Moral Values in Western and Indonesian Stories: A Research on the Stories for the Ninth Grade of Junior High School

Moral value is one of the parts in a story which can be learned and adapted by students. Stories are classified into several kinds depend on their contents. There are two classifications of stories taught in the ninth grade of Junior High School: Indonesian and western stories, and both of them create different characteristics and teaching practice of the stories, as well as their moral values. This research investigated the Indonesian and western stories used in the ninth grade of Junior High School, as well as the moral values conveyed in the stories and how the teachers teach the students those different moral values. This study analyzed the stories contained in the ninth graders’ textbook by comparing them with the related theories and concepts, and interviewed three teachers from different junior high schools related to their teaching practice. After analyzing the data, it was revealed that there are only two Indonesian stories and four western stories as the material in the ninth grade of junior high school’s textbook; those Indonesian and western stories have different characteristics of moral values in several aspects as the result of the classification of the stories; and the different classification of the stories bear the different treatments in teaching moral values contained in the stories.


Introduction
Moral value is a significant part of a narrative text, which is one of the genres taught for English class in Junior High School. Teaching moral values is the inseparable part in teaching any kind of narrative text. It goes along with education in creating noble characters of the students. Each narrative has its own moral values, which implicitly show the writer's purpose in writing the text. It is highly valued from its ideological meaning of character values is narrative which may contribute to students' knowledge about moral values and characters which work with their lives (Bouchard, 2002). Stories are provided in the form of fairy tales, folk tales, short stories, legend, etc. Mikesova (2006) wrote in her thesis that the use of fairy tales in language learning is able to develop the learners' language proficiency and personalities, meaning that this kind of text can motivate the learners in learning the language itself. She also assumed that a foreign language cannot be taught as an isolated subject because it has to be thought of in terms of a whole child and his individual educational needs and interests.
Even, Chasanah in Dianti (2008) added that fairy tales contain values related to students' cognitive, emotional, moral, language, social, and holistic development.
Using stories is one of the favorite methods in learning English besides songs and role plays as it can blow the readers' minds to be engaged in the plot (Febriani, Satinem, Nurnaningsih, Haryani, Syafryadin, Noermanzah, 2020). The narrative plot enables learners to connect their imagination and their daily life. Automatically, they involve their emotion, feeling, and thought in understanding the story. This media provides students with a reading experience in language learning, which is highly possible to motivate the learners to read more text using the target language. Linse in Nhung (2016) believed that story-based teaching also helps students in enjoying the literature, in both oral and social skill. Even, short story, as well as fairy tale, is very useful to improve students' vocabulary and reading. The short stories have a variety of choices for different interests and tastes. Furthermore, they also can be powerful and motivating sources for writing in EFL, both as a model and as a subject of the subject matter. In addition, the short story can be a powerful and motivating source for teaching both speaking and listening (Marlina, 2012). The Indonesian and foreign stories that are used in Junior high school are classified into folktales and fairy tales. Guroian in Dianti (2008) stated that fairy tales can provide the students with a chance to explore the other world and build their imagination. While folktales are beneficial not only for teaching culture values, beliefs, history, practices and customs of a community (Mantra and Kumara: 2018). Not all students do not recognize the difference between the classifications, that they know more western fairy tales than Indonesian folktales. But one for sure, both kinds of stories still impress students' minds in learning English, based on various purposes. However, the difference between the origin and classification bears the difference in characteristics and moral values as well as the teaching process. Folktales are easy to be adopted by the students related to the moral value, characters, and expressions as well as decision making (Mantra and Kumara: 2018). Students also can understand the lesson and values in factual settings (Nhung: 2016). Not totally different, fairy tales also provide the students with the factual event which makes them easier in understanding the values. It exposes the simple way of thinking which can be comprehended by the students (Hohr,2000;Singhal,2013) because it contains fanciful and incredible features such as elves, goblins, wizards, even fairies (Sayer, Kristiawan, Agustina: 2018).
Moral values, as the compulsory element of a story which create character education are something that can be learned integrated with other subjects or learning. Rahim and Rahiem (2012) conducted a research on moral value in Indonesia. They concluded that moral education is integrated with religious and citizenship educations which are inseparable in the teaching process. So, people tend to relate the religious with moral or citizenship education. They added that the people will conduct investigations on whether stories are useful for children's education, especially their moral and responsibility for their actions.
Moreover, Brand (2001) conducted research on Grimm's fairy tale to understand moral content, and he concluded that the children in this study were able to identify the moral content found in fairy tales such as vices and virtues, the intentions behind the deeds, and in certain cases reason about them using orientations of care, justice and empathy. It empowers the teacher and parents to teach the children and students using a more interesting and accepted way.
Regarding teaching moral values in stories, particularly western stories, Al-Rosyiidah (2013) conducted a research which revealed there are similarities and differences between character education aspects in English fairy tales in English and Indonesian can be grouped into three types: no differences, with differences in character variants but similar in substance, and with both differences and similarities in the substance of character education. Saphiro cited by Sari (2013) believed that student's emotional intelligence which closely related to their behavior, viewing problems, social life, personal emotion and academic achievement are influenced by moral values they adapted.
Regarding the moral value and its teaching, Folk tales as the local stories from Indonesia provide more benefits for the students which cannot be found in fairy tales, epic stories, and other reading fiction. Folk tales provide students with balanced character formation and Indonesian culture (Umaya, et. al: 2017). Moreover, Deviyanti (2018) conducted a research entitled Teaching English to Children in Indonesia Using Popular Western Folktales and Indonesian Local Folktales which revealed that Indonesian folktales are more enjoyable for the students than western folktales because they can gain the values which related to their country.
Based on the elaboration, this study investigated the stories in the compulsory book for the ninth graders along with their difference and moral values. There was also investigation on the teaching moral values on those stories. Therefore, this library research was supported by interview with English teachers. However, before explaining the difference, this study mentioned the stories used and their origin. The different characteristic of the stories

Research Methodology
This study was a library research with analysis on the written texts in the ninth graders' book, completed with interview to the teachers from different schools. The data were taken from English in Focus IX as the compulsory book for the ninth grade of junior high school students and the teachers of two private schools in Pekalongan. Those two schools use English in Focus as the only book which the students must have, meaning that the students tend to read and focus more on the stories contained in the book only. The researcher gathered the data from those schools to ensure the validity and can be generalized. The book was chosen by the English Teachers Community in Pekalongan as the main book for the students in Junior High School in Pekalongan. Books and journals related to the stories and moral values were used as the instruments of this research, completed with questions for interviewing the English teachers. In determining the differences between Indonesian and western stories, this study tended to use Danandjaja's concept of Folklore Indonesia and Sayer and Kristiawan's concept of fairy tales in building children's character.
The procedure for collecting and analyzing the data were divided into two activities. The first activity was collecting the data based on the library research that was conducted on the stories in the compulsory book. To analyze the data in this step, the researcher used English in Focus IX and some references related concepts and theories.
The researcher investigated all of the stories in the book to be analyzed.

Teaching Moral Values in Indonesian and Western Stories
Regarding the teaching process, actually the differences in teaching moral values implied in Indonesian and Western stories are not significant. In gaining this data, there were interviews with three English teachers. They explained that the students had been familiar with western stories since their elementary school. One of them said, "cerita barat itu mereka lebih mengenal, daripada cerita dari Indonesia, mungkin karena dari SD sudah biasa dengar Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, dll". They claimed that the students were more enthusiastic in reading and responding the western stories. The main reason was the easy and simple terms used in the stories.
The students did not have to remember long and complicated names of certain characters and places and western stories are more famous than Indonesian stories. Besides, the different moral values implied in those folk tales and fairy tales enable the teacher teach and illustrate the different values.

The Difference of Western and Indonesian Stories for the Ninth Graders
Only two of those six stories are categorized as Indonesian stories and both of them are folk tales, while the other four stories, which are taken from abroad, are fairy tales. Those two tales are different in the content and substance. A fairy tale tells about an imaginative world and story and it amuses the reader. In people's minds, the fairy tale is often considered as stories about fairies (Danandjaja: 2002 encourage the students to learn about culture, and they can be motivation as well as a foundation for the students in learning a new language.
Therefore, the use of stories cannot be separated from English learning. This is in line with the result of the interview with the English teachers, mentioning students are more active and enthusiastic when they are listening or reading stories rather than other kinds of text.
Besides those benefits, teaching stories at any level is closely related to teaching moral education for the students.

Moral Values in Indonesian and Western Stories
The Legend of Mount Wayang and The Legend of Lake Batur as the Indonesian stories, particularly folktales, expose authentic materials for the students. In "The King, named Sang Prabu, was a wise man." implies the cultural values of the Indonesian Kingdom. Besides using The King, the folktale also uses Sang Prabu to introduce the readers that Prabu means a leader of a kingdom. It is in line with Fabuyusi statement, which was cited by Sukmawan and Setyowati (2017) stating that folktales provide not only language competences, but also cultural values and factual social life.
Besides, "…the wicked fairy, Princess Segara fell in love with Raden Begawan.." also uses the same technique in introducing Indonesian culture.
Besides those sentences, the use of "kahyangan" is one of the undeniable  (Mahdiani, 2012;Rosada, 2016;Sulistianingsih, 2017). Implicitly, this fairy tale wants to convey a value that we have to be kind to everyone, although they treat us badly.
In Based on those explanations, we found that Indonesian folktales have more values than western fairy tales. Folktales enable people to gain the culture, way of thinking, interest, behavior, attitudes and tradition (Ragan, 2009;Mantra, 2017). On the other hand, fairy tale is a story that contains frightening stories but they are favored by children because they give children the opportunity to imagine by depicting those events into fantasy (Carr: 2001).

Teaching Moral Values in Indonesian and Western Stories
According to the finding, the students were more familiar with Western than Indonesian stories. The main reason was the easy and simple terms used in the stories. The students did not have to remember long and complicated names of certain characters and places and western stories have been more widely known than Indonesian stories.
However, it does not mean that the students did not enjoy reading Indonesian stories, especially folktales. They were enthusiastic in learning those new folktales, but the teachers needed to explain more about the origin and additional information related to the tales. As explained by one of the teachers, before discussing The Legend of Lake Batur, he asked the the teacher can deliver to the students is being kind to everyone, but there is no value that she can explain about the relationship between Cinderella and her step mother and sisters. In the contrary, The Legend of Mount Wayang let the students know the close relationship between Sang Prabu (the father) and Princess Teja Nirmala (the daughter).
From those two sides of stories, the English teachers said that sometimes they has to adapt some moral values from western culture to motivate the students in improving their personal characters, such as independence, confidence, intelligence, and courage. However, it does not mean that the students have to imitate all of the things in the stories. For example, in Cinderella, Cinderella and The Prince got married without agreement from Cinderella's parents. This value allowed them to explain more about relationship between parents and children and remind the students that such norms do not exist in Indonesia. Related to this case, Cated in Sukmawan and Setyowati (2017) also stated that language teachers must also teach the students how to overcome the global and social problem, not only understand and communicate using the language. As the result, the research hopefully is able to provoke the writer to write more Indonesian stories regarding local culture and norms. The teacher also need to encourage the students to read more Indonesian stories as the cultural heritage of this nation.