ANIMATION AND VOCABULARY AS ENGLISH LEARNING ASPECTS
English as used all
over the world. People in some countries speak English as their first language
and some other use it as their foreign language. In Indonesia English become
one of the subjects at school and as the compulsory subject in each of the
school. The government has conducted this to increase the human resource.
Beside that, there are many English courses to support the students in
mastering English.
Vocabulary
became central of language teaching and learning English. Vocabulary is the
important thing to comprehend the language skill. The learners can perform and
practice their skill, if they learn many vocabularies, the student will able to produce many
sentences. If the student have limited vocabularies, they will find any
difficulties in mastering their language skills.
Now days,
English has been introducing from elementary school, junior high school, senior
high school until university. Especially in Junior High School, there are
many school which have involved English subjects one
of local content. Teaching student in Junior High school is very different from teaching adult in
university. Student in Junior High school have certain characteristic and need a particular
treatment in teaching learning English. Some students think that English is
very difficult to learn, so they feel bored and loss motivation in learning
English and do not pay attention to the materials.
The cause
of the problem is the teachers still use the conventional method in teaching
the material of English. The teachers just explain the media only text books
and black board. This method makes the students sometimes feel bored and sleepy
especially when is taught in the last session. The other cause is that the student never practice the language whether when they are in
the classroom or at home. They are afraid of making mistakes when they speak
English. They prefer to speak Indonesian or Javanese language to their teacher
or friends.
For the
slow learners it is difficult for them to memorize the materials and need more
time in understanding and accepting the materials. Besides, they need
explanation in understanding the instruction when doing the test. Lack of
vocabulary mastery, lack of facilities in teaching media and lack of students’
motivation to master English are the other cause that possibly make the problem
occur. Considering that, the writer wants to give a solution especially in
increasing the students’ vocabulary mastery, so that later the students will be
able to study English language well. The one of solution that the writer will
give is animation video.
In
addition, students’ problems are not only from the classroom environment but
also from the students themselves. The reality we often see is that, in fact,
many students master the theory better than practice. For example, in speaking,
they may have the knowledge of how to speak, but in practice they find
difficulties. They lack self confidence. To build their confidence, students
need more practice so that teachers are suggested to create and use interesting
method. One of such the methods is story retelling. Generally, comics is liked
by the students because they like animation. It is also an appropriate method
for the students at their age.
Animation
video is one of the many media to teach vocabulary. Animation videos are an
art form using a series of static images
in fixed sequence. Using English animation video as a means for teaching
animation video can be very pleasing and interesting for the students. By using
English animation video students will be more interested and more active in
learning. They will feel something new and different from what they usually get
in their class. The writer hopes that with the use of English animation video
they will be active as participants and they have more a chance to express
their minds, emotions, feelings and attitudes.
As
mentioned in the background, selecting a good medium to teach English is very
important. The phenomena we have for many years are that teachers use
particular text books, which are stated in the curriculum, without trying to
find some other suitable sources. They, in this case, do not attempt to find
other materials that support and motivate students’ interest in their English
class. The writer assumes that animation video is a kind of text that will
attract students’ interest and stimulate them to enjoy vocabulary. As Walt
Disney says, animation, an element of visual video , offers a medium of
vocabulary and visual entertainment which can bring pleasure and information to
people of all ages everywhere in the world. Although the animation video is
written in English, the students of Junior High School will enjoy watching it
for the following reasons:
1.
Animation video is a light and easy-to-understand teaching material. It has
pictures and contains conversations in
“simple” of speech. The vocabulary used there can be inferred from both
pictures and the context, so the students do not waste their time to look up
the meaning of difficult words in a dictionary.
2.
The sentence structures, which are used in animation video are simple. They
enable students to understand what the sentence means.
(Taufik,
2006: 3)
