USING BOOKWIDGETS TO ATTRACT STUDENTS’ INTEREST IN LEARNING ENGLISH

Article History Received: September 2021 Revised: September 2021 Published: October 2021 English teachers deliver their teaching materials using various platforms. One of those is the BookWidgets platform which is used to create interactive learning activities and involves students in engaging teaching material. This platform provides teachers and students with dynamic widgets such as iPad, Android tablets, Chromebooks, and iBooks with interactive content. These are designed to interact with students’ interest in acquiring English smoothly. Therefore, this study is aimed at finding out students’ interest in learning English and attract their interest using Bookwidgets. The method used in this study was a quantitative descriptive method, which used a survey to collect the data. The population in this study was taken from junior high school students in MTs AlFalah using a questionnaire or online survey. In analyzing the data, the writer used a Likert statistical analysis. The results of this showed that students’ interest in English learning using media increased up to 48,1% after they were being introduced to Bookwidgets.


INTRODUCTION
English is used as a second language in some countries in Asia, such as in Singapore, Philippines, and India. They use English in daily life to communicate. Unlike in Indonesia, it is used as a foreign language. Although it is used as a foreign language, English is taught at the earliest time in Indonesian education. It has been introduced at elementary school and even at some kindergartens (Setianingsih et al., 2018;Sumarsono et al., 2020). As an Indonesian, English is very important for Indonesian people. People live in era where English has a special status and is known as global language (Novita, 2018). It is very important to learn and master English. It will help people to live their lives and face the future.
Indonesian students start to learn English since elementary school. Students are obligated to have 12 years education. It means they learn English for almost 12 years but yet, there are not enough students who master it even though they have learnt it since so long. But as a matter of fact, the main issue or problem that happens is not how long they have learnt English (Novita, 2018;Rachmawati, 2020). It is how much they want to learn and how much they are interested and motivated to learn English. When students are interested and motivated, their learning will be more effective because they will try to pay more attention and want to learn more and deeper about English.
When students are interested in learning, they will find a way or try to know more and master it. Interest takes an important part in learning process, because it can affect students to do something that they are interested in. Their learning is more effective when they are interested. Interest is a strong motivator that energizes learning, guides academic, and is important for academic success (Renninger, 2016). Therefore, interest takes a big part in learning process. When it comes to learning process, students' engagement is crucial. The more they engage, the more it impacts their learning process and performances . The lack of interest can cause difficulties for both teacher and students. Teacher will face challenges during the lesson and students have difficulties to follow the learning material or subject they are learning . This study was aimed to find out whether or not using Bookwidgets attract students' interest in learning English.
Bergin (2016) stated that interest has been defined in various ways. It can be described as a preference for a particular activity or subject. Meanwhile Cribbs (2015) defined interest as a student' desire or curiousity. According to Olivarez (2005), interesr is an aspect of personality, a type of motivation, and a result of the individual character of various task. Meanwhile Ainley (2006) stated that interest is theorised as both a motivation and an emotion. Paul (2014) stated that interest could be described as psychological state of engagement, experienced in the moment and also a predisposition to engage repeatedly in particular ideas, activities, or object over time. Students who are interested are more likely to think more clearly, understand more deeply, and remember more accurately. That is why interest can help students to do better in the class and have better academic. He also found out that interest cognitively engages students and statistically fosters learning. Kpolovie (2010) stated that interest in learning could most probably be a very powerful affective psychological trait and a very strong knowledge emotion, as well as an overwheming magnetic positive feeling. Being in a state of interest means that affective reactions, perceived meanings and value, and cognitive functioning interwine, and that attention and learning feel effortlessly (Ainley, 2005).
A number of studies have been done that positively correlate students' interest with academic performance. Barbara (2002) found that self-selected texts increased the readers' positive feelings about reading. The teacher provided students with time to read based on their choice. Understanding why students chose the book they did will help teachers to motivate students. A study was conducted by Sauer (2012), who examined 2 students at Union Hills College and used surveys and interviews, as well as quantitative data collection and analysis of scores. To begin this study, the students completed a questionnaire that established their preferred reading materialsdetailing genre and subject. The questionnaire asked students to choose whether they prefer to read fiction or non-fiction. From there, they were asked to rate, on a scale of one to five, their interest in five genres, with room for them to write in a choice of their own. The final part of the questionnaire was a set of open-ended questions designed to further elicit student response about their preferred reading materials.
When reading designated low-interest passages, students' scores dropped, their writing became less detailed and accurate, and they demonstrated behaviors associated with boredom and lack of focus (Novita, 2018;Lail, 2019). Therefore, if teachers want to engage students and improve their performance, they must consider student interest when selecting materials. Interest can lead students to pay attention to things and stimulate the students' attention. When students do not seem to be interested in the lesson, it is almost impossible for teacher to get them to focus in the classroom. When teachers are able to provide interesting teaching material or activities, students will engage and it will affect how students act towards subject or material and they tend to reflect their academic performances (Haerazi et al., 2020).
Providing interesting and enjoyable media and activities to support teaching process should be done. Therefore, this study is aimed at developing students' interest in learning English. Using such as demonstrations, colorful materials, music, videos can attract students' attention and interest in learning. To be able to do this, writer used Bookwidgets in learning English process. Quoted from Bookwidgets website, Bookwidgets is an excellent service for teachers and curriculum developers that allows them to create a ton of different types of interactive content to assign to their students. It can create interactive exercises such as games, photo and video based activities.

RESEARCH METHOD
The researchers found the students never used media to learn English in the class before. Therefore, they lack interest in learning English using media. To solve this problem, the researchers used Bookwidgets to be applied in the classroom and used pre-experimental design which used one group to be distributed the questionnaire before and after the treatment and this group was also taught by using Bookwidgets.

Research Design
Pre-experimental design was used in this research, it means the researcher used one group to be distributed the questionnaire before and after the treatment and this group was also taught by using Bookwidgets. In this study, quantitative method was used to examine whether Bookwidgets attract students' interest in learning English or not and the result of the questionnaire was described afterwards. The researchers used the data from their responses to the questionnaire to find out the improvement of the students' interests toward English. The researchers used descriptive quantitative method. Descriptive research is usually defined as a type of quantitative research (Shona, 2019), the purpose of descriptive research is to describe and interpret the current status of an individual (Mertler, 2014). Quantitative method itself relies on the collection and analysis of numerical data to describe variables (Mills, 2009). In this study, the procedure of action research was on how the process of the researchers in conducting this research started from the research preparation up to the end of this research. To arrange this research the researchers applied four steps such as planning, acting, observing, and reflecting. The population of this research covered all 7th grade students at MTs Al-Falah Jakarta, which consists 27 students per each class and the sample of this research was one of class of 7th grade.

Instruments
The researchers used a set of questionnaire to measure students' interest in learning English as the instrument. The questionnaire was distributed before the treatment to measure students' interest in learning English before using Bookwidgets in the class. It was done on the first day of meeting and the writer explained how to fill in the questionnaire. Bookwidgets was used as a teaching media to support learning process and to attract students' interest. All the materials taught were based on their materials from textbooks and everything they have learnt so far, Bookwidgets supported and created interactive digital lesson. The writer operated Bookwidgets to support the explanation of the material and things students have learnt before and explain to students how Bookwidgets works, after that students explored its features by themselves so that they would be familiar with it.

Data Analysis
Giving first questionnaire is the first step in collecting the data. The researchers distributed a questionnaire before using Bookwidgets to find out how much they are interested in learning English. The items of questionnaire consisted of 10 statements that students should be answered or chosen. Thus, giving second questionnaire is done in the last step of collecting the data. This step was conducted after using Bookwidgets in the class. The results of before and after using Bookwidgets are compared to each other so that the researchers can measure students' interest in learning English and whether or not using Bookwidgets attract students' interest. This research applied the methods to analyze the data using statistical analysis and quantitative descriptive method. Statistical analysis is to know how students' interest and quantitative descriptive is to interpret the data. The statistical analysis is stressed in percentage aspect of students' interest to learn using Bookwidgets.

RESEARCH FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION Research Findings
English teachers deliver their teaching materials using various platforms. One of those is the BookWidgets platform which is used to create interactive learning activities and involves students in engaging teaching material. This platform provides teachers and students with dynamic widgets such as iPad, Android tablets, Chromebooks, and iBooks with interactive content. These are designed to interact with students' interest in acquiring English smoothly. Therefore, this study is aimed at finding out students' interest in learning English and attract their interest using Bookwidgets. To gain the research data, this study distribiuted questionnaires for students before they applied Bookwidgets and after they applied it. The research findings can be presented in Table 1 and Table 2. Table 1 presented the students' responses before using Bookwidgest in learning English. Then, Table 2 performed the students' views after using Bookwidgest in learning English. The findings showed that students feel enjoyable to use English textbook using multimedia. For instance, students declare that they can improve their English skills with English textbook. Mostly, the research findings presented students' responses that they have interest in learning English before using Bookwidgets. According to the data, 63% of students stated strongly agreed that they liked learning English. 37% of the students are neutral about liking learning English using textbooks. 33,3% agreed that they liked learning English using textbooks, 25,9% strongly disagreed and 3,7% disagreed they liked learning English using textbooks. 44,4% of the studentschose neutral about learning English using textbooks is fun. 25,9% strongly disagreed that learning English using textbooks is fun, 22,2% agreed and 7,4% disagreed that learning English using textbooks is fun. Table 1 presented students have interest to learn through English textbooks and to facilitate them using multimedia. The data of students' interest after using Bookwidgets can be presented in Table 2. Findings from table 2 revealed the response from the students for each statement. The data gathered through questionnaire was used to measure students' interest in learning English after being introduced and using Bookwidgets. According to table 2 number 1, 63% of the students strongly agreed that they liked learning English. 18,5% neutral and 14,8% agreed they liked learning English. Meanwhile 3,7% disagreed they liked learning English. 48,1% of the students chose neutral about liking learning English using textbooks after using Bookwidgets. 29,6% agreed and 22,2% strongly disagreed that they liked learning English using textbooks after using Bookwidgets. 51,9% of the students chose neutral about learning English using textbooks is fun. 22,2% agreed and 18,5% strongly disagreed that learning English using textbooks is fun. 7,4% disagreed that learning English using textbooks is fun after using Bookwidgets. 66,7% of the students chose neutral that using textbooks helped them improve their English skills.
Using textbooks is very fun not only for students but also teachers. Teachers can practice and deliver their teaching materials efficiently and effectively. 22,2% strongly agreed and 11,1% agreed that using textbooks helped them improve their English skills after using Bookwidgets. 70,4% of the students chose neutral that they are interested in learning English using textbooks after using Bookwidgets. 14,8% agreed and 11,1% strongly agreed that they are interested in learning English using textbooks. There is only 3,7% disagreed that they are interested in learning English using textbooks after using Bookwidgets. 44,4% of the students agreed and chose neutral that using textbooks created fun and pleasant atmosphere after using Bookwidgets. 11,1% agreed that using textbooks created fun and pleasant atmosphere. 63%% strongly disagreed that they had never learnt English using multimedia in the class before. 37% disagreed that they had never learnt English using multimedia in the class before. 48,1% of the students strongly agreed that they would like to learn English using multimedia in the class after using Bookwidgets. 40,7% agreed and 11,1% chose neutral about using multimedia in the class. 88,9% of the students chose neutral that they would rather just use textbooks to learn English because it is easier to understand after using Bookwidgets. 7,4% agreed and only 3,7% disagreed to use textbooks to learn English because it is easier to understand. 85,2% of the students chose neutral that they had been happy and enjoying learning English using textbooks and they do not need any changes because textbooks is enough to help them learn English after using Bookwidgets.

Discussion
This study is aimed at investigating students' view on using Bookwidgets to attract students' interest to learn English. This study is caried out in two sessions. The first session is to see students' interest in learning English using English textbook before using Bookwidgets and the last session is to find out students' interest after using Bookwidgets. The investigation of students' view on both aspects is essential because teachers need to know the students' needs in order to learn. It is in line with  and Kazemian et al. (2021) who state that English teachers should know target needs and learning needs in which learning needs relate to what students needs in order to learn. This study tries finding out the students' responses of using textbooks facilitated by using Bookwidgets.
The students had high interest in learning English. It can be seen from table 1, 63% students agreed that they liked learning English. They liked learning English using textbooks because it is fun and helped them improve their English skills. It is in accordance with Moneypenny & Aldrich (2016) who state online-based materials can facilitate students with various learning activities in EFL or ESL teaching-learning contexts. In this study, when students are provided with English materials, they need to be assisted by using multimedia in the class. with various learning tools, they feel easy to accomplish their English tasks (Saeed & Ghazali, 2016). the results revealed that 81,% stronly agreed they have never used it. That is why they answered they would rather use only textbooks to learn English before getting the treatment. The treatment gave students a new way to learn English because its features. The students were interested because Bookwidgets have a lot of features, such as games. They found the learning process more fun when teacher used interesting and interactive media (Ghadirian et al., 2018;Cinganotto, 2019). This also made the learning atmosphere feel more alive because students were involved. Based on the second questionnaire, the results revealed that the students' interest in learning English using multimedia has increased up to 48,1% after they were being introduced to Bookwidgets.
After introducing and using Bookwidgets to learn English, their interest in learning English is still high. 63% students agreed that they liked learning English. However, their interest in learning English using media in the class after using Bookwidgets had increased. 48,1% students strongly agreed that they would like to learn English using media in the class. It means that using Bookwidgets attracted students' interest in learning English using media because there was a change in the results before and after using Bookwidgets.

CONCLUSION
The use of multimedia needs to apply in the classroom as much as possible. Utilizing the technology for language teaching will be great help for teachers and students, and the tendency to integrate technology with lesson content grows each day. There are positive and negative views from using multimedia in the class, using multimedia helps teachers to provide better teaching material that is effective and interesting for studets. It will also help students to understand better. But using multimedia also needs needs some equipments, such as computer/laptop, projector, LCD, and internet to access some sites. Teachers should bear in mind that their profession is more demanding each day and have to be ready to face the challenges that come up, finding solutions or different alternatives.