Teaching New Vocabulary By Using Comic

 

Vocabulary is the gateway to knowledge that unlocks the doors of sublime ideas to the readers. Vocabulary learning is one of the important features of language learning and language use. In fact, it is what makes the essence of a language without vocabulary; speakers cannot convey meaning and communicate with each other in a particular language Laufer (1997).

Graves (2000, as cited in Taylor, 1990) defines vocabulary as the entire stock of words belonging to a branch of knowledge or known by an individual. He also states that the lexicon of a language is its vocabulary, which includes words and expressions. Krashen (1998, as cited in Herrel, 2004) extends Graves’ definition further by stating that lexicon organizes the mental vocabulary in a speaker ‘s mind. An individual ‘s mental lexicon is that person ‘s knowledge of vocabulary (Krashen, 1998, as cited in Herrel, 2004). Miller (1999, as cited in Zimmerman, 2007) states that vocabulary is a set of words that are the basic building blocks used in the generation and understanding of sentences.

According to Gardener (2009, as cited in Adger, 2002) vocabulary is not only confined to the meaning of words but also includes how vocabulary in a language is structured: how people use and store words and how they learn words and the relationship between words, phrases, categories of words and phrases (Graves, 2000, as cited in Taylor, 1990)

So, from all the definitions, vocabulary is the stock of words that have a meaning and expression, which are the basic building blocks of sentences.

Comic is a form of cartoons in which the same disposition to form a story in the order of the pictures are closely related and are designed to entertain his readers. Even though the comic has achieved widespread popularity, especially as media entertainment, a few specific items in the classification have educational value that is not in doubt. Comic books can be used effectively by teachers in an effort to generate interest, develop a repertoire of vocabulary and reading skills (Nana Sudjana-2002).

Comics can serve as an intermediate step to difficult disciplines and concepts. Many language arts educators have used comics in this manner with tremendous success. Karl Koenke suggests that comics can lead students toward the discipline of learning.

            Many students in Indonesia have been studying English for a long time, but they still cannot apply the correct English. In other side, many students also have poor vocabulary after they study English for a few years. Why is this phenomenon experienced by students in Indonesia? So, where does the fault lie? Is the teacher using a wrong method in teaching English? The researcher means that there is no innovative material, and the teacher only asks the student to open the dictionary and also asks them to memorize the difficult vocabulary. To reach the best goal, the researcher thinks we must change the way to study English.

Teaching English as a foreign language for Indonesian is not an easy thing to do. The teacher are demanded to be successful. To meet this demand, the teacher try to promote their material, but many teachers (and more important, students) believe that no matter how appealing texts might be, they still got doctrine if learn vocabulary is bored. Needed a long process indeed but bored is uncertain.

            The reason for choosing the topic because vocabulary is essential to improve the four language skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing). The students have mastered vocabulary learning in order to be able to communicate in English. And most students in junior high school still have difficulties in vocabulary. So, they cannot convey their ideas clearly because of their limited vocabulary (Scout Thornbury-2002)

            Comics are a form of visual communication media have the power to convey information in a popular and easy to understand. This is possible because the comic combines the power of pictures and writings, which strung together in story line drawings, make the information more easily absorbed. The text makes it more understood, and the story line is easier to follow and to remember.

Comics are a visual communication and media are also more than just a pictorial story of light and entertaining. As a visual communications media, comics can be applied as a tool of education and able to convey information effective and efficient. Comic also can be used to facilitate vocabulary teaching.

Vocabulary learning is central to language acquisition, whether the language is first, second, or foreign, in recent years and specialists now emphasize the need for a systematic and principled approach to vocabulary by both teacher and the learner (Celce-Murcia Marine-2001).

The implementation of comic strips in the teaching and learning process of speaking was believed to be effective to improve the students‟ speaking skills (Renyta Okfiani Klau (2015) From the observations and interviews, it was found that the use of comic strips aroused the students‟ interest and made them more motivated to speak English. Through the use of comic strips, the students also visibly made a difference in their comprehension. Before, they felt frustrated to do context guessing and consult a dictionary all the time, yet they still missed large portions of the texts given. After using comic strips, when asked, they found it much easier to comprehend them.

Also, according Bambang Suwastomo it can be concluded that Comic as a media was able to improve the student’s vocabulary achievement. There are some reasons for this, such as: (1) the students were able to comprehend easily about vocabulary, and they were interested to learnt English more caused different method than the students who did not use Comic as a media. (2) Most of the students who used Comic as a media had significant improvement in content, organization, structure, and mechanics.

            There are many educated people already proving that teaching by using comic to gain vocabulary is worked and there is big gap between the one who studied with it and the one who is not. So, using comic as media to learn and gain new vocabulary is very interested to apply in learning English as foreign language because students don’t get easy bored and also, it’s entertaining its reader, that is why comic as media teaching new English vocabulary is worthy to considered. Besides there is no one who doesn’t like reading something funny or that is appealing.

REFERENCES

Celce-Murcia Marine, Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language,

United State of America: Inc. Thomson Learning, 2001.

Gairns, Ruth and Redman Stuart, Working With Words: A Guide to Teaching and

Learning Vocabulary, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003.

 

Karl Koenke. The Careful Use of Comic Books, http://books.google.id. Acessed on Desember 31,2016

 

Klau,R.K, Using Comic Strips To Improve The Speaking Skills Of Grade Viii Students Of Smp N 15 Yogyakarta, Yogyakarta : Yogyakarta State University 2013/ 2014

 

McCloud,S. 1993. Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. New York: HarperCollins Publishers.

 

Mukoroli, Joseph. Effective Vocabulary Teaching Strategies For The English For Academic Purposes Esl Classroom. MA TESOL Collection, 2011

 

Scout Thornbury, How to Teach Vocabulary, London: Longman, 2002.

Sudjana, Achmad Rifa’I , Media Pengajaran, Bandung: Sinar Baru Algesindo,

2002.

 

Suwastomo,B. Teaching Using Comic As A Media To Improve Student’s Vocabulary Mastery At Tenth Grade Of Sman 1 Muntok , Bangka Belitung : State College of Islamic Studies Syaikh Abdurrahman Siddik