English is an international language used to communicate with people from various countries around the world. As time advances, communication between countries can be done anytime and anywhere. Advances in technology and transportation make it easy for interactions between countries to be carried out at any time. English is not only used in interactions but all technological systems and modern equipment use English to understand how to operate them. This implies that it is very important to learn English.
Elementary school age is the right age to introduce English to children, this is because at this level children will be able to maximize English. Researchers from American University said that the age of 6 to 13 years is the period of children’s language development, this causes children to easily accept new languages ??because there is a process of separating the functions of the left brain and right brain in children, so it would be a shame if this period was just missed by not providing language. English in primary school. Even though English lessons will be easily understood by children at the elementary school level, it is necessary to pay attention to appropriate, varied learning methods and models and the material taught must be appropriate to the child’s level of development. Apart from that, interesting learning media will also support the ease of learning English for students.
Based on this, the Ganesha Education University PKM-PM Ecary team conducted observations at one of the elementary schools in Nusa Penida to find obstacles in learning English at that school. This is because Nusa Penida is a tourism destination that is currently gaining popularity among foreign tourists, so it is important for students in the area to master basic English. The team chose SD Negeri 2 Sakti. It is located close to famous tourist attractions such as Klingking Beach, Broken Beach, and Angel Billabong, so it is likely that you will often interact with foreign tourists.
The results of interviews with the principal of SD Negeri 2 Sakti revealed that the school still had difficulties in teaching English due to the lack of relevant learning media and students’ interest in learning English was still lacking. Starting from these problems, the team provided a solution to the problems faced by schools by holding training in making English learning media which the team called“Ecary” English Cartoon Story to teachers at SD Negeri 2 Sakti. This media is an English learning comic created with the help of the application Cartoon Story Maker. Scary contains a conversation between two people using English accompanied by audio content pronunciation (pronunciation) and translation.
The training has been taking place from 26 July 2023 to 30 August by providing socialization on making Ecary, demonstrations, and direct practice by teachers. During the training, the teachers seemed enthusiastic about learning to make Ecary learning media. The team hopes that this training can be a solution to problems in teaching English to students in the future. Interesting and relevant media will be able to make students enthusiastic about learning.
