Juwita Tindaon, Yusnadi, Edy Surya
It remains very difficult for students to develop literary skills after finishing high school, solely because of the backwardness of their learning related methods caused by being unconnected with cultural tradition and reality. This study aims to examine the efficacy of combining the Contextual Teaching and Learning (CTL) model with local wisdom Guro-Guro Aron in promoting students' literary skills. Design of quasi-experimental research with pre-test and post-test control groups. The subjects were 64 university students, who were divided into the experimental group (32) and the control group (32). Data were collected using a rigorous measure of reading and writing skills that underwent pilot tests for reliability and validity, then analysed using nonparametric statistics (Kruskal-Wallis test and Mood's median H test) and an independent-samples t-test. Results reveal that the experimental class performed better than its control counterparts (t=4.87, ρ<0.001). Their average score went up from 68.45 before the experiment to 82.73 afterwards, whereas in the control group it rose less dramatically, from 69.12 at pre-test to 73.21 afterwards. An N-gain score of 0.62 showed moderate to strong effectiveness of the integration. From these findings, we can say that blending CTL with the local tradition of Guro-Guro Aron significantly enhances students' literary skills. A richer understanding of individual contexts and local cultures should improve the way we approach literacy teaching in higher education.. © 2026 Authors.
Faculty of Education, Universitas Negeri Medan, Indonesia
