THE DIGITAL NATIVE STUDENTS’ PREFERENCE IN USING
NEWSELA AS THE MEDIA OF DIGITAL LITERACY TO ENRICH
STUDENTS VOCABULARY
Ikrar Genidal Riadil1
Universitas Tidar, Magelang, Indonesia
Ikrargenidal21@gmail.com
Farid Romadhon2
Universitas Tidar, Magelang, Indonesia
faridromadhon99@gmail.com

ABSTRACT
Digital Natives students born into an era of instant networking. It makes
everything have a connection with technologies. Digital natives having
sophisticated technology knowledge and skills that can be potentially
harnessed for better learning engagement inside the classroom. As a
follow-up to the issuance of Permendikbud Number 23 of 2015
concerning the Growth Movement of Budi Pekerti, in 2017, the
government began to vigorously increase the literacy culture in schools
through the “Gerakan Literasi Sekolah” (GLS). Teachers should be able
to set an example in creating a spirit of literacy culture in school.
Through the increasing reading culture for students, this also increases
vocabulary for students in learning English. The Newsela application can
help the teachers also the students to add references to enrich science
as a provision for learning. This research aimed to distinguish the usage
of Newsela as the media of literacy to enrich student’s vocabulary. This
research pursued to answer two research questions; (1) is Newsela
helps students to improve their reading ability? And (2) what are the
impacts of Newsela application on the student’s on developing
vocabulary? The Steps that the researchers used were; first, the
researchers shared the questionnaire to the English students. Second,
the researchers evaluated the responses from the respondents. Third,
the researchers found out the answer about the impacts of Newsela to
the students. This research used descriptive qualitative to conduct this
research. This result of the research showed that Newsela helped
students to improve their reading ability.
Keywords: Newsela, digital, literacy, vocabulary, reading

1. Introduction
Language is an important aspect of
human being. By learning, language
people can communicate with each

other, get information from one to
another and interact. Language has a
big role in human life to make a relation
39 | P a g e

in their environment. One of the
expert’s states that language is used
widely in communication between
people who do not share the same first
(or even second) language (Harmer,
2007). It indicates that language is very
important to learn in human life.
In addition, the 2013 curriculum is a
new curriculum in Indonesia that low
interest in writing and reading. It makes
the government through the Ministry of
Education and Culture launched a
literacy program in schools. This
program was developed based on the
Minister of Education and Culture
Number 21 of 2015 concerning the
Growth of Character. The purpose of
this program is to accustom and
motivate the students to want to read
and write to cultivate character. The
School Literacy program is also
expected to produce children with high
literacy abilities. Therefore, in 2017, the
literacy program was also intensified by
starting to incorporate it into learning
by doing revisions to the 2013
Curriculum. Literacy is communication
through visually read inscriptions, not
through the auditory and signaling
channels. The visual inscription includes
writing language mediated with the
alphabet, script (AlfiSyahriani, 2010:
70). The spread of literacy culture is
crucial for humans to advance their lives
because the ingrained culture of literacy
will make people accustomed to being
critical and reviewing what is happening
around them (Pujo Sakti, 2012: 259).
According to UNESCO research, literacy
culture in Indonesia is extremely low
than the other countries. There are
various factors influence low literacy
culture.

In general, this can be derived from
factors inside or outside of the school
environment. In the environment
outside the school, for instance, the
family environment also greatly affects
someone's reading interest. The
instance, the fondness for information
technology is growing rapidly but is
used for activities that do not support
literacy. The low purchasing power of
books is also a factor. The factors in the
school environment are also diverse, for
instance, the limited facilities to support
literacy activities such as a good library,
and a collection of books that are
adequate and varied. Another factor is,
learning situations that do not motivate
students to study certain books outside
of textbooks. Classroom learning is
often teacher-centered or just a
knowledge transfer activity where
students are only filled with information
or knowledge from the teacher and are
rarely invited to discuss or be given
problems about the material discussed
to be solved together so students are
not motivated to seek information from
other sources and not trained to
increase knowledge through reading.
The figure of the teacher who is
expected to be a role model in terms of
reading and writing culture also still has
not been able to inspire students to be
interested in improving their literacy
culture. The culture of reading and
writing for teachers is important to
improve their confidence. Teachers who
have a high literacy culture have strong
confidence in the results of their work.
Therefore, seeing the demands of
teacher professionalism which are
getting higher every time, literacy
culture can be one way to improve their
competence and professionalism. This
40 | P a g e

also greatly affects the level of comfort
of students in conducting a consultation
with the teacher. Good literacy culture,
can provide a broader insight for a
teacher. Moreover, as time goes by, the
need for information that is always up
to date is needed for a teacher to know
the latest issues to be able to answer
every
question
from
students.
Moreover, literacy culture can improve
teacher competency along with the
demands
of
high
teacher
professionalism. The breadth of the
teacher's insight allows students to be
more comfortable when consulting. If
the teacher can be a good listener, they
also can be a good speaker. The
diversity of vocabulary allows the
teacher to express his opinion in a
continuously and cleanly manner.
besides, the changes to the 2013
Curriculum which included an increase
in literary culture in learning also forced
teachers to be able to have a high
literary culture. This is an ingredient so
that the teacher can balance the
progress of science and technology and
balance various types of students when
classroom learning takes place. The
absence of teachers as role models in
the school literacy movement is due to
the low culture of teaching literacy.
There are still not many teachers who
see the importance of literary culture
for the continuity of science. Even
though the teacher's reading and
writing culture can also help teachers to
improve their knowledge and skills that
can be used for classroom learning. The
low level of teacher literacy culture is
caused by reading and writing is not a
need or a means to develop themselves
for teachers. Without this, it is difficult
for someone like a teacher to want to

read and write. Especially for the history
of reading and writing culture teachers
are needed to add historical knowledge
and references. Another reason that is
often raised is busy (Apandi, 2016).
Busyness is the reason most often asked
by teachers as the reason why literacy
culture is not a necessity for them. The
increasing number of administrative
activities related to the evaluation and
assessment of students makes the level
of teacher busyness also higher.
According to them, there is no time to
take time to read books or write. If they
also need to spend time taking care of
the house and family after returning
home, so no portion of time for
teachers to read books or write after
activities at school.
In this modern era, the teachers
and students are required to be able to
adapt to the era. One of them is that
students and teachers are expected to
be able to master foreign languages in
communicating globally and also able to
use technology in daily life. Language is
a sign, symbol, or tool used to exchange
the information through spoken or
written. Language has a close
connection to a daily conversation.
Conversation can be easily recognized if
they use a language that they
understand. According to Crystal (2010),
he stated that language could be called
a system that people used to
communicate with each other and also
sharing information. The classification
of language includes speaking, writing,
and making gestures, or body
movement. The simple part of language
is sound, and every language has its
grammar as well. It means that different
language has different rules. These rules
in grammar are used to controlling the
41 | P a g e

function of language to share the
information or to build and gives the
sentences meaning.
As a human being, human learn to
speak at least one language. The first
language as our mother tongue, the
language as we hear as we grow up, and
another language as our second
language. These second languages can
be acquired from our environment, or
the new situation around us. When
someone learning to speak in the
second language (SL), and also foreign
language (FL) is not as easy as possible.
It also needs many efforts in
understanding, applying the foreign
language, commitment in learning, and
developing the cognizance as each
language has its systems and
grammatically (Santos, Alarcon, &
Pablo, 2016, p. 1). It is not wrong when
learning
something
new
about
language, especially in learning a
foreign language, it will take encourage
and a strong confident to use the
foreign language in a context where the
target of language does not use the
foreign language outside the classroom.
According to Holmes (2013) and Chaika
(2008), people are expected to improve
their skills and knowledge not only
linguistics abilities but also the
appropriate
communicative
competence as well in communicating
any foreign language. However, having
the ability to understanding how to
speak in a foreign language does not
benchmark the realization to be able to
speak a foreign language. Another point
that should be achieved in the success
to be able to use a foreign language in
communication is to pronounce words
correctly, use the correct grammatical,

have a rich vocabulary and understand
how to use them in speaking.
However, according to Nur (2018)
also stated that the digital learners are
digital native generation which uses a
digital learning tool where teacher and
students alike can create their own
interactive timelines. Many new social
features introduce collaboration and
engagement
between
students.
Vocabulary is one of several important
aspects that has a main role in
language. Vocabulary is important
because someone will be able to
communicate well if the interlocutor
understands every word that we want
to convey. Fluency and ability to use a
variety of vocabulary can also make
someone look proficient and master the
language. Since learning a new language
especially the foreign language is not
simple many people feel reluctant to
learn English and that makes their
vocabulary not develop. Whereas, in
the current era, there are many
applications can be used to learn and be
able to enrich the vocabulary. One of
them is that they can use an application
called Newsela.
Moreover, online media look to
incorporate new technologies into
advising practice. Students increasingly
to contact via email, text messaging,
and instant messaging rather than meet
the teacher in the offices. Digital native
does not see memorizing information as
an education. Instead, they define
education as the ability to know where
information can be found and how to
retrieve it (Prensky, 2007). With instant
gratification avenues such as YouTube,
IM, chat rooms, and social networking
sites and Wi-Fi hand-held PDA’s with
instant internet access.
42 | P a g e

Consequently, through using an
application because one reason that
currently, the future teacher will face
the digital native learners. We call them
like that besides they live in the digital
era, recently most learners always bring
their own smartphone wherever and
whenever they go. Thus through using
an application, which a lot of them are
in the smartphone, is effective enough.
Abbasi and Hashemi (2013) stated that
the impact of using a smartphone on
learners to improve their vocabulary
learning.
Newsela is an Instructional Content
Platform that amplified reading
engagement and learning in every
subject. It is an application and web
which provide reading digital platform
to help people to read some articles. It
provides some articles from a variety of
genres In the Newsela helps the readers
to find some articles which they want.
They could find anything there. The
features given by it help the readers to
improve their reading skills because
they could read anything that is their
favorite. The Newsela application can
help the teachers also the students to
add references to enrich science as a
provision for learning.
Then, according to Tucker (2015)
stated an example of an instructor who
uses Newsela for this kind of data
collection, and she provided raving
reviews about the amount of
information she can obtain about
student progress. Once students begin
to take the quizzes, and populate
enough scores, the website helps them
locate articles that best meet their
individual instructional level, so they
can understand the articles but also be

challenged to continue progressing
(Mersand, 2016).
Moreover, most English teachers in
developing countries have the crucial
problems of low literacy in using the
computer and the internet (Son, Robb,
and Charismiadji, 2011). In short, the
digital-native students are in the digital
era now and they also will work by
using digital technologies. Furthermore,
a radical change in the education policy
should be taken to implement massively
e-learning in Indonesia schools.
Based on these phenomena, the
researcher is interested in analyzing
some problems related to the
phenomena. Therefore, the research
problems are stated as follows, what
kind of media you use in speaking
learning class and for students, in your
opinion, what is the impact of the habit
of the digital native that mostly access
seesaw media in their speaking class.

3. Research Method
Qualitative research was used in
this research. Patton and Cochran
(2002) explained qualitative research is
characterized by its aims, which relate
to understanding some aspect of social
life, and its methods which generate
words, rather than numbers, as data
for analysis. Qualitative research is
understanding of social phenomenon
based on participant’s point of view. In
order to increase information into a
certain phenomenon, such as an
environment, a process, or a belief.
The data were collected by giving
questionnaires to participants. The
data collection procedures of this study
were
started
by
giving
the
questionnaire, asking the participants
to fill in the questionnaire and finally
43 | P a g e

the
researcher
compiled
the
questionnaire that had been answered.
This method was influenced by
(Cam and Tran, 2017). It was adapted
from
one
of
the
experts
(Kusumaningrum,
2018)
which
combined both of them. After the data
had been collected, it would be
analyzed and recognized. Like what
Cam and Tran (2017) stated that the
questionnaire was a quite useful
collection method because researchers
could reach many participants and
respondents in a short time and it did
not need cost so much. This research
aimed to distinguish the usage of
Newsela as the media of literacy to
enrich student’s vocabulary. The object
of this research was the college
students.
To begin this research, the
researchers took three steps to answer
questions in this research.
1. Created the questionnaire and
then shared it with the college
students.
2. Evaluated the responses from
the respondents.
3. Found out the answer about the
impacts of Newsela to the
students.
After collecting the respondents'
answers, the data were analyzed to
answer the research questions.
The arrangement of this study consists
of:
1. Research Subject
The research subjects were
students in 2nd semester to 6th
semester of English Department
Students
Tidar
Magelang
University, Central Java with 50
people.
2. Research Place

The study was conducted at
Tidar University Magelang, Central Java.
3. Research Time
This research was conducted in
the 2019/2020 year
Besides that, the questions which
given were in the English language
although
some
reasons
that
respondents
answered
were
in
Indonesian. Even though it did not
impact the research. Besides, they could
express their feeling easily and free. Not
only that the questionnaire did not let
the respondents write their real name.
They could write their real name or the
initial. Then the researchers would
name them as respondent one, two,
and so on and it does not impact the
data that had been collected.

4. Result and Discussion
This part discusses the result of this
research, the researchers shared the
questionnaire to the college students in
Indonesia. This questionnaire consists of
12 questions which the researchers
thought that this questionnaire
becomes the finding of this research.
Most of the respondents are
majoring in the English Department.
The reason why the researchers focus
on English Department students
because the researchers know that
most of the students of the English
Department are familiar with a platform
that could improve their ability in
English. Some of the respondents have
also come from other majors. It means
that several college students who are
from other majors also know about the
platform which could improve the
ability to learning English. Starting from
semester 2-6 respondents answer the

44 | P a g e

questions. In total 50 questionnaires are
collected from the college students.
In order to collect the data needed,
the researcher makes questions of
questionnaire as can be seen below:
1. Do you know newsela.com? (Y/N)
2. Do you like to visit this reading
platform? (Y/N)
3. Do you know the sections of all which
available in the newsela.com? (Y/N)
4. Which section do you like the most?
(give reason)
5. Do you think that newsela.com help
you to improve you reading? (Y/N and
give reason)
6. Do you think that newsela.com help
you to increase your vocabulary? (Y/N
and give reason)
7. What is the advantages of using
newsela?
8. What is the disadvantages of using
newsela?
9. Would you still use newsela to help
you to improve your reading skills?
(Y/N)
Then, the researcher gives the
questionnaire to the participants and
the results are as follows.

know the Newsela or not. About 84,3%
of the total respondents said they know
about Newsela and 15,7% of
respondents said they do not know
about Newsela. The second question is
about the function of Newsela. Most of
the respondents know about Newsela
as a reading platform. However, several
of them who do not know about
Newsela said that they do not even
know about the function of Newsela as
a reading platform. Most of the
students who answer yes are from the
English Department. Also, several of
them seem to have not known this
reading platform.
In Newsela, it has so many sections.
Sections here mean that the genre of
every article which is available. Such as
war and peace, kids, science, law,
health, sports, arts, and opinion. Every
section discusses anything in those
sections. For instance, when the readers
choose health as the section, they will
find out all the articles about health. By
sharing
the
questionnaire,
the
researchers know that most of the
college students who understand the
using of the Newsela already know
every section in this reading platform.
58,8% of the total respondents know
Table 1. The Result of Questionnaire
about the sections in Newsela and
Questionnaire
about 41,2% doNO
not know about it.
YES
number
Arts become the most favorite
1
43 participants (82,7 %) 9 participants (17,3 %)
sections chosen by the respondents. For
2
42 participants (80,8 %)the 10
participants
reasons
column,(19,2%)
the respondents
3
30 participants (57,7%)have22
participants
(42,3about
%) why they
a different
opinion
5
43 participants (82,7 %)like these
9 participants
(17,3
%)
sections. The opinion section
6
45 participants (86,5 %)becomes
7 participants
(13,5
second of
the%)most favorite
chosen by the respondents and the
science section becomes the third.
The first and second questions
By
reading
Newsela,
the
related to how well the respondents
respondents answer the next question
know the Newsela. The first question
"do you think Newsela helps you to
asked about whether the respondents
45 | P a g e

improve your reading?". Most of the
respondents who know Newsela well
answer yes. The reason why they said
they answer it because they could read
what they want to read. Besides, in this
question, the researchers find out that
to improve someone's to read is giving
them the text which they want. The
other reasons why they think that they
think Newsela could improve their
reading are, by reading an article from
Newsela give them a piece of additional
information and Newsela also has much
content to improve their reading.
The next question is about
vocabulary. 86,3% of the respondents
said that by reading articles from
Newsela
could
improve
their
vocabularies. The reasons why Newsela
could improve their reading are that
Newsela provides many articles which
have new words. Most of the
respondents said that they learn new
vocabulary by reading it because they
find new words there. Also, in total
13,7% of respondents said that Newsela
does not help them to improve their
vocabulary because they do not know
the Newsela.
Every
platform
has
many
advantages and disadvantages. Through
this questionnaire, the researchers find
out that the users of Newsela already
know about the advantages and
disadvantages. First, the advantages of
using Newsela are it could improve the
readers reading because they could
read any genre that they like. It
provides many articles so the readers
could choose their favorite articles. The
respondents also said that in Newsela
they could improve their English skills.
Next, the disadvantages of this platform
are, we need to join the course to take

the quiz sections. As the online
platform, using Newsela need to have a
strong connection of Internet. By the
answer of the respondents said that
they will still use Newsela to improve
their reading and help them to enrich
the vocabularies.

5. Conclusion
This research aimed to find out that
Newsela helped the students to
improve their reading and enrich their
vocabularies bu using Newsela. In this
research, the researchers understoot
that to help the students to improve
their reading is by giving them a text
which they like. Students did not like it
when they were pushed to read
something that was not their favorites.
Besides, to enrich students vocabulary,
reading a text could help them to
increase
their
vocabulary.
By
understanding
the
respondents'
responses, the researchers knew that to
enrich vocabulary took two steps. First,
they needed to find vocabulary that
they did not know then looked for the
meaning in the dictionary. Therefore,
the result of this research showed that
Newsela helped students to improve
their reading ability and enrich their
vocabularies.

References
Apandi, I. (2016). Guru dan budaya
literasi. Retrieved
from
http://www.
kompasiana.com/idrisapandi/guru
-dan-budayaliterasi_568cf007f77a614115a384
e2.
46 | P a g e

Cam, L., & Tran, T. M. T. (2017). An
evaluation of using games in
teaching English grammar for first
year English-majored students at
Dong
Nai
Technology
University. International Journal
of Learning, Teaching and
Educational Research, 16(7), 5571.
Chaika, E. (2008). Language the social
mirror (4" Ed). Australia: Heinle
Cengage Learning.
Crystal, D. (2010). A little book of
language. UNSW Press.
Harmer, J. (2007). The practice of
English
language
teaching.
Harlow: Pearson Longman.
Holmes, J. (2013). An introduction to
sociolinguistics. Routledge.
Kusumaningrum, W. R. (2018). Preservice teachers’ perception of
teaching future EFL students: a
micro-ethnography
approach. Journal of Language
Teaching and Research, 9(1), 7479.
Anderson, N. (2018). The impact of
Newsela on disciplinary content
area
literacy
to
improve
vocabulary instruction.
Nur, M. R. O., & Riadil, I. G. (2019, May).
See saw media: Digital natives’
preference in 4.0 speaking
learning class. English Language
and
Literature
International
Conference
(ELLiC)
Proceedings (Vol. 3, pp. 202-208).
Patton, M. Q., & Cochran, M. (2002). A
guide to using qualitative research
methodology.
Pendidikan, K., & Indonesia, K. R.
(2015).
Penumbuhan
budi
pekerti. Peraturan
Menteri
Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan

Republik Indonesia No. 23 Tahun
2015, 13.
Riadil, I. G. (2019). The EFL learner’s
perspectives about accuracy,
fluency, and complexity in daily
routines. Journal of Research on
Applied Linguistics, Language, and
Language Teaching, 2(2), 160-166.
Riadil, I. G. (2020). Investigating EFL
learners’reading comprehension
problems and strategies in Tidar
University. JELLT
(Journal
of
English Language and Language
Teaching), 4(1), 48-58.
Sakti, P. (2012). Budaya literasi sebagai
relasi dunia: Bentuk perlawanan
kolonialisme budaya. Prosiding
Seminar
Internasional
Multikultural dan Globalisasi.
Halaman (Vol. 260).
Santos, N. B., Alarcón, M. M. H., &
Pablo, I. M. (2016). Fillers and the
development of oral strategic
competence in foreign language
learning. Porta Linguarum: Revista
Internacional de Didáctica de Las
Lenguas Extranjeras, (25), 191201.
Son, J. B., Robb, T., & Charismiadji, I.
(2011). Computer literacy and
competency:
A
survey
of
Indonesian teachers of English as
a foreign language. ComputerAssisted
Language
Learning
Electronic Journal (CALL-EJ), 12(1),
26-42.
Tucker,
C.
(2015). The
techy
teacher/using data to personalize
learning. Educational
Leadership, 73(3), 82-83.
Syahriyani, A. (2010). Optimalisasi
budaya literasi di kalangan
mahasiswa:
Upaya
meretas
komunikasi global. Jurnal UI Untuk
47 | P a g e

Bangsa
Seri
Sosial
dan
Humaniora.
https://www.
academia. edu/19208772.
Wijayanti, I. G. R. D. R. (2019,
November). Do people think
about accuracy, fluency, and
complexity in daily routines. ELTIC
Conference (Vol. 4, No. 1).

48 | P a g e