Animated Stories Cartoons and EFL Writing Activities

Lia Gita Oktafia

The University of Sriwijaya
liagitaru@gmail.com

Abstract: Animated stories cartoons can be considered as an authentic

material in English language teaching, so it can be a good media in
teaching tool. Moreover, it is easy for the learners to get the access and to
follow the story of animated cartoons. Animated cartoons provide or
visualize story for the students simply and interestingly to improve
students’ writing skill. Animated cartoons can promote students’
imagination. Then students can write a story from what they have
imagined by watching animated cartoons. From previous research,
animated cartoons are proven to be an effective in the process of teaching
and learning process. This media can increase students’ writing skill.

Keywords: Animated cartoons, Short story, Writing

Introduction

Integrating literature in English language teaching is not new. Literature has been

used since nineteenth century as the materials of teaching. Nowadays, literature has been

a big attention in language and education (Carter, 2007). There are so many theories

telling about why literature can be used as teaching materials. They also point out that

there are four reasons why literature is good as teaching materials they are literature as

authentic materials, language enrichment, cultural enrichment, and personal involvement.

Short story is one genre of literature. Short story is an ideal material as literary

work to be used in the foreign language classroom (Collie and Slater 1987). Short story

has some advantages. Collie and Slater claim that the main advantage of short story is the

practical length of the content. According to Tseng’s investigation (2010), short story was

more favorite than the other genre which chosen by the participants. The result from his

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investigation is the top ten literary works that students like most were short stories in the

first rank, plays in the second, novel in third, and followed by poem. The total of literary

works presented by Tseng was twenty four texts. Students liked five short stories, three

plays, one novel, and one poem. It showed that how short story could cause students’

attention. Short story also could promote and help students in learning English. Vural

(2013) found out that the use of short story as literary works improved students’

performance in learning English, and students’ writing and reading skills and increased

students’ motivation.

Next, nowadays introducing literature is not only in the form of printed but also is

in the form of technology or non print materials. Tseng (2010) found out that to present

literary works it could use supplementary material (DVDs) to help students to appreciate

literature easier. The essence of using audiovisual very helps the students to understand

and appreciate the literary works. According to Harmer (2001), by using video as audio

visual materials the learners do not only hear language but they also see it. In line,

Travers (1967) assumes that the greater the number of sense modalities that are used in

learning the better will be the learning.

Animated cartoons can be a good aid as video or visual text. Visual texts usually

can be printed, electronic, fiction, or nonfiction and one variety of visual texts as learning

resources is animated cartoons (Draper, 2010). In addition, Bahrani (2012) found out that

cartoons and films as authentic materials promoted the language input better and

language proficiency enhancement. It can be seen how animated cartoons can facilitate

learners to learn English. It also needs to be underlined that animated cartoons bring the

learners to a condition where the learner can visualize a story deeply and sometimes the

written form can not make it as clear as audio visual materials.

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 Basically, animated Cartoons are colorful and amusing. So these characteristic are

so interesting for the students. Travers (1967) states that Audio visual such kind movies

have a high level of light intensity and the colors and those factors which attract students’

high attention and motivate them effectively. Moreover, cartoons usually tell a simple

story that is easy to be followed by the students. Animated cartoons provide plot of story

and can represent the real life in simple way to understand and to visualize. So, cartoon

can be a way to present literary work. Furthermore, cartoons with good story lines tend to

motivate the learners to facilitate learners in getting the language input better. Yaman

(2010) found out that using cartoons in ELT positively increased creativity skills,

concretization of teaching, and motivation, eased the process of learning and

remembering, provided permanence and reduction of repetition, and handled classes

without the need of textbooks.

Animated cartoons should be considered as an aid in ELT to promote students’

skills positively. Accoding to Ubukawa (2011) and Baratta (2008), they found that

animated film as a good aid could improve writing skill and film had imaginative and

metaphorical. It could help learners in their imaginative writing. In addition, Yaman

(2010) also revealed that cartoons as teaching tool can promote language grammar

courses based on teaching some abstract rules and concepts. He also stated that animated

cartoons had contribution to develop written and oral expression skills since these skills

as the goals of abstract rules and concepts of the language grammar.

Students need to master writing skill. In curriculum 2013, writing skill and the

other language skills need to be mastered by students (Kemendikbud, 2013). Harmer

(2001) points out that reasons of why learners need writing skill are reinforcement,

language development, learning styles and writing as a basic language skill. These

reasons are clear why the students should improve their writing skill. Furthermore, the

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strength of writing ability could be an indicator whether the students had a good academic

position and an academic successful as an aid to reach academic mastery (Hosseini,

Taghizadeh, Abedin, & Naseri, 2013).

Unfortunately, EFL learners face problems in writing activities which can hamper

the process of writing itself. In addition, Richards and Renandya (2002) claim that

writing is the most difficult skills for second language or foreign language

learners. According to Huwari and Al-khasawneh’s investigation (2013), EFL learners

usually had problems in writing and they were weak in writing skill because of

grammatical weakness, knowledge and understanding, less practice, and educational

background.

From the explanation above, it can be seen how animated cartoons can be used in

ELT classroom. Furthermore, animated cartoons can be an aid to promote students’

writing skill. In short, this paper will discuss ‘Animated cartoons and EFL writing

activities’.

Literature and Short Story

Generally, literature refers to authentic materials for EFL learners. Riverol (1991)

states that “literature then provides us with authentic language—works which have not

been written specifically with the foreign learner in mind” (p. 66). The reason is what the

learners learn in the classroom does not guarantee that they will learn and get the real

language that learned by them. According to Carter (2007), “literary texts are socially,

culturally and historically variable, should be defined as part of institutionalized social

processes, and are discourses that, far from being separate from other discourses, share

characteristics with them” (p. 5).

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 Basically, literary works are not written for specific purpose, major, or area.

Barthes said that “literature is what gets taught” (Carter, 2007, p. 5). Literature has a

number of genres with various themes and the level of difficulties. So, this is an important

issue for the teachers or instructor when they want to use literary works in the classroom.

They need to consider some indicator to select the literary works. Some considerations in

selecting the literary text that should be paid attention are students’ needs, interest,

cultural background, language level, and the relevance to life experience, (Collie and

Slater, 1987)

 Literature as authentic materials

“Literature offers a bountiful and extremely varied body of written material which is

‘important’ in the sense that it says something about fundamental human issues, and

which is enduring rather than ephemeral” (Collie and Slater, 1987, p. 5). Literature is

known as sources of authentic materials. It is also supported by Brumfit and Carter

(1987), literature is considered as authentic text because it offers real language

context. It can cover as authentic samples of language. We can see for example,

travel timetables, city plans, forms, pamphlets, cartoons, advertisements, newspaper

or magazine articles.

 Cultural enrichment

Literature has a great deal as cultural information. Novels, plays, or short stories are

clear to representative the vivid context from various social and cultural backgrounds

which can be visualized. For example, how people speak, what people believe in,

what their habits are, etc. Literature brings the readers or learners to the culture

whose language is being learnt (Collie and Slater, 1987).

 Language enrichment

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 “Literature provides a rich context in which individual lexical or syntactical items

are made more memorable” (Clotter and Slater, 1987, p. 7). From the content of

literary works students can learn various characteristic of written language, the

formation and function of sentences, the variety of possible structures, and how the

ways to connect ideas. Exactly, those characteristics can broaden and enrich

students’ linguistics knowledge. Learning by using literary works can assist the

students to improve their basic language skills.

 Personal involvement

“Core language teaching materials must concentrate on how a language operates

both as a rule-based system and as a sociosemantic system” (Collie and Slater, 1987,

p. 7). They also claim that literary works consist some features of the written

language—the structure of sentences, the variety of form, the different ways of

connecting ideas. This will improve students’ writing skills.

Introducing literature can use short story as literary works. Because short story is

one of literary genres. Short story consists of literary elements, namely characters, setting,

plot, conflict, climax, resolution, etc. By using short story, the teachers or instructor can

cover or handle all of students’ level. Furthermore, short is an authentic material for EFL

learners, the can learn much about native culture. In addition, according to Poulkahor and

Kohan’s investigation (2013), short story could improve students’ reading

comprehension.

There are still many advantages that provided by short story. Erkaya (2005) points

out that short story has some advantages, namely motivation, culture, literary, and higher

order thinking. And the main benefit is short story can promote the four skills in

language.

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The use of Video as Audio Visual Materials

Hamer (2001) points out that there are four reasons why video is a good aid to

teach language in the classroom. They are:

 Seeing language in use, this has been discussed in the previous part. Sometime, what

learners learn in the class room and in the book form they do not know the real

language context. The learners tend to learn language from text book input and

teachers input. Not all of information from the book can be got by them. So, from

video the learner can interpret and learn from what they hear and what they see.

 Cross cultural awareness, from video the learners can learn much about the

language. It is not only the language but they also can learn how the native speakers

speak or interact each other. They will enrich their cultural about other languages.

 The power of creation, what the learners get from video it is more memorable and

enjoyable (Harmer, 2001). Video can stimulate students’ creativity and imagination.

 Motivation, the learners learn language as well as they hear and see language in use

(Harmer, 2001). Watching video is interesting activity for the learners, it can

enhance motivation.

 The other advantages are video presents the culture and provides memorable and

enjoyable for the learners (Travers, 1967).

The Limitations of Using Video the Classroom

The teachers need to anticipate when they want to use technology in the classroom,

e.g. video. Harmer (2001) point out six potential problems by using video, they are:

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 The “nothing new” syndrome, video used by them is not only an entertainment, but

it is a teaching material. So, the teachers have to know what kind of activity and the

teaching procedure by using this tool.

 Poor quality tapes and disks, the teachers have to prepare video well. Does the video

have good quality? Can the video be used in the classroom? The teachers have t have

these answers.

 Poor viewing condition, the teacher also need to prepare the supporting tool, for

example, the computer, the screen, the speaker, and the electricity. So, students can

watch and hear well.

 Stop and start, sometimes in watching activity the students still have problems to

comprehend the story. As the result, they ask the teacher to repeat it. The teachers

need to know clearly, how many times they will repeat and replay the video. So, it

does not wasting the time.

 The length of extracts, the teachers need to consider the length of video. According

to Stempleski (1994) the short length video will be better than the long length

video. A short video (3 to 5 minutes) provides a chance for the students to

watch it actively rather that a long video makes learner to watch it passively.

 Fingers and thumb, the teachers should know well how to operate the tool, for

example when the students ask to repeat a certain part the teacher have to be able to

do it. The teacher have to familiarize the system that used by them.

Animated Stories Cartoons

We can introduce and present short stories in the form of animated cartoons video.

Animated cartoons can be used for language teaching. It is supported by Collie and Slater

(1987), cartoon is categorized as one of authentic materials and literary works. It provides

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authentic language like in the text book. In addition, animated cartoon in the form of

video as audio visual material is categorized as visual text. Visual texts usually can be

printed, electronic, fiction, or nonfiction and one variety of visual texts as learning

resources is animated cartoons (Draper, 2010).

In addition, the interesting points from animated cartoon are colorful and amusing.

Although, it tends to entertain the audience animated cartoons still provide plot of story

and setting like in the real life simply. It makes this media easy to understand and to

follow or enjoy the story. Animated cartoons bring the learners to a condition where the

learner can visualize a story deeply and sometimes the written form can not make it as

clear as movie or video. By using animation children can develop skills and competencies

in storytelling, visual communication, cognition, emotional, ethic and aesthetic aspects,

observation and sensory aspects, concentration, problem-solving and innovative aspects

(Department of Education and Social Studies of Denmark, 2013).

Mayer and Moreno (2002) define animated cartoons as following:

Animation refers to a simulated motion picture depicting movement of

drawn (or simulated) objects. The main features of this definition are as

follows: (1) picture – an animation is a kind of pictorial representation; (2)

motion – an animation depicts apparent movement; and (3) simulated – an

animation consists of objects that are artificially created through drawing or

some other simulation method (p. 87).

Mayer and Moreno (2002) use the term of multimedia as modes and modalities

to explain the role of animated cartoons in cognitive theory of learning process.

Animation is the part of visual or pictorial and the narration is the part of auditory/verbal.

According to Mayer and Moreno, multimedia presentation by using animation it can

involve working memory as the result it can give long memory for the audience.

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Figure.3 Cognitive theory of multimedia presentation by using animated cartoons
(Mayer and Moreno, 2002).

Promoting Writing Activities through Watching Animated Stories Cartoons

Writing for EFL learners is not simple skill for them. It is hard for the learners to

start the writing and to develop the idea in the foreign language. Writing skill seems to be

complex, recursive, and creative process (Richards, 2001). Complex means that writing

has relation among writer, reader, and text. The writer needs to know for whom they

write. So, the written text can be referred to the reader. The writer does not write but the

writer also needs to know how his or her written text can convey the message.

Richards (2001) claims that in the process of learning writing the learners imitate

and manipulate what get from their teacher. Richards also advocates that the sequence of

activities in a writing typically involved (2001):

familiarization: learner study a grammar and vocabulary, usually through a

text, controlled writing: learners manipulate fix patters, often from

substitution tables, guided writing: learners imitate model text, and free

writing: learners use the patterns that have developed to write a letter,

paragraph, etc (p. 21).

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 In writing activities, learners can learn other things. Activities in writing involve

the learners to understand about grammar and the patterns of written texts and to enrich

vocabulary. Harmer (2001, a) suggest four reasons why writing need to taught to the

learners. The first is reinforcement. To acquire the languages, the learners can experience

it through oral way, but the other learners tend to acquire from seeing the language

written down. Sometimes, these learners feel that they understand the new languages well

after they write some sentences. Second, as long as the activities of actual writing the

learner are learning the language. It should be realized from writing activities the learners

can improve their language development. Third, some learners have specific learning

style, like they produce language in slower way. So, writing is great and appropriate for

them. The last, writing is a basic skill, just as speaking, reading, and listening.

The writer also argues the need to teach writing skill. The writer suggests for the

teachers or instructor to be creative and to use an innovative approach, tool, and material

to teach this kill. One good choice and simple preparation for the teacher is to use

technology like video material, for example animated cartoons. Since animated cartoon is

categorized as authentic material, literary work, and visual text, the teacher can consider

this option. Animated cartoons present a story with characters, plot, setting, emotion, and

narration. Further, animated cartoon is so interesting and colorful which can increase

students’ attention and motivation in teaching and learning process.

The writer suggests using storytelling as a technique of teaching through animated

cartoons. Storytelling is a powerful tool of communication that has widespread appeal

(Alterio, 2002). In addition, “Storytelling allows visualization to reveal information as

effectively and intuitively as if the viewer were watching a movie” (Gershon and Page,

2001, p. 31). Storytelling asks the learners to retell the story. In this research the

participants will be asked to retell the story in the written form what they have watched.

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Conclusion

To introduce the literary works, the teachers or instructors can choose various ways

and materials. Since, short story is practical of the length and it consists of plot, setting,

characters, conflict, climax, short story can be good literary works for the learners.

Furthermore, the teachers can use technology to teach language by using literary works,

like video as audio visual material. One kind that simple and interesting for the learners is

animated cartoons. In the form, animated cartoons are colorful and entertaining and

animated cartoons also present a narration or story. The learners can learn much from

animated stories cartoons. In addition, animated stories cartoon is considered as authentic

materials, literary works, and visual text.

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About the Writer: Lia Gita Oktafia is graduate student of English education, Sriwijaya
University.

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