By Tria Firdausi Azizah

112 084 036

Using various kinds of Media in the classroom has always been achallenge, and how to bring these media in the classroom is more than achallenge. Media provide teachers and students with creative and practicalideas. They enable teachers to meet various needs and interests of theirstudents. They also provide students with a lot of language practice throughactivities usingnewspapers, magazines, radio, TV, movies, books, Internet, etc, and taskswhich develop reading, writing, speaking and listening skills. Theyentertain students and encourage reading English in general, both insideand outside the classroom, promoting extensive reading by giving thestudents the confidence, the motivation and the ability to continue theirreading outside the classroom. Media“inform, amuse, startle, anger, entertain, thrill, but very seldom leaveanyone untouched”. (Shirley Biagy, 1996)

Reason 1: Reading Gives Them a Headache or Makes Their Eyes Hurt

Reason 2: They Can’t Read as Fast as Their Peers (and Get Left Behind)

Reason 3: They Fear They’ll Have to Read Out Loud and Others Will Laugh

Reason 4: They Believe They Have to Finish Every Reading Selection, No Matter How Long or Difficult

Reason 5: They Fear Their Opinions Will Be Wrong

Reason 6: They Have No Interest in the Material They Are Required to Read

Reason 7: They Get Lost and Can’t Remember What They Have Just Read

Newspapers are easy to be brought in the class in different subjects and courses.

They can be used effectively with a wide range of levels from Elementary to Advanced, either interpreting them or using them as they are. Some newspapers areeasy to read, easy to use.

There are different kinds of magazines makes the teachers to up-date their teaching materials and break the monotony of the lesson by using always the textbooks.

Magazines are also sources in language development in providing pictures to stimulate verbal or written stories.

Kintsch (1982) suggested that individuals construct global or thematic understandings from lower conceptual levels, under the control of a schema. Thus,the reader’s comprehension of the text will also be facilitated by the retrieval of information associated with a stored schema in long-term memory. This process of linking the words and text with the reader’s stored background knowledge may be affected by the strength of connections between the more global orhigher-level concepts and the words on the page at the more local level

Illustration use in association with text can also positively influence reading comprehension by enabling the reader to construct a more elaborated understanding of the passage.

For example, encourage the readers to focus on illustration and to use self-questioning strategies related to what was happening in the story.

In planning a lesson using newspaper, the teacher should take consideration the suitably of text.

Choosing and collecting short article.

Make careful design of task!

Multimedia helps us teachers make teaching and learning visual (easy for visual learners). A picture not only tells a thousand words but it also helps students

improve their thinking and observation skills, it promotes imagination, etc.

Tafani, Vilma., (2009). Teaching English Through Mass Media. Acta Didactica Napocensia, 2#, 1-16

www.buzzle.com

Wooley, G., (2011)Reading Comprehension: Assissting Children with Learning Difficulties. Springer, 25#, 15-34

www.scholastic.com

THANK YOU