The Analysis of Teaching Writing to English Young Learners (EYL)

through a Movie: An ICT Perspective

Paramita Kusumawardhani

and Nurhayati

The Academy of Foreign Language BSI Jakarta, Indonesia

Keywords: Technology, ICT, movie, writing skill, EYL

Abstract: This research has a purpose about using a movie to improve the learners’, especially English Young

Learners’, writing skills. The participants of this research are English Young Learners (EYL) from the

ages 10-13 years old in of the English Course at Gading Serpong, Tangerang. Descriptive qualitative was

used as the method of the research and the English Young Learners’ (EYL) story paper are used as the

instruments of the research. The results of the research are: (1) Most learners were excited when they are

asked to watch a movie; (2) Most of them got bored when they were asked to watch a long-period movie;

(3) Learners who have good writing skill could retell the story well, and (4) Learners who are not really

master in writing, got some difficulties in retelling the story in written.

1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 The Nature of Movie

Teaching English nowadays has become challenging

than before. English teacher should always keep

searching attractive sources in order to help the

learners’ mastery (increase the proficiency) of

language skills. English teachers can also use the

technology such as computer, video, movie, CD,

radio, etc to help in teaching learning process. It is

used in order to help the English learners, especially

English Young Learners (EYL) to master English

skills, especially writing skill.

Technology is related to ICT. The term of

‘ICT’ is defined as “forms of technology used for

creating, displaying, storing, manipulating and

exchanging information”, (Meleisea, 2007; Nguyen

& Williams, 2012:3 cited in Tri & Nguyen, 2014:33).

The fast-growing advance of information and

communication technologies (ICTs) has made

potential contributions to English language education

for the past few decades. The ICTs can be applied in

many teaching methods in order to ease the learners,

especially the EYLs to learn English.

Based on the explanations above,

technology is created to ease human’s life.

Technology then is expanded into ICT which is meant

to be implemented in every aspects such as education,

especially English lesson.

There are many barriers in learning English,

such as poor comprehension, limited vocabulary,

slow reading, bad grammar, nonexistent

conversational skills. But now, there are also many

ways to improve English skills and movie is one of

them. Movie can help on all counts. Since 1970s,

educators experienced in using film as a teaching tool

and it has been adopted by others, (Culkin, 1970:

Maynard, 1969: 1971: 1977). Wegner (1977) was a

pioneer in using this medium. His 1977 pamphlet

described various film types and how to use them in

the classroom.

(Champoux, 1999:5) says, “Film can also be

used to improve the learners’ English skills, such as

listening, speaking, reading and writing. (Kasper,

2002) demonstrates how screenings can be used to

help develop writing skills. (Stewarts, 2006:1) says

that vocabulary and listening comprehension are not

the only skills improved by watching films; subtitles

and closed captioning (dialogue and other sound

information printed across the bottom of the frame)

can help students increasing reading speed; films can

also serve as the basis of writing assignments and oral

presentations, especially when they are combined

with the diverse. (Kasper, 2002) demonstrates how

screenings can be used to develop writing skills.

Based on the definitions above, it can be

concluded that movie can help the English learners,

especially EYL to improve their English skills. By

using movie, as one of the teaching media, English

Kusumawardhani, P. and Nurhayati, .

The Analysis of Teaching Writing to English Young Learners (EYL) through a Movie: An ICT Perspective.

DOI: 10.5220/0009947225612566

In Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Recent Innovations (ICRI 2018), pages 2561-2566

ISBN: 978-989-758-458-9

2561

skills such as listening, speaking, reading and writing

can be improved.

Teaching English to EYL needs special

approach as they have special characteristics. Young

learners usually have a great curiosity to try new

things and to explore concrete to abstract things.

(Juhana, 2014:13) also stated that young learners

learn directly from their surroundings not only from

their peers but also from the adults.

Based on the experts’ opinions above, it can

be concluded that teaching English to EYL needs

special approach. EYL’s characteristics are necessary

to be known and understood by the EYL’s teachers.

By knowing and understanding the EYL’s

characteristics, the EYL’s teachers can know the

effective teaching process, such as teaching style,

methods learning materials, lesson plan that can used

to teach them.

Movie is one of the media that can be used

as the teaching tools. By using movie, the EYL can

learn about listening, speaking, reading and writing.

The use of movie is related to technology.

Technology has also used in education, especially in

English education. It gives some influences in

teaching method. It attracts the learners, especially

English Young Learners (EYL) to learn English. The

EYLs become more excited in learning English.

Although some debates regarding the effectiveness of

technology have existed (Kleiman, 2004; Kozma,

1994), most researchers agree that technology can be

used effectively as a cognitive tool as well as an

instructional media. Technology can also be helpful

in classroom settings by encouraging inquiry, helping

communication, constructing teaching products, and

assisting students’ self-expression. (Kramsch &

Thorne, 2002) explained that the use of technologies

provides learners with unprecedented opportunities to

practice English and involve themselves in authentic

environments of language use. The use of technology

in various fields has been so successful and beneficial

for teachers to reach some particular goals especially

in education and for those who are learning a foreign

language and literature, (Amiri, 2012:103).

1.2 The Nature of Writing

Writing is the most difficult part in English subject as

what it is said different from what it is written. (Ron

White and Valerie Ardnt, 2011) stated that writing is

far from being a simple matter of transcribing

language into written symbols; it is a thinking process

in its right. So, before the learners starting to write an

English composition, they should master the English

pattern correctly.

Writing is one of the skills in learning English.

Some students, especially EYL have difficulties to

express their ideas through writing. The difficulties

are sometimes about choosing the topic of their

writing. Therefore, they need some helps to find out

the inspiration about what to write so they can express

their ideas through writing easily.

(Gloria, 2013) stated, “The writing is good when

it gives information or messages clearly and creates

effective verbal dialogue to readers. It aims to give

point of view of the ideas in text where it organizes in

different way of writing such as narration,

description, exposition, and argumentation”. When

students write a paragraph, they try to explore what

they are thinking in mind, and they also concern with

the language, meaning, and the structural of context

related to English language acquisition as second or

foreign language.

(Mousapour, 2011) said that writing must be

related to the content, the language and grammatical

rules. In order to avoid misunderstood, the students

have to use correct sentences by creating a well

written text and giving attention to the arrangement

of words their composition to express their idea and

to give the value of the writing to readers.

Writing is seen as a product constructed from the

writer’s command of grammatical and lexical

knowledge, and writing development is considered to

be the result of imitating and manipulating models

provided by the teacher. For many who adopt this

view, writing is regarded as an extension of grammar-

a means of reinforcing language patterns through

habit formation and testing learners’ ability to

produce well-formed sentences.

(Alamargot et al., 2010) explained that

developing writing is related to the writer’s

knowledge of language and writing exposure. Writing

process is the way the writers give their ideas and

messages to readers in the form of text. The writers

present their ideas in various ways of writing such as

narration, description, classification, comparison and

contrast, argumentation and etc. First narration is a

basic writing strategy for presenting past event or

activities. It can be used for a variety of purposes such

as to illustrate and support ideas with anecdotes, to

entertain readers with revealing stories, to analyze

causes and possible effects with scenarios, and to

explain procedures with process narrative. Second,

description is a strategy used to create a dominant

impression. For example, students describe a place in

order to set a scene and make readers aware of its

atmosphere and to describe people to show a kind of

person’s performance. Third, classification is aimed

to classify number of items or ideas into a small

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number of classes. In a classification of paragraph, it

is important to set up adequate categories and define

what goes into categories. Fourth, comparison and

contrast are to compare similar aspects or to contrast

different aspects of two subjects, people or things. At

last, argumentation is to argue ideas or opinion by

giving some argues to proof the concept or research.

A good paragraph must give readers complete

information and unified by a controlling idea. It is

organized form and can be understood what the

paragraph is going to be about.

Based on the theories above, it can be concluded

that writing is the most difficult part in learning

English as it needs to master all English aspects, such

as grammar, vocabulary, spelling, punctuation, etc to

make a good writing. They are needed in order to

avoid misunderstanding between the writer and the

readers.

1.3 The Nature of EYL

There is a phenomenon in learning English. Learning

English has started in the early age. It has happened

since the second half of the century. It is also

happened because now English is used in order to

face the global demand which emphasis on the need

for communication skills.

Teaching languages especially English to young

learners is different with teaching to adults. Young

learners have different ways than older learners and

also have some advantageous over the older ones who

start later. (Cameron, 2001:1) says that:

Some differences are immediately obvious:

children are more enthusiastic and livelier as learners.

They want to please the teacher rather than peer-

groups. They will have a go at an activity even when

they don’t quite understand why or how. However,

they also lose interest more quickly and are less able

to keep themselves motivated on tasks they find

difficult. Children do not find it as easy to use

language to talk about language; in other words, they

do not have the same access as older learners to meta-

language that teachers can use to explain about

grammar or discourse. Children often seem

embarrassed than adults at talking in a new language,

and their lack inhibition seems to help them get a

more native-like accent.

According to (Paradis, 2004) who said that there

are several advantages of an early start, first, young

learners acquire languages with greater ease,

especially the sound system, and develop implicit

competence since they can rely on natural acquisition

processes.

Figure 1. Audrey’s Written Story

Figure 2. Dave’s Written Story

2 METHODOLOGY

The data for this research was taken from the learners’

story paper and there were about 5 pieces of the

learners’ story paper used as the sample.

Descriptive method was used to do the research.

There are three types of descriptive method, they are

an observational method, case study method, and

The Analysis of Teaching Writing to English Young Learners (EYL) through a Movie: An ICT Perspective

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survey method. The observational method as a part of

a descriptive method was used to take the data.

Descriptive method was used as (Best, 1974)

explained that descriptive method is the method

which tries to give the explanation about the

symptoms relating to the recent situation. It consists

on the effort of giving the note, the analysis and the

interpretation of the recent symptoms which have the

characteristics as follows: try to give the fact, straight

to the problem and the recent variables aren’t

manipulated by the researcher.

Identifying, classifying, analyzing and

correcting were done as the procedures of the

research. They were done in order to know about the

advantageous and disadvantageous of using a movie

for teaching writing for EYL.

3 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS

After doing some research to the EYL, some findings

related to the research are found. Most EYL watched

the movie that they liked. Most of them could retell

the story well.

Here are the EYLs’ Ferdinand Movie written stories.

Figure 3. Kevron’s Written Story

Figure 4. Lois’ Written Story

Based on Figure 1, Figure 2, Figure 3, Figure

4 and Figure 5, they showed that the learners could

retell the story well even there were still some

mistakes on their grammar such inconsistency of

using the tenses. It means that a movie can also help

the learners, especially EYL to improve their writing

skill.

Figure 5. Prissil’s Written Story

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4 CONCLUSIONS

From the theories, findings and discussions above, it

can be concluded that movies are powerful

instructional tools which can help the learners,

especially the EYL to improve their English skills,

especially writing skill. By using a movie in

improving English skills, there are some factors that

can be acquired, such as vocabularies, grammar,

listening, speaking, reading and writing.

There are also some advantages and

disadvantages in using movie to teach English to the

learners. (Kusumaningrum, 2015:17-18) mentioned

some those factors, they are:

Advantages

Using English movies can be an attractive strategy to

teach English as a Foreign Language to learners. It

can be used to teach listening, speaking and writing

skill. Besides, it provides fun learning environment to

teach grammar and vocabulary to students. In the

application, there are some other benefits to gain.

They are:

1. English movies present more natural language,

since the speakers in the movie are native

speakers. Because of that, students can learn how

to pronounce the words appropriately.

2. English movies provide students a lot of contexts

which can help them to learn how to use such

expressions appropriately and contextually.

3. Students love watching movies. Fun learning

environment gives them motivation to learn

English as a Foreign Language.

4. Students can also learn English culture. While

watching English movies, students can see

cultural aspects included in the plot to illustrate

social customs such as table manners to weddings

and funerals, holidays, and celebrations. Thus,

students’ understanding in cross cultural

communication is also improved.

Disadvantages

Besides giving some benefits, the implementation of

English movies in teaching EFL to students also gives

some disadvantages. They include:

1. While the movie is playing, students try to

understand word by word instead of the main

point of the movie. This may frustrate the

students. Therefore, before playing the movie,

teacher should explain clearly what the students

have to do. Thus, students can enjoy watching the

movie and learning English at the same time.

2. If the movie takes too much time to play, it is

possible that students will get bored. To anticipate

that, teacher should consider the length of the

movie to watch or break the movie into several

segments.

3. English movies can be American or British movies

to give students different varieties of English.

Different varieties entail different pronunciation

and vocabulary. These differences may make

students confused. Therefore, before or after

watching the movie, teacher can explain or lead a

class discussion about the English variety used in

the movie.

4. The limited facilities in school can also pose an

obstacle in teaching EFL using movies. If school

has an English laboratory, then teacher can play

the movie in the lab. However, if the school does

not have an LCD or big screen TV, it is almost

impossible to play the movie in the class. In

addition, the activity might disturb the teaching

and learning process of other classes.

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