The Effect of Comic Strip as Instructional Method in Enhancing Students’ Writing Skills

: There have been several studies on the use of comics as an instructional tool for reading, but less on their use to writing, particularly descriptive text. The goal of this study is to find out how the comic strip affects the writing skills of students in the Islamic education program STAIN Mandailing Natal, especially their descriptive writing skills . This study was a experiment method. It was done by two classes, one called the experimental class and the other called the control class. Each class had 35 students. The Random sampling is used in the sampling of this study. This study uses SPSS windows 10 or statistical analysis to construct the T-Test while analyzing the data. This research finds that comic strips may improve students' descriptive writing. Through comic strips, students enhanced their writing abilities in all areas. The learning process is more efficient because of the use of simple language, clear images, and follow-up questions to ensure that everyone understood what was going on. kelas eksperimen dan yang lain disebut kelas kontrol. Setiap kelas memiliki 35 siswa. Random sampling digunakan dalam pengambilan sampel penelitian ini. Penelitian ini menggunakan SPSS windows 10 atau analisis statistik untuk menghitung T-Test saat menganalisis data. Penelitian ini menjelaskan bahwa komik strip dapat meningkatkan kemampuan menulis deskriptif siswa. Melalui komik strip, siswa meningkatkan kemampuan menulis mereka di semua bidang. Proses pembelajarannya efisien karena penggunaan bahasa yang sederhana, gambar yang jelas, dan pertanyaan lanjutan untuk memastikan bahwa semua orang mengerti apa yang sedang terjadi.


INTRODUCTION
English is a very important skill to learn for school because it is one of the most used languages in the world (Dutta, 2020). This lines with previouse study that the policy and implementation of learning English taught from junior high school to university level (Faridatuunnisa, 2020), in which it required subject for all majors in all universities and schools. This is a unique situation in which all students must learn English, no matter what their major is. Typically, we hear that English is a language-specific purpose for students who are not English majors. The first semester of English is required for all majors and is directly administered by the institution. However, English lecturer must overcome challenges throughout the learning process in STAIN Mandailing Natal especillay writing. Professional writing is often difficult because it has a communicative goal (like persuasion) that needs to be tailored to an audience (Machili, 2014;Lee et al., 2020). This shows how important it is for the content and language a writer uses to be easy to understand.The study by Pratiwi (2016), the writing difficulty that was related to the linguistics difficulty was the most difficult one. This was due to the fact that it involved language use and vocabulary aspects. The study by Randivaly (2014), Writing is a complicated skill that requires the writer's thoughts and opinions, as well as knowledge of grammar, spelling, and punctuation. It arranges the word and the pattern to produce excellent sentences, which is related to grammar and vocabulary, both of which are essential components of writing. Another study said that, students confront three challenges in writing: linguistics problems, cognitive problems, and psychological problems (Rahmatunisa, 2014). According to Taylor (2009), says that when we sit down to write, we are confronted with the very essence of what learning and comprehending is all about. This means that writing skills are unique qualities that enable authors to put their ideas into words in a meaningful way and to engage with the message on an intellectual level. Linguists have come up with different ways to explain what writing is. Writing is an important part of a larger activity where the main focus is on something else, like language practice, acting out, or speaking (Harmer, 2007).Based on preliminary study,there are several difficulties that arise throughout the learning process. Many students are less engaged and motivated to study, ask less questions, and do not pay attention to explanations, which results in poor learning outcomes. For example, students may speak with thier friends, feel drowsy, and disregard the learning process in class. This caused by lecturers who fail to make advantage of available resources, such as buildings and infrastructure, in their efforts to engage pupils are causing a host of issues in the classroom.
Teaching, learning materials, and students all have a role in a student's success in the learning process, but so do diverse techniques for teaching and the environment in which students learn. One way to overcome the difficulties students have in school is to employ instructional material to make learning more convenient while also improving its quality. A technique is a method to do something that is used to learn. The comic strip approach is one of the techniques that has been shown to be effective and capable of optimizing learning outcomes. Daryanto (2010) says that a comic is a shape of a cartoon that shows a character and tells a story that relates to the picture and is made to entertain the reader. Comics include comedy in order to keep the reader engaged (Rivai dan Sujana, 2011). Comics are a succession of pictures and an arrangement word also emphasizes that comics are a medium or tool that can be used to tell a story and make the reader feel engaged (Tiya, 2013). According to Brown (2004) said that one approach to measure writing abilities is to have students compose an essay based on pictures.Comic strips fulfill this feature since they are a succession of illustrations from which pupils may quickly glean concepts. By turning direct speech in speech balloons to indirect speech, children may learn grammatical rules. This evaluation helps students' writing skills. The study by Pramana (2015), comics have special qualities that make them a good way to learn. Here are some of the benefits of using comics as a learning tool: a) The main role of the comic book in the classroom is to get students interested; b) comics can help students become more interested in reading; c) with the help of teachers, comics can be used as a bridge to get students interested in reading; d) comics help readers understand what the author is trying to say; e) comics can help students. this lines with Daryanto (2010), as a means of encouraging students to read, the learning comics are supposed to enhance the learning outcomes of students. The study by Rahajeng el at (2015), the students were able to get better at writing stories by using comic strips. They could easily come up with an idea and build on it as they wrote. They also improved their sentence structure, put their text in the right order, used the right words, and capitalized and punctuated correctly. To assist students become literate, critical, creative thinkers, curriculum, teaching practices, and instructional materials must be aligned. In reading and writing, the goal is to get kids to think about the direct and indirect meanings of the words they read and write. Using comic strips as a teaching approach and medium helps excite and activate students' mental processes, they also argued that teachers might encourage students to make comic strips by combining words and visuals. Also The finding study by Rahajeng el at (2015) show that Comic Strips could help students write better and make the English classroom a better place to learn. From the pre-test to the post-test 2, the mean score went from 64.05 to 79.93. This means that comic strips help students get better at writing. Based on what we've talked about so far, the researcher can say that learning comics is very important for helping students write because it can get them interested in learning English, especially for writing.
Overall, the study was interested in doing the study titled "the effect of comic strip as instructional method to enhance students' writing skills in descriptive text, Islamic Education STAIN mandailing Natal."

METHODS
This study was an experiment using a quantitative method. This study's sample is made up of 70 students from classes A and B in the Islamic Education program at STAIN Mandailing Natal in the first semester of 2020/21. A random sampling method is used by the researcher: random sampling of the population gives each person a chance to be a sample of the researcher through a lottery. Add the number that the researcher wants.This study instrument was administered a pre-test in the form of an initial descriptive test and a post-test following treatment, This study's success indicator had an average pre-and posttest score of 70. There were some procedures in this study, namely: First, the researcher needs to find out what problems are happening at the site. The researcher must then figure out how the problem was caused. After identifying the problem's phrasing, the researchers selected a sample from the student population. The researchers then compiled data from the pre-test, treatment, and post-test. Next, the researcher looked at whether there was an increase after treatment and how well a strategy worked. This study employs SPSS 198 Copyright (c) 2022 Amrizal Penulis Koresponden: Amrizal (amrizal@stain-madina.ac.id) windows 10 or statistical analysis to generate the T-Test while examining the data.

Result
The Student's Writing Achievement in Pre Test and Post Test The average pre-test score for the experimental group was 26.65, the average post-test score was 68.43, and the average pre-test score of 18.83 became 32.05 in post-test. The experimental group and the control group had the smallest difference in pre-test scores based on the minimum score, with the experimental class having a pre-test score of 16. The experimental class received the lowest post-test score, 43, whereas the control class had the lowest post-test score, 18. The greatest possible post-test score for the experimental group was 93, whereas the highest possible post-test score for the control group was 48. Comparatively, the experimental group had the highest post-test score. The above data explains that the experimental class's Sig pre-test value is 0.001 and the control class's test value is 0.000, it may be concluded that they are non-normally distributed because they fall below 0.05. Furthermore, the post-test data in the experimental and control classes exhibited sig. of 0.200, which means that the two data sets are normally distributed (greater than 0.05). Pre-test data in control and experimental classes are not normally distributed, resulting in a non-normal distribution. Post-test data from both control and 199 Copyright (c) 2022 Amrizal Penulis Koresponden: Amrizal (amrizal@stain-madina.ac.id) experimental groups, however, were regularly distributed, hence the data are not normally distributed. The researcher used the N-gain interpretation with five categories to compare the efficiency of the comic strips media learning model when applied to the experimental group and the control group. The effectiveness of this ranges from ineffective, less effective, moderately effective, and effective. The experimental group had an average score of 59.2332 on the N-Gain Score test, which is equivalent to 59 percent overall effectiveness. This score falls into the very effective category, which has a minimum score of 32.91 and a maximum score of 88.87. While the N-Gain score of the control group was 19.0509, which is equivalent to 19 percent of the total, falls into the category of being unsuccessful. The range of possible scores was from 2.39 to 33.31. It is possible to draw the conclusion that including comic strips as a kind of learning media into the process of producing descriptive texts results in considerable improvements to the English-language learning outcomes for students enrolled in Islamic Education at STAIN mandailing Natal. As a result, the use of the media learning model based on comic strips had a more significant impact on pupils than the resources that instructors supplied for them in school.

Disscusion
Although the use of comic strips as a learning tool for descriptive writing offers a number of advantages, some limitations still exist. This most recent research indicates that comic strip learning media for students' writing abilities are simpler to acquire than other learning media. Benefits include facilitating students' comprehension of the course's substance, discussion with peers, participation in class, desirable and productive material, easy-to-understand information, preventing students' boredom in class, and enhancing the learning process. Above, comic strips were described as a novel learning medium for writing skills, whose use requires habituation before yielding optimal test scores on subsequent occasions. Also, using comic strips to learn how to write descriptive texts has some problems for students. For example, some students don't have enough words in their vocabulary, and some don't follow the learning process, so they don't understand what's being taught. Most of the people who think that using comic strips and other media to learn descriptive writing was very helpful because the information was short and easy to understand. This is reinforced by studies, who said comic strips enhance students' writing achievement and writing motivation since they include appealing graphics and a chronological sequence (Purwanitasari, 2010;Lutfifati, 2011). Comics are a communicative source for language exposure (Pitoy, 2012). The exposure affects how pupils interpret reading material. This survey shows that most students understood the tale and used it in their writing.
In addition, the use of comic strips in the classroom encourages pupils to be more excited and motivated in their studies. Even though comic strips as a learning media can be hard for students in the classroom, they will get more benefits, such as becoming better writers. The finding study Christina & Ismaniati (2019), comics can be a way for children to know about character because they like to hear stories, and comics are made up of stories. Character is learned through knowing, doing, and getting used to things. Character education goes beyond information since a person with excellent knowledge may not behave appropriately if not instructed. This means that via comics, kids learn about the character and may use that information in their daily lives, making the character a habit. The use of comics in language instruction continues to provide favorable results, particularly in the area of how to utilize comics to teach language skills and competencies (Liu, 2004;Khoii & Forouzesh, 2010;Megawati & Anugerahwati, 2012;Yusda Humola, 2016;Martages et al., 2017;Rakhmawati, 2018;Wijaya et al., 2021;Selong et al., 2021)

CONCLUSION
There was a substantial difference between courses taught with Comic Strip media and those not taught with Comic Strip media in the development of students' writing abilities in descriptive texts. STAIN Mandailing Natal received the highest possible post-test score of 93. The control group had the highest score of 48. The average pre-test score of the experimental group was 26.65, whereas the average post-test score was 68.43, and the average pre-test score of the control group was 18.83.
The use of the comic strip medium efficiently teaches students' writing abilities by using descriptive texts for their Islamic education, STAIN Mandailing Natal. The average (mean) achieved by pupils demonstrates this. On the N-Gain Score exam, the experimental class taught using Comic Strip media scored an average of 59.2332, or 59%, placing them in the very effective category, with a minimum score of 32.91 and a maximum score of 88.85. The control group's average acquisition was 19.0509, or 19 percent in the ineffective category, with a minimum score of 2.41 and a maximum score of 33. The employment of comic strips in the writing of descriptive texts as a learning medium considerably increases students' writing results, particularly in the English topic of writing Islamic education, STAIN Mandailing natal.