Using Picture Series to Inspire Reading Comprehension for the Second Semester Students of English Department of IAIN Tulungagung

The problem highlighted in this research is the low reading comprehension of the second semester students of English Department in State College of Islamic Studies Tulungagung that is caused by (a) the uninteresting activities in reading class; (b) the students' difficulties in understanding and retelling the ideas of the text; (c) the students' low motivation in reading habit. The theoretical review includes the nature of reading, picture series, inspiring reading, and the nature of motivation. The procedure of the research consists of identifying the problem, planning the action, implementing the action, observing the action, and reflecting the result of the research. In this research, the researcher acts as the lecturer who conducts the action research in the classroom and she is helped by her collegues. In collecting the data, the researcher uses observational technique supported with tests. In analysing the data, it was used t-test non independent, the researcher uses the observation, questionaire, interview, students ‘work supported with the video recording and photograph,then also compares the result of the students' pre-test and post-test to answer the research questions. There is significant improvement in the result of pre-test and post-test of cycle 1 and 2. In cycle 1, t0 (6.89766) is higher than tt (1.73) and in cycle 2, t0 (10.8622) is also higher than tt (1.73). From these two results, therefore, h0 is rejected and the alternative hypothesis (ha) is accepted. By retelling the ideas and summarizing the text using interesting media especially picture series can increase the students' motivation in reading class especially to improve their reading comprehension.


A. INTRODUCTION
Establishing encouragement among students to read is not easy.It is seen on their responses of joining English reading class, most of the Indonesian students confess that they lack of reading habit.The first problem, they feel reluctant to read, moreover they have a task to read the scientific material.They say they are lazy to read it, they prefer to watch TV or do others.They say that it is boring to read, they are not interested in conducting this activity.
Then the second problem, some students get difficulties to understand the text for themselves because they lack of vocabulary.It relates to the fact that they rare read any books that is why they lack of vocabulary.Most of them say that they are lazy to look for the unfamiliar words in the dictionary.Eventhough some reading techniques has been given to them such as skimming, scanning and guessing from the context, but they are lack of practicing the techniques.
The next problem is how to arrange the ideas and make their friends understand with what they deliver.Beside those problems, most of the students like spoken literature that is why they like seeing drama or cinematography than to read books.That is why students need a new technique or media to help them in order to understand the text easily.They need a new condition or challenging such as a situation of reading class which can stimulate or trigger their motivation to participate in class actively.Promoting reading habit is one of practicum which should be taken by them, it should be designed well.It is one of lecturer's task to create and design teaching learning more enjoyable.It needs the lecturer's creativity to conduct her class in order that the students feel pleased to learn.Promoting reading habit as English reading skill should be taught by developing the lecturer's initiative to choose the suitable material and good design in teaching that subject.
Facing and seeing those problems above, it makes the lecturer thinks and considers to find out the appropriate technique in teaching reading class.Picture series relates to one of the media to develop creativity in delivering their ideas to make other friends understand with what they have read.Picture series could be one product of the their own creation to tell any stories to make their friends understand with what they talk about.It does not only discuss how the the students look for the material but also create their own picture series.Picture series is one of media which has some strengths such as interesting pictures, no many words should be read by the students, it will help them to guess the stories.It can be seen from the series of pictures then it represents sequences of events.It stimulates the students eagerness to know deeper and further from the picture series.It helps them to improve their knowledge about the literature works which has some local cultures which have not been known by the students widely.Some students read the legend, myths or novels to make easier for them to deliver the ideas especially the stories which they know well.Not many students realize that there is a lot of values which can be considered as moral values in local culture such as folktales, myths legend, myths and other novels.
Most of students like spoken literature, it has become one of the Javanesse people character.Then youngsters prefer to watch the television program such as cinematography, parody or western films.Beside most of them do not like reading, they also do not know their own local literary works well.They often thought to watch the western film and cinematography are better than to read books.They rarely read books because they think it is easier to listen and watch film or drama than to read.It needs their ability to undersrtand the text, their vocabuary is also limited.The problem is the thought that it is easier by listening the spoken literature, memorize the performance of the actors and also their speechs.They thought that reading books take time, they should have high concentration, have wide vocabulary, applying reading techniques.Most of them are lazy to conduct those activities.They have not been used to conducting such activities.It is hard to make them understand that it will be useful for their knowledge and reading skill.
Picture series is one of the media which is used in reading class.It will improve their creation to deliver their ideas then they also can share their understanding in order to make their other friends also understand what they read.It is is one way for the students to dig up their creativity in using media and improve their reading comprehension.
Using picture series as a means to teach reading class must be accompanied by using suitable strategies.The suitable strategies are retelling and summarizing the stories.According to Trehearne and Dole et al., there are some strengths in retelling and summarizing strategies, in this situation it does not only involve selecting the most information, making personnel connection and representing the information in logical sequence 49 , but also requires selectivity to differentiate between salient and unimportant ideas 50 .So in conducting these strategies the students are more involved in the construction of knowledge through active involvement by conducting any activities and try to tell ideas in front of their friends.There are some steps which can be done by the students in conducting these strategies.It will help them to do activities, predicting,asking and questioning, retelling, inferring, summarizing the text.So the researcher thinks that it is a suitable technique by using picture as media can be done by the English department students to retell and summarize the stories to make others understand what she or he has read or understood the stories to improve their reading comprehension or inspire their reading class.Based on the explanation above the researcher conducts a study in order to know how the picture series can be used to improve reading comprehension.Picture series is used to inspire their reading comprehension.The focus of the study is using picture series in inspiring the students reading comprehension.
Generally, the objective of the study is describe how students of the second semester of Englisgh Department use or create one of media which is used to explain any stories to other students in reading class by conducting reading strategies.
More specially, it is believed that by conducting this activity, they know, use the summarizing and retelling of story, especially to describe the improvement of students' reading ability by using picture series; to know the most significant improvement of the components of reading comprehension by using picture series; to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the 49  Using Picture Series to Inspire Reading Comprehension implementation of picture series in improving the students' reading comprehension.

B. REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
This section presents the relevant theories of the research, they are: reading, role of pictures, and the technique of retelling and summarizing.

Improving the Students' Reading Comprehension Using Picture Series
Britton states that reading "floats on sea of talk" 51 .Merrit & Culatta stated that learning depends on the use of language knowledge for the purpose of acquiring more language, concepts, and informing 52 .The habit of reading, like other habits, develops over a period of time.Motivation and the ability to read are only two aspects of a complex series of factors contributing to the habit of reading.Why is it, educators, politicians, and parents ask, some students love to read and do so every chance they have and other studentsoften in the same family or classroom-dislike the whole idea of reading anything.Perhaps, because reading is an effortful activity that often involves chioice, motivation is crucial to reading engagement.
Learning to read is an essential aspect of one's education, and literacy development is often compared to athletes who train for competition.The world's greatest athletes do not achieve that ability quickly or without practice.They spend hours and hours in activities to strecth, develop, and maintain muscle tone and control.Such is the nature of learning to read, which includes development in phonemic awareness and phonics and maintenance in vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension.However, knowing how to read does not complete the whole picture of reading habit.The more students read, the better they read, and the better they read the more they read.Research published by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, states, "The importance of reading as an avenue to improved reading has been stressed by theorists, researchers,and practioners alike, no matter what their perspectives.There are few ideas more widely accepted than that reading is learned through reading" 53 .For various reasons, however, developing enthuasism for reading is often as difficult for the students as is mastering the vocabulary or comprehension of the text selection.Therefore, according to 51  Applegate & Applegate, both skill and will must be considered in the conceptualization of the ideal reader, the one with broad interests who samples widely and deeply from available sources of text and is motivated to read on regular basis 54 .So, readers need to both see themselves as readers and have the ability to read for the habit of reading to develop and be maintained.
It can be said that just as all teachers are teachers of reading, all teachers must also encourage and model the habit of lifelong reading and learning.Most teachers are effective their students how to read, but often neglect teaching them to want to read.Armstrong, Johnson, Bridges, and Gessner state that with today's rapid technological advances, the scientific information explosion, the need for critocal thinking and the scientific information explosion, the need for critical thinking and the advent of evidence-based practice, the professional" educator must promote lifelong learning 55 .In other words one on going way to acquire new knowledge is to develop the habit of reading, which develops a capacity for focused attention and growth.
It is necessary for the lecturer to create students' motivation in reading activities.Motivation is as the choice of a particular action and the effort expended on it and the persistence with it.In other words it can be said that motivation explains why people decide to do something, how hard they are going to pursue it and how long they are willing to sustain the activity.According to Brown motivation as probably the most frequently used catch-all term for explaining the success or failure virtually any complex task.He futher mentions that motivation as the extent to which people make choices about (a) goals to pursue and b) the effort people will devote to that pursuit 56 .
According to Brown, there are two types of motivation, extrinsic and intrinsic motivation 57 .Extrinsically motivated individual is driven to obtain certain rewards ouside him.In contrast, an intrinsically motivated indiviadual is driven by a need to display competency or exercise.The extrinsically motivated students is a passive player in learning situation and will exhibit appropriate behavior only when attractive incentives are present or when compliance will allow her to avoid aversive.In contrast, an intrinsically motivated student is an active player in learning situation, one who feels some control over that situation, and exercise her right to choose.She or he will study for an attempt to face exams because she wants to master the material of feels a need control her environment.Finally, an intrisically motivated student will perceive that she Using Picture Series to Inspire Reading Comprehension has total or partial control of the learning situation while an intrinsically motivated student will not.
The teachers should generate a motivating classroom environment such as place and students approach the learning situation with postive L2 -related values.According to Dornyei, teacher should have strategy-teaching how to motivate them.There are four most powerful executive motivational areas: a) Making learning stimulating and enjoyable; b) Presenting task; c) Setting specific learner goals; d) protecting the learner's self-esteem and increasing their selfconfidence.That is the reason why the researcher conducts retelling and summarizing by using picture series to create the enjoyable teaching and learning process in reading class.
In order to motivate the students to learn enjoyable in reading clas, the researcher offers one media to be used in this research is picture series by using these strategies such as retelling and summarizing.

The Role of Pictures as Instructional Media
In general, according to Latuheru (in Sa'diyah, 2008) the use of instructional media can give rise to certain advantages in the teaching -learning process: (1) attracting and increasing students'attention-(2) helping to cope with the differences of the students' experience due to differences in their social and economic backgrounds; (3) providing learning experience that may be difficult to get in any other way; (4) helping arrange the experience the students acquire systematically to promote their cognitive development; (5) helping develop students' ability to do self-learning based on their experience and facts they learn; (6) decreasing verbalism (using verbal language whether oral or written) in the learning processs 58 .
According to Anshey (2007), education experiences that involve the learner physically and give concrete examples are retained longer than abstract experiences such as listening to a lecture.Instructional media help add elements of reality, for instance, including pictures or highly involved computer simulation is in a lecture.She further states that media can be used to support one or more of the following instructional activities.First is to gain attention.A picture on the screen, a question on the board,or music playing when students enter the room all serve to get the students' attention.Second is to recall prerequistes.Media can be used to help students recall what they learned in the last class so that new material can be attached to it and built upon.Third is to present new content.Not only can media help make new content more memorable, media can also help deliver new content (a text, movie, or video).Fifth is to support learning through examples and visual elaboration.One of the biggest advantages of media is bring the world.Sixth is to elicit student response.The use of media can help present information to students and pose questions.Seventh is to provide feedback.Media can be used to provide feedback.Media can be used to provide feedback relating to a test or class exercise.Next is to enhance retention and transfer.Pictures enhance retention.Instructional media help students visualize a lesson and transfer abstract concepts into concrete, easier to remember objects.The last advantage is to assess performance.Media is an excellent way to pose assessment questions for the class to answer, or students can submit mediated presentations as classrooms projects.

The Aims and of Retelling and Summarizing
In order to make the students have motivation to join with reading enjoyable, the lecturer offers one technique in conducting reading class by retelling and summarizing.Students need to be taught the important comprehension skills of retelling and sumarizing information.Trehearne states that retelling is not simply recalling a list of events.rather, it involves selecting the most important, making personal connections, and representing the information in a logical sequence 59 .Whereas, Dole, J.A., Duffy,G.G., Roehler,L.R., & Pearson, P.D state that summarizing requires selectively to differentiate between salient and unimportant 60 .
PARIS is a speaking activity that the researcher uses to combine five essential self-monitoring comprehension strategies : Predict, Ask, Retell, Infer and Summarize.Before reading or viewing a text, students use the first two strategies-predict and ask questions-using the cover, author's name, illustration, headings, and other textual features.During or after reading and viewing, students apply the last three strategies-retell the events, draw inferences from the information, and summarize the text in 66 words or fewer.The lecturer models each strategy using a text that is read aloud or viewed by the class (see the table 1.0 the example questions and responses): Based on the review of the existing literature on the adavantages of using picture series in the teaching reading, the present study was carried out to investigate the effectiveness of a picture series improve the reading comprehension of the second semester of English Department, State College for Islamic Studies, Tulungagung, East Java.

C. RESEARCH METHODS
This study is Classroom Action Research with four steps namely, planning, implementing, observing, and reflecting.In planning the researcher asked the students to designed the instructional media intended, i.e picture series, which consisted of some pictures or photographs arranged to the spatial order of the object or characters of the story.In this study the researcher guide the students to focus on the description of the character, and sequence of events; thefore the pictures created by themselves or taken from the book of fairy tales them arranged based on the sequence of events.The picturea were tehn displayed on the large paper or using LCD in front of the class could be sticked on the wall or white board.The subject of the picture series was the characters of the story and the sequence of events in the story.Then the steps on how to use them were designed into the steps by using PARIS strategies (especially retelling and summarizing).
In the implementation stage, the picture series was applied in which reading class that covers predicting, asking and questioning, retelling, inferring, and summarizing.The steps used in reading activity are the first the students choose the best topic that he or she likes to read.The second the students conduct predicting by asking his or her other friends about the text about and seeing the cover of picture series, then asking what other friends have ideas about the character of the story by seeing the pictures, next step is asking the most important events of the story, it was followed a question that what we can infer from the story by seeing the picture series, then summarize by asking what the main point of the text in order to stimulate their friend to be attracted with the the stories and the picture series which they deliver.
The researcher found quantitative data by doing tests.The instrument of tests was based on the blue print.The data were found from administering pretest, regular tests after some teaching learning processes and post-test.In finding the qualitative data, the researcher did direct observation in the classroom, gave questioners and interview to the students regarding to their activities studying and held meeting with collegues to find out the students' improvement.There were two ratters in collecting data; they were the researcher, collaborator.After conducting tests, they would discuss the result then the result was the combination opinion from the researcher, collaborator's discussion and considerations.
This Classroom Action Research project was conducted in State College for Islamic Studies, Tulungagung in East Java.The subject of this study were the English Department Students of Second Semester of the academic year 2012.The class consisted of 21 students, 7 males and 14 females with an average age of nineteen years old.
There were two techniques in analysing the data, quantitative and qualitative.In quantitative technique of analysing data, the researcher used the students'previous mark(pre-test) and in the end of the lesson, the researcher gave the students post-test in order to know whether picture series could improve the students' reading ability.The results of the test were analysed using descriptive statistics.It analysed the result of teaching and learning process to know the difference before and after the cycle.In analysing the data, it was used t-test non independent.
In analysing qualitative data, the researcher analysed the improvement of the teaching learning process by conducting observation which assesed the students' behaviour, interview to the students and questioner.The observation as filled by the collaborator who observed the students's activitivies during the learning process.The interview was given to the students in order to know their difficulties, their responses in conducting this media using those strategies including the strengths and weaknesses.Based on the explanation, it could be said that the combination of quantitative data such as descriptive statistics (the test consisted of comprehension questions such predict: asking the text tells about, ask & questions: what they thought by seeing the pictures, retell: the most important events from the text or story, infer: what they can ifer directly from the text, summarize: what the main point of text ), and qualitative data such as observation, interview, and questioner should be conducted in analysing data in this research.

D. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
The action has been implemented in two cycles.Based on the reflections of each cycle, a number of implied values could be concluded as follows: In the first cycle by conducting summarizing and retelling strategies through picture series, the researcher introduced how to understand the main Using Picture Series to Inspire Reading Comprehension ideas of the text.The resarcher tried to ask them to choose or select the most favourite text for them to read, the next they have to summarize the text by conducting the PARIS strategies such Predict in predicting the students, Ask, Retell, Infer and Summarize.Before reading or viewing a text, students use the first two strategies-predict and ask questions-using the cover, author's name, illustration, headings, and other textual features.During or after reading and viewing, students apply the last three strategies-retell the events, draw inferences from the information, and summarize the text in some paragraphs.The lecturer models each strategy using a text that is read aloud or viewed by the class, but in this research, the researcher focused more on summarizing and retelling the story When one student asks the question in predicting, not all the students could answer the questions, some of them still do not concentrate with the question.In the second question "What questions do you have when have you look at the pictures?"there are only a few students could answer the question, most of the students could not catch the question because they do not know the pronunciation of their friends who deliver the summarizing and retelling story.Beside that the way how they deliver the ideas or retell the story and questions unclearly.There was not intonation and stress when they had to pronunciate it well.So most of them did not cacth the ideas of the text or the story.That is why most the students could not answer the questions correctly.Beside that the pictures which they use not clear for other students.Based on the computation of "t-test non independent formulation between the pre test and post test, 't0" is (6,89766).the distribution of tt was at the level of siginificance α = 0.05.Because 'to' (6,89766) is bigger than 'tt" (1.73) ("t0" ˃ "tt") in cycle one.The researcher, and collaborative observed some students who had lower progress in reading ability.From the observation and collaborator report that those students had low concentration and difficulties in catching the ideas.There were 7 students indicated low concentration and catcth ideas.After discussing it with collaborator, those students had low motivation and interest in reading class.Some of them (five of students have difficulties to catch ideas and the lecturer's explanation in classroom activities and two of them seem that they do not have concentration and update status on facebook).The result of the questionaire by using summarizing and retelling without picture series indicated that most of the students who delivered the ideas in front of the class, they would memorize the ideas 70%, but the students who listened the story would catch the ideas only 30-40%.Then from the interview result it indicated that most of the students got difficulties to deliver their ideas without using any media, eventhough they had summary and tried to retell the story by using their own words.The problems could be the difficulties to catch the ideas, the unclear pronunciation, stress,intonation.They could not imagine the events chronologically.Most of them only grabbed the main ideas which the speaker delivered.It could be said that it seemed difficult to comprehend the ideas of the story because of the unclear pronunciation and intonation of the speaker when they deliver the ideas of the story.
In the cycle 2, by using summarizing and retelling strategies through picture series could improve their understanding towards the main ideas and the plot of story.Then by using clear and their own creation of picture series, it will be easier for them to guess the the main point of the text or the story by describing the pictures.Beside that by seeing the pictures, the pictures could be their own cfreation or from the story book which have clear and interesteing pictures.The picture series also has sequence of order.It stimulates their mind, they had description about the story, so it was easier for them to understand the story.In using media or picture series, the students studied about main ideas of the text or the story.In conducting reading activities by using picture series were very effective to train their memorizing, delivering ideas based on the chronological order or sequence of events, so the story would be understood well by the other students.The students became interested in joining the reading class, most of them said that they were curious and eager to see the picture series and listened the story.Using picture series also help them to become more concentrated and it was easy to memorize the ideas.It was very helpful for students to practice their delivering ideas to use picture series because the picture series were sequence of events that would help them to create and memorize the ideas.After implementing those reading strategies as the technique in teaching reading class, their reading ability improved significant.Eventhough that there were 4 students indicated low reading.After discussing it with collaborator, those students had low motivation, they have difficulties to grab the main ideas and the pronunciation of the students who deliver the ideas were not clear enough.Then from the questionaire it was got the result that using summarizing an retelling the result would be 80% for the students' memorizing who delivered the ideas and retold the story in front the class but for the students who listened the story would comprehend the ideas between 60-70%.The result of interview to the students indicated that the choice of picture series that they showed to other friends would bring better impression and attracted more to the other riends as listeners, the way how to deliver the story would also contribute the story teller to get attention or attract and interact with the listeners.Beside these factors, the listeners should concentrate and listen well what the speaker delivered to the listeners.
The result of post-test indicated significant progress in reading ability especially arranging the ideas, the sequences of events, .Based on the post -test of cycle one, the students's raeding ability improved, it could be seen that t0" (6,89766 ) is bigger than "tt" (1.73) ("to" >" tt") in cycle 1 and t0 (10.8622) in cycle 2 is higher than tt (1.73).It also proved that the different strategies or conducting picture series brought improvement to the students' English reading comprehension.
Using Picture Series to Inspire Reading Comprehension

E. CONCLUSION
This section presents the conclusion and suggestions drawn based on the findings presented in the previous section.

Conclusion
All stages in the action research were completely done from March to June 2012.Based on the result of the research, after implemented in two cycles, the researcher has recorded both some strength and some weaknesses in terms of conducting more various pictures series, applying various interesting activities, arranging interesting strategies based on the students need, and using suitable media.The research was successful to improve the students' English reading comprehension.
They were some changes as the result of the actions.The changes were either in the way of thinking or in the behavior of the involved-members.The changes were related to the following: a.During the implementation of the actions, the students became interested and active in reading class English.They actively involved in improving their English reading comprehension.The students seemed to be enthuasiastic and happy involved in the activities.By applying summarizing, retelling and picture series, the students could improve their English reading comprehnsion.They got more strategies to deliver their ideas to other friends after participating in creating picture series and using those reading strategies.b.Based on the computation of t-test non-independent formulation between the pre test and post test, "t0" is (6.89766).The distribution of tt is at the level of significance a = 0.05.Because "t0" (6.897664) is bigger than "tt" (1.73) ("to" >" tt") in cycle 1 and t0 (10.8622) in cycle 2 is higher than tt (1.73).It means that there is significant difference between the pre-test and post-test of cycle 1.
The conclusions have described the actions that were successful and were not really successful.They could be considered as some ways to improve the students' English reading comprehension through picture series.The implications of the actions are described below.
1) The more frequency of conducting various reading strategies and media could make the students more enjoyable to understand ideas or text especially the sequence of events of the stories.2) Using various interesting reading strategies through picture series could improve the students' English reading comprehension.The students were creative and they needed some activities that could make them more concentrated.It implies that lecturers or researchers need to be creative in creating the activities for the students, so that the students do Dwi Astuti Wahyu Nurhayati not get bored easily or loss of concentration.In addition, the researcher needed to use more.
3) The weaknesses that were found in this research such as the limited time, the students' comprehension and motivation, the condition of the some students who had low concentration to their friends'a explanation using picture series about the story.The weaknesses of this research could be used as the reference to minimize the hindrances in conducting reading strategies in classes, for example practice their pronunciation and deliver ideas clearly using correct intonation and stress or practice their expressions to make the story become more interesting.

Suggestion
Based on the conclusions and implications that have been explained above, some suggestions will be divided into the English lecturers, and the other researchers.1) To the English lecturers, it is essential for the lecturers to improve the quality of English teaching and learning process.She should be more creative in producing and using interesting media and strategies.In addition, she should often give English instructions, implement various interesting activities like reading strategies and pay attention to all of the students.In doing so, the students will be able to engage themselves in interesting teaching and learning process.As the result, it will improve their English reading comprehension.2) To other researchers, the researcher hopes the other researchers should prepare the planning of the research well and develop some dimensions, which have been observed deeply.In addition, it should have enough knowledge related to her/his research study.