vocabulary,reading
1. INTRODUCTION
Nam (2010) claimed that vocabulary has essential function in EFL classroom.
However, even though vocabulary is one of vital aspects for learners’ language
development, this skill is still being neglected in the classroom by teachers
(Sonnenschein, et al. 2006). Rokhayani & Utari (2014) asserted that teachers
assumeofallEnglishaspects,thefourEnglishskillsaremoreimportant.Itmeans
thatvocabularyisnottaughtindependentlyintheclassroom.Thisphenomenonled
totheteachers’lackoffocusinvocabulary.Someofteachersdonotpayadequate
attention toward vocabulary since it is not stated as one of four skills in English
subject.Thisdecisionimpactsonthelessfrequencyandopportunityforstudentsto
obtain activities which enhances their vocabulary area as well as reduces their
difficultiesinlearning.
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The Application of Comic Strips in Teaching Vocabulary by Lisa Darsalina, Arifin Syamaun, Diana
FauziaSari
Tohelplearners’solvetheexistedproblemsinreading,thewriterthendecided
that it is better for them to be assisted in developing their vocabulary. Related to
thisfact,thewriterdiscoveredthatComicStripsasauthenticreadingmaterialshelp
learnerstoimprovetheirvocabulary.AstudywasconductedbyKhoiriyah(2010)
revealedthatComicStripsfacilitateslearnersinvocabularygrowththroughvisual
media (pictures). The story of Comic Strips made learners understand the
information of the story line easily and efficiently. Furthermore, one of the
characteristicsofComicStripsstoryisbuiltanenjoyableandcomfortablelearning
environment(Ravelo,2013).
Considering the research background stated the researcher was intrigued in
conducting a study about the application of Comic Strips in teaching learners
vocabulary.Thisteachingmediaperhapscanbeusedasanalternativeteachingtool
that teachers should attach in teaching reading to the students. Furthermore, this
studywanttofindouthowisthestudents’vocabularymasterybeforeandafterthe
applicationofComicStripsatreading.
2. LITERATUREREVIEW
2.1TheRoleofVocabularyKnowledge
Vocabulary is one of the language micro skills. Words are sign or symbol for
ideas.Themorewordsarelearn,themoreideasheorsheshouldhavesothatshe
or he can communicate the ideas effectively. Vocabulary contains words. It can
defines as the total number of word which make up of language, it is clear that
vocabulary is very important in foreign language acquisition. Others can still
understand ungrammatical formulation sentence in the occasional of conveying
ideas, but the wrong use of vocabulary leads miscommunication and
misinterpretation. The acquisition of vocabulary is essential for successful second
language learning, because without an extensive vocabulary we are unable to use
thestructureandfunctionwemaylearnforcomprehensivecommunication.
There have been studies and theories of the vocabulary knowledge either in
reading comprehension or language learning. Apparently, those proved that
awarenessofwordmeaningsisessentialforlanguagedevelopmentsuchasforthe
learningandcomprehendingtexts.
In attempt at discovering the role of vocabulary knowledge in reading
comprehension, Sidek and Rahim (2015) studied ten Malaysian students’ reading
performancewhoenrolledinEnglishasaForeignLanguage(EFL)inpublicschool.
The significant finding of this study appointed that vocabulary knowledge, in fact,
takes part in L2 reading comprehension. The students were involved in the small
scale study of reading comprehension. They were given vocabulary tests and
comprehension tests. The result showed that knowledge of word meanings is a
fundamentalaspectforthesuccessinreadingcomprehension.Likewise,thelackof
awareness of vocabulary brought about the inability of students in processing the
information from the texts they read. Clearly, based on Sidek and Rahim’s study,
vocabulary knowledge influenced the performance of students to understand the
wholetexts.
Additionally, a correlational study has been undertaken by Senand and Kuleli
(2015) through testing 361 university students in Antalya, Turkey about their
vocabulary test score and depth reading performance. The study revealed three
sections results from the data analysis regarding the relationship between size of
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vocabularyanddepthofvocabulary,therelationshipbetweenvocabularysizeand
reading performance, the relationship between vocabulary depth and reading
performance besides the predictor value of size of vocabulary and depth of
vocabularyinreadingperformanceofstudentsinanEFLcontext.Therelationship
between vocabulary size and reading performance, and the relationship between
vocabulary depth and reading performance were analyzed through Pearson
correlation in isolation first (Fata, et al. 2016). It was obtained that there was a
significant relationship between each of those independent variables and the
dependentvariable,whichisreadingperformance.
Moreover,areviewabouttherelationshipofvocabularyknowledgeimportance
with reading comprehension performance has been written by Moghadam et al.
(2012).Theystatedthatthelearners’difficultyinprocessingtextismainlydueto
they did not know word meanings. Meanwhile, the knowledge of vocabulary is
neededinreadingcomprehensionperformancebecauseofsomereasons.
The first is vocabulary apparently has been used as the appropriate aspect to
indicate one’s language ability. Moghadam et al.(2012) said that this is due to
learners more likely open dictionary rather than a grammar book. Second, to be
competent or to master foreign language, language learners have to have a good
knowledge of vocabulary and vocabulary itself. From these reasons, it can be
concludedthatvocabularyknowledgedeterminestowhatextentthelearnerslearn
inaforeignlanguage.
2.2VocabularyinLanguageLearning
According to Proctor et al. (2011), vocabulary enhances language learners’
learning through awareness of linguistics aspects. Those views were described as
knowledgeofmorphologyenableschildrentogeneralizethemeaningofrootwords
to their morphological derivations and apply them across syntactic contexts.
Knowledge of how words conceptually relate to one another characterizes
semantics. Theoretically, having greater semantic awareness facilitates
comprehension by making it easier to determine the meaning of unknown words
through context and to understand how related words convey meaning. And like
morphology, the relationship between semantic awareness and reading
comprehensionappearstobedevelopmentallybound.
Knowledgeofthestructureoflanguageisimportantforchildrentoappropriately
develop degrees of vocabulary depth. As children broaden their knowledge of
particular words they learn the syntactic constructions in which these words
typicallyandappropriatelyappear.
2.3ComicStrips
Comic Strips has characteristic in which it consists of pictures series. These
picturesenablestudentstogaintheideaseasilythroughthechronologicalorderof
the story. The purpose of using Comic Strips in teaching reading especially
vocabularyistobringfunandjoyintotheclassroomwhichlessensstudents’fear
(Csabay, 2006). The students are also able to practice grammatical rules through
thismediabychangingdirectspeechinthewordsballoonintoindirectspeech.
As printed materials for the teaching and learning processes in the classroom,
Comic Strips is considered as teaching media. Teachers use Comic Strips as both
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The Application of Comic Strips in Teaching Vocabulary by Lisa Darsalina, Arifin Syamaun, Diana
FauziaSari
materials and media. Comic consists of a story which describes concrete things
about the environment at school. The utterances uttered by the characters can be
imitated by the students to make their English well spoken. Teacher can be the
mainkeytomaintainthepronunciation.
Asaguideonteachingstudentsusingthistechnique,Edmund(2014)described
the procedures of teaching using Comic Strips. Firstly is before reading. Here the
teachersdistributethecopiesofcomicsothattheentireclasscanseeit.Thenthey
allow a few minutes for students to look through the comic without reading the
text.Afterthat,theteachersaskstudentstopredictwhattheythinkthecomicwill
beaboutandwhothecharactersare.Theteachersalsoshouldremindthemthatin
comics,informationcomesfrompicturesaswellaswords(andthewaytheywork
together). The students have to make predictions based on visual cues. The
studentshavetogenerateafewquestionsaboutthecomicandrecordthemforthe
class to answer later. Secondly is during reading. The teachers and students read
through the story together and discuss using the information and questions
available. The students were asked questions that is related their knowledge and
experience to the reading topics. In this section, the questions also focus on
vocabulary found in the Comic Strips in which the students should know and
understandwellthemeanings.Thirdlyisafterreading.Inthisphase,theteachers
revisit the questions that students posed before reading and answer them as a
class.Next, the teachers distribute worksheet and have students complete it
individuallyoringroups.Finally,theteachersreviewtheworksheetanddiscussthe
students’answers.
3.METHODS
The research methodapplied in this study was quantitative. Arends (2004)
defined quantitative research as an approach to objective reality which is done in
objectiveway.Sincethewriterintendedtodeterminewhichhypothesisisaccepted
aftertheimplementationofComicStrips,thisstudy wasdesignedexperimentally.
Thedataanalyzedbyusingstatisticalmethod.
Inthisstudy,thewritergavetreatmenttooneclassthatisexperimentalgroup
for 4 times. The group was given pre-test and post-test as well as treatment by
teaching using Comic Strips. The population of this research was second-grade
students of SMPN 8 Banda Aceh. There were 21 students chosen as the sample
through purposive sampling technique that is based on students’ intelligence. The
instrumentusedforundertakingthisresearchispre-testandpost-testconsistedof
10itemsintheformoffillintheblank,respectively.Aftertheresultofpre-testand
post-test collected, the writer analyzed the data through some statistical formulas
toobtainintervalscoreandmeanscore.Afterdeterminingtheintervalclassandthe
mean,thewriterexaminedthehypothesistoprovewhetherhypothesisisaccepted
orrejected.Everyhypothesiscouldbetrueandcouldbefalse.
4.FINDINGSANDDISCUSSION
4.1Findings
AfterteachingvocabularytostudentsbyusingComicStrips,itwasfoundthatthe
studentshaveimprovement.Thisconclusionwasdrawnbasedonthegainbetween
pre-testandpost-testscore.ThestandardscoreofSMP8BandaAcehis70.Inthe
pre-test score, there were no students whom achieved such standard. This means
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ResearchinEnglishandEducation(READ),1(2),137-145,December2016
that students have low competency in vocabulary area. On the contrary, students
post-testshowedthatfrom21students,therewere19studentswhomobtainedthe
standardscoresetbytheschool.
Therefore,inthissection,thewriterprovidedthedataanalysisanddescriptions
to determine which hypothesis would be accepted after the application of Small
Group Discussion in teaching reading comprehension. In other word, the data
analysis was presented in order to figure out whether the students’ vocabulary
improvesornotaftersuchtechniquebeingimplemented.Additionally,thefindings
showed which hypothesis accepted or refused to the application of Comic Strips
towardstudents’vocabularycompetency.
To find out which hypothesis is accepted, the data was analyzed statistically.
There are two ways in determining the result of this study. Firstly, the data was
calculatedbasedontheformulaassuggestedbytheexpert(writteninchapter3).
Another was through the use of SPSS software. The former was done to estimate
Range of Class, Amount of Interval Class, Length of interval Class, and Mean,
whereas,thelaterhasbeenusedtoobtainthenormalityofdatadistributionaswell
as the t-test. The finding of this study revealed that students’ post-test score has
improved. By means, the use of Comic Strips in teaching reading to enhance
students’ vocabulary has showed improvement on students’ competency in such
area.Thedevelopmentwasdetectedbycomparingtheresultofpre-testandposttest of the group. It also showed that null hypothesis (H0) is rejected. Through
quantitative analysis, it was found that both of sample groups’ data (pre-test and
post-test)distributednormally.Thishasbeendonebymeasuringthenormalityof
datausingKolmogorov-Smirnovnormalitytest.
To examine whether the use of Comic Strips has an improvement in teaching
vocabularyornot,thereareseveralstatisticalprocesseswhichhadbeendonesuch
as calculated Range of Class, Amount of Interval Class, Length of interval Class,
Mean, Normality Test, and T-test. On the following parts, the writer provided the
analysisoftheresearchfindings.Beforethestudentsweregiventreatment,theyhad
toanswertenquestionsintheformoffillintheblank.Fromallofthosequestions
andanswers,thestudentsobtaineddifferentscores.Thescoresarepresentedason
thefollowingtable.
Table1.TheDistributionFrequencyofPre-testScore.
ClassInterval(Students
Score)
A(85–100)
B+(75–84)
B(65–74)
C+(55–64)
C(45–54)
D(35–44)
E(<35)
Total
Frequency(Students)
PercentageofStudent(%)
0
0
0
0
2
5
14
21
0
0
0
0
9.53
23.80
66.67
100
It can be seen on table 1 that total of students are 21 (100%). All of 21
students, 14 of them (66.67%) got E or their score were under 35. Moreover, 5
students(23.80%)obtainedbetweentherange35to44(D).Lastly,thereareonly2
students(9.53%)whoreceivedCwiththeaveragescorewere45to54.Therefore,
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The Application of Comic Strips in Teaching Vocabulary by Lisa Darsalina, Arifin Syamaun, Diana
FauziaSari
thestudents’competencyinvocabularyareacanbeconcludedpoorasthereisno
onewhohasscoreabovethestandardscoressetbytheschool.
As the students have no particular knowledge and skills at vocabulary, the
results of students’ pre-test presented poor score of students. This means the
students’ competency at vocabulary is poor. Thus, the students were given
treatmentfurther.
After the students in the class have been given treatment for four times, at the
endofthemeetings,thewriterdidapost-test.Thisisdonetomeasurethegainthat
the students have before and after the learning process using Comic Strips. There
are ten questions which are similar to the pre-test one. The questions were given
intopicturesinwhichsomepartsoftheconversationleftblanktobefilledinbythe
students.Ontable2,thestudents’scoreofpost-testwerepresented.
Table2.TheDistributionFrequencyofPost-testScore.
ClassInterval(Students
Score)
A(85–100)
B+(75–84)
B(65–74)
C+(55–64)
C(45–54)
D(35–44)
E(<35)
Total
Frequency(Students)
PercentageofStudent(%)
10
6
3
1
0
0
1
21
47.62
28.57
14.29
4.76
0
0
4.76
100
The number of students has been noted having improvements from the post-test
results. 10 of students (47.62%) obtained score A with the range from 85 to 100.
From 21 students, 6 of them (28.45%) got B+ (75-84). 3 students (14.29%)
receivedBscoreor65to74points.Asfortherest,eachofstudentshadC+andE.
It can be concluded that 16 of the students (76.19%) have been achieved the
criteriascorewhichsetbytheschool.Additionally,5students(23.81)didnotpass
the standard scores. However, the post-test score showed significance
improvementcomparetothepre-test.
Themeanofthe𝑋" asPre-testand𝑋# asPost-testonthefollowing:
a.ThemeanofPre-test:
$%
𝑋" = &
'().+
=
=29.02
#"
Counting the mean used the above formula. It was showed that total of fx(609.5)
divided by total of students (21). Then, it was obtained that the mean of pre-test
was29.02.
b.ThemeanofPost-test:
$%
𝑋# =
&
"'-'.+
=
#"
=79.83
Todeterminethemeanofpost-test,thesameformulaastheformeronewasused.
Thedifferencewasthenumbersoftotalfxwhichwas1676.5.Itwasdividedbythe
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ResearchinEnglishandEducation(READ),1(2),137-145,December2016
total of students (21), and then resulted in 79.83. From the data analysis, the
statistical result showed that the averages between pre-test and post-test has
significance differences. The score of pre-test was 29.02 while the Post-test score
was79.85.Therefore,itcanbeconcludedthatstudents’post-testscorewashigher
thanpre-test.
score of students
Comparison between Pre-test and Post-test
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
Pre test
Post test
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21
Student
Figure1.ComparisonBetweenPre-TestandPost-TestScore.
Thefigureshowedthatthehighestscorewas50andtwostudentsgotit.Of21
students,5studentshad40,6studentsgot30,4obtainedscore20.Italsocanbe
foundthat4ofthemreceivedscore10.Thishistogramrevealedthatstudents’score
ofpre-testwerebelowtheexpectation.Bymeans,students’vocabularyknowledge
waslow.Thefigureshowedthatthehighestscorewas100.Theyarethreestudents
obtainedsuchscore.Meanwhile,sevenstudentsgotscore90.From21students,6
ofthemreceived80.Threestudentshavescore70.Asforscore50and30,thereis
onlyonestudentwhogainitforeachscore.Thus,itcanbeconcludedthatstudents’
scoreincreasefromthepre-testtothepost-test.
On the figure of comparison between pre-test and post-test score, it can be
inferredthatstudents’scoreofvocabularyknowledgemorelikelyincrease.Inthe
pre-test, the lowest score was 10, meanwhile after treatment of Comic Strips, the
studentslowestscorewas30.Likewise,thehighestscoreofstudents’pre-testwas
50, whereas in the post-test was 100. Thus, students’ score can be seen as having
improvement from their score before and after the application of Comic Strips in
learningvocabulary.
In order to find out the level significance, the calculation was made and
presentedbellow.
df=N–1
df=21–1
df=20
Itwassaidonthettabledatadistributionthatttable=t(20,0.05)=2.086.Meanwhile,tscore
=13.23.Sincetscorewashigherthanttable(tscore>ttable),thusHowasrefusedorHawas
accepted.
4.2Discussion
The results of students’ reading comprehension after being taught by using
ComicStripsshowedthatthestudentswerehavingimprovement.Itcanbeseenon
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The Application of Comic Strips in Teaching Vocabulary by Lisa Darsalina, Arifin Syamaun, Diana
FauziaSari
theresultsofthisstudythroughindependentt-test,itwasobtainedthatstudents’
pre-test score with level significance degree (a) = 0.05 resulted in tscore= 13.23 >
ttablet(20,0.05)=2.086.Inotherwords,nullhypothesiswasrejected.Thosestatistical
numbers indicated that there was a significance improvement between students’
pre-testandpost-testscoreafterbeingtreatedbyComicStrips.
ThisfindingisinaccordancewithanexperimentalstudyconductedbyCampbell
(1977) in Dallas, Texas to the fourth grade students of Albert Sidney Johnston
Elementary School revealed that students’ had improvement in the vocabulary
mastery.Theexperimentalgrouphassignificanceimprovement(6.08)compareto
thecontrolgroup(4.11)afterbeingtaughtusingComicStrips.
Furthermore, Rokhayani & Utari (2014) did an action research in which they
taught30studentsofsecondgradeofSMP2BaeKudusbyusingComicStrips.Their
researchfocusedonstudents’vocabularyimprovementaftertheimplementationof
ComicStripsastheteachingmaterials.Fromtheirstudy,itwasshowedthatjunior
high school students’ of second grade Bae Kudus had improvement in the
vocabularyarea.Italsorevealedthatstudents’wereinterestedinlearningreading
whentheComicStripsmaterialswereapplied.
5.CONCLUSIONANDSUGGESTIONS
It is obvious from the results that Comic Strips improved learners’ vocabulary
competency in learning reading. It gives positive influence which resulted on the
betteroftheirachievementinvocabulary.Bymeans,students’vocabularyhasbeen
betteraftertheapplicationofteachingreadingbyusingComicStrips.
The writer suggests the teachers to provide the students with new vocabulary
eachmeetingintheclassroombyapplyingComicStrips.Inthisway,thestudents
get the knowledge of the meaning before they read the texts in which the words
used. The researcher also acknowledges that she could not explore the student’
point of view regarding the use of this technique in teaching students the
vocabulary. Thus, the writer hopes the further researchers to study this part in
future.
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