The use of comic strips to improve the student's reading comprehension of narrative text (An Action Research at the Students of English for Teens Program in Language Learning Center)

Abstract

This research presented the findings of a study aiming to investigate whether comic strips can help students to improve their reading comprehension skills in English. This research was conducted at the English for Teens Program in Language Learning Center with 21 students as the participants. The text in focus was narrative. This research used action research using Kemmis and Taggart's design, which consists of four steps: planning, action, observation, and reflection. The data were collected from observation and tests. The data observation has obtained the teacher and students' teaching and learning reading comprehension activities. Nevertheless, test results were collected from student tests in each cycle. It illustrates that despite some parts that need improvement, using comic strips can improve students' reading comprehension skills in narrative text. The portraits of students' progress in reading comprehension of the narrative text of some cycles show that in the first cycle, only 19% of students could reach the Value of 80 or more as the success criteria. In the second cycle, 100% of students successfully passed the test. Observation data shows that the students were encouraged to learn reading comprehension of narrative text using comic strips in group or individual works. Based on the study results, that comic strip is recommended to implement in other genres, especially narrative text or other language skills.