Background of the Study

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CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

This chapter elaborates the research background, problem formulation, problem limitation, research objectives, research benefits and definition of the terms.

A. Background of the Study

Most people believe that the tradition begins when the adults tell stories for children before they go to bed Irawati, 2006:3. In the children’ bed time stories, parents, grandparents, or the other adults play role as the storytellers who can tell so many kinds of stories to the children such as: local folktales, national histories, or their family tree. The adults have introduced the world by telling the children stories and they have delivered the values of culture and life within the stories intentionally or even unintentionally. Children would know more about their social culture, histories and they would also learn new language pattern through words and other language expressions they have heard from the stories. The stories, then, are not just some entertainment, but they reflect a basic and powerful form in which we make sense of the world and the experience within it. Indeed, some people claim that the story form reflects a fundamental structure of our minds Hamilton, 2001. Those ideas show that stories play important roles in human life. Through stories, human learn to structure their language. It is more than just understanding the word and everything happened and involved in it. At present, stories are everywhere in our society and culture. They are found in our music, books, movies, news media, 2 religions, painting, architecture and urban legends myths Robinson, 2004. This development brings us to the new era of storytelling. We may use any kind of media to tell stories, and we may tell stories anytime and not merely depends on bed time story. Therefore, storytelling can be very helpful for the foreign language teaching in Indonesia especially in improving students’ language skills. According to Collins 1997 storytelling provides a number of benefits in the classroom. Storytelling helps students develop reading skill since it encourages students to understand and to look at various literacy materials in the stories they want to share. It also enhances students’ writing skill when they write their own stories. Storytelling helps students improve their listening skill by understanding meaning, drawing inferences, and interpreting the information. Storytelling would help students practice and refine their speaking skill when they share their stories with others. Furthermore, storytelling introduces students to words in context, which helps them understand unfamiliar words and increases their vocabulary. Storytelling as a medium of public speaking brings about the idea that speaking English in front of audiences is not terrifying. Jianing 2007 found that many English learners believe if they make mistakes or fail to find suitable words to express themselves, the audience will laugh at them. To protect themselves from being laughed at, they are reluctant to speak English. Now we can see a vicious circle that shows the less the students speak, the less they improve their speaking skill, and the more they are afraid to speak. Storytelling motivates learners to speak in English since it reveals the lively atmosphere and real life environment which encourage 3 them to talk and discuss with each other. When telling and listening to a story, the learners will be easily plunged into the plots and the scene then forget about them, which will relieve their nervousness. Mason 1996 also commented that storytelling helps English Foreign Language learners become more self-confident to express themselves spontaneously and creatively. Successful in motivating learners in speaking class, storytelling started to appear in competition. A real example is shown in Sanata Dharma University and other education institutes that hold story telling competition for high school students every year. The competition on story telling is more than just a media that looks for winners and talented story tellers; furthermore, it tries to perpetuate this kind of art and to increase students’ motivation in using English as the media of communication. In Van Lith Senior High School Muntilan, there are some students who are interested in story telling activities and they want to improve their speaking skills. The students’ interest on storytelling should thus be facilitated. In order to channel the students’ interest, the school gathered all students who are really interested in storytelling and then established a storytelling club for them. The school also provides the facilities required for the routine meetings of the club. The meeting is held every Saturday after school, from 12.00-13.30. This two-hour meeting takes place in one of the classes in the campus building. However, a story telling club as an organization is not enough to develop their story telling skills. The students need the right and good learning activities as well as the guidance from the facilitator to enhance their skills in story telling. Moreover, through the practice of story telling, students would also enhance their confidence and creativity. 4

B. Problem Formulation