Saturday, November 28, 2009

A Student's Research Paper



Fairy Tale and Short Story are Exact Reading for English Beginners

By : Ummu Syahidah A.R Badar*

Reading is a kind of English that should be known or even mastered by English learners, especially for English foreigner. Because it very important to increase our knowledge and achievement in every part of life later.

Broughton, G at all (1980) comment that reading is an important skill in academic study because almost all usefull information are written in textual materials. Everyone should have ability ro read best, because there many knowledge which written in scientific books are in English.

English learners are divided in three levels, they are beginners, intermediate, and advance. Cause of the different level of learners, absolutly there are different way or method of learning which given to them. Reading also had different method about it. Before going to what method are equal with the learners grades, learners should had big motivation to study it. Motivation is one of crucial things in teaching and learning process. Everything isn’t done by motivation first, it won’t be mastered successfully later. There are two kinds of motivation namely :

1) Extrinsic motivation.

Gilmer (1975, 73) states that when we are extrinsically motivated to do something, we do it because it leads to an external rewards, such as money, Praise from someone, etc. Extrinsic motivation is working to obtain rewards from external sources.

2) Intrinsic motivation.

Intrinsic motivation is the desire of someone to do something because he/she want to does it. (Cook, 1973) states that when a person intrinsically motivated to do activity, he does it because he lokes what he is doing.

(Harmer, 1991) consider some factors which may effect motivation as follows :

1) Physical condition. Physical condition has a great condition has a great effect of learning and can alter a student’s motivation either positively or negatively. Overcrowded classroom can be excessively demotivated.

2) Method. The method used by a teacher in teaching have some effect on student’s motivation.

3) The teacher. The teacher’s personality may have effect on students’ motivation. Therefore, a teacher needs to do everything possible to create a good rapport with the students.

4) Success. Success or failure may affect students’ motivation. It will be the teacher’s job to get goals and tasks which most of his/her students can achieve.

After the learners got their motivation either extrinsic or intrinsic, the next step is what method are equal with their motivation. This research paper will discused about the method of reading which given to the English beginners. So the suggestion reading to be read by them are fairy tale and short story. By reading fairy tale and short story, The English beginners will be motivated and like to try to learn how understand English text in high level. Because when the learners have been motivated and like, it can be a basic capital to understand English reading in scientific level.

Why we read short story? Why English learners reading are divided in fairy tale and short story? Why fairy tale is separated with short story? While as the structural, fairy tale is a part of short story.

There are three levels of reading, they are :

1) Independent reading level. This is the highest level at which the students can read easyly and fluently, without assistance, with few words recognition errors, and with word comprehension and recall.

2) The instructional reading level. In this level students can do satisfactory reading provided; he or she receives preparation and supervisison from the teacher. In this level, word recognition errors are not preventable,and comprehension and recall are satisfactory.

3) The frustation reading level. The level at which the students’ reading skill break down, fluency disappears, word recognition errors are numerous, comprehension is faulty, recall sketchy, and signs of emotional tendension and discomfort become evident.

There are three levels of reading, so there are also three levels method of reading. The English beginners is pertain to the third level of reading, The frustation reading level. Their skill still break down and need soft and easy reading as their first reading. And Fairy tale and short story consist in it.

Actually, fairy tale is a part of short story as the structural in narrative text. But the researcer divided fairy tale and short story because there are two types of English beginners. First is the pre-school beginner who learn English when they are still child. The second is adult beginner who learn English when they have been adult one. So, of course the kind of reading should equal with their ages.

The pre-school beginners are like to read fairy tale because most of fairy tale are tell about their world, their child imagination. While the adult beginners are like to read short story which more adult and more complex than fairy tale. That’s why fairy tale and short story are divided in this research paper. Let’s see the defenition of fairy tale and short story in order to differentiate it.

Fairy tale and short story are the kind of narrative. Fairy tale is a fanciful tale of legendary deeds and creatures. Usually intended for children. While short story is more than just a sequence of happening. Short story is a narration and one of fiction but more realistic than tale. Imran in Rimpai (2006, 14) states in short, a form more realistic than the tale and of modern origin the writer usually presents the main events, which are in greater fullness for the writers of short story. That’s give clue that fairy tale and short story have different reader such us in this discussion.

The fundamental goal of any reading activity is to know enough scientific concepts and knowing the language. In Indonesia, students treat this as a bridge to understand scientific books written in English. As they lack knowledge of english, they often encounter difficulties when reading their compulsory books written in that language.

Scientific and tehnical texts contain a great deal of information, most of which consist of fact. Readers of such texts must be able not only extract information, but also to understand the material fully. Hence, careful and thorough reading is required. William (1991) states that the effective reader brings with him the ability to recognize the purpose of the text as whole, to see how the text is recognized and to understand the relationship between sentences.

As the first level in English learning, like I said at the beginning, the beginners should read fairy tale and short story. Why? There are three reasons to answer that question, they are:

1) Soft reading. Most of fairy tale and short story for the beginners, are written in soft words. And the beginners is suggested to read the soft one before going to read the hard one.

2) Easy reading. As same meaning with soft reading. But easy reading is more focus to the easy and familiar words which the beginners ever known before. According to Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, Easy means not difficult; done and obtained without a lot of effort or problems. Cause of that, fairy tale and short story can be understood without a lot of effort.

3) Add english vocabulry. Everyone who wants to master English, of course he/she must learn a lot of vocabuly. It can lead the way to the succed of mastering the language skill such as speaking, reading, listening, and writing. Reading is one kind which receive vocabulary through visual channels. So, if they reading fairy tale and short story, it directly increase they vocabulary to master English later.

In the correlation with those reasons, reading fairy tale and short story can be the basic level to scientific reading, where the more knowledge is inside. As William (1991) states that the effective reader brings with him the ability to recognize the purpose of the text as whole,... so, if the beginners can understand and recognize the text, means here fairy tale and short story, it is easier them to understand and recognize scientific text too. Robert Anderson (1989) write about the parts of short story.

“What is a plot made up of? A plot consist of four parts, building blocks:

1) The first part of a plot is the introduction. This is like an entryway to the story. It tells us the basic situation : who the characters are and what they want. Usually this is where we find out about the conflict in the story. Conflict is a struggle. It gives the story it’s principal energy. An external conflict involves a caracter’s struggle with another person, or with a force of nature. An internal conflict take places in a character’s mind.....

2) In the second part of a plot, one or more of the caracters acts to resolve the conflict. We start to see complications develop, leading to the story climax.....

3) The third parts is The climax, is the story’s most emotional or suspenseful moment. This when the situation is altered and the conflict is decided one way or another....

4) The fourth and last part of a story is its resolution. This is when the loose ends of the story are tied up. The story is closed.” (188-190)

Parts of short story (fairy tale) explanation has relation with scientific reading. Short scientific reading often write in essay. Oshima and Hogue (1997, 118) states an essay is a group of paragraph about one topic and also has three main parts : the introduction, the body, and the conclusion. The relation of short story and essay can be explained below :

1) First part of short story/fairy tale is introduction, while essay is also introduction. This part give the reader about the background and information the topic.

2) Second and third part of short story/fairy tale are conflict and the climax. The body is essay’s part after introduction. This part give the reader about the body of story like conflict and more description and narration which strong the plot. While in essay, there are some subtopics or supporting sentences to support the topic.

3) The last part of short story/fairy tale is resolution. And the last part of essay is named conclusion. Both two have different call, but actually the means of it is same. Resolution is the solution of conflict which happen in story. It is sign the end of that reading. While conclusion is final thought of problem which discuss in essay. It is sign the end of essay too.

Those are three relation of short story/fairy tale with scientific writing, in this case is essay. If the beginners who read short story or fairy tale can master the organization of it, they must be easily to understand the higher level of reading too. Because all writing method are written like that.

Everything in this life has negative and positive impact. Not except in fairy tale and short story. From this paper explanation, many advantages of fairy tale and short story have got by the learners. While the opposite of it is English beginners who read fairy tale, especially children, sometimes can’t leave the style of tale and continue to next level of the writing. They will only think that every writing is fairy tale. This is the teachers and parents job to clear it. Always control the learners’ growth. Have them leave it when their ages and mind are enough with reading fairy tale. Begin to give them scientific reading as the next reading to explore their mind as intelectual learners.

The adult beginners who read short story also find the bad impact of it if they just read it over and over without move to next reading level. To solve this problem is just back to their self. How can they solve and choose the best for them, they were adult and can provide what best and worse. But the English teacher should control and always give suggestion to them when the time to move to the next reading is come.

***

References

Anderson, Robert at all. 1989. Elements of Literature (first course). New York : Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, inc.

Broughton, G at all.1980. Teaching English as a Foreign Language. Second edition. London : University of London Institute of Education.

Cook. 1991. SL and LT : A Sort Motivation for Language Learning. New York : Chapman and Hall, Inc.

Gilmer. 1975. Motivation in Second Language Learning. New york : McGrew Hill Company.

Halmer, Jeremy. 1991. The Practice of English Language Teaching. New Edition. London: Longman.

Oshima, Alice and Ann Hogue. 1997. Introduction to Acedemic writing. Second edition. London : Longman.

Oxford University. 2003. Oxford advanced learners dictionary. New edition. New York : Oxford University press.

Rimpai, Asis. 2006. The Student Motivation in Reading Narrative Essays (A study at the third years students of SMU Gunung Sari Makassar). A thesis S1 FKIP Unismuh Makassar.

William, Edie. 1991. Reading in the language classroom. London: Modern english publication.


*English Education and Letter Department 07

Muhammadiyah University of Makassar

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