THE EFFECT OF USING COMIC STRIPS ON THE ELEVENTH GRADE STUDENTS’ SPOOF WRITING ACHIEVEMENT AT SMAN 1 KENCONG IN THE 2012/2013 ACADEMIC YEAR

Abstract

Writing is a complex process that needs skill, practice, and some inspirations by the writer. Writing requires the writer him/herself to understand the aspects of writing, such as grammar, vocabulary, mechanics, content, and organization. If the writer does not take care of the above writing aspects, his/her piece of writing might not be so understandable that it makes its readers confused and will bring ineffective communication between the writer and the reader. It becomes a duty for English teacher in Indonesia to solve these problems by thinking of creative teaching to enhance students’ ability in writing by using media or other techniques. The teachers can use media to help students in the teaching and learning process. It is considered to be very useful especially for the second language learning because it can make the teaching and learning process more interesting. Besides, it also functions as one of the aids to help and facilitate the students understands the materials. The media of teaching writing in the classroom that can be used are from single picture, picture in series, composite picture, and comic strips. This research only focused on the use of comic strips which the researcher created in Bitstrips.com in order to make a variety of media in teaching English to improve the students’ writing skill, motivate the students, and help the students finding their idea. The design used in this research was quasi experimental research design, with Pre-test and Post-test Non-equivalent group design. The Subject of this research was the eleventh grade students of IPA 1 and IPA 2 in SMAN 1 Kencong. This research used those classes, one as the experimental class and another one as the control class. The experimental class got a treatment by using comic strips to enhance their spoof writing achievement, while the control class got no treatment (used no media), meaning that the teacher in this class taught writing in conventional way that was used by the English teacher in SMAN 1 Kencong - Jember. There are two kinds of data in this research, namely primary data and the supporting data. The primary data was collected from the scores of the achievement test on the students’ writing achievement while the supporting data was collected by using observation. The independent sample t-test formula was used to analyze the data obtained. It was used to find out the mean deviation difference of the experimental group and the control group. Then they were compared to know whether or not there is an effect of using comic strips on students’ writing achievement. Based on the analysis of the pre-test and post-test scores with Microsoft excel, especially with independent sample t-test formula, the value of t was 6.26 and this value was higher than the value of t table (p=5% Df=69 t table=1.9949). Consequently, the hypothesis: “There is a significant effect of using comic strips on the eleventh grade students’ spoof writing achievement at SMAN 1 Kencong – Jember in the 2012/2013 Academic Year” was accepted. Based on the result of the research, some suggestions are proposed to the English teacher, the students, and the other researchers. For the English teacher, It is suggested that the English teacher of SMAN 1 Kencong – Jember to use comic strips in teaching writing as media to increase the students’ spoof writing achievement because it was proved that the use of comic strips has signigicat effect in students’ writing achievement. Then, she/he should learn how to create comic strips or other media in order to create or look for the teaching media, especially comic strips that is appropriate with the students’ characteristics, habbit, age, and curriculum. For the students, it is suggested that the students of SMAN 1 Kencong – Jember should be actively involve themselves in the teaching and learning process by practicing their English by using comic strips or the other media. For the other researchers, Hopefully it can be used as a consideration for other researchers to conduct further research dealing with a similar topic by using a different text genre just like descriptive or recount text, different web site to create comic strips just like toondoo or toonlet, different research design just like class action research or descriptive research, or in different research area just like SMKN 2 Jember or SMAN 3 Lumajang.