THE USE OF CARTOON STORY MAKER SOFTWARE IN TEACHING WRITING DESCRIPTIVE TEXT

The study was aimed to investigate the implementation of Cartoon Story Maker Software in the classroom. To gain the data, the author employed a qualitative case study and the data were obtained through the observation, interview and questionnaire. The author concluded that, the teacher used Cartoon Story Maker Software well in the classroom. The teacher had a strong perceptions on using Cartoon Story Maker Software that the teacher could make a good situation to motivate the students in teaching writing descriptive text. The teacher also confirmed that the students enjoyed it and it was found that almost all students (75%) preferred to learn to write descriptive text using Cartoon Story Maker Software and 25% was the rest who did not. Finally, the author provides suggestions for English teacher who teach English and students who learn English that Cartoon Story Maker Software gives the contribution to the learning process, so that the interaction in the teaching and learning process runs smoothly.


INTRODUCTION
There are four language skills, such as listening, speaking, reading and writing that should be mastered by the EFL students. By mastering the four English language skills, they can communicate using English both actively and passively. Among those four English language skills, writing is one of productive skill (along with speaking) that also should be learned by students. The writing mastery of writing makes students active and practical resulting in the ability in arranging the sentence, making paragraph and creating composition.
According to Oshima (1997, p. 2), writing is a gradual and progressive activity which means that if the first step of writing something down commences it will reveal thinking about what it is going to express and how it is going to express it. It implies that, in writing, students does not only think about how to convey an idea but also to arrange them into system of conventional graphic in the form of word, sentence and good structure using proper communication of writing in order to have a successful communication. This lead to the necessity of enriching the course with the assistance of employing other instructional materials and techniques such as Cartoons, realias, songs, flashcards, games which according to Arikan (2010, p. 5213) can trigger imagination and fantasy of young learners. Particularly, this study takes place with the the utilization of Cartoon Story Maker Software.
In line with the topic of present study, there are a lot of researchers conducted studies about writing descriptive text (Rostami & Hoveidi, 2014;Mak & Coniam, 2008

METHOD
This study was conducted using a qualitative case study because it carried out the detail information about teacher and students' activities in the classroom. According to Duff (2007, p. 23), the case study method provides the researcher a unitary character to the data being researched by interconnecting an assorted facts of a single case. The participants of this study were a teacher and the sixth grade students consisting of 20 students in one of Elementary School. This study was conducted in one of Elementary Schools in Ciamis which implement Cartoon Story Maker Software in teaching. The writer used three instruments as the data collecting techniques, among others, interview and questionnaire in conducting the study.

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
This study deals with cartoon story maker software used by teacher and students in classroom interaction. Hence, the results of the study are aimed at answering these following questions: (1) How does the teacher implement Cartoon Story Maker Software in teaching writing descriptive text? (2) How does the teacher perceive Cartoon Story Maker Software in teaching writing descriptive text? (3) What do the students respond on Cartoon Story Maker Software through teaching writing descriptive text? In collecting the data, classroom observation and closed-ended questionnaire were given to the students as well as interview was administered to the teache. It was conducted on February 13 th , February 20 th , February 27 th , and March 6 th 2018. The findings of the present study is elaborated in the following sections.

How does the teacher implement Cartoon Story Maker Software in teaching writing descriptive text?
To find out the way the teacher implement Cartoon Story Maker Software in teaching writing descriptive text, observation was conducted three times in every week in order to get more accurate data. The observation was done when the teacher was teaching by using Cartoon Story Maker Software. The results of the observation found that there were some important points from the first to the last session of class observation.
The researcher have drawn the conclusion that in the first observation, the use of Cartoon Story Maker Software was intended to facilitate students in the learning process. From these class observations, many students enthusiastically participated in learning activities because students were happy to see an image by adding an interesting bubble text. Teachers also invited them to be active by persuading them to read a text that has been disturbed by the teacher or read the text that they have made themselves previously. At the end of the lesson, the teacher also helped the students to make descriptive text easier by giving them questions, which were then combined into a paragraph. Teachers helped the students to make it easier for them to create a descriptive text by creating many questions whose answers could be made into a paragraph. According to Brown (2001, p. 335), "a good writing shoud follow severl criteria, among others, content, organization, vocabulary and grammatical aspect, and mechanical aspect such as spelling and punctuation". Thus, writing can be considered as an ability to convey one's thought in which several criteria should be taken as consideration such as content and organization consisting of using grammar and mechanics correctly; and also employing vocabulary appropriately.

How does the teacher perceive Cartoon Story Maker Software in teaching writing descriptive text?
This study was conducted with the use of interview in strengthening the data of questionnaire. The researcher administered the interview to an English teacher using English language in conducting the interview. The questions are:

What do the students respond on Cartoon Story Maker Software in teaching writing descriptive text?
This study collected the data using a likert scale a questionnaire. The researcher calculated the frequency of respondents' responses of each questionnaire item by using percentage computation according to Hatch and Lazaraton (1991, p. 136). The third research question was emphasized on students responses on the use of cartoon story maker software in writing descriptive text. Focusing on the research question, the researcher collected the data using a brief rating scales questionnaire ( Strongly Agree, Agree, Neutral, Disagree, or Strongly disagree) to ask the students perceptions toward teacher's strategy in implementing Cartoon Story Maker Software. All of the questionnaire items were responded by 20 respondents (samples) as the data of the study. Description of the data can be seen in following Table 1 : Furthermore, students felt happy and motivated and they did not feel hampered in learning to write descriptive text through Cartoon Story Maker Software. This linked to William (2003, p. 169) who stated that "the involvement of more advanced equipment provides students an additional illustrations for their work in the form of a feature so that younger children especially would appreciate".

CONCLUSIONS
In this research, the results of the observation, interview and questionnaires has been an evidence that the use of Cartoon Story Maker Software provides the teacher and students a positive impact. There are some important points from the first to the last of the class observation sessions. From these observations, many students enthusiastically participated in learning writing descriptive text. Students seemed to be thappy to see an image by adding an interesting bubble text. Also, teachers always encourage students to be active by persuading them to read a text that had been delivered by the teacher or read the text that they have made themselves before. From the interview, the teacher responds positively in teaching writing descriptive text by using Cartoon Story Maker Software. Similarly, the questionnaires result show that students give positive response. Overall, the research result resulted in the students' ability in creating a descriptive text by creating many questions whose answers could be made into a paragraph. The criteria of good writing consists of content, organization, vocabulary use, grammatical use and mechanical considerations such as spelling and punctuation. It implied that writing is an ability to express one's idea which should have good criteria, such as good content and organization; correct grammar and mechanics; and also appropriate vocabulary.