Using Pixton to Improve Students’ Creativity on Creating Dialogue

Published: March 9, 2022 Pixton is an interesting comic creation site that can for the teacher and the students on creating dialogue during the teaching and learning process. This research was aimed at revealing the use of Pixton to improve students’ creativity on creating dialogue. This is a descriptive study in which the data from the field was analyzed descriptively. One teacher and three students participated in this research. To investigate the use of Pixton whether it affected the positive roles or not, observation and interview were used. The observation showed that the teacher gave the procedure in using Pixton clearly and the students understand it easily. On the other hand, the interview provided a result that a teacher and a student some ideas about Pixton such as can improve the creativity, easy to access, enjoyable application, etc. Furthermore, there are some, using Pixton also as a way to create a dialogue efficiently and effectively.


INTRODUCTION
Writing is an important skill that allows learners to have a good level of linguistic performance. In this respect, writing could be considered a central element of academic success since it is fundamental for instructional practices in an academic environment (Khan and Bontha 2015). Certainly, writing helps learners to convey their ideas in written form. Writing is a complex process that needs practices and skills. Writing is a process that produces a written form so that, other people can read it and express their main ideas (Hornby, 2003).
In the process of writing, the learners might struggle to find the appropriate topics and ideas that will be poured into their writing. Students need to pay attention to several aspects of effective writing. In creating effective writing, students might be cohesive, logical, clear, interesting, and properly organized. (Jacobs, 1981). Most of the students do not have basic knowledge about the text and they consider writing is difficult. Thus, the teacher should focus on the students' needs such as materials, learning activities, skills, and sources in the process of writing. Teachers need to avoid several ineffective teaching strategies such as lack of modern technology during teaching, lack of motivation by teachers, and lack of use practical method to build the understanding of materials.
One way to assist learners in their EFL writing instruction is the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), particularly employing digital comics. Previous research on the use of digital comics for improving EFL writing indicate positive results as to students' learning. For example, Yunus, Salehi, Tarmizi, Syed, and Balaraman (2011) aimed to find out about teacher trainees' perceptions on using digital comics in teaching English writing to low achiever learners. The results indicate that most of the teacher trainees had a positive opinion of digital comics because they increased students' motivation when writing in an English as a second language context. Another study is the one by Kılıçkaya and Krajka (2012) who integrated comic strip creation software into EFL classes. The purpose was to facilitate grammar activities and sentence writing in the classroom. By using the online comic strip creation site (http://www.makebeliefscomix.com), the students created comic strips related to the grammar topics studied. These activities had positive effects on students' motivation when writing English sentences.
Learning media can be used to make students more active in the learning process. According to Azhar (2014), learning media is a tool that can be used by the teacher to deliver the learning messages. Comic strips can help students to develop their concentration through the provided visual elements (Levin and Mayer, 1993). There are several advantages of using comic strips in a learning activity. First, the majority of students are interested in the genre of comics. When talking about comic strips, students can imagine the daily situation, funny story, interesting characters, and the illustration. Second, the comic is easily accessible and it provides a visual element such as picture and text. Students can be motivated to produce their writing easily because of the visual aid. Students can also imagine the new ideas so they can pour those into a piece of writing.
Comic strips are the form of a non-verbal sign that can encourage students to produce verbal language in their daily life. The application or web that supports students in creating comic strips is Pixton. Pixton is an application that is free, easy to use, and interesting in encouraging students to think and collaborate creatively and critically (Lee, 2013). Pixton is one of the media which are often used by other researchers to improve students' speaking skills, reading comprehension, grammar, and vocabulary. However, this study investigates whether or not Pixton can improve students' writing skills especially in creating dialogue because based on the researcher's experience, students often find difficulties in producing a piece of writing. Based on the problems, there are two research questions, namely (1) How is the implementation of Pixton to improve students' creativity in creating dialogue?
(2) How effective is the use of Pixton to improve students' creativity in creating dialogue?

RESEARCH AND METHOD
This research is intended to find out how the way of teachers and students use Pixton as the application in improving students' creativity on creating dialogue.
According to Shavelon and Towne in Robert K. Yin (2012), Case study is pertinent when your research question that a study is trying to address either a descriptive question and explanatory question. Case study has the characteristics as stated by the experts as a study that is conducted intensively, detailed and depth toward an organization, institution or certain phenomenon. Case study can be done in individual, an institution or a group considered as a unit in the research.Correlating to the explanation, this research is a case study because of its characteristics. This study attempts to explore certain information about a phenomenon, a case, or a subject in natural settings. The case of this research is about the teachers and students use Pixton as the application in improving students' creativity on creating dialogue.
Due to this research is a case study, it uses descriptive qualitative method. Descriptive method is a method about the status of human, an object, a set of condition, a system of thought, or even a class of phenomenon at the present's research. Based on Koh (2000:219), in qualitative research, the researcher seeks to develop hypotheses from observations. Qualitative research is a research procedure which produces written or spoken descriptive data of research that is possible to observe. The instruments that the researcher used are observation and interview. One teacher and three students will be interviewed.

RESULT AND DUSCUSSION 3.1 Observation
Observation was conducted in one time of one teacher. The purpose of observation is to record the use of Pixton to improve students' creativity in creating dialogue by English teachers. In the observation results, there are four points to observe that the researcher wrote, as follows: 1) Presents with an air of assurance-doesn't appear nervous or uncomfortable Teacher 1: The teacher 1 didn't look nervous or uncomfortable when she taught because she always smiles and enjoy when gave the instruction although she used the WhatsApp group at the beginning of class.
2) Guides the students with positive language during the activities with English well

Teacher 1:
The teacher 1 guided the students with positive language when giving the instruction such as: "Hello, are you there?" she asked the students to be active in responding her. Furthermore, the teacher also appreciated the students with "Good!".

3) Provides explicit instruction
Explicit instruction here means that the teacher is good as a model in giving instruction about Pixton since that it is something new to be introduced in front of their students. Based on the observation, she gave the example first to make the students clearly to the instruction. Teacher 1: The teacher 1 provided explicit instruction because before she gave the task to the students to do, she explained the procedure of Pixton first then she showed the example of dialogue in power point through the google meet and she asked to the students to observe it. 4) Incorporates various instructional supports (e.g. video, slides, etc) effectively Teacher 1: In the observation, the teacher 1 used slides about Pixton procedure. It consists of the pictures, formula and how to access the Pixton through website. Besides, she also showed the video to the students about the daily activities.
Overall, at that time, observation was done through the online way which are whatsapp group and google meet. At the first time, the teacher gave a brainstorming for their students that related to the material. After that, she gave the procedure how to use Pixton and the example of her dialogue that she made through Pixton to her students. The students were asked to observed the dialogue and guess what material it was. The procedure how to use Pixton as the application for creating dialogue through the video and file pdf. The students were asked to read the procedure. After all students read, the teacher gave the meeting link to the students for doing the question and answer session about Pixton. Furthermore, the students were asked by the teachers to create the dialogue using Pixton about "Asking and giving advice" material.

Interview
Based on the interview results, the teacher and three students said that the Pixton application helps them so much on teaching and learning process. They said that they satisfy with the Pixton as the application in creating the dialogue. Below is the interview result of five teachers : Teacher 1: "Actually, for the first time, I have not known about this application, I was given the information of that application from my friend. Then, I was directly access and learn it through the website. In my opinion, this is an easy application that can be used by the students. Then, I try to introduce this application for my students, and unexpectedly, they do the dialogue task well and they also asked me to use Pixton again in creating the next assignment. Overall, Pixton is a very interesting application that can help me as the teacher in teaching writing dialogue, and also helps the students in creating the dialogue creatively.
Not only do the interview for the teacher, the researcher also do the interview to the three students to get the more valid and reliable data. The researcher asked three students as the sample about their perspective about using Pixton.

Students 1:
"I can say that, the application is very enjoyable. I spend much hours to do my assignment because I feel very enjoy when chose some features for my dialogue assignment. " Students 2: "The teacher gave the clear tutorial how to use Pixton. Pixton can be accessed easily, even I only have Kemendikbud quota at that moment, but I still can access it. It is very attractive application, when I stuck in writing the dialogue based on the material, but because of Pixton provides some pictures to us, it improves my imagination again to do the dialogue assignment." Students 3: "Actually I can't draw well, but because of Pixton, I can create well comic of asking and giving advice dialogue. My friend also feels interested in reading my result of dialogue, he asked me to create it again." In conclusion, the teacher and the students recognize that using Pixton is a good way to create the dialogue efficiently and effectively. Besides, the Pixton also free and easy application that can be accessed by the teacher and the students so that they enjoy to use the Pixton.

CONCLUSION
Pixton is an interesting comic creation site that can for the teacher and the students on creating dialogue during the teaching and learning process. One of the advantages of using Pixton is, it is a free application include some interesting content. Besides, Pixton engages students across the curriculum through the magic of comics with an easy-to-use, web-based comic creation platform. Pixton is appropriate to teach about the dialogue expression and the story, there are some advantages on using Pixton such as it can make the students more creative, free, easy to use, enjoyable application and improve the students' storytelling skill. However, there are also some disadvantages of Pixton such as paid features, need quotas, and spend much time.