ABSTRACT                 This study aimed to know what are benefits for students that are suggested in the contemporary novel Fire Side by Susan Wiggs. As English is a foreign language in Indonesia, every sources of benefit is needed in the English learning process, some students might need some new perspectives and some other ways to understand English materials, teachers can take it from the literature benefits that is implicitly stated in every work of literature. In this study, Fire Side is used in order to subsequently obtain any benefits that are inside the novel for the English Students. The writer uses qualitative method with a descriptive analysis in this research. The result of the research is quiet interesting with fairly large benefits like providing some examples of language model, supporting some areas of the language art curriculum, enhancing reading ability that will help improving their behaviour, and help them to develop their visual literacy. Keywords: Literature Benefits, Creative Learning, English Student

Prayuana, Ratu

English

Online Journal Systems UNPAM (Universitas Pamulang)

1  Suggested Literature Benefits for English Students in the Novel Fire Side by Susan Wiggs    Ratu Prayuana Universitas Pamulang (UNPAM) South Tangerang, Banten ratuprayuana@gmail.com    ABSTRACT   This study aimed to know what are benefits for students that are suggested in the contemporary novel Fire Side by Susan Wiggs. As English is a foreign language in Indonesia, every sources of benefit is needed in the English learning process, some students might need some new perspectives and some other ways to understand English materials, teachers can take it from the literature benefits that is implicitly stated in every work of literature. In this study, Fire Side is used in order to subsequently obtain any benefits that are inside the novel for the English Students. The writer uses qualitative method with a descriptive analysis in this research. The result of the research is quiet interesting with fairly large benefits like providing some examples of language model, supporting some areas of the language art curriculum, enhancing reading ability that will help improving their behaviour, and help them to develop their visual literacy.  Keywords: Literature Benefits, Creative Learning, English Students.   INTRODUCTION The movement of literature has given an impact in a good way to the improvement of literature itself nowadays. Literature evolved into many kinds that are known such as novel, poetry, drama, etc. this work of art spread into a massive volume and the artist has their own way to speak out their feelings and thought which is enrich the literature itself.  Teachers in this era can take the benefits in the learning process by using the works of literature in designing a creative learning for students for them to have fully understood the material that is given by the teachers.  The writer uses qualitative method with a descriptive analysis in this research. First, the writer reads the novel Fire Side by Susan Wiggs. and then analyzes the intrinsic elements in the novel, at last, the writer analyzes the literary benefits for English students from the novel. The writer analyzed the structural research to reveal the intrinsic elements of the novel Fire Side by Susan Wiggs. 2  The elements of the intrinsic elements of this novel in this study are included plot, character, setting and theme.  The analysis of characteristic of the novel was conducted by the writer in case of knowing and revealing the relevance of benefits to the English students and analyzes the need for students from this study for them to learn. In this case, enhancing skills in English is the main focus in the results. Creative Learning  As learning process is important to deliver the materials to students, making it creative is some way to improve the learning process. Both the students and the teachers can get benefit from applying a creative learning in classroom, it also can give different situation and impact to the learning process as long as there is motivation from all aspect including the students and the teachers. As it has been told by Amabile (1996) motivation of the goals from the teachers is the beginning of this creative thinking, the students suddenly became more creative in delivering such material to the students. The students, in other way, also can be creative in understanding the material in the whole process of the learning.  Creativity in delivering the material is crucial for the teachers as it can be some of determination in learning process, whether is it a new valuable experience or not for the students. As it cited by Green, et. Al (2011) that a new way to describe a knowledge work is creative learning. It can be fun that the teachers can make it valuable, they can use some other sources not only the exact module, etc. this can help students and inspire them to have a fun learning process in the classroom and that they can learn in peace. Literature As a creative solution in learning process, teachers can use some works of literature in delivering some materials to the English students. This creativity may vary the teacher’s way in the classroom to make their students understand more in the learning process. The correlation in the learning process to the literature is very obvious, as it is cited by Mayhead, Robin, (1985: 9) that literature is to be enjoyed. It gives this kind of relaxation and brings the distraction from monotony of people’s daily life or any kind of strike day to day concerns. However, literature gives these kind of ways the people’s mental laziness is quite remote. It does give some relaxation by experiencing some place or making up imagination about some of situation and condition. People can also escape their daily routine into some of new world that is far away from their real life. They can feel a lot fuller in life and meaningful by knowing others people’s perspectives. By this, the learners supposed to get more experiences in designing their mind towards the creativity in learning process. That the teachers also can get some new perspective in making up students’ mind about some things that is correlated to the materials. Novel As said by Barnard, Robert, (1994:74) that prose in literature is found in the first time in some of eighteenth century, it starts to appear in which today we call it novels. At the time of Elizabethan, this novel is enjoyed that it has roots in a tale of this period, romance in France and others. Few from the people in nowadays read those works for pleasure, it almost come through adaptations. This is the impact of the era which is improving that modern social and intellectual in the current time had combined in creating something new and different. This improvement from the 3  previous time is giving good impact to the works of literature and now, we can find better and better works from time to time. When we then realized that people more likely to know others story of life that is unlikely of their own, or when people want the society to recognize their life more in a setting of a writing, this kind of a proper novel was born.  In literature, there are intrinsic elements that is important for the writer to do the research. These are some of the intrinsic elements that are used to identify the novel such as plot, character, setting, and theme. English Skill We also have to consider about what the English students learn and what their achievement in improving their English skills by using some works of literature; Reading. By reading the passage, English students can improve their reading ability by correlating the contain of the story to the intrinsic elements of the novel, this also can help them improving their ability in understanding the comprehension in reading. But in fact, people still have limited to the lack of vocabularies in reading comprehension as it cited by Brown (2000). Here we can see the importance of reading to the English students, especially for the second language English students. Speaking. As Lightbown and Spada (2006:39) cited “speaking in the target language requires more than one mental task at one time like choosing words, pronouncing them, and stringing them together with the appropriate grammatical markers” that not just about how to deliver thought to some presentation, but this one of the English skill need mental task at once. To do the speaking, students have to understand well about the passage so that they can deliver it to others or their classmates in front of the class. Listening. In every practice of listening skill, teachers need to deliver the most suitable example to the real life in how the natives are talking each other or present something. As listening is defined by Rost (1991) as ‘an active process requiring participation on the part of the listener’ so not only that teachers give them practices from the tape that is recorded, but they can do it with their friends, talking each other and do the listening practice for example by presenting or explaining something alternately. Writing. As Braine & Yorozu, (1998) said that writing skill need more effort that have to deal with well-structure way in designing thought to the proper writing. It is not only problems for the second language English students but even native speaker finds it difficult in delivering their thought to become some writing. Making a creative way in facing such difficulties in mastering English is needed for the activity in the classroom. FINDING AND DISCUSSION For writing the study, the writer analyzed the important of the study for students. She outlines points of benefits coming from the study; a. Providing some examples of language model for those who hear and read it. Reading literature can also improve students’ English skill. When reading the passage, and also this study, they began to know the variety in analyzing the literature.  In this novel, there are also sentences that student can discuss. Discussing about pattern or structure will be really useful for students to improve their knowledge in this subject. 4  We can have this example in discussing about English structure from some of sentences in the novel. 1. ‘Her mother didn’t answer as she turned onto the street where she lived.’ (Fire side, 36)  This sentences use the word ‘didn’t’ that indicates negative form of sentence. It also indicates simple sentence for using present form of verb and figured things that are happening as the speaker say.  2. ‘Bo squared his shoulders and rang the bell.’ (Fire Side, 132) This sentence used past form of verb ‘squared’ and ‘rang’ that indicates past tense. The pattern of past tense is; S + V2 + O a) Supporting areas of the English language skills. In one piece of work of literature, it includes all skills that required by student to improved, reading, listening, writing and speaking. Students reads the whole story and some of them can do understand the passage by listening to their friend who read it loudly. Then, they have their own understanding about the story and they should be able to rewrite the story and also tell their partner about the story as it is called speaking skill.  b) Improving Student’s reading ability and behavior. Students can improve their reading ability by reading literature. Reading is such an important skill to master by students because by reading, it can improve their knowledge’s. They began to know more about anything they’ve read before.  By reading, students can understand the material deeply. They can improve their own images of the story and acquire good introduction to the intrinsic elements in the story. Students can take advantages by using a good point of view from literature that can help them to study. c) Helping to develop students’ visual literacy. The picture in the visual book can develop student’s own imagination to the story. In this case, because it is a novel, the cover of Fire Side can be a good explanation about the whole story. By having good sight to the cover, students can get further and deeper insight to the novel. The explanation about the setting in the novel, the whole characters and plot in the story can help students to create their own visual at least in their own mind first. Teachers can ask them about their very own visual in their mind and present them in some drawing or speaking practice in the front of the class. d) Helps establishing career concepts. It is important for students to know about what they want in their future as their dream career. By reading novel, they can know deeper about some career that is mentioned in the story. Teachers can also help the students in designing students’ idea for their future. Bo is a baseball professional athlete. Students might be really interested to be some athlete in their future. It also describes and figures briefly about how it is being an athlete. Kim is an athlete PR. She is having a strong professional relation to athlete, as becoming a PR. She lives in a world of sport. This story gives a strong image about Kim who spent her life in a sport world that she helps athletes to give promotion to the public so they can be recognize more by society. This job is also 5  portrayed by the importance of the job to bridge between two interests, that the public also need the appearance of their athlete idols. By this importance, reading literature is one of the best ways to improve students’ desire to read another kind of reading, such as lesson books, etc.  CONCLUSION  From the study, it can be concluded that using some works of literature can help students in the learning process and achievements in the classroom. It is quiet interesting with fairly large benefits like providing some examples of language model, supporting some areas of the language art curriculum, enhancing reading ability that will help improving their behaviour, and help them to develop their visual literacy. These benefits can also be easily found in every other work of literature for the teacher to take the research and use it in the English learning process the classroom. However, one of the difficulties in applying this benefits is that the teachers need more effort that they have to read the novel first before giving it to the students to check is it appropriate of not for them. This literature benefits for learning process need more research to sharpen its function, hope that other researchers can take time to do more.     REFERENCES  Barnard, Robert. (1994). A Short History of English Literature (Second Edition). Malden, Blackwell Publishing.  Braine, G. & Yorozu, M. (1998). Local area network (LAN) computers in ESL and EFL writing classes. JALT Journal, 20 (2).  Brown, H. D. (2000). Teaching by principle: An interactive approach to language pedagogy (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Longman.  J. S. Green, P. Thomson, K. Jones, and L. Bresler. (2011). The Routledge Internationall Handbook of Creative Learning.  New York: Routledge.  Lightbown, P. M., &Spada, N. (2006). How languages are learned. London: Oxford University Press.  Mayhead, Robin. (1985). Understanding Literature. Great Britain, the University Press, Cambridge.  Rost, M. (1991). Listening in Action: Activities for Developing Listening in Language Teaching. New York: Prentice Hall.  T. M. Amabile. (1996)Creativity in Context, Boulder. CO: Westview Press          

Suggested Literature Benefits for English Students in the Novel Fire Side by Susan Wiggs

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Suggested Literature Benefits for English Students in the Novel Fire Side by Susan Wiggs

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