Making Use of English Subtitled K-Pop MV in Exploring Students’ Extensive Reading Comprehension

YUNINGSIH
Telkom University, Indonesia yuningsihlegiman@gmail.com ABSTRACT
Studies on captions and subtitles in EFL learning gave positive effects on comprehension and vocabulary acquisition (Chung, 1996, Neurnan & Koskinen, 1992; Price, 1983; Vanderplank, 1988, 1993). Using song in ELT was highly impressive and motivating (Murphey, 1992; Lied, 2000). This study was designed to investigate the use of English-subtitled K-Pop MV in exploring students’ extensive reading ability. In this case study, five students, four girls and one boy, were selected. To collect the data, document analysis and an in-depth interview were conducted. The findings showed in comprehending the song, the students’ interpretations were still shallow and relying heavily on summary of narrative with very low-level inference. Meanwhile in vocabulary acquisition, it helped their better understanding wider range vocabulary, either in English or Korean. In addition, using K-Pop for learning English was more interesting and enjoyable, it is also motivating. Overall, using English-subtitle on K-Pop can be used as an alternative way to enliven extensive reading.
Keywords: Subtitle, comprehension, extensive reading, interpretation, inference.

INTRODUCTION
The Korean wave—”hallyu” in Korean—refers to a surge in the international visibility of Korean culture, beginning in East Asia in the 1990s and continuing more recently in the United States, Latin America, the Middle East, and parts of Europe (Ravina, 2008, p. 1). One important aspect of the hallyu phenomenon is K-Pop. This type of music includes dance, electronic music, electro pop, hip-hop and R&B. Within South Korea the term K-Pop refers to a broad spectrum of music.
It is also undeniable fact that during 2009 and 2010, Korea bands have shown their outstanding performances steadily. K-POP idol groups such as ‘Super Junior’, ‘Big Bang’, ‘Shinee’, ‘The Wonder Girls’, ‘TVXQ’, ‘Rain’, ‘Kara’, ‘MBLAQ’, ‘BEAST’, ‘SNSD’, ‘4-Minute’, ‘2PM’, and ‘2AM’ have been creating their own “fandom” showing off their high competitiveness in Indonesia. (Syamsudin, 2012). Together with their fame, many Indonesian people, especially the young, are being crazier on K-Pop songs.
Though K-Pop songs are popular in Indonesia, TV stations or music programs seldom play K-Pop songs. Therefore, for those who love K-Pop so much will go to some websites to download and to watch the MV, the famous one is www.youtube.com. There, they can get the MV of their idols.
Studies on captions and subtitles in EFL learning gave positive effects on comprehension and vocabulary acquisition (Chung, 1996; Garza, 1991; Goldman, 1996; Neurnan & Koskinen, 1992; Price, 1983; Vanderplank, 1988, 1993). Subtitle also helps to enjoy what they watch.
On Youtube, there are two choices of MV that they can get, MV with subtitles and no subtitles. Mostly the MVs are provided with English subtitles, it is sometimes in Vietnamese and Spanish as well. Yet, it is hard, almost nothing, to find subtitle in Bahasa Indonesia. In this case, there will no other choice, they must download MV with English Subtitle.
Using English song in ELT has been started many years ago. It was highly impressive and motivating (Murphey, 1992; Lied, 2000). Song can be used for teaching listening and reading. In teaching listening, students can be listened some songs, then predict what the songs are about. Meanwhile, in teaching reading, students is given some song lyrics, then interpret what the songs tell them about. Reading song lyric can be interesting and fun.
Song lyric can be categorized as literature, which it has characteristic poem or prose alike. Therefore, when teaching using song lyric as extensive reading, the same analyzing interpretation level can be implemented. According to Marshall (1991), there are some criteria in determining students’ interpretations level toward literature. The descriptions as follow: 1) Answer is brief and shallow. Little effort to interpret the story 2) Relies heavily on summary of narrative. Very low-level inference. 3) Makes one or more inferences, but provides little specific support. 4) Makes one or more inferences, providing some specific support. 5) Report detail and ‘tags’ them with an inference without showing directly how the inference is connected to the details. 6) Makes one or more inferences, elaborating upon them using specific evidence from the text.

Extensive reading is defined as reading a large amount of text for general comprehension. This activity will help learners with vocabulary acquisition, content knowledge, familiarity with syntactic structure, knowledge of genres and rate of reading (Lems, et al., 2010: 183). There many positive effectives in extensive reading. It can facilities the growth of learners’ attitudes toward reading and increasing their motivation to read have also been reported (Cho and Krashen, 1994; Mason & Krashen, 1997; Hayashi, 1999; Hedge, 1985; Constantino, 1994; Day & Bamford, 1998). With specific reference to reading fluency development, extensive reading has shown to be effective in increasing reading speed and comprehension (Bell, 2001; Elly and Mangubhai, 1983; Robb and Susser, 1989). Therefore, it is believed that extensive reading is the best global method to help all learners consolidate learners’ reading comprehension.
Reading English subtitle in K-Pop MV can be categorized as extensive reading, since the readers get enjoyment while listening to the song that they love. They also gain other foreign language, such as vocabulary, in this case is Korean.
Based on explanation above, therefore, this study was aimed to explore students’ extensive reading using English subtitles in K-Pop MV and to investigate students’ perceptions on the use of K-Pop MV in learning English.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This exploratory case study was conducted in a university in Bandung, Indonesia. As explained the purpose of this study is to explore students’ extensive reading using English subtitles in K-Pop MV and to investigate students’ perceptions on the use of K-Pop MV in learning English. Therefore, in this study focused on two research questions: 1) How did students interpret the K-POP song through English subtitle? 2) What were students’ perception on making use K-Pop MV in learning English?
The purposive samplings was conducted in selecting the participants. There were five students, four girls and one boy, involved in this study. Each participants will be described as follows: 1 | Sari, 21 years old. She has loved Korean since she were in Junior High School. Firstly, she loved the drama, then since 2009 she has loved K- Pop. Every day she always listens to K-Pop songs, and all the playlists she has are K-Pop songs. Her favorite idols are SUJU and Infinite | 2 | Nabella, 19 years old. She has loved K-Pop since 2008. She is learning Korean now. She can read Hangul, not able yet to make sentences. All her playlists are K-Pop songs, seldom listens to English songs. She always listens to K-Pop every day. Her favorite idols are BAP, Beast, BTOB, Apink, SUJU and EXO. | 3 | Widya, 20 years old. She is newbie as K-Pop Lover, just started in December 2012. Firstly she loved the drama, but now she prefers songs. She rarely listens to English songs. She loves SUJU very much. She always comes to SUJU concert. | 4 | Ryan, 21 years old. He has loved K-Pop since 2009. He does not have specific idol that he loves. He just listens to K-Pop song when he finds the song is good and interesting. He still love listening to English songs. | 5 | Tara, 20 years old. She has loved K-Pop since 2010. She loves K-Dramas, but she prefers the songs. She always listens to K-Pop songs every day. She loves Miss A and Lee Seung Gi. |
Considering the extra activity outside the class, this study was only conducted for a month. The students listened the songs in their home. The songs were selected based on students’ preferences. The songs MV were downloaded www.youtube.com. The MV selected had to display Hangul, Romanization, and English subtitles. The songs used in this study as follows:

Table 1 The Students’ Choice Songs 1 | Sari | * MBLAQ – Beautiful (#s1) * Infinite - Still I Miss You (#s2) * Infinite – Beautiful (#s3) * Infinite – Paradise (#s4) | 2 | Nabella | * Beast – On the rainy days (#s1) * BTOB – Lover Boys (#s2) * BAP – Rain Sound (#s3) * Teen Top – Miss Right (#s4) | 3 | Widya | * Teen Top – Miss Right (#s1) * SUJU – Someday (#s2) * SUJU – She’s gone (#s3) * SUJU – Let’s not (#s4) | 4 | Ryan | * BTOB – Lover Boys (#s1) * Infinite – Still I Miss You (#s2) * Infinite – Beautiful (#s3) * SUJU – Someday (#s4) | 5 | Tara | * Suzy Miss A – Don’t forget me (#s1) * Teen Top – To You (#s2) * Ailee – Heaven (#s3) * Lee Seung Gi – The Last Words (#s4) |
In answering research questions, two instruments, documents analysis and interview, used in this study. Document analysis was used to find out how students interpret the songs in exploring their comprehension. In analyzing the documents, the level of interpretation based on criteria proposed by Marshall (1991) was used. The descriptions of interpretation level are as follows: * Level 1: Answer is brief and shallow. Little effort to interpret the story * Level 2: Relies heavily on summary of narrative. Very low-level inference. * Level 3: Makes one or more inferences, but provides little specific support. * Level 4: Makes one or more inferences, providing some specific support. * Level 5: Report detail and ‘tags’ them with an inference without showing directly how the inference is connected to the details. * Level 6: Makes one or more inferences, elaborating upon them using specific evidence from the text.
In-depth interview was conducted to investigate students’ perception on the use of K-Pop MV in learning English.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
1) Students’ Interpretation Level toward songs
As explained above, the criteria developed by Marshall (1991) was used to analyze the notes students made when watching the MV. Based on the notes, students’ interpretation levels toward songs are explained as follows:

Table 2 Students’ Interpretation Levels | # s1 | #s2 | #s3 | #s4 | Sari | Level 1 | Level 2 | Level 2 | Level 2 | Nabella | Level 2 | Level 2 | Level 2 | Level 2 | Widya | Level 2 | Level 1 | Level 2 | Level 2 | Ryan | Level 2 | Level 2 | Level 2 | Level 2 | Tara | Level 2 | Level 2 | Level 2 | Level 2 |
As shown in Table 2, there are only two songs included to level 1, which indicates brief and shallow interpretation. Meanwhile, the rest of the levels of interpretation the students achieved are mostly in level 2, which indicated the interpretation are relying heavily on summary of narrative and having very low-level inference. Some examples are below:

Level 1
#s1 – Infinite – Still I Miss You (Sari)
Someone who fall in love. That someone is the source of his happiness. He feels happiness if he with that someone.

Sari just gave short answer to interpret this song. She did not give any inferences to support her interpretation.

#s2 – SUJU – Someday (Widya)
This song is tell about seorang laki-laki yang merindukan perempuan di masa lalu dengan mengingat kembali memori yang telah mereka lalui dahulu. Laki-laki tersebut, berharap bahwa suatu hati nanti mereka akan kembali bertemu dengan keadaan apapun.

Translation

This song tells about a man that missed a woman from his past by recalling the memories they had in the past. The man hopes someday they will meet again.

Widya also wrote all her interpretations in Bahasa Indonesia. In interpreting this song, she only gave brief and shallow interpretation. She did not give any inferences.

Level 2 # s1 - Beast – On the Rainy Days (Nabella) This song is about a boy who escape from the thoughts of his ex-girlfriend on rainy days because the rain brings the memories of their relationship. But their relationship was ended up sadly. The boy couldn’t hold the girl anymore and then he let go the girl so she could smile happily. In interpreting this song, Nabella just made narrative summary from the lyric. She still used some words from the lyric to be her main points, such as escape, on rainy days, and smile happily. She used his ex-girlfriend to infer you. # s2 – Infinite – Still I Miss You (Ryan)
This song tells us about a cute story of a boy who falling love again with a girl in his first sign. It makes he become a new person with a cheerful love feeling and doesn’t want any other girl except her. This song tells us how his world change and seeing a new kind of life while he in love with her.

In interpreting this song, Ryan stated that the song story was cute and funny. He fully summarized based on his interpretation and made narrative story, but he still used falling love again to infer shaken again.

# s3 – Lee Seung Gi – The Last Words (Tara)
Lagu ini berceritakan, bagaimana sang pria ingin mengatakan banyak hal pada sang gadis namun pada akhirnya kata-kata itu lenyap, tak pernah tersampaikan. Ia hanya bisa berkata dalam hatinya. Keberanian dan rasa percaya dirinya seakan hilang terbawa angina, semua kata-kata yang ia persiapkan seakan hanya berputar di pikirannya.

Translation:

This song tells about how the man wanted to tell many things to the woman, but finally those words disappeared, never been told. The man could only keep for himself. His courage and confidence seemed gone with wind, all the words he prepared seemed to come back for himself.
Tara wrote all her four song interpretations in Bahasa Indonesia. In interpreting Lee Seung Gi song, she made short narrative story. She explained how hard the man tried to express his feeling. From this written interpretation still can be seen that she used the words in lyric, thought she translated them into Bahasa Indonesia.

# s4 – Infinite – Paradise (Sari)
This sing tells us about someone’s feeling. He feel this world like a paradise if he being together with someone he loved. He never let she go, even if she must go, he will survive without she and he believe that they will can be together in heaven someday.

In interpreting this song, Sari wrote a narrative story. She used someone he loved to infer you in the lyric. She did not use another word inferences, all the words she used to write the summary were exactly stated in the lyric, such as paradise and survive.

2). Students’ Perceptions on Using English Subtitled K-Pop MV in Learning English
Based on data from interview, the students’ perceptions are explained as follows: 1) Interesting and Enjoyable
The students stated using K-Pop MV in learning English were interesting and more enjoyable.
“ because I love K-Pop, I think using K-Pop MV is more interesting and enjoyable. I don’t have to only listen English songs. It’s boring only English.”- Widya

Another statement was also given, how watching K-Pop is as part of her hobby.

“ When listen K-Pop, I feel more happy and enjoy watching the MV. I just do my hobby, not force by my teacher”- Nabella

“ I’m not Korean freak, but I love listening K-Pop in my leisure time, moreover when I get interesting and good songs” - Ryan

2) Motivating
The students stated using K-Pop MV is motivating them in learning English.
“I don’t like English. But K-Pop I like very much. In MV, there is only English subtitle, so I must understand English to understand the songs “- Sari

“ Actually I hate English because it’s very difficult. But when I watch K-Pop MV, the translation is English, so must understand English too.”- Widya

“ I can’t find Indonesian translation in MV, all English. So, when I want to understand the songs. I must understand English”- Tara

“ I like English songs, but I like Korean more. Studying Korean must understand English too.”Nabella

From this statement, the students is more motivating to learn English because all the subtitles in MV are in English. They seems to have encouragement to learn English.

3) Helpful in improving English and Korean Vocabulary
All the students stated that watching K-Pop MV helped them to understand wider vocabulary, either English or Korean.

“ When I watch the MV, I can get new vocabulary. From example, when I listen to BTOB song, Lover boys, I can know bakke means only, ideora means like this, sun eobseo means I can’t. I also get English vocabulary, It’s so blue means I’m sad.”- Ryan

“ When I watch SUJU song, let’s not, I get new vocabulary cowardly and bid. I also get many Korean vocabulary from another songs I listen, geurae, mollaseo, nugunde, mannari and chakan. For English vocabulary I find new vocabulary, like reminiscing and fragrance.”- Widya

From both statements above, it showed that using K-Pop song can be advantageous for English and Korean learning. Watching K-Pop MV can help them improving their English and Korean Vocabulary.

CONCLUSION
Extensive reading is defined as reading a large amount of text for general comprehension. Together with the development and change issue in learning second/foreign language, using other foreign languages to learning English is one of interesting and powerful ways in teaching reading. Encouraging students to use other foreign language they are interested can be also motivating them in learning English.
The influence of Hallyu wave is undoubted. English-subtitle on K-Pop MV can be used as an alternative way to attract students in practicing extensive reading. It helps the students’ comprehension and vocabulary acquisition, either in English or Korean. In addition, using K-Pop for learning English is more interesting and enjoyable.

THE AUTHOR
Yuningsih is a lecturer at Telkom University and a third-year students in Post Graduate Program at Indonesia University of Education. Currently, she is finishing her thesis. She holds a Bachelor of Arts from School of Foreign ABA-Bandung. She is interested in teaching speaking and reading, SLA, and Educational Physiology.

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