INTEGRATING POWTOON VIDEO INTO WHATSAPP GROUP CLASS IN TEACHING READING

This research integrates Powtoon videos and WhatsApp group classes to teach reading in Intensive reading subjects. It describes the implementation of Powtoon Video and Whatsapp Group Classes in Intensive Reading classes for English Teaching Department students of Universitas PGRI Madiun during the pandemic era. Descriptive qualitative was chosen as a research method. The subject of this research is the first-semester students of the English Teaching Department consisting of 16 students. The research data were collected through observation and interviews. The collected data was then analyzed through data reduction, data display, and conclusion. The result of this research shows that, in general, the process of online teaching by using Whatsapp Group Class and Powtoon video is conducted into two sections. The first is preparation and the second is implementation. In preparation, the lecturers have to prepare some teaching devices, such as lesson plans, Powtoon video material, YouTube channel, and some rules for conducting the class. The class implementation consists of pre, main /breaking time, and closing activities. The different things in this research are found in the main activities or it’s called breaking time. It’s different from real classroom activities. The class was conducted with extraordinary treatments and in boundless time caused of the low access to internet signal and most of the students live in rural areas. This type of combination makes the students feel comfortable because they can access the material at every time and everywhere. By this situation, it will create a meaningful teaching-learning process, the student’s motivation will appear automatically, and they become a more active and self-individual learner.


INTRODUCTION
Technology has a big role in this era and it is fully integrated into all sectors of life.
Technology refers to the tools, equipment, systems, and facilities that support our activities.
In the educational field, technology become a powerful tool that promotes and transforms in many ways such as; taking the teachers easier to create instructional materials and bringing new ways for people to learn and work together.The existence of the internet and smartphone in education change the process of teaching to become effective and efficient for everyone everywhere.So, it's not weird anymore that the teaching-learning process is conducted through online class activities.Online learning can be described as a learning experience organized by utilizing some technological devices such as smartphones and laptops or other devices connected with internet access in a synchronous or asynchronous environment (Mathivanan, S. K., Jayagopal, P., Ahmed, S., Manivannan, S. S., Kumar, P. J., Raja, K. T., Dharinya, S. S., & Prasad, R. G. (2021).
Because of this situation, we need online media to support online class activities.
Basilaia, G., Dgebuadze, M., Kantaria, M., & Chokhonelidze, G. (2020) describe online media as (a) video conference connects a large number of students in it, (b) discussions with students can be done to maintain class alike an offline or real class learning condition, (c) there is a good internet connection, (d) learning materials can be sent and accessed on mobile as well and not only on a laptop, (e) probability of watching recorded lessons, and (f) feedback from students can be achieved and assignments can be retrieved.The common online media used by the educational fields are G-meet, Zoom, YouTube and WhatsApp.
Powtoon is a part of current technology that was founded by Ilya Spitalnik in 2012.It's classified into online animation video makers.This kind of video serves as a tool to create videos and presentations which every consumer can create by him/herself without joining any training or any tutorial on using it (Spitalnik, Ilya: 2013).Some tools provide in it involve text, audio, animation, and some funny images to be selected and used based on the theme that will be delivered.In addition, the template has some variations like education, business, marketing, and medical.Many features are provided in it and can be used to help the teachers to motivate their students in learning classroom activities (Spitalnik, Ilya: 2013).Moreover, Powtoon is a type of complimentary online animation video application that can be used in an online class or offline classroom activities.The students supposed that one of the most fascinating and motivating applications to be used in class is Powtoon.Then recently, it becomes one of the favorite applications (Yuliani.S, Yulianto, Dicky Hartanto: 2021).
WhatsApp is one of the tools provided on the smartphone which has a function to communicate with others online.Almost all people used it today.It can be used to both send a message, video, audio, and photo and create discussion in the group.According to Ujakbah.M. Martin, Heukelman.Delene, Lazarus.K. Victoria, Neiss.Petsy, Rukanda.D.G (2018) WhatsApp become a famous tool used by people in the educational field to support the teaching and learning process.WhatsApp increases the interaction between the students and the lecturers.It also enhances interaction among the students.Besides, it also intensifies teaching creative teachers or lectures do not use only one specific method and technique, but also implement many strategies and media to accommodate the needs and learning styles of each student in their reading class.and learning solidarity between lecturers and students and also among students.
Reading comprehension is one of the most complex behaviors in which engage human activities.Reading is not only the process of obtaining the information stated in the written text but also the process of communication from the writer to the reader.The particular purpose of reading activities is to comprehend the meaning stated in the text conveyed by the author.Teaching reading is not a simple activity in this era.To reach effective teaching in reading class, the lecturer or teacher may use suitable teaching strategies and teaching media.
They also have to lead their students in the classroom to become competent and successful readers.
The teaching of reading subjects is not a convenient activity because the teachers do not only require to get the students to read the text but also have to make the students comprehend all the components of reading stated in the text.Comprehending the text is more than just recognizing and understanding the words in it.Reading comprehension can be gained by synchronously extracting and constructing the meaning inside the text through the process of interaction and agreement with the text (Snow, C. E: 2010).Moreover, comprehending the text, according to Snow, C. (2002) involves the ability to (1) determine the factual information, (2) determine the topic and main idea, (3) determine reference, (4) enumerate inference, and (5) make restatement.To realize the goal of teaching reading, the teachers have to choose and apply an appropriate teaching strategy.Duffy, G. (2009) has offered some strategies used to teach reading subjects in classroom activities.Firstly, teaching reading is knowledge-based.In this case, teachers have to dig up their knowledge dealing with the reading material so that they can deliver the material.Accordingly, a good teacher has to organize him/herself before teaching.Secondly, reading is a complicated process, because it involves not only cognitive but also linguistic aspects.To get the meaning, it covers the process of decoding alphabetic symbols, drawing upon experiences and language, and using reading strategies effectively.In this way, the teacher has to be aware that reading is a multidimensional process.Thirdly, learners are different.It means that every student has different characteristics, either their ability or their behavior, or even both.Students have a variety of abilities in comprehending the meaning of a text.Hence, the teachers need to know well about the abilities of their students and their background knowledge to help themselves to manage classroom activities.By knowing all the aspects above, teachers are hopefully able to integrate suitable instructional decisions, teaching methods, and teaching media with the technology used to support the process of their teaching.
Integrating the Powtoon videos in the Whatsapp group class is a big challenge.
WhatsApp is a popular application on mobile phones that is used by people over the world to communicate with each other.It was founded in 2009 by CEO Jan Koum and Brian Acton in Mountain View California, United States.(M, M., & Kanchana, K.: 2016).By Whatsapp, sending and receiving messages, photos, videos, or audio to individuals or groups can be done in a simple and fast way.These activities will run smoothly because of an internet connection.
In this era, WhatsApp is very useful to support the process of teaching and learning.The teachers use it to inform about the schedule or give a reading task, additional task, homework, and assignment to the students at any time.According to M, M., & Kanchana, K.
(2016) students use WhatsApp with several goals and causes in their daily life, such as (1) to obtain good information and easy to communicate with their friends, (2) to gather knowledge, (3) sharing their feeling to friends and family, (4) spending the time, (5) education purposes like doing homework and task, ( 6) updating information dealing with science in the form of videos, audios or documents, (7) rising reading interested, and (8) updating social issues.
WhatsApp can be used as a learning tool in higher education to achieve educational goals.
University students are very familiar with the Whatsapp application.Some previous studies related to both WhatsApp and Powtoon have been conducted by some researchers.Yeboah, J., & Ewur, G. D. ( 2014) investigated the higher education students' use of WhatsApp.The results showed that most of them were heavy users of WhatsApp.In detail, it was described that more than 96% of the students reported using it for more than three hours a day.They used WhatsApp just for chatting while only 7% of the students reported using it for academic work.This condition encourages the lecturer to use it as an educational tool to promote their teaching process to run smoothly in the pandemic era.
According to Chipunza, P. R. C. ( 2013) For university students WhatsApp was a very helpful electronic tool that can be used to support the course by exchanging information on a range of subjects they studied.Moreover, the use of WhatsApp in the education field does not need specific infrastructure and a high budget.All of the university students own hardware such as smartphones and they also can download the software at no charge.In the teaching and learning process, WhatsApp can be used as a digital bridge to share information among the students (Gasaymeh. Al-Mothana. M: 2017).In addition, using WhatsApp in the learning process does not need special adaptation and training both for teachers and students.It is very easy to operate and integrated into their learning (Tang, Y., & Hew, K. F: 2017).Dealing with teaching reading, Snow, C. E. ( 2010) conducted a study on Using WhatsApp as A Learning Media in Teaching Reading.It was reported that Besides as a communication tool, WhatsApp also can be used as a learning medium.This tool can be used to support the students to improve their reading comprehension by communicating and discussing the material before going to the real class activities.
Some previous studies investigated the use of Powtoon videos in the teaching-learning process.Tanjung, L. A. ( 2014) conducted research with the title Technology integration in EFL Teaching and Learning in Indonesia using Powtoon.The result of his research indicated that the students' creativity and the students' collaboration activities can be developed by using Powtoon video as a teaching medium in the process of teaching.Because of its characteristics, it also can be used for the four English skills such as listening, reading, speaking, and writing.Some tools or features offered in the Powtoon video were able to take beneficial thoughts for the students, draw the students' attention and assist them in developing some projects established (Sarkar, N., Ford, W. and Manzo, C: 2017).According to M.H.R.Pais, F.P.Nogues, and B.R. Munoz.( 2017) and C. Semaan and N. Ismail (2018), the use of Powtoon video in teaching reading ability shows positive results.Firstly, it is not only on the students' motivational aspect but also on its contribution to learning the new concepts in the development of ICT.Secondly, it's related to the student's abilities.This video improves the English reading ability of the students who find problems understanding the concepts of reading, and lastly, this Powtoon video can increase the student's interest in learning the material.The previous research related to the effectiveness of Powtoon video in teaching reading has been conducted by Ningsih, N. A and Rengganis, S.A in 2019 at English Teaching Department of UNIPMA.The result showed that there is a significant difference in the student's reading ability before teaching by using the Powtoon video and after teaching by using the Powtoon video.So, it can be stated that the Powtoon video helps the students better in their reading ability.All the research above was conducted in the process of teaching and learning, and it was done just by using one platform google.Sometimes, this situation rises also a big problem for students who live in rural areas.They can't join the class because there is no internet connection or less of an internet signal in their place.To overcome this problem, the lecturers have to be able to choose an appropriate teaching media which can accommodate the student's needs such as by combining with other platforms which can be accessed by the student in every place and at every time.After all the research data have been collected, then they were analyzed through several steps.It involves data reduction, data display, and conclusion.In the data reduction step, the researcher selected the data based on the relevant information needed and discard irrelevant data information.The next step was data display.After getting all the relevant data for research, then the researcher displayed the data in the form of a table.The last step of analyzing the data was concluding.In this case, the researcher concluded the result by answering the research problem stated before.

Findings
This section proposes the result of observation, interview, and documentation.The following table describes the result of the observation in the classroom activities.

Picture 1. The result of the documentation Picture 2. The result of the observation
The result of observing the lecture activities before the process of teaching Intensive Reading class shows that the lecture prepares some teaching devices, such as lesson plans, material, and also media.She created Powtoon media by herself and sometimes got it from YouTube.She prepared it based on the material that will be given.d.The task should be related to reading material and activities.For example, in the form of a document, electronic document, audio, video, etc.
e.The students have to give respond to the task, project, and exercise in the discussion hours in the form of an answer, suggestion, comment, an opinion that is followed by a reason.
f.The class absence is recorded based on the student's response.
g.The lecturer has to give feedback on the student's responses.
Based on the description above, it can be summed up that in preparation activities, the lectures do some activities such as; 1. Constructing lesson plans, teaching material, and creating Powtoon videos 2. Uploading Powtoon videos into a YouTube channel 3. Arranging the teaching rules

Implementation
The teaching process or the implementation section was divided into three steps.Those are pre-activities, breaking section or main activities, and closing.In detail, the lecturer opened the class by greeting the students.Asking about the students' condition, giving motivation, and also making some commitments dealing with the process of teaching class.
Some of the students responded to her greeting and gave some opinions about the rules.Then, the lecture explained the purpose of the classroom activities in every meeting.She also gave a short description of the material that will be delivered through the media.Some directions as guidance are given to the students so they can learn the material in their way.Next, the lecture shares the link to video material uploaded on the YouTube channel.Then the lecturer waits for the student's response for several hours.Sometimes, the lecturer monitors the class by asking about the student's difficulties.Some students also consult their lecturer about things they don't understand.The class discussion or class interaction highly depends on the internet This research was done by integrating some google platforms, Powtoon video, and WhatsApp, in teaching Intensive reading classes.So, the objective of this research is to describe the implementation of Powtoon Video and Whatsapp Group Classes in teaching Intensive Reading.METHOD This research was conducted through the descriptive qualitative research method.The research focused on describing the implementation of Powtoon Video and Whatsapp Group Classes in teaching Intensive Reading subjects.According to Gay, L. R., Mills, G. E., & Arasian, P. (2006) qualitative research allows the researcher to focus on perceptions, behaviors, and experiences.This research has been conducted on the first-semester students of the English Teaching Department of UNIPMA in the academic year of 2021/2022.The purposive sampling technique was used to take the sample of the research.Based on the considerations given by the lecture on Intensive reading subjects, then class I B was chosen as a sample of research.It consists of 16 students in this class.The data of the research was collected through documentation, observation, and interviews.Documentation related to some documents that support this research, e.g screenshots of classroom activities and some documents of lecturer activities.The research observation was done by using participant observation.In this case, the researchers not only joined the WhatsApp group classes of Intensive reading subjects but also observed the lecture activities in preparing the material.In one semester, the researchers monitored the process of teaching through WhatsApp group classes.The instrument used in observation was notetaking.During the process, the researcher made some notes based on some indicators, such as; meeting, material, time allocation, teaching media, and student responses.The interview was conducted with the first-semester students of the English Teaching Department of UNIPMA and the lecture on Intensive Reading subjects.The purpose of doing an interview is to get data about the way how the Intensive reading class is conducted by using Powtoon video and WhatsApp group class.The guided interview was used to collect the data from both students and lecturers.The instrument of interview used are as follows: the implementation of Powtoon Video and Whatsapp Group Classes in teaching Intensive Reading.Based on the research findings above, it can be simplified into some points (1) the meeting of the Intensive reading class was conducted over the time available on the schedule.The class was started based on the schedule but sometimes it will be ended over.(2) Even though it sometimes needs more than a day, the students gave a good response to every video delivered by their lecturer.Good responses from the students can be measured from Google drive of the students' tasks.So, there was good interaction among them.(3) The Powtoon video didn't give in every meeting.It's just given for delivering the new material and followed by other instructions that must be done by the students.(4) The lecturer not only uses WhatsApp groups and Powtoon videos but also combines them with the other learning platforms available on google.(5) It needs much time and effort for preparing teaching devices such as lesson plans, teaching material, and video Powtoon.The difference between this research with the previous study is in combining some google platform media in a process of intensive reading classroom activities.Several related types of research have been conducted but they just focus on using one platform only.These researches then encourage the researcher to research the same field of research although in a different way.Khalaf, K. Mohammad (2017) organized research on using WhatsApp in the process of teaching.He found that WhatsApp facilitates student-centered learning and a nonlimited learning environment which enables the students to stay collaboratively on-task inside or outside the school.Kheryadi (2017) researched the implementation of WhatApp language teaching.The result shows that the use of this Whatsapp application not only provide interest for student to learn but also gives them a wide opportunity to practice the target language in group chats regularly without being restricted by the time and classroom meeting.Ningsih, N.A and Rengganis, S.A (2019) researched using Powtoon for teaching reading.It was found that Powtoon is effective to teach reading.Combining Powtoon videos and WhatsApp groups in Intensive reading class is classified into two sections.It involves before teaching or preparation and the teaching process or implementation.1.PreparationPreparation was done by the lecturer to prepare teaching devices.It was about constructing a lesson plan, creating the material in the form of a Powtoon video, and uploading it to a YouTube channel.Meanwhile, the WhatsApp group was created by the students.To keep the students' responsibility and attitude in class interaction, some rules for using WhatsApp groups have to be declared in the first meeting.It is very important to be done to know the learning goal after joining the class.Some rules were very easy, such as; a.Every student has to speak or write in English b.In doing reading activities, they have to use good words, the right pronunciation/spelling, the correct grammar, etc. c.The member of the WhatsApp group has to respect each other.
signal and the student's interest.Discussion can take hours even a day or the next day.The class ended by concluding the result of the discussion made by the lecture.The students' absences were recorded based on the students' responses.All the classroom interactions of the Intensive reading class were conducted in WhatsApp group class happened through not only text type but also voice notes.In short, the implementation of the WhatsApp group and Powtoon video in the Intensive Reading classroom is divided into three steps.It involves pre-activities, main activities/breaking time, and closing.students' response/ absence One thing that makes a difference in the class above from the other classes is breaking activities or main activities.It has unique characteristics because it takes place depending on the existence of an internet signal.The class can occur beyond the teaching hours provided.The positive effect of unlimited time given is allowing the students to be active in joining the online class and to explore their ability based on some material given through Powtoon video.involves preparation and implementation.In preparation, the lecturer has to prepare some teaching devices, such as a lesson plan, Powtoon video material, a YouTube channel, and some rules for conducting the class.The consists of pre-activities, main activities/breaking time, and closing.The different things in this research are main activities or breaking time.It has different characteristics.The class activities were run by unusual treatments and in unlimited time cause of the low access to internet signal and most of the students live in a rural area.Combining some google flatforms in the process of teaching makes the students become active and self-individual learners and it also creates a meaningful teaching-learning process.Therefore, based on the research findings and the conclusion of this research the lecture is expected to evaluate the learning process and find out the right online learning tool for achieving learning objectives.

Table 4 . The Result of the Interview with the lecturer
It looks old-fashion ya…but this is one of the applications which can accommodate our needs.It's not time limited so all my students can join the class whenever they get an internet signal.So, there is no excuse for not knowing the material or the assignment.Everyone can access it.Meanwhile, Powtoon is unique.Several features can be selected and used to convey messages in the form of material so that it becomes interesting and not boring.The hope is that students can be interested and can learn on their own.Question How do you manage your class by using Powtoon video dan WhatsApp groups?Answer It runs as usual.Before teaching, we have to prepare a lesson plan, make Powtoon video material, and uploaded it to a YouTube channel.Or sometimes just googling the internet for finding a suitable video Powtoon with the material will be discussed and keep the link.For preparing the WhatsApp group, I just make coordination with the leader of the class to create the group and for preparing the Powtoon video, we can create it by ourselves or by downloading it from YouTube.The longest one among them is creating a video because it needs some considerations to make it interesting.
Don't forget we have to make class rules for the process of teaching to run smoothly.And the step of teaching in class is done as in common.First, open the class in the WhatsApp group class by greeting and giving motivation.While waiting for the students' responses we explain the purpose of the teaching activities.Then, giving instructions to the students related to the activities at that time.The last is sharing the link to the YouTube channel for the students to download the material which is delivered through Powtoon video.The second step is breaking.Breaking is the main activity.In this step, the students do some activities related to the instruction given in every meeting.This step needs unlimited time depending on the internet-signal getting by the students.It could be run in a short time, a long time, and even on different days.The last step is closing.Closing will be done if all the students have responded to all the teacher's instructions.Question How to avoid the students' boredom?Answer Ok.It is just by making a different style of activities in the WhatsApp group, such as running the class by text type or voice note.Delivering the material may vary, for example; by sending it directly to a WhatsApp group or YouTube channel.We can also use other platforms such as google meet, zoom, or google drive to make variations of the classroom activities.Question What preparation will you use to apply those media in your Intensive Reading class?Answer As usual, we have to prepare material, lesson plans, teaching methods, and teaching media.In this case, as a media, I choose Powtoon and WhatsApp groups.

Table 5 . The Result of the Interview with the Students
AnswerBoth Powtoon and WhatsApp assist us a lot in attending the reading class.They are very helpful.Powtoon videos guide us to understand the material or the theory clearly.Answer Yes, WhatsApp and Powtoon helped us a lot.Using both allows me to join the class smoothly without any internet-signal disruption.Answer Many features provided in Powtoon support us to master some theories of reading.They have unique characteristics that make us interested to learn more and more without feeling bored.Answer Funny animations used in Powtoon videos make us interested and enjoyed learning reading material.So, without being accompanied by the lecture, we can catch the point from the video independently.
Answer I live in a rural area.Getting an internet signal is so difficult, I have to wait for the signal on patiently.Running the class by using WhatsApp groups is an appropriate choice.Thanks so much dedicated to my lecture because of understanding our conditions.And powtoon media support us to be an autonomous learner.Question Do Powtoon and WhatsApp assist you in attending reading classroom activities?