




































42 

 ELT FORUM 3 (1) (2014) 

 

Journal of English Language Teaching 
 

http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt 

 

 

THE USE OF KUNG FU PANDA FILM SERIALS TO ENHANCE STUDENTS’ 

ABILITY IN WRITING NARRATIVE TEXT 

 

Tsalits Muhammad Nugroho  

 

English Department, Faculty of Languages and Arts, State University of Semarang, Indonesia 

 

Article Info 

________________ 
Article History: 

Received in April 2014 

Approved in Mei 2014 

Published in Juni 2014 

________________ 
Keywords: 

cooperatif model type talking 

stick , Innovative lesson,  

folklore attentive, 

multimedia quiz creator. 

____________________ 

Abstract
 

___________________________________________________________________ 

This final project is about the use of films as learning media to improve the writing skill of narrative 

text at eleventh grade students of SMA N 1 Banjarnegara in the academic year of 2013/2014. This 

study aimed at knowing the difficulties faced by the students and the extent of the Kung Fu Panda 

Film Serials implementation on the improvement of their writing skill in creating narrative text. To 

achieve the objectives, an action research was designed and carried out through preliminary 

observation, formative observation, and post observation. The subject of this research was 34 students 

of class XII social 2 of SMA N 1 Banjarnegara. I used writing tests, observation checklist, and 

questionnaire as the instruments for collecting the data. There were six meetings in this research. 

First meeting was used for conducting pre-test, second, third and fourth meeting were used to conduct 

cycle 1 and formative test, and fifth and sixth meeting were used to conduct cycle 2 and post-test. The 

results of the study, after analyzed and described qualitatively, showed a significant improvement of 

the students’ achievement. The students’ writing skill improved in all writing aspects: grammar, 

vocabulary, mechanic, relevance, and fluency. The result of the observation sheet showed that after 

learning narrative texts using Kung Fu Panda Film Serials, the students became more cooperative, 

active, and the class become more joyful. The analysis of the questionnaire showed that the students 

gave positive responses towards the use of Kung Fu Panda Film Serials as media in their learning. 

Based on the results of those research instruments, it can be concluded that the use of Kung Fu Panda 

Film Serials as learning media contributes to the improvement of students’ writing skill in narrative 

texts.  

 

© 2014 Universitas Negeri Semarang 

 
 Correspondent Address:  

   B3 Building,  FBS Unnes  

   Sekaran, Gunungpati, Semarang, 50229 

   E-mail: tsalitsnugroho@gmail.com 

 

ISSN 2252-6706 



 

Tsalits Muhammad Nugroho / Journal of English Language Teaching 3 (1) (2014) 

43 

INTRODUCTION 

 

As an obligatory subject taught at school, 

English is sometimes seen as a difficult subject to 

teach and learn. Students are supposed to master 

four language skills at the same time; listening, 

speaking, reading and writing. On the other hand, 

teachers also struggle with students’ reluctance to 

engage in English learning activities. One skill 

considered as a difficult task to teach is writing. 

Heaton (1988:135) states that “writing skills are 

more complex and difficult to teach, requiring 

mastery not only of grammatical and rhetorical 

devices but also of conceptual and judgment 

elements.” 

In fact, although some students are happy 

to have a go at writing in English, other can be 

less keen. This unwillingness may derive from 

anxieties they have about their writing, their 

spelling, or their ability to construct sentences and 

paragraphs. This can also happen because they 

rarely write even in their own language, so the 

activity of writing feels alien for them. 

Besides those reasons, another difficulty 

comes from various genres of text in English such 

as narrative, descriptive, recount, spoof and 

many more. Each text has different purpose, 

characteristic, and structure or grammatical 

feature. Harmer (2004:17) says that “without 

knowledge of genres, a communication would 

have a little chance of success.” In fact, students 

are usually difficult to differentiate genres. 

Therefore, it will be a challenge for the teacher to 

find out the way to develop students’ ability of 

writing and seek for interesting method and 

media to teach writing. 

After collecting information through 

interview with the English teacher and some 

students in SMA N 1 Banjarnegara, I find that the 

difficulty of writing narrative exists in the 

students of eleventh grade of this school. From 

initial interviews with them, it is inferred that the 

students are confused when they are asked to 

write a narrative story. They say they do not 

know what and how to write. After checking their 

assignments in previous semester, I conclude that 

their writing are not satisfactory enough. The 

vocabulary used and the way they connect ideas 

still need to improve. Another problem is the 

structure of narrative text that has not been 

understood by the students. They write down 

their own ideas but they fail to relate them well. 

This may be caused by their unfamiliarity with 

the structure of narrative text. As a result, their 

works are not easy to comprehend and make it 

less interesting, although actually their ideas are 

interesting enough to read. 

The English teacher in SMA N 1 

Banjarnegara said that the problem emerged 

because of the students’ lack of confidence in 

writing. Students said that they had ‘nothing to 

say’ when they were given a writing task. The 

teacher has tried to extend the writing activities 

but the students were unable to complete the tasks 

successfully. As a result, the student’s attitude to 

writing is likely to become more negative. 

Considering these difficulties and facts, 

teacher needs an improvement in his writing 

class. The teacher should find a better method or 

medium to deliver the material of writing. The 

improvement should be initialized by analyzing 

the students’ needs. From the problems stated 

before, it seems that the students need something 

enjoyable, attractive, and worthwhile. In this 

study, I offer film as an alternative way that meet 

students’ needs to improve the learning process of 

writing. It offers enrichment of vocabulary, 

language use in contexts, and enjoyment to 

watch. Film prevents students from the boredom 

of learning and set the class free of excessive 

explanation. 

Therefore, in this final project proposal, 

the film that I propose as a medium in teaching 

narrative writing is Kung Fu Panda Film Serials. 

The films talks about heroism, friendship and 

goodness. They last for about 25 minutes and 

contain rich vocabulary to learn as well as good 

example of language use. Moreover, I explore 

narrative because it is an interesting genre for 

students to share their idea, imagination and their 

own experience. This medium will try to attract 

the students to be willing to invest the time and 

effort in writing narrative. The product of the 

study will be the students’ own story that will 

show how far they have understood the narrative 

text and measure their mastery of writing. 



 

Tsalits Muhammad Nugroho / Journal of English Language Teaching 3 (1) (2014) 

44 

METHODS 

 

This study employed action research 

design. Elliot (1991:69) says “action research is 

the study of a social situation with the view to 

improve the quality of the action in it.” Because 

the study was conducted in the class, it could be 

called classroom action research. The total 

number of subjects involved in this research are 

34 students, consists of 21 females and 13 males 

of XI social 2 class SMA N 1 Banjarnegara in the 

academic year of 2013/2014. The study started 

by giving pre-test followed by two cycles of 

treatments. Pre-test was held on January 8th 2014 

with the purpose to find out the students’ prior 

knowledge and ability of writing a narrative text. 

Cycle 1 was conducted in three meetings, on 

January 11th, 15th and 18th 2014. Cycle 2 was held 

on January 29th and 1st February 2014. There 

were three instruments used to collect the data: 

tests, observation checklist, and questionnaire. 

Three assessment tests were given to measure 

students’ progress in writing narrative text: pre-

test, formative-test, and post-test. The tests were 

given three times (pre-test, formative test, and 

post-test) with the purpose of measuring students’ 

writing ability before and after the action research 

conducted. Pre-test was held to measure the prior 

skill of the students before the treatment was 

implemented. It was given in the beginning of the 

study. Formative-test was done after the students 

were given some treatments in cycle 1, whereas 

post-test was the last test given after students had 

been taught in cycle 2. After those three tests had 

been given, the results were compared to find out 

whether or not there was any improvement in 

their narrative writing skill. 

Observation checklist in the form of 

behaviour recording functioned to observe the 

students’ behaviour progress during the teaching 

learning process. This observation checklist 

recorded four aspects; they were students’ 

enthusiasm during learning process, students’ 

participation in classroom activities, students’ 

cooperative attitude during the lesson, and 

students’ activities in group discussion. 

The questionnaire was distributed to the 

students before and after the treatments. It was 

used to collect the information about students’ 

opinion toward writing in English and their 

perception of using Kung Fu Panda Film Serials as 

media in learning. By the use of questionnaire, 

the information about the students’ responses 

toward English subject, writing skill, and the use 

of Kung Fu Panda Film Serials in teaching learning 

process were collected. 

 

RESULTS 

 

3.1 The Use of Kung Fu Panda Film Serials in 

Writing Class 

Here are the steps in implementing Kung 

Fu Panda Film Serials as learning media in the 

writing class:  

a) the students were engaged to get deep 

information related to the topic of narrative 

text; 

b) the narrative material was explained, 

consisted of the purpose of the narrative text, 

its generic structures, and language features; 

c) the students were given vocabulary exercises 

before watching the film; 

d) the students watched the film attentively; 

e) the students and teacher discussed the film 

based on its generic structures and language 

features; 

f) the teacher gave examples of generic 

structures and language features taken from 

the film; 

g) the students were taught about using 

scaffold to construct a narrative text; 

h) the students were given a chance to discuss 

the films or material with their partner or in 

groups; 

i) the students wrote their narrative stories 

based on the films they had watched or they 

made their own stories; 

j) the students were given homework to 

enhance their understanding; 

k) the students were given feedback and 

reinforcement of their writing; 

l) the students were given opportunity to share 

their difficulties dealing with the activity 

during the treatments. 

The use of films in learning seems very 

flexible. Teacher may use various methods and 



 

Tsalits Muhammad Nugroho / Journal of English Language Teaching 3 (1) (2014) 

45 

additional instruments to support the learning. In 

this study, I accompanied the films with 

crossword and anagram as activities to prepare 

the students understanding the vocabulary in the 

films. I also used cooperative learning by giving 

some tasks to students to work in pair or in 

groups. To create a joyful situation and a 

competitive class, I conducted a group 

competition in the third meeting. It was also one 

of my efforts to check the students’ 

comprehension of narrative writing before I 

moved to the second cycle. 

 

3.2 The Improvement of Students’ Writing Skill 

The improvement of students’ writing skill 

can be seen from the result of tests which 

consisted of pre-test, formative test, and post-test. 

The analysis of those tests showed that students’ 

writing skill improved in all aspects of writing: 

grammar, vocabulary, mechanic, relevance, and 

fluency. The analysis was done by describing the 

students’ works qualitative one by one. A rubric 

evaluation was also used, modified from Heaton’ 

grid and categories. 

Highlighting the analysis of each student’ 

writing in the pre-test, it could be drawn a 

conclusion that their ability in writing was still 

poor and far from satisfying. The aspect that still 

needed to improve was the grammar point. Most 

students failed to use past tense properly and still 

used present form. Therefore, this aspect, 

grammar, was given more attention and 

emphasis on the cycle one.  

Meanwhile, the students of XI Social 2 had 

improved their ability in writing, especially in 

grammar aspect in this first cycle. Their 

vocabulary also became wider after being given 

the treatment in the first cycle. Numerous errors 

in the previous writings seemed decrease and 

their stories started easy to enjoy and understand. 

However, the problem remained was the 

way students organized and developed their 

ideas. Some students’ works showed lacks of 

organization and it made the communication 

impaired. Students should write more well linked 

stories to engage the readers’ interest, so that their 

stories would find its goal; amusing the readers. 

Therefore, the relevance aspect was the focus of 

the second cycle and the learning method and 

media were be re-adjusted to gain a better result. 

After reviewing the 34 texts produced by 

the students in the second cycle, it could be seen 

that students had successfully improve their 

writing ability by the assistance of Kung Fu Panda 

Film Serials. Their works were better than the first 

cycle and fewer mistakes were found in the cycle 

two. The relevance aspect, which was the concern 

in this cycle, showed a good progress after given 

the treatments. 

In short, it could be generalized that 

students’ writing ability had improved much 

better than the first time they wrote. The use of 

Kung Fu Panda Film Serials had given a positive 

impact to their learning and mastery in writing 

narrative text. Since the result was satisfying, I 

thought the media here had been appropriate to 

use in learning writing. There was no need to 

continue modifying the media and method due to 

these positive improvements. 

Furthermore, the improvement of 

students’ writing skill was not only showed by the 

result of the tests but also by the analysis of 

observation sheet and questionnaire. In the 

observation checklist, I concentrated on four 

points during the two cycles. They were students’ 

enthusiasm during learning process, students’ 

participation in classroom activities, students’ 

cooperative attitude during the lesson, and 

students’ activities in doing individual and group 

assignments given.  

Based on the observation checklists, it 

could be concluded that the students’ behavior 

improved positively. Some students, who were 

passive in the first meeting, showed greater 

interest and enthusiasm after given the treatment. 

Overall, students became more enthusiastic, 

active, and cooperative during the lesson.  

 The first indicator was the students’ 

enthusiasm during teaching and learning process. 

In the first cycle Most students had focused on my 

explanation and instruction. More than half of 

the class, there were 22 students, had shown 

medium and high enthusiasm. Meanwhile, the 

rest of them seemed not really enthusiastic with 

the lesson. They still tried to give infrequent 

response and kept silent, and looked hardly paid 



 

Tsalits Muhammad Nugroho / Journal of English Language Teaching 3 (1) (2014) 

46 

attention to the lesson. It might be because of 

their unfamiliarity with the method and media. 

 In cycle two, students had shown an 

improvement in their focus to follow the lesson. 

Some of the students even showed that they were 

really interested in the material. Half of the class, 

17 students, had high and very high enthusiasm, 

while another half was in a medium rank. 

Everyone paid attention to me and no one looked 

reluctant to learn English at that time. 

The second indicator which was observed 

was the students’ participation. In cycle one, the 

students’ participation was still low. Most of 

them were in the middle level of participation. 

There were 12 students in rank 2; meaning low 

participation, 18 students in rank 3; meaning 

middle participation; 4 students were in rank 4; 

meaning high participation, and no student was 

in rank 5 or very high participation. 

 The condition changed in cycle two. 

There was no student in very low and low 

category; meaning that students’ participation in 

the classroom activities increased. 25 students in 

medium, 7 students in high, and 2 students in 

very high category. It indicated that the students 

had involved in the learning quite well, proved by 

they confidently asked and answer my questions 

during the learning. 

The third indicator was the students’ 

cooperative attitude during the lesson. Based on 

the observation in cycle one, there were 8 

students who hardly cooperated with me. Most of 

the students, 19 people, were in medium level, 

meaning that they cooperated well enough during 

my teaching. Meanwhile, only 7 students who 

showed their high cooperative attitude during the 

cycle one. 

 The result of the cycle two showed that the 

number of students who could cooperate well 

increased. There was no student in low category 

and 19 students were still in medium level of 

cooperation. The improvement happened in high 

and very high category. 13 students were in the 

high level and 2 students had a very high level of 

cooperation. It proved that the treatment was 

useful develop their cooperative attitude toward 

the teacher and their classmate. 

The fourth indicator was the students’ 

activities in group discussion. In the first cycle, 

most students had actively involved in the 

discussion. 20 students were in medium level and 

6 of them were in the high level. However, there 

were still 8 students who passively participated in 

the group. They kept silent and just did what his 

friends decided, without giving much 

contribution to the group. 

 In the second cycle, students’ activities in 

their group had shown a good progress. There 

was no student in low level, meaning no one gave 

a low contribution in the groups. Most of them, 

21 students were in medium level, 12 students 

were in high level, and one students was very 

active contributing to his group. Although only 

one person showed a high activity in group, 

overall most of the students had ran the group 

tasks well and actively contributed to the 

discussion. It meant the treatments I used could 

improve their willingness to cooperatively 

learning together in groups. 

First questionnaire was given to know the 

students’ opinion towards English lesson at 

school especially writing skill. This questionnaire 

was given on Wednesday, 8th January 2014 after 

they had finished doing the pre-test. To help the 

students understand the statements, the 

questionnaire was written in Indonesian and 

were presented in simple sentences consisted of 

10 statements. Each item of the statements 

provided four options for students to choose. 

The first item was given to know whether 

they thought English lesson was an important 

lesson or not. The result of questionnaire showed 

that 73.5% of the students strongly agreed that 

English is a very important subject to learn. 

26.5% of the students thought it is important 

enough, and no one thought it is unimportant. It 

meant that basically all of them considered 

English as an important subject to learn and 

master. 

The second item found out the students’ 

opinion whether learning English gave many 

benefits or not for them. 58.8% of the students 

strongly agreed that English brought many 

benefits for them, while 41,2% also agreed with 

the statement. It showed that the students 



 

Tsalits Muhammad Nugroho / Journal of English Language Teaching 3 (1) (2014) 

47 

realized that learning English would be beneficial 

for them. 

The next item, number three, sought the 

students’ interest in writing English. 11.8% of the 

students had a very high interest in it, 55.9% of 

the students belonged to high category, and 

32.3% of the students had a low interest in 

English writing. It meant more than half of the 

class was interested in writing, but still several of 

them did not have a high interest in writing 

English. 

The fourth one questioned the students 

whether they considered writing in English was 

difficult or not. 35.3% of the students strongly 

agreed that writing was a difficult task, 58.8% 

fairly agreed, and 5,9% less agreed. It indicated 

that most of the students thought writing in 

English was not an easy job for them. Only one 

student believe it was fairly easy task. 

The item number five asked the students’ 

opinion with the statement that learning writing 

in English should be made as interesting as 

possible. Most of the students, 79.4% strongly 

agreed and 20.6% agreed with the statement, and 

no one disagreed. It clearly showed that they 

needed an interesting way in learning English, 

not just ordinary way or even a traditional one. 

The sixth item asked the students about 

their recent condition of their English class. One 

student (5,9%) thought the class did not run well. 

Meanwhile most of the students thought the 

English class was in very good condition (11,8%) 

and good condition (32.3%). 

The next item asked the intensity of using 

audio video media by the English teacher. No one 

said that the teacher always used audio visual aid. 

32.4% of the students said it was often used, 

64.7% said sometimes used, and 2.9% said never 

used it. It showed that the teacher had not used 

the media maximally to provide students an 

alternative way of learning. Most students 

admitted they had ever used audio video media 

in their English learning, but it was not too often. 

The item number eight found out the 

students’ interest in watching film. More than 

half of them, 61.8% told they had a very high 

interest, 35.3% had a high interest and only 2.9% 

said they were not really interested in watching 

film. It was a sign that the use of film as media 

would likely attract students’ motivation in 

learning, so that the purpose of the study could be 

achieved. 

The ninth item asked the students whether 

they agreed to learn English through film or not. 

52.9% extremely agreed, 47.1% agreed, and no 

one disagreed to learn English by using film. It 

seemed they were willing to use film as a media 

to improve their English. 

The last statement in the first questionnaire 

asked them how if the film was used to study 

writing in English. 35.3% extremely agreed and 

64.7% agreed to learn English writing by using 

film. It was a sign that film would be likely 

accepted by the students to be part of their 

learning about writing in English. 

From the result of the first questionnaire, I 

concluded that the students’ attitude toward the 

English learning, especially in writing, still 

needed to improve. They had realized the 

importance of learning English and its benefits. 

However, for writing, they still believed that it 

was a quite difficult task. Meanwhile, they 

admitted that the teacher rarely used audio visual 

aid in English class although the class ran 

relatively good. Therefore, an alternative way I 

proposed to improve their writing ability was 

using films as media. This first questionnaire also 

showed that the students had a high interest and 

willingness to study writing English through films 

as media. By this willingness and motivation, 

hopefully they could improve their ability in 

writing, especially in creating narrative story. 

The second questionnaire was held on 1 

February 2014. After conducting the post-test, the 

questionnaires were given to the students to know 

their attitudes after given the media during the 

treatment. There were ten questions in the 

questionnaires with four options in each of it. 

The first item asked the students whether 

learning writing in English was easy or not. Most 

of students had agreed that writing was easy to 

learn. 8.8% said it was very easy, 85.3% believed 

it was quite easy, and only 5.9% said it was quite 

difficult to learn. It showed that their perception 

about learning writing English had changed from 

the earlier before given treatments. Most of 



 

Tsalits Muhammad Nugroho / Journal of English Language Teaching 3 (1) (2014) 

48 

students did not consider writing as a difficult 

task anymore. 

The second item found out the students’ 

opinion toward the Kung Fu Panda film used 

during the study. All of them liked the media used 

here. 94.1% extremely liked the film and 5.9% 

students fairly liked it. It meant the film could 

attract students’ interest and give a joyful 

stimulus to learn writing in English. 

Furthermore, the third item asked whether 

they could easily understand the film or not. 

70.6% students extremely agreed that the film 

was easy to understand. 29.4% agreed that it was 

quite easy to comprehend and no one said the 

film was difficult. It showed that the students did 

not have a problem with the film they used in 

improving their writing ability. 

The next item asked students’ opinion 

about the necessity of using film in learning 

writing English. 88.2% of students argued that 

film was really needed and 11.8% believed it was 

quite needed to use film as media in learning 

writing. This told us that students needed various 

media in learning English, and the film I used in 

this study was one of them. 

The fifth statement asked  the students 

whether the Kung Fu Panda  film in the study was 

helpful in understanding narrative text or not. 

76.5% of the students thought that the film was 

really helpful and the rest, 23.5% said it was quite 

helpful. No one thought the film was useless. It 

could be said that the film was beneficial and the 

students could get the benefits of it. 

Item number six questioned the students 

whether their grammar and vocabulary were 

improved or not after the study. 70.6% of students 

really believed their grammar and vocabulary had 

been improved after given the treatments, while 

29.4% believed their grammar and vocabulary 

was quite improved. It seemed the treatments had 

succeeded in improving the students’ grammar 

and vocabulary since no one felt his vocabulary 

was still the same as before having the treatments. 

Item number seven found out students 

satisfaction of their writing after learning by using 

film as media. The students gave different 

answers for this question. 35.3% of the students 

was very satisfied with their work, 61.8% was 

satisfied, and only 2.9% was not satisfied with the 

writing result. It showed most of the students had 

satisfied with their own result of learning writing 

English. Only a small part of the class who 

thought their writing was not satisfying. 

The next question, number 8, clarified that 

the study had improved the students’ general 

ability in English or not. 67.6% of the students 

believed that the study was very helpful in 

improving their general English ability, while 

32.4% thought it was quite helpful. It meant the 

treatments I used during the study did not just 

help the students in improving their writing. It 

also helped them to increase their ability of 

English in general. 

Then the statement number nine found out 

the students’ motivation to learn English after 

studying with film as media. All of them said they 

had high motivation after the study (67.6%) and 

even very high motivation after it (32.4%). It 

could be concluded that the treatments used 

during the study had successfully contributed to 

the increment of the students’ motivation to learn 

English in general. 

The last item asked whether the situation 

of the English class became more joyful when 

using film than before or not. 91.2% of the 

students felt the situation in the class was much 

more fun than before. Meanwhile 8.8% of the 

students thought it was quite right that the class 

situation became more joyful. It meant the 

treatments and media had successfully created a 

more convenient situation in the class. 

In sum, the study and treatments changed 

students opinions toward writing, improve their 

ability, and create more joyful situation in class. 

The students admitted they had been satisfied 

with their work and thought their English had 

been improved. Moreover, they also felt happy to 

have film as media in learning English, and 

considered the use of it was quite needed to help 

improving their ability in general English, 

especially in writing. 

 

CONCLUSION 

 

Based on the data findings of the tests, 

observation sheet, and questionnaire, it can be 



 

Tsalits Muhammad Nugroho / Journal of English Language Teaching 3 (1) (2014) 

49 

concluded that the use of Kung Fu Panda Films 

Serials as media in leaning narrative writing 

brought many benefits for students. The 

application of Kung Fu Panda Films Serials could 

improve the students’ writing skill, particularly it 

could improve their writing skill in narrative text. 

Not to mention, the class situation was more 

enjoyable and the students could write their ideas 

into paragraphs better. These improvements were 

supported by the results of the observation sheet, 

which showed they performed more positive 

behaviour during the learning, and the analysis of 

questionnaire that conluded they changed their 

opinion positively about writing in English. 

Moreover, students’ writing ability 

improvement through the use of Kung Fu Panda 

Films Serials as media can only happen if it is well 

prepared and carefully observed. Teachers should 

design other supporting activities to ensure the 

learning goal is achieved. If teachers fail to do 

that, the use of films in the class may become a 

wasteful activity. Therefore, it is advised to them 

to carefully plan their media and method of 

teaching. They can use many aids, not just film 

for writing class, but also other media in 

improving students’ other abilities; speaking, 

listening, or reading. 

 

REFERENCES 

 

Elliott, John. 1991. Action Research for Educational 

Change. Buckingham: Open University Press. 

Harmer, Jeremy. 2004. How to Teach Writing. Essex: 

Pearson ESL 

Heaton, John Brian. 1988. Writing English Language 

Tests (Longman Handbooks for Language 

Teachers). New York: Longman Group.

 

 


