Comic Script and Its Effect towards Vocabulary Mastery

Riza Weganofa

, Anisa Fitriani

, Ayu Liskinasih

, Gunadi Harry Sulistyo

, Punadji Setyosari

Universitas Kanjuruhan Malang,Jl. S. Supriadi No.48 Malang, Indonesia

SDN Sawojajar 05 Malang, Jl. Danau Towoti No. 22 Malang, Indonesia

Universitas Negeri Malang, Jl. Semarang No. 5 Malang, Indonesia

Keywords: Comic Strip, Vocabulary Mastery, Quasi Experimental

Abstract: This research aimed at finding whether comic strip was effective to improve students’ vocabulary mastery.

Quasi-experimental design was used to conduct the research. The result of independent sample t-test showed

that the probability (p) was less than level of significant which was 0.05, it was 0.014. It means there was a

significant difference between students taught using comic strip and students taught using dialogue text. The

null hypothesis (H0) was rejected and alternative hypothesis (Ha) was accepted. It showed that there was a

positive effect after applying Comic Strip in the experimental group. A surprising respond gathered from all

of students that feel comic strip can increase their vocabulary mastery and persuades them to be more active

and enthusiastic during learning process. Thus, it can be concluded that Comic Strip is effective to improve

students’ vocabulary mastery.

1 INTRODUCTION

Vocabulary can be regarded as the main ingredient in

forming students’ ability to do many communication

skills, for example, in order to understand language

input through sound, ones should recognize and

differentiate word by word and its relation. Later,

they should give the appropriate respond towards it.

Jamaris, et.al (2014) and Nasution (cited in Fatimah,

2016) among other experts confirm the importance of

vocabulary in building English competence.

Learning vocabulary covers learning receptive

and productive vocabulary. The total number of target

vocabulary for grade one is 500 words, for grade two

is 500 words, and for grade three is 500 words. So,

the total number of target vocabulary that is expected

to be mastered by the students when they have

completed their study at junior high school is 1500

words. Therefore, English teachers will face a great

challenge to help their students master the target of

vocabulary.

There are some aspects that have to be discussed

in vocabulary. According to Harmer (cited in

Febriyansyah, 2015) the aspects of vocabulary are

words meanings (synonym, antonym, connotation,

and denotation), extending word use such as idioms,

word combination or collocation, and the grammar of

words which comprises noun, verb, adjective, and

adverb. But here, the students can master the word

meaning first, for example, they can learn about

synonym and antonym. Pesce (cited in Arast and

Gorjian, 2016) in her article describes five best ways

to instruct new words to students. They are showing

students illustrations, flashcards, posters, synonyms

and antonyms, setting a scene situation and the

substitute it with a new word or phrase. So, learning

the word meaning about synonym and antonym may

help students to master the vocabulary.

Students will feel enthusiastic during teaching

learning process if the teacher uses interesting

strategy to teach vocabulary. One of the strategies to

teach vocabulary is using comic. Comic is an

aesthetic story containing the image pictures that

convey the information to the reader (McCold, 1993).

According to Liu (2014:229) comic can be defined as

“a series of picture inside boxes that tell a story”.

Comics are made of three or four pictures in the box

that tell a story with one or more characters. Some

comics tell different events everyday. In short, comic

is story with pictures and some dialogues that are

published continuously from the beginning of the

story until the end. Comic can be humor story,

romantic story, daily life etc. Visual students will get

benefit learning vocabulary through it. They can

express their imagination and ideas well.

Weganofa, R., Fitriani, A., Liskinasih, A., Sulistyo, G. and Setyosar, P.

Comic Script and Its Effect towards Vocabulary Master y.

DOI: 10.5220/0009434900490052

In Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on English Language Teaching, Linguistics and Literature (ELITE 2019) - Promoting Global Diversity, Partnership and Prosper ity through

English Development, pages 49-52

ISBN: 978-989-758-459-6

The use of comic or comic strip as a teaching

medium has widely spread across various leaning

skills. Thus, a number of researchers claimed that

comic strip is an effective strategy to improve

students’ writing narrative text (Megawati and

Anugerahwati: 2012), reading comprehension (Merc:

2013), incidental vocabulary (Arast and Gorjian:

2016), and vocabulary achievement (Gorjian: 2017;

Ahmadi, Sadighi, and Gorjian: 2017). Meanwhile,

Fatimah (2016) conducted her research by using

comic book which was Naruto Book. Comic books

are collection of series that have picture consisting of

one or more titles as theme. Arroyani (2010) defines

comic strip is defined in this study as series of pictures

inside boxes that tell a story. Thus, comic strip and

comic book are different. Therefore, the researchers

chose another kinds of comic which is comic strip as

the media of this research. By conducting this current

research, the researchers expect to expand the body of

knowledge of comic strip on students’ vocabulary and

the researchers chose junior high school students as

the subject of the study. Hopefully, this study shed the

light on the fact that comic strip might contribute an

effect to students vocabulary mastery, especially for

lower level students of EFL context and also give

them higher motivation to learn English.

2 REVIEW OF RELATED

LITERATURE

Teachers play an important role in building the

students’ vocabulary mastery, and the students must

learn it. Vocabulary mastery here refers to the ability

of students to understand and know the meaning of

every word both in spoken and written. However, the

students find many difficulties in acquiring new

words. Based on the researcher’s experience during

the time of teaching practice, the researcher found the

problems in students learning English. First, students

had lack of vocabulary. This condition, further, had

impacts on students’ difficulty in speaking and

writing. Also, students are often confused to decide

the appropriate meaning of difficult words because

they did not have sufficient vocabulary repertoire.

Meanwhile, Jamaris (2014) argues that there are a few

of common reasons for weak vocabulary, such as the

students have poor memory, or forget the instruction

from the teacher, sometimes they do not listen when

directions are given, or the students have emotion

instability, maybe shyness, quick temper, poor

concentration, also they speak too fast or speak in one

or two words in fragmentary sentences, or they are

passive in group participation, and the students have

lack of interest in reading and uninteresting stories

told by the teacher. So, the teachers have to try to

solve the problem and realize the importance of

vocabulary in English language learning. The teacher

should help the students to expand their vocabulary

mastery by teaching them using suitable strategy

because monotonous teaching and learning process

will make students fail to comprehend the meaning of

words.

According to Simon (2007) there are some types

of comic. One of the type of comic is comic strip. A

comic strip is described as a series of the pictures

inside boxes that tell a story. Furthermore, comic strip

is a piece of picture combined which has a plot of

story. It can be a continued story. Comic strip can be

found in magazine or daily newspaper. Besides,

comic strips catch many researchers’ attention

because comic strip is communicative, popular,

accessible, and readable (Liu, 2004, as cited in Arast

and Gorjian, 2016). Also, comic strip is useful for

introducing language learners to the culture and

humor of English-native speakers. It is not only to

make students laugh but also demand them to be

productive in the second language classroom

(Derrick, 2008). On the other hand, comic strip can

teach students to get the meaning from the visual first.

According to Hanies (2012) the benefits of using

comics in the classroom are certainly great, both in

increasing literacy and in addressing the educational

needs of differentiated learners. So, comic strips is

one of the best media to increase students’ enthusiasm

in learning English.

3 RESEARCH DESIGN

The aim of this research was to investigate whether

there was any effect of comic strip on students’

vocabulary mastery that was conducted in the

classroom. In this research, the researchers used one

kind of experimental research design proposed by

Ary, Cheser J, Sorensen and Razavieh (2010:316)

which is quasi-experimental design. There were two

equal groups of students involved in this research.

This research was implemented to junior high

students. The researchers asked the students in the

experimental group to finish the assignment from the

researchers by using comic strip. Then for control

group the researchers asked them to finish the

assignment by using dialogue text. In this research,

the researchers applied a vocabulary test for both

groups, they were pre-test and post-test, followed by

a questionnaire. The vocabulary test had been

ELITE 2019 - English Linguistics, Literature, and Education Conference

checked for its validity and reliability. The reliability

value showed 0.645 out of 1 for perfect reliability.

Meanwhile, the questionnaire is needed to support the

final result of the study by analyzing the answer from

the participants.

4 FINDING AND DISCUSSION

As this research was quasi-experimental research, the

main data were gained through test given to the

students after they got treatment. The result score of

both groups shown by independent sample t-test

analysis indicated a significant difference. It showed

that there were significant differences from both

groups in the scores because the probability (p) was

smaller than the significant level (0.014< 0.05).

Therefore, it can be said that Comic Strip gave a

positive effect on students’ vocabulary mastery.

Meanwhile, the control group which was given

treatment by using dialogue text got an improvement

but it was not significant.

There were some reasons why comic strip had

positive effects on students’ vocabulary mastery. The

first factor was comic strip could help students

comprehended the meaning of word. Then, comic

strip could increase students’ vocabulary. The last

was comic strip persuaded students to be more active

and enthusiastic during learning process. Based on

those factors, it was concluded that comic strip was

effective to help the students to learn vocabulary.

In this research, the researcher found that comic

strip could help students comprehend the meaning of

words easily. The result of this research is supported

by the research result from Arast and Gorjian (2016)

and the study from Ahmadi, Sadighi and Gorjian

(2017). Those researches showed that there was a

significant effect of applying comic strip on Iranian

EFL learners. Students could comprehend the

meaning of some words on the comic without finding

the meaning on the dictionary because comic strip

could teach students to get the meaning from the

visual first. It was reflected on their questionnaire that

80% of the students in experimental group stated that

comic strip could be used to help to comprehend the

difficult words. Hence, using comic strip which was

series of pictures could help students to comprehend

the difficult words on the text.

The second factor why comic strip had positive

effect on students’ vocabulary mastery was students

feel that comic strip helped them to increase their

vocabulary. It was proven from the questionnaire that

all of students or 100% of the participants felt comic

strip could increase their vocabulary and it was shown

from the mean score of pre test and post test from

experimental group. The mean score of pre test was

64.33 while after being given treatment the mean

score of post test was 73.50. It meant that students

taught using comic strip has improvement in their

vocabulary mastery. Thus, it could be said that

teaching using comic strip could increase students’

vocabulary.

The last reason was that students were more

active and enthusiastic during learning process. The

students’ interest on picture will make them enjoyable

when they learned English using comic. This was

supported by Megawati and Anugerahwati (2012)

who stated that the use of comic strip made the

students give full attention to the learning process and

motivated students since it brought a cheerful

atmosphere into the class. It was also supported from

the questionnaire that 87% of the participants were

enthusiastic in learning vocabulary. So, comic strip

was one of the best media to make students more

active and enthusiastic in learning vocabulary.

In contrast, comic strip had several weaknesses

during teaching-learning process in the classroom.

When the researcher divided students into groups, the

classroom became noisy because of the students

voice. Then, if each group had one comic strip, it

could not be effective to teach them well because

some students would feel bored and did not focus.

The research question could be answered based on the

finding. The results revealed that the students who

were treated by Comic Strip were better and got

positive effect in their vocabulary mastery. Yet, to

make the application of Comic Strip better, the

English teacher should be aware of the students’

situation so that the teacher can apply the media well.

5 CONCLUSION

Considering the data that have been discussed, the

implementation of Comic Strip gave a positive effect

on students’ vocabulary mastery. The result showed

that experimental group got greater mean score than

the control group. This study confirms that comic

strip can help students comprehend the meaning of

words in the text of comic strip well, can increase

students’ vocabulary mastery because students find

some new words in the text of comic strip. Moreover,

comic strip persuades the students to be more active

and enthusiastic during learning process. As this

research focused on synonym and antonym, it is

suggested for further researchers to investigate on

different vocabulary areas, such as collocation and

phrases.

Comic Script and Its Effect towards Vocabulary Mastery

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