RETELLING SHORT STORY TO IMPROVE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILL
RETELLING SHORT STORY TO IMPROVE STUDENTS’
SPEAKING SKILL
AN ARTICLE
BY:
JESSICA NOVIA
NIMF1022131022
ENGLISH EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM
LANGUAGE AND ART EDUCATION DEPARTMENT
TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION FACULTY
TANJUNGPURA UNIVERSITY PONTIANAK
2017
RETELLING SHORT STORY TO IMPROVE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILL
Jessica Novia
Pendidikan BahasaInggris FKIP Untan Pontianak
Email: jessicanovia607@gmail.com
Abstract
This study is aimed to investigate whether or not the use of retelling short story
improves the students’ speaking skill and to find out the effect size of the improvement
of students’ speaking skill after being taught using retelling short story of the tenth
grade students of SMA Santun Untan Pontianak. The form of this research is preexperimental study with one group pre-test post-test design. The population of this
research is the tenth grade students of SMA Santun Untan Pontianak, while the sample
is class X B that consists of 24 students. The research findings show that the mean score
of pre-test is 56,04 while the mean score of post-test is 61,46. It shows that retelling
short story improves the students’ speaking skill.The result of the research shows that ttest is higher than t-critical the value is 8,34>2.069 it means that the alternative
hypothesis (Ha) is accepted. It can be concluded that there is a highly significant effect
of retelling short story to improve students’ speaking skill on the tenth grade students of
SMA Santun Untan Pontianak.
Keywords: Retelling Short Story, Speaking Skill
English is decided as the first
international language in the world. So,
English is considered very crucial in various
fields of human’s daily life. There are more
people using English than other languages to
be the centre of communication inter country.
Even in every country, English is taught in
schools as a compulsory subject. In
Indonesia, English is mentioned as a foreign
language and is taught to students as a
subject from elementary until university
level.
In senior high school, speaking is one
of the English skills that must be studied and
practiced by students. Based on the syllabus
of KTSP (School-Based Curriculum) 2006 of
Senior High School on English subject, the
purpose of teaching speaking in the
classroom is that the students are expected to
be able to achieve the criteria in the
competences. The standard competence of
English speaking in Senior High School
syllabus is that the students are able to
express meanings or messages orally and
fluently in the context of daily life. One of
requirements in teaching learning process is
to make students able to do simple short
monologue in the form of narrative text. In
schools, the fact is that the teacher usually
finds some incompatibilities between the
condition of students’ skill in speaking and
the criteria in the curriculum. Based on the
experience the researcher found in SMA
Santun Untan when the researcher did the
teaching practice, there were problems in
English class especially in speaking. The
students were not able to speak English
properly. It could be seen from the difficulty
when they built a sentence to speak because
it took some time for them to think what they
had to speak.
The researcher also found the problem
on their pronunciation of English words.
They mispronounce most of English words.
Furthermore, the researcher saw that the
students had limited vocabulary. It was
difficult for them to find the right English
words when they wanted to indicate what to
say. Also, sometimes the students were
nervous and afraid of making mistake in
speaking English. Those problems make the
students do not want to speak English.
1
Moreover, most students were not
enthusiastic in learning English. When
students are less interested in learning
English, they tend to be passive and not pay
attention as well as not to participate in
learning activities.
Based on the problems mentioned
above and the difficulty in using the target
language, retelling short story is one of the
recommended techniques which can help
language learners in improving their
speaking skill and knowledge of vocabulary,
grammatical structures, and pronunciation.
Therefore, the researcher decided to use
retelling short story as a technique in
teaching speaking. By retelling story,
students will have opportunity to speak
English in classroom. Retelling short story
helps students improve speaking skill and
also increase the students’ vocabulary.
Furthermore, retelling helps teachers identify
the level of students’ comprehension of what
they read or listen to. In addition, retelling is
a common way that many people use as part
of their communication.
Retelling short story has many benefits
in improving students’ speaking skill.
According to Fitzgibbon and Wilhelm (1998,
p. 24), stated that the most frequently
mentioned benefits in the research literature
are affective benefits: storytelling interests
students, lower affective filters, and allows
learning to take place more readily and more
naturally within a meaningful context.
Storytelling is also promoted as fostering
natural communication, allowing students to
experience authentic language input.
Based on the background above, the
problems of this research are: “Does the use
of retelling short story improve significantly
the students’ speaking skill on the tenth grade
students
of
SMA
Santun
Untan
Pontianak?”and “If it does, what is the size of
the effect?”.
The purposes of this research are: “To
investigate whether or not the use of retelling
short story improves students’ speaking skill
on the tenth grade students of SMA Santun
Untan Pontianak” and “To find out the effect
size of the improvement of students’
speaking skill after being taught using
retelling short story of the tenth grade
students of SMA Santun Untan Pontianak”.
Speaking is the process of saying
words, delivering messages, or explaining
something by the use of voice in order to
have a conversation with someone. It is the
uniquely human act or process of sharing and
exchanging information, ideas, and emotions
using oral language (Fisher & Frey, 2007, p.
16). Furthermore, Rickheit and Strohner
(2008, p. 207) stated that speaking is a
speech or utterance processing that involves
the speaker and receiver to recognize the
content of the speech. This activity at least
involves two persons in which they share any
kind of information they have.
In speaking process there are at least
five components that generally recognize
mentioned by Harris (as cited in Anggryadi,
2014), they are: (1) Pronunciation (including
the segmental features vowels and
consonants and the stress and intonation
patterns). (2) Grammar. (3) Vocabulary. (4)
Fluency (the case and speed of the flow of
speech). (5) Comprehension.
Teaching speaking is the activity where
the teacher leads the students to improve
students’ ability in expressing emotions,
ideas or feelings orally. Brown (2001) states
that teaching means showing or helping
someone how to do something, giving
instruction, guiding in the study of the
something, providing with the knowledge,
causing to know or to understand. According
to Nunan (2003), what is meant by teaching
speaking is:(1) To teach English language
learners to produce the English speech
sounds and sound patterns.(2) Use word and
sentence stress, intonation patterns and the
rhythm of the second language.(3) Select
appropriate words and sentences according to
the proper social setting, audience, situation
and subject matter.(4) Organize their
thoughts in a meaningful and logical
sequence.(5) Use language as a means of
expressing values and judgments.(6) Use the
language quickly and confidently with few
unnatural pauses, which is called as fluency.
2
In this research, retelling short story is
the activity by which students work in group
retelling a short story using their own words.
According to Karen (as cited in Yudistira,
2013), retelling does not mean memorizing,
retelling means recounting the same story
into the students’ own words. In retelling a
story, the students require to think more
conceptually. It uses students’ own words, so
they can develop their vocabulary and
grammar. Before the students retell a story,
the students have to be able to understand the
story well. A storyteller can combine
expression and some physical aspects such as
eye contact, volume, body movement and
hand and arm gestures in retelling a story.
Based on the study of Brown and
Cambourne (as cited in Mowbray, 2010) in
retelling story, the function of a teacher is as
a tutor. The teacher helps the students to
absorb the information and encourage the
students to retell the story. Sometimes the
students face the difficulty in understanding
about the meaning of the story. The teacher
has to help the students by giving some clues
related to the story. Dealing with the idea
above, Gambrell and Dromsky (as cited in
Gibson, 2003, p. 10) stated that there are
some tips that should be kept in mind by the
teacher to engage students in retelling
activities. Those tips are: (1) Model retelling.
(2) Use predictable texts and/ or familiar
stories, such as fairy tales or folktales. (3)
Retell a portion of a familiar text and ask the
student to finish the retelling (4) Ask the
students to identify the most important part
of the text. (5) Have the students work with a
partner to practice retelling.
In retelling story, the teacher should
prompt the students to tell about: (1) The
topic. (2) The main idea. (3) The ideas
supporting the main idea. It is important
because the teacher can provide more
structure to help the students organize the
information absorbed, and encourage further
retelling through the use of concrete
materials. If the students are able to retell the
story in sequence, with a beginning, middle,
and end, it indicates that the students have a
good understanding of the story. The
students’ answer to the teacher’s prompts
also can indicate the ability of the students to
infer the information from the text.
There are some objectives of doing
retelling short story technique in teaching
learning speaking. According to Ellis and
Brewster (1991), the first objective is to
motivate students to develop positive
attitudes towards the foreign language and
language learning. In every story, there will
be a moral message can be taken, whether it
is negative or positive. If it is negative,
teacher must tell the students not to copy, but
if it is positive, teacher must tell the students
to do so. The second objective is to exercise
students’ imagination. The third objective is
to increase students’ ability to share social
experience. Storytelling is not only
enjoyable, but can help build up students’
confidence and encourage social and
emotional development. It provokes a shared
response of laughter, sadness, excitement,
and anticipation.The fourth objective is to
allow teacher to introduce or revise new
vocabulary and sentence structures. It can be
done by exposing the students to language in
varied, memorable and familiar contexts. The
fifth objective is to improve students’ other
skills in some aspects, such as listening,
grammar, vocabulary, and concentrate.
From those five objectives of retelling
short story, it can be concluded that retelling
short story gives many benefits besides
improving speaking skills. Other skills that
can be improved through retelling short story
are listening, grammar, vocabulary, and
concentration. Retelling short story is also a
convenient activity to improve speaking skill
because students can express their
experience, opinion, ideas, hopes, etc.
Narrative text is a text which contains
about
story
(fiction/non
fiction/
tales/folktales/fables/myths/epic) and its plot
consists of climax of the story (complication)
then followed by the resolution. According to
Lukens (2003), a narrative text is a text,
which relates a series of logically, and
chronologically related events that are caused
or experienced by factors. The purpose of
narrative text is to entertain, to get, and
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maintain the readers’ or listeners’ attention to
the text.
A narrative text usually contains with
features of characters, main character(s),
setting, time, problem(s), solution, and a plot
(structure). Some authors use plot, structure,
or rhetorical step interchangeably. According
to Diana (2003), a narrative text usually has
description of features and rhetorical steps:
(1) Plot. The plot answers the questions
“What is happening in the story?” and “What
is the sequence of events?” (2) Characters.
Characterization addresses the questions
“Who are these people?” and “Are they
believable?” (3) Setting. Setting informs the
reader of where the story is taking place. It
answers the questions “Where am I?” and
“What will I see if I walk around here?”.
Additionally, Anderson and Anderson
(2003) state that narrative usually include the
following grammatical features: (1) Nouns
that identify the specific characters and
places in the story. (2) Adjectives that
provide accurate description of the characters
and setting. (3) Time words that connect
events to tell when they occur. (4) Verbs that
show the actions that occur in the story.
The generic structure of a narrative text
(1) Orientation: Sets the scene and introduces
the participants. It answers questions: who,
what, when, where. (2) Complication: A
crisis arises. It tells the problems of the story
and how the main characters solve them. (3)
Resolution: The crisis is resolved, for better
or worse. (4) Re-orientation: The moral
message of the story. (5) Evaluation: A
stepping back to evaluate the plight.
In implementing the retelling short
story technique, it is important to look at the
procedures. According to Jianing (2007)
modified by the researcher, the procedures of
conducting the retelling short story for
teaching speaking are as follows: (1)
Dividing students into groups. (2) Providing
some familiar short stories for retelling. (3)
Choosing one short story to retell by each
group.
(4) Giving the students at least 15
minutes to prepare and understand the story
for retelling. (5) Performing the storytelling
by the students in groups. (6) Telling the
story by the first storyteller of the group and
the next one continues until the end of the
story. (7) Finding another group to perform.
METHOD
In conducting the research, the
researcher applies pre-experimental research
as the method of the research. Experimental
research seeks to determine if a specific
treatment influences an outcome in a study
(Creswell, 2012). The researcher uses one
group pre-test post-test design to investigate
the effect of retelling short story technique in
improving students’ speaking skill before and
after being given a treatment. The one group
pre-test post-test design can be formulated as:
Table 1.
One Group Pre-test Post-test Design
Pre-test
O1
Treatment
X
Post-test
O2
Note:
O1: Give the students pre-test to know the
students’ skill before being given the
treatment.
X: Give the students treatment, in this
research retelling short story as the
treatment.
O2: Give the students post-test to know the
students’ skill after being given the
treatment.
Tool of data collecting in this
research was measurement test in form of
performance test. The students’ performance
test of retelling short story was scored by
using analytic scoring modified by the
researcher on the following figures:
4
Table 2.
Sample of Analytic Scoring (from Oller in Mukminatien, 2000)
Language Components
Scale
Pronunciation
Grammatical Accuracy
Vocabulary
Fluency
Comprehension
0
1
2
3
4
0
1
2
3
4
0
1
2
3
4
0
1
2
3
4
0
1
2
3
4
Description of Criteria
Many wrong pronunciation
Frequent incorrect pronunciation
Occasional errors in pronunciation
Some errors in pronunciation
No errors/Minor error
No mastery of sentence construction
Major problems in structure
Several errors in structure
Minor problems in structure
Demonstrate mastery of structure (few
errors)
Little knowledge of English words
Frequent errors of word choice
Occasional errors in word choice
Minor errors in word choice
Effective/appropriate word choice
Dominated by hesitation
Frequent hesitation
Minor hesitation
Occasional hesitation
No hesitation
Message unclear
Disconnected idea
Ideas stand but loosely organized
Clear and organized ideas
Well organized and clear ideas
Table 3.
Description of Language Components (from Oller in Mukminatien, 2000)
No.
Language Components
1. Pronunciation
2. Grammatical Accuracy
3. Vocabulary
4. Fluency
5. Comprehension
Description
1. Pronunciation of individual sounds and
words
2. Pronunciation of sentences, the right
intonation and stress
Accurate use of structure, or how the
learner gets his/her utterance correct
The leaner’s ability in choosing appropriate
words and how to solve the problems when
he/she cannot find suitable words by
explaining around the word
The ability to keep the speech or utterance
going
The ability to get the meaning across the
5
listener
Each student’s performance of retelling
short story was measured by this following
∑𝑠
formula: X = 𝑚𝑎𝑥𝑖𝑚𝑢𝑚𝑠𝑐𝑜𝑟𝑒
X 100
Where:
X
: student’s total score
∑s
: the sum of total score
Max. score
: the highest score (20)
By computing the results of the
students in the pre-test and post-test, the
researcher compared and measured the effect
of this research.
To determine the effect size of the
treatment, the score was measured using
following formula:
t=
X −Y
𝑠₁
𝑠₂
𝑠₁² 𝑠₂²
+
− 2𝑟 (
)(
)
𝑛₂
𝑛₁
√𝑛₁ √𝑛₂
√
Where:
t = t-test with correlated data
X = the students’ mean score before the
treatments
Y = the students’ mean score after the
treatments
𝑠₁²= the students’ variant score before the
treatments 𝑠₂² = the students’ variant
score after the treatments
𝑠₁ = the students’ standard deviation score
before the treatments
𝑠₂ = the students’ standard deviation score
after the treatments
r = the students’ correlation score
𝑛= the number of students
To compute the students’ mean score
before and after the treatments, these
following formulas were used:
(1) The students’ mean score before the
treatments
X = ∑𝑋𝑖
𝑛
(2) The students’ mean score after the
treatments
Y =
∑𝑌𝑖
𝑛
Where:
Xi = the measuring data before the treatments
Yi = the measuring data after the treatments
The result of the students’ mean score
is categorized into its qualification. To know
the improvement is as follow:
Table 4.
The Criteria of Students’Score
Range
80 – 100
60 – 79
50 – 59
0 – 49
Qualification
Good to Excellent
Average to Good
Poor to Average
Poor
To compute the students’ variant score
before and after the treatments, these
following formulas were used:
(1) The students’ variant score before the
treatments (𝑠₁²)
𝑠₁² = ∑
(𝑋𝑖 − X )²
𝑛−1
(2) The students’ variant score after the
treatments (𝑠₂²)
(𝑌𝑖− Y )²
𝑠₂² = ∑
𝑛−1
To compute the students’ standard
deviation score before and after the
treatments, these following formulas were
used:
(1) The students’ standard deviation score
before the treatments (𝑠₁)
∑(𝑋𝑖 − X )²
𝑠₁ = √
𝑛−1
(2) The students’ standard deviation
score after the treatments (𝑠₂)
∑(𝑌𝑖 − Y )²
𝑠₂ = √
𝑛−1
“r” in the t-test formula was
computed using this following formula:
6
r=
𝑛(∑𝑋𝑌) − (∑𝑋)(∑𝑌)
√[𝑛(∑𝑋 2 ) − (∑𝑋)2 ] [ 𝑛(∑𝑌 2 )− (∑𝑌)²
Where:
r = correlation coefficient score
X = measuring score of pretest
Y = measuring score of posttest
To determine the effect size of the
treatment, the following formula was used:
1
ES = t √−
𝑁
Where:
ES = Effect Size
t = the result of the t-test
N = Number of student
Table 5.
The effect Size Qualification
Effect Size
Es≤ 0.2
0.2 ≤ Es ≤0.8
Es≥ 0.8
RESEARCH
DISCUSSIONS
Qualification
Low
Moderate
High
FINDINGS
AND
Research Findings
In this part of thesis, the researcher
collected the data from the sample of the
research. The data that were collected from
the number of students in the class X B of
SMA Santun Untan Pontianak is organized as
follows:
(1) Pre-test
The researcher asked the students to do
retelling short story through group in front of
the class based on the text given to each
group. Most of the students said that they
could not do the retelling even though the
researcher had given them some additional
times to learn the story. Even many of them
asked the researcher if they could bring the
text with them while retelling the story but
they could not. By forcing the students to
come in front of the class, the students finally
wanted to move to the front and did the
retelling. Total participants were 24 and there
were five groups formed. The pre-test was
done in one meeting. The result of pre-test
showed the total score of the students was
∑X = 1345 and the mean score was X =
56,04 and it is qualified as poor to average.
(2) Treatments
After giving the students pre-test, the
researcher then applied retelling short story
as the technique in teaching speaking to the
students. It was done in two meetings. In the
treatments, before the researcher asked the
students to retell the short story, the
researcher told the students the technique of
how to retell a short story. In retelling story,
it is not about memorizing but it is recounting
the same story into one own words. So, the
retelling must not exactly the same as the
whole text written in the story, but how the
students comprehend the content of the text
and retell it using the students’ own words.
The researcher also gave a brief explanation
about the generic structure and the features of
a narrative text to just remind them since they
had already studied it in the previous
semester. That was the theory that the
researcher taught the students in this retelling
short story.
After giving the theory, the researcher
then practiced by modeling of how to retell a
story. Here, the researcher modeled one
paragraph of the story as the example of how
to do retelling. The researcher did it by
telling the main idea of the paragraph and
saying that it was the most important thing
the students should tell on retelling a story,
so that the students would think that retelling
a story was not that difficult. That was
actually one of the aims of implementing this
technique; to make retelling short story easy
and simple to do for the students seeing their
background of English especially in speaking
was low.
The researcher gave a chance to the
students in group to retell story in front of the
class. One by one group until all the groups
came to the front to do retelling and they did
it twice since there were two meetings held in
this research. About one or two groups were
still afraid and seemed to have objections to
go in front of the class but happily another
groups started to have courage and their self
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confidence improved in these two meetings.
Those things affected their speaking. The
researcher saw that their speaking improved
as well because they were told that retelling
was not about memorizing as they did in the
pre-test so they tried to understand the main
idea of the story and they did it better and
easier than the previous one.
(3) Post-Test
After doing the treatments, the researcher
gave the students post-test.The researcher
wanted to know the students’ speaking
improvement after being taught using
Retelling Short Story technique. The activity
done in the post-test was the same as in the
pre-test. The test was also retelling short
story but it went with another new topics for
each group. After each group got the story,
they were given times at least 15 minutes to
learn and understand the story before doing
the retelling. In this meeting, all the groups
showed a good progress. They came to the
front of the class and did the retelling without
being asked by the researcher even they
wanted to because of their own desirability.
By comparing to the condition in the
previous meetings, they came to the front
because they were forced by the researcher
even there were groups that really did not
want to go to the front of the class. Also, it
took so long for them to learn and understand
the story before doing the retelling until the
times given were up. It took them over 30
minutes even more till they wanted to do the
retelling in front of the class. Those two
problems were very different with the facts
happened in this meeting; first, they learned
the story faster than before, and second, they
went to the front of the class to do retelling
without being forced even they did it with
their own willingness. All the groups were
done with the retelling and the score was
analyzed. The total score of the students in
this test was ∑Y = 1475 and the mean score
was Y = 61,46. It is qualified as average to
good.
(4) The analysis of students’ score of pre-test
and post-test
After the researcher collected the
students’ scores of pre-test and post-test, the
researcher compared the result between the
pre-test and post-test scores.
The students’ mean score of pre-test:
X = 56,04
The students’ mean score of post-test:
Y = 61,46
The students’ different score was taken
from the students’ mean score of post-test
minus the students’ mean score of pre-test. In
this research, the result showed that the
students’ different score of pre-test and posttest was X d = 5,42.
The students’ different score of pre-test
and post-test:
X d=X - Y
= 61,46 – 56,04
= 5,42
Table 6.
The qualifications of the students’ mean
score of pre-test and post-test
Test
Mean
Qualification
Score
Pre-test
56,04
Poor to Average
Post-test
61,46
Average to Good
Interval
5,42
The students’ variant score of pre-test:
S₁² =
2948,92
23
S₁² = 128,22
The students’ variant score of post-test:
S₂² =
2623,92
23
S₂² = 114,08
The students’ variant score (S²) is
obtained by squaring the score of standard
deviation (S). The aim of calculating variant
score is to find out the result of t-test since it
is required to be calculated in the formula of
finding the t-test. The students’ variant score
of pre-test is 128,22 while in post-test is
114,08. It shows that the students’ variant
score in the pre-test is higher than in the posttest. The lower the variant score in the posttest than in the pre-test, the better it would
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be. It means that the treatments applied have
given a positive effect over the research.
The students’ standard deviation score
of pre-test:
S₁ = √
2948,92
23
S₁ = 11,32
The students’ standard deviation score
of pre-test:
S₂ = √
2623,92
23
S₂ = 10,68
The score of standard deviation is
computed from the total of each student’s
performance score that has been subtracted
with the minimal score determined. The
result of standard deviation in the pre-test is
11,32 while in the post-test is 10,68. It shows
a difference, that is, the result is lower in the
post-test than in the pre-test. It is said to be
good if the standard deviation is smaller
because it means that the treatments have
given a better improvement on the students’
speaking skill.
Measuring the correlation score (r)
r=
63925
66761
r = 0,957
the “r” or correlation score is obtained
to fulfill the calculation of the t-test score
because it is concluded in the t-test formula
especially for the correlated sample test. The
“r” score is used to measure the data that is
correlated. It means, between the data or
sample to be measured for comparing is
similar. Here, the research is measuring or
comparing the result of the treatment to the
same group, that is to see if there is an effect
after being given the treatment in the one
class. So, the calculation of the “r” score is
needed in this research with two correlated
sample.
Computing the t-test
t=
−5,42
0,65
t = -8,34
t-test is obtained to continue the
computation for the effect size. The t-test was
resulted and it was -8,34. After computing
the t-test, it was continued to determining the
t-critical in order to compare both the t-test
and the t-critical whether the t-test is higher
than the t-critical or the t-critical is higher
than the t-test, so that it could be decided if
null hypothesis or alternative hypothesis is
accepted or rejected.
Based on the graphic above, it could be
concluded that the t-test = ±8,34 is in the null
hypothesis (Ho) rejection area. It means that
the alternative hypothesis (Ha) is accepted,
so that continuing to computing the effect
size is needed.
a) Computing the effect size
1
ES = 8,34√24
ES = 1,7
From the detailed computation above,
the effect size of the treatment is 1,7. The
effect size is categorized as high because ES
1,7> 0,8. So the alternative hypothesis that
states retelling short story technique
improves the students’ speaking skill is
accepted.
Discussions
From the research findings, the
researcher can conclude that the students’
achievement in speaking skill improved. In
the pre-test, the mean score of the students’
speaking achievement was 56,04. After two
times treatments were given by the researcher
before the post-test was given, the significant
difference between pre-test and post-test was
resulted. In the post-test, the mean score of
the students’ speaking achievement was
61,46.
This progress showed that retelling
short story in teaching speaking was
successful in improving the students’
achievement of speaking skill. The
improvement of the achievement was
considered an effect of the treatment. The
treatment in this research is retelling short
story to improve students’ speaking skill. As
a result, the treatments that were done by the
researcher in this research showed a
significant positive effect to the students’
skill in speaking on the tenth grade students
of SMA Santun Untan Pontianak in academic
year 2016/2017.
9
The research was conducted within two
weeks. Each week consisted of two meetings.
At the first meeting, the researcher
introduced herself as the temporary teacher.
The researcher told the students that they
were going to practice speaking. The students
were asked to perform speaking in front of
the class in order to take their speaking score.
In retelling story, there are five components
to be scored. Those five components are
pronunciation,
grammar,
vocabulary,
fluency, and comprehension as mentioned by
Harris (in Anggryadi, 2014).
The researcher asked the students to
make groups and it is based on Ellis and
Brewster (1991) in the objective of retelling
short story technique that stated that the
teacher divides students to work in group in
retelling a short story. Each group consisted
of five students but because of the number of
students that were not possible to make it five
students in each group, so there were some
groups formed as four students and it did not
matter. The researcher gave the students pretest by sharing short stories to each group
members. The students then were given 15 to
20 minutes to learn and understand the story.
They said that they could not do that and did
not want to go in front of the class for
retelling. It took some times to force them to
do retelling and finally they wanted to do it.
In the second meeting, before applying
retelling short story technique, the teacher
first asked the students’ opinions on the way
how they learned the story before retelling.
Most of the students answered by saying they
learned it by memorizing the text of the
story. Then the researcher responded to their
answers by giving feedback, that was,
retelling story was not about memorizing but
it was recounting the same story into the
students’ own words as stated by Karen (in
Yudistira, 2013). So, it was not the students
memorized the whole text to be retold as
exactly the same as the sentences written in
the story, but it was how the students
comprehended or understood the content of
the story then retold it using their own words.
The researcher gave a brief example by
retelling one paragraph of a story. The
students were allowed to ask the meaning of
the vocabularies they did not know or about
how to pronounce the words and it was no
problem for them to use their mobile phones
for helps. The teacher helped the students to
absorb the information and encourage them
to retell the story. Here, the function of a
teacher was as a tutor and it is according to
Brown and Cambourne (in Mowbray, 2010).
After the students were done learning and
understanding the story, they were asked to
do retelling and each member of the groups
went to the front of the class for retelling
even though some of them did the retelling
by memorizing. The first treatment was done
in one meeting.
In the third meeting, where it was the
second treatment, the activity was the same
as in the first treatment. The students were
asked to do retelling in front of the class.
Some of the students seemed to be bored
because always did the retelling for many
times. By seeing such condition, the
researcher gave them support and said that
retelling story was not as difficult as they
thought. The researcher tried to give them the
translation of the story in order to make them
easier to understand the story.
Again, based on the study of Brown
and Cambourne (as cited in Mowbray, 2010),
in retelling story, the function of a teacher is
as a tutor. Sometimes the students face
difficulty in understanding about the meaning
of the story so the teacher has to help the
students by giving some clues related to the
story. The researcher reminded the students
that they should not learn the story by
memorizing but asked them to try to
understand the content of the story. Then the
students again went to the front of the class
to perform the retelling short story.
Here, they started being trained to
retell using their own words. Even though it
still seemed a little bit difficult for them, the
researcher appreciated them because they had
showed their courage and efforts to go in
front of the class to do retelling. It is in line
with the statement of Ellis and Brewster
(1991) in the third objective of retelling short
story that retelling story can help build up
10
students’ confidence and encourage them to
speak up. It was different as when they did it
in the pre-test.
In the fourth and the last meeting, the
researcher gave the students post-test. The
post-test was also in form of retelling short
story through the same group members from
the beginning and done in front of the class
but the stories given were different with the
ones given in the pre-test. All the groups
came in front of the class and performed the
retelling. They showed some progress when
they were doing the retelling. It had been a
bit easier for them in retelling short story
using their own words. Most of them could
do the retelling relaxively and started to
enjoy it as it could be seen from their own
willingness to go in front of the class
retelling short story. It was shown that their
speaking improved and kept on progress
meeting to meeting. Not only on their
speaking, but retelling story also improved
their other skills in some aspects, such as
listening,
grammar,
vocabulary,
and
concentration as it was stated in the fifth
objective of retelling short story by Ellis and
Brewster (1991). The post-test was done in
one meeting.
Finally, based on the data analysis, the
researcher found that there was an
improvement of the students’ achievement in
speaking skill. It could be proven by
comparing the mean score of the pre-test and
post-test. Based on the score indicated
students’ performances in post-test was better
than in pre-test. This finding showed that
there was a difference score of pre-test and
post-test after receiving the treatments.
CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
Conclusions
Based on the research findings, the
conclusion of this research can be described
as follows: (1) Retelling short story technique
highly significantly improves the students’
speaking skill since there is a significant
improvement on the students’ speaking
performance. It was shown by the students’
mean score of post-test which is higher than
the students’ mean score of pre-test, and the
effect size is categorized as high. (2)
Retelling short story has the strengths and
weaknesses. One of the strengths of retelling
short story technique is that it motivates the
students to speak up in front of class. One of
the weaknesses of retelling short story
technique is that it could be not fun for the
students who were not really excited with it.
However, it is still considered as significant
in improving the students’ speaking skill on
the tenth grade students of SMA Santun
Untan Pontianak in academic year
2016/2017.
Suggestions
By looking at the research findings and
what happened during the research, there are
some suggestions that the writer would like
to expose to improve the teaching learning
process, especially in teaching speaking. The
suggestions can be described as follows: (1)
The researcher suggests the teachers to use
Retelling Short Story as the technique to
improve the students’ speaking skill due to
Retelling Short Story capable of making
students speak up in front of class. (2) The
teacher should introduce a creative way to
encourage the students to have a good
concept to speak. Retelling Short Story
builds the students’ creative thinking since it
forces the students to think fast and retell
using their own words. (3) In applying
retelling short story, teachers need to control
the students’ activity and manage the class
situation well, so that both listeners and
storytellers can create a good atmosphere in
the class.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Anderson, M., & Anderson, K. (2003).Text
Types
in
English.Macmillan
Education: Australia PTY LTD.
Anggryadi, M. A. (2014). The Effectiveness
of Storytelling in Improving Students’
Speaking Skill. Jakarta: UHAMKA.
Brown, H.D. (2001).Teaching by Principles:
An Active Approach to Language
Pedagogy. (2nd ed). San Francisco:
Addison Wesley Longman, Inc.
Creswell, J. W. (2012). Educational
research:planning, conducting, and
11
evaluating quantitative and qualitative
research, 4th Edition. Boston: Pearson
Education, Inc.
Diana, M. (2003). Children’s Literature: An
Invitation to the World. Boston:
Pearson Education, Inc.
Ellis, G., & Brewster. (1991). The
Storytelling Handbook for Primary
Teacher. Middlesex: Penguin Group.
Fisher, D., & Frey, N. (2007). Checking for
Understanding: Formative Assessment
Techniques for Your Classroom. USA:
ASCD.
Fitzgibbon, H. B., & Wilhelm, K. H.
(1998).Storytelling
in
ESL/EFL
Classrooms, TESL Reporter, 31(2), 2131 Carbondale: Southern Illinois
University.
Gibson, A. (2003). The Power of Story
Retelling:
the
tutor.
Portland.
Retrieved from
https://www.nationalservice.gov/sites/
default/files/resource/spr2003.pdf
Lukens, R. J. (2010). A Critical Handbook of
Children's Literature. Massachuset:
Pearson Education, Inc.
Mowbray, T. (2010).The Power of Read and
Retell. Australian Journal of Language
& Literacy, 15(2). Retrieved from
http://www.adsb.on.ca/sites/Schools/B
LI/Resources/Curriculum/ The Power
of Read and Retell[1].pdf
Mukminatien, N. (2000). The Advantages of
Using an Analytic Scoring Procedure
in Speaking Assessment, TEFLIN
JOURNAL, Vol.XI, No. 1 Agustus
2000. Malang: Universitas Negeri
Malang.
Nunan, D. (2003). Practical English
Language Teaching. NY: McGrawHill.
Rickheit, G., & Strohner, H. (2008).
Handbook
of
Communication
Competence. Germany: Walter de
Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG.
Xu, Jianing. (2007). Storytelling in the EFL
Speaking Classroom, The Internet
TESL Journal, Vol. XIII, No. 11,
November 2007. Retrieved from
http://iteslj.org/Techniques/JianingStorytelling.html
Yudistira, T. P. (2013). A Comparative Study
of Students’ Reading Comprehension
Achievment of Students Taught
through
Retelling
Story
and
Translation. Lampung: Universitas
Lampung.
12
SPEAKING SKILL
AN ARTICLE
BY:
JESSICA NOVIA
NIMF1022131022
ENGLISH EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM
LANGUAGE AND ART EDUCATION DEPARTMENT
TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION FACULTY
TANJUNGPURA UNIVERSITY PONTIANAK
2017
RETELLING SHORT STORY TO IMPROVE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILL
Jessica Novia
Pendidikan BahasaInggris FKIP Untan Pontianak
Email: jessicanovia607@gmail.com
Abstract
This study is aimed to investigate whether or not the use of retelling short story
improves the students’ speaking skill and to find out the effect size of the improvement
of students’ speaking skill after being taught using retelling short story of the tenth
grade students of SMA Santun Untan Pontianak. The form of this research is preexperimental study with one group pre-test post-test design. The population of this
research is the tenth grade students of SMA Santun Untan Pontianak, while the sample
is class X B that consists of 24 students. The research findings show that the mean score
of pre-test is 56,04 while the mean score of post-test is 61,46. It shows that retelling
short story improves the students’ speaking skill.The result of the research shows that ttest is higher than t-critical the value is 8,34>2.069 it means that the alternative
hypothesis (Ha) is accepted. It can be concluded that there is a highly significant effect
of retelling short story to improve students’ speaking skill on the tenth grade students of
SMA Santun Untan Pontianak.
Keywords: Retelling Short Story, Speaking Skill
English is decided as the first
international language in the world. So,
English is considered very crucial in various
fields of human’s daily life. There are more
people using English than other languages to
be the centre of communication inter country.
Even in every country, English is taught in
schools as a compulsory subject. In
Indonesia, English is mentioned as a foreign
language and is taught to students as a
subject from elementary until university
level.
In senior high school, speaking is one
of the English skills that must be studied and
practiced by students. Based on the syllabus
of KTSP (School-Based Curriculum) 2006 of
Senior High School on English subject, the
purpose of teaching speaking in the
classroom is that the students are expected to
be able to achieve the criteria in the
competences. The standard competence of
English speaking in Senior High School
syllabus is that the students are able to
express meanings or messages orally and
fluently in the context of daily life. One of
requirements in teaching learning process is
to make students able to do simple short
monologue in the form of narrative text. In
schools, the fact is that the teacher usually
finds some incompatibilities between the
condition of students’ skill in speaking and
the criteria in the curriculum. Based on the
experience the researcher found in SMA
Santun Untan when the researcher did the
teaching practice, there were problems in
English class especially in speaking. The
students were not able to speak English
properly. It could be seen from the difficulty
when they built a sentence to speak because
it took some time for them to think what they
had to speak.
The researcher also found the problem
on their pronunciation of English words.
They mispronounce most of English words.
Furthermore, the researcher saw that the
students had limited vocabulary. It was
difficult for them to find the right English
words when they wanted to indicate what to
say. Also, sometimes the students were
nervous and afraid of making mistake in
speaking English. Those problems make the
students do not want to speak English.
1
Moreover, most students were not
enthusiastic in learning English. When
students are less interested in learning
English, they tend to be passive and not pay
attention as well as not to participate in
learning activities.
Based on the problems mentioned
above and the difficulty in using the target
language, retelling short story is one of the
recommended techniques which can help
language learners in improving their
speaking skill and knowledge of vocabulary,
grammatical structures, and pronunciation.
Therefore, the researcher decided to use
retelling short story as a technique in
teaching speaking. By retelling story,
students will have opportunity to speak
English in classroom. Retelling short story
helps students improve speaking skill and
also increase the students’ vocabulary.
Furthermore, retelling helps teachers identify
the level of students’ comprehension of what
they read or listen to. In addition, retelling is
a common way that many people use as part
of their communication.
Retelling short story has many benefits
in improving students’ speaking skill.
According to Fitzgibbon and Wilhelm (1998,
p. 24), stated that the most frequently
mentioned benefits in the research literature
are affective benefits: storytelling interests
students, lower affective filters, and allows
learning to take place more readily and more
naturally within a meaningful context.
Storytelling is also promoted as fostering
natural communication, allowing students to
experience authentic language input.
Based on the background above, the
problems of this research are: “Does the use
of retelling short story improve significantly
the students’ speaking skill on the tenth grade
students
of
SMA
Santun
Untan
Pontianak?”and “If it does, what is the size of
the effect?”.
The purposes of this research are: “To
investigate whether or not the use of retelling
short story improves students’ speaking skill
on the tenth grade students of SMA Santun
Untan Pontianak” and “To find out the effect
size of the improvement of students’
speaking skill after being taught using
retelling short story of the tenth grade
students of SMA Santun Untan Pontianak”.
Speaking is the process of saying
words, delivering messages, or explaining
something by the use of voice in order to
have a conversation with someone. It is the
uniquely human act or process of sharing and
exchanging information, ideas, and emotions
using oral language (Fisher & Frey, 2007, p.
16). Furthermore, Rickheit and Strohner
(2008, p. 207) stated that speaking is a
speech or utterance processing that involves
the speaker and receiver to recognize the
content of the speech. This activity at least
involves two persons in which they share any
kind of information they have.
In speaking process there are at least
five components that generally recognize
mentioned by Harris (as cited in Anggryadi,
2014), they are: (1) Pronunciation (including
the segmental features vowels and
consonants and the stress and intonation
patterns). (2) Grammar. (3) Vocabulary. (4)
Fluency (the case and speed of the flow of
speech). (5) Comprehension.
Teaching speaking is the activity where
the teacher leads the students to improve
students’ ability in expressing emotions,
ideas or feelings orally. Brown (2001) states
that teaching means showing or helping
someone how to do something, giving
instruction, guiding in the study of the
something, providing with the knowledge,
causing to know or to understand. According
to Nunan (2003), what is meant by teaching
speaking is:(1) To teach English language
learners to produce the English speech
sounds and sound patterns.(2) Use word and
sentence stress, intonation patterns and the
rhythm of the second language.(3) Select
appropriate words and sentences according to
the proper social setting, audience, situation
and subject matter.(4) Organize their
thoughts in a meaningful and logical
sequence.(5) Use language as a means of
expressing values and judgments.(6) Use the
language quickly and confidently with few
unnatural pauses, which is called as fluency.
2
In this research, retelling short story is
the activity by which students work in group
retelling a short story using their own words.
According to Karen (as cited in Yudistira,
2013), retelling does not mean memorizing,
retelling means recounting the same story
into the students’ own words. In retelling a
story, the students require to think more
conceptually. It uses students’ own words, so
they can develop their vocabulary and
grammar. Before the students retell a story,
the students have to be able to understand the
story well. A storyteller can combine
expression and some physical aspects such as
eye contact, volume, body movement and
hand and arm gestures in retelling a story.
Based on the study of Brown and
Cambourne (as cited in Mowbray, 2010) in
retelling story, the function of a teacher is as
a tutor. The teacher helps the students to
absorb the information and encourage the
students to retell the story. Sometimes the
students face the difficulty in understanding
about the meaning of the story. The teacher
has to help the students by giving some clues
related to the story. Dealing with the idea
above, Gambrell and Dromsky (as cited in
Gibson, 2003, p. 10) stated that there are
some tips that should be kept in mind by the
teacher to engage students in retelling
activities. Those tips are: (1) Model retelling.
(2) Use predictable texts and/ or familiar
stories, such as fairy tales or folktales. (3)
Retell a portion of a familiar text and ask the
student to finish the retelling (4) Ask the
students to identify the most important part
of the text. (5) Have the students work with a
partner to practice retelling.
In retelling story, the teacher should
prompt the students to tell about: (1) The
topic. (2) The main idea. (3) The ideas
supporting the main idea. It is important
because the teacher can provide more
structure to help the students organize the
information absorbed, and encourage further
retelling through the use of concrete
materials. If the students are able to retell the
story in sequence, with a beginning, middle,
and end, it indicates that the students have a
good understanding of the story. The
students’ answer to the teacher’s prompts
also can indicate the ability of the students to
infer the information from the text.
There are some objectives of doing
retelling short story technique in teaching
learning speaking. According to Ellis and
Brewster (1991), the first objective is to
motivate students to develop positive
attitudes towards the foreign language and
language learning. In every story, there will
be a moral message can be taken, whether it
is negative or positive. If it is negative,
teacher must tell the students not to copy, but
if it is positive, teacher must tell the students
to do so. The second objective is to exercise
students’ imagination. The third objective is
to increase students’ ability to share social
experience. Storytelling is not only
enjoyable, but can help build up students’
confidence and encourage social and
emotional development. It provokes a shared
response of laughter, sadness, excitement,
and anticipation.The fourth objective is to
allow teacher to introduce or revise new
vocabulary and sentence structures. It can be
done by exposing the students to language in
varied, memorable and familiar contexts. The
fifth objective is to improve students’ other
skills in some aspects, such as listening,
grammar, vocabulary, and concentrate.
From those five objectives of retelling
short story, it can be concluded that retelling
short story gives many benefits besides
improving speaking skills. Other skills that
can be improved through retelling short story
are listening, grammar, vocabulary, and
concentration. Retelling short story is also a
convenient activity to improve speaking skill
because students can express their
experience, opinion, ideas, hopes, etc.
Narrative text is a text which contains
about
story
(fiction/non
fiction/
tales/folktales/fables/myths/epic) and its plot
consists of climax of the story (complication)
then followed by the resolution. According to
Lukens (2003), a narrative text is a text,
which relates a series of logically, and
chronologically related events that are caused
or experienced by factors. The purpose of
narrative text is to entertain, to get, and
3
maintain the readers’ or listeners’ attention to
the text.
A narrative text usually contains with
features of characters, main character(s),
setting, time, problem(s), solution, and a plot
(structure). Some authors use plot, structure,
or rhetorical step interchangeably. According
to Diana (2003), a narrative text usually has
description of features and rhetorical steps:
(1) Plot. The plot answers the questions
“What is happening in the story?” and “What
is the sequence of events?” (2) Characters.
Characterization addresses the questions
“Who are these people?” and “Are they
believable?” (3) Setting. Setting informs the
reader of where the story is taking place. It
answers the questions “Where am I?” and
“What will I see if I walk around here?”.
Additionally, Anderson and Anderson
(2003) state that narrative usually include the
following grammatical features: (1) Nouns
that identify the specific characters and
places in the story. (2) Adjectives that
provide accurate description of the characters
and setting. (3) Time words that connect
events to tell when they occur. (4) Verbs that
show the actions that occur in the story.
The generic structure of a narrative text
(1) Orientation: Sets the scene and introduces
the participants. It answers questions: who,
what, when, where. (2) Complication: A
crisis arises. It tells the problems of the story
and how the main characters solve them. (3)
Resolution: The crisis is resolved, for better
or worse. (4) Re-orientation: The moral
message of the story. (5) Evaluation: A
stepping back to evaluate the plight.
In implementing the retelling short
story technique, it is important to look at the
procedures. According to Jianing (2007)
modified by the researcher, the procedures of
conducting the retelling short story for
teaching speaking are as follows: (1)
Dividing students into groups. (2) Providing
some familiar short stories for retelling. (3)
Choosing one short story to retell by each
group.
(4) Giving the students at least 15
minutes to prepare and understand the story
for retelling. (5) Performing the storytelling
by the students in groups. (6) Telling the
story by the first storyteller of the group and
the next one continues until the end of the
story. (7) Finding another group to perform.
METHOD
In conducting the research, the
researcher applies pre-experimental research
as the method of the research. Experimental
research seeks to determine if a specific
treatment influences an outcome in a study
(Creswell, 2012). The researcher uses one
group pre-test post-test design to investigate
the effect of retelling short story technique in
improving students’ speaking skill before and
after being given a treatment. The one group
pre-test post-test design can be formulated as:
Table 1.
One Group Pre-test Post-test Design
Pre-test
O1
Treatment
X
Post-test
O2
Note:
O1: Give the students pre-test to know the
students’ skill before being given the
treatment.
X: Give the students treatment, in this
research retelling short story as the
treatment.
O2: Give the students post-test to know the
students’ skill after being given the
treatment.
Tool of data collecting in this
research was measurement test in form of
performance test. The students’ performance
test of retelling short story was scored by
using analytic scoring modified by the
researcher on the following figures:
4
Table 2.
Sample of Analytic Scoring (from Oller in Mukminatien, 2000)
Language Components
Scale
Pronunciation
Grammatical Accuracy
Vocabulary
Fluency
Comprehension
0
1
2
3
4
0
1
2
3
4
0
1
2
3
4
0
1
2
3
4
0
1
2
3
4
Description of Criteria
Many wrong pronunciation
Frequent incorrect pronunciation
Occasional errors in pronunciation
Some errors in pronunciation
No errors/Minor error
No mastery of sentence construction
Major problems in structure
Several errors in structure
Minor problems in structure
Demonstrate mastery of structure (few
errors)
Little knowledge of English words
Frequent errors of word choice
Occasional errors in word choice
Minor errors in word choice
Effective/appropriate word choice
Dominated by hesitation
Frequent hesitation
Minor hesitation
Occasional hesitation
No hesitation
Message unclear
Disconnected idea
Ideas stand but loosely organized
Clear and organized ideas
Well organized and clear ideas
Table 3.
Description of Language Components (from Oller in Mukminatien, 2000)
No.
Language Components
1. Pronunciation
2. Grammatical Accuracy
3. Vocabulary
4. Fluency
5. Comprehension
Description
1. Pronunciation of individual sounds and
words
2. Pronunciation of sentences, the right
intonation and stress
Accurate use of structure, or how the
learner gets his/her utterance correct
The leaner’s ability in choosing appropriate
words and how to solve the problems when
he/she cannot find suitable words by
explaining around the word
The ability to keep the speech or utterance
going
The ability to get the meaning across the
5
listener
Each student’s performance of retelling
short story was measured by this following
∑𝑠
formula: X = 𝑚𝑎𝑥𝑖𝑚𝑢𝑚𝑠𝑐𝑜𝑟𝑒
X 100
Where:
X
: student’s total score
∑s
: the sum of total score
Max. score
: the highest score (20)
By computing the results of the
students in the pre-test and post-test, the
researcher compared and measured the effect
of this research.
To determine the effect size of the
treatment, the score was measured using
following formula:
t=
X −Y
𝑠₁
𝑠₂
𝑠₁² 𝑠₂²
+
− 2𝑟 (
)(
)
𝑛₂
𝑛₁
√𝑛₁ √𝑛₂
√
Where:
t = t-test with correlated data
X = the students’ mean score before the
treatments
Y = the students’ mean score after the
treatments
𝑠₁²= the students’ variant score before the
treatments 𝑠₂² = the students’ variant
score after the treatments
𝑠₁ = the students’ standard deviation score
before the treatments
𝑠₂ = the students’ standard deviation score
after the treatments
r = the students’ correlation score
𝑛= the number of students
To compute the students’ mean score
before and after the treatments, these
following formulas were used:
(1) The students’ mean score before the
treatments
X = ∑𝑋𝑖
𝑛
(2) The students’ mean score after the
treatments
Y =
∑𝑌𝑖
𝑛
Where:
Xi = the measuring data before the treatments
Yi = the measuring data after the treatments
The result of the students’ mean score
is categorized into its qualification. To know
the improvement is as follow:
Table 4.
The Criteria of Students’Score
Range
80 – 100
60 – 79
50 – 59
0 – 49
Qualification
Good to Excellent
Average to Good
Poor to Average
Poor
To compute the students’ variant score
before and after the treatments, these
following formulas were used:
(1) The students’ variant score before the
treatments (𝑠₁²)
𝑠₁² = ∑
(𝑋𝑖 − X )²
𝑛−1
(2) The students’ variant score after the
treatments (𝑠₂²)
(𝑌𝑖− Y )²
𝑠₂² = ∑
𝑛−1
To compute the students’ standard
deviation score before and after the
treatments, these following formulas were
used:
(1) The students’ standard deviation score
before the treatments (𝑠₁)
∑(𝑋𝑖 − X )²
𝑠₁ = √
𝑛−1
(2) The students’ standard deviation
score after the treatments (𝑠₂)
∑(𝑌𝑖 − Y )²
𝑠₂ = √
𝑛−1
“r” in the t-test formula was
computed using this following formula:
6
r=
𝑛(∑𝑋𝑌) − (∑𝑋)(∑𝑌)
√[𝑛(∑𝑋 2 ) − (∑𝑋)2 ] [ 𝑛(∑𝑌 2 )− (∑𝑌)²
Where:
r = correlation coefficient score
X = measuring score of pretest
Y = measuring score of posttest
To determine the effect size of the
treatment, the following formula was used:
1
ES = t √−
𝑁
Where:
ES = Effect Size
t = the result of the t-test
N = Number of student
Table 5.
The effect Size Qualification
Effect Size
Es≤ 0.2
0.2 ≤ Es ≤0.8
Es≥ 0.8
RESEARCH
DISCUSSIONS
Qualification
Low
Moderate
High
FINDINGS
AND
Research Findings
In this part of thesis, the researcher
collected the data from the sample of the
research. The data that were collected from
the number of students in the class X B of
SMA Santun Untan Pontianak is organized as
follows:
(1) Pre-test
The researcher asked the students to do
retelling short story through group in front of
the class based on the text given to each
group. Most of the students said that they
could not do the retelling even though the
researcher had given them some additional
times to learn the story. Even many of them
asked the researcher if they could bring the
text with them while retelling the story but
they could not. By forcing the students to
come in front of the class, the students finally
wanted to move to the front and did the
retelling. Total participants were 24 and there
were five groups formed. The pre-test was
done in one meeting. The result of pre-test
showed the total score of the students was
∑X = 1345 and the mean score was X =
56,04 and it is qualified as poor to average.
(2) Treatments
After giving the students pre-test, the
researcher then applied retelling short story
as the technique in teaching speaking to the
students. It was done in two meetings. In the
treatments, before the researcher asked the
students to retell the short story, the
researcher told the students the technique of
how to retell a short story. In retelling story,
it is not about memorizing but it is recounting
the same story into one own words. So, the
retelling must not exactly the same as the
whole text written in the story, but how the
students comprehend the content of the text
and retell it using the students’ own words.
The researcher also gave a brief explanation
about the generic structure and the features of
a narrative text to just remind them since they
had already studied it in the previous
semester. That was the theory that the
researcher taught the students in this retelling
short story.
After giving the theory, the researcher
then practiced by modeling of how to retell a
story. Here, the researcher modeled one
paragraph of the story as the example of how
to do retelling. The researcher did it by
telling the main idea of the paragraph and
saying that it was the most important thing
the students should tell on retelling a story,
so that the students would think that retelling
a story was not that difficult. That was
actually one of the aims of implementing this
technique; to make retelling short story easy
and simple to do for the students seeing their
background of English especially in speaking
was low.
The researcher gave a chance to the
students in group to retell story in front of the
class. One by one group until all the groups
came to the front to do retelling and they did
it twice since there were two meetings held in
this research. About one or two groups were
still afraid and seemed to have objections to
go in front of the class but happily another
groups started to have courage and their self
7
confidence improved in these two meetings.
Those things affected their speaking. The
researcher saw that their speaking improved
as well because they were told that retelling
was not about memorizing as they did in the
pre-test so they tried to understand the main
idea of the story and they did it better and
easier than the previous one.
(3) Post-Test
After doing the treatments, the researcher
gave the students post-test.The researcher
wanted to know the students’ speaking
improvement after being taught using
Retelling Short Story technique. The activity
done in the post-test was the same as in the
pre-test. The test was also retelling short
story but it went with another new topics for
each group. After each group got the story,
they were given times at least 15 minutes to
learn and understand the story before doing
the retelling. In this meeting, all the groups
showed a good progress. They came to the
front of the class and did the retelling without
being asked by the researcher even they
wanted to because of their own desirability.
By comparing to the condition in the
previous meetings, they came to the front
because they were forced by the researcher
even there were groups that really did not
want to go to the front of the class. Also, it
took so long for them to learn and understand
the story before doing the retelling until the
times given were up. It took them over 30
minutes even more till they wanted to do the
retelling in front of the class. Those two
problems were very different with the facts
happened in this meeting; first, they learned
the story faster than before, and second, they
went to the front of the class to do retelling
without being forced even they did it with
their own willingness. All the groups were
done with the retelling and the score was
analyzed. The total score of the students in
this test was ∑Y = 1475 and the mean score
was Y = 61,46. It is qualified as average to
good.
(4) The analysis of students’ score of pre-test
and post-test
After the researcher collected the
students’ scores of pre-test and post-test, the
researcher compared the result between the
pre-test and post-test scores.
The students’ mean score of pre-test:
X = 56,04
The students’ mean score of post-test:
Y = 61,46
The students’ different score was taken
from the students’ mean score of post-test
minus the students’ mean score of pre-test. In
this research, the result showed that the
students’ different score of pre-test and posttest was X d = 5,42.
The students’ different score of pre-test
and post-test:
X d=X - Y
= 61,46 – 56,04
= 5,42
Table 6.
The qualifications of the students’ mean
score of pre-test and post-test
Test
Mean
Qualification
Score
Pre-test
56,04
Poor to Average
Post-test
61,46
Average to Good
Interval
5,42
The students’ variant score of pre-test:
S₁² =
2948,92
23
S₁² = 128,22
The students’ variant score of post-test:
S₂² =
2623,92
23
S₂² = 114,08
The students’ variant score (S²) is
obtained by squaring the score of standard
deviation (S). The aim of calculating variant
score is to find out the result of t-test since it
is required to be calculated in the formula of
finding the t-test. The students’ variant score
of pre-test is 128,22 while in post-test is
114,08. It shows that the students’ variant
score in the pre-test is higher than in the posttest. The lower the variant score in the posttest than in the pre-test, the better it would
8
be. It means that the treatments applied have
given a positive effect over the research.
The students’ standard deviation score
of pre-test:
S₁ = √
2948,92
23
S₁ = 11,32
The students’ standard deviation score
of pre-test:
S₂ = √
2623,92
23
S₂ = 10,68
The score of standard deviation is
computed from the total of each student’s
performance score that has been subtracted
with the minimal score determined. The
result of standard deviation in the pre-test is
11,32 while in the post-test is 10,68. It shows
a difference, that is, the result is lower in the
post-test than in the pre-test. It is said to be
good if the standard deviation is smaller
because it means that the treatments have
given a better improvement on the students’
speaking skill.
Measuring the correlation score (r)
r=
63925
66761
r = 0,957
the “r” or correlation score is obtained
to fulfill the calculation of the t-test score
because it is concluded in the t-test formula
especially for the correlated sample test. The
“r” score is used to measure the data that is
correlated. It means, between the data or
sample to be measured for comparing is
similar. Here, the research is measuring or
comparing the result of the treatment to the
same group, that is to see if there is an effect
after being given the treatment in the one
class. So, the calculation of the “r” score is
needed in this research with two correlated
sample.
Computing the t-test
t=
−5,42
0,65
t = -8,34
t-test is obtained to continue the
computation for the effect size. The t-test was
resulted and it was -8,34. After computing
the t-test, it was continued to determining the
t-critical in order to compare both the t-test
and the t-critical whether the t-test is higher
than the t-critical or the t-critical is higher
than the t-test, so that it could be decided if
null hypothesis or alternative hypothesis is
accepted or rejected.
Based on the graphic above, it could be
concluded that the t-test = ±8,34 is in the null
hypothesis (Ho) rejection area. It means that
the alternative hypothesis (Ha) is accepted,
so that continuing to computing the effect
size is needed.
a) Computing the effect size
1
ES = 8,34√24
ES = 1,7
From the detailed computation above,
the effect size of the treatment is 1,7. The
effect size is categorized as high because ES
1,7> 0,8. So the alternative hypothesis that
states retelling short story technique
improves the students’ speaking skill is
accepted.
Discussions
From the research findings, the
researcher can conclude that the students’
achievement in speaking skill improved. In
the pre-test, the mean score of the students’
speaking achievement was 56,04. After two
times treatments were given by the researcher
before the post-test was given, the significant
difference between pre-test and post-test was
resulted. In the post-test, the mean score of
the students’ speaking achievement was
61,46.
This progress showed that retelling
short story in teaching speaking was
successful in improving the students’
achievement of speaking skill. The
improvement of the achievement was
considered an effect of the treatment. The
treatment in this research is retelling short
story to improve students’ speaking skill. As
a result, the treatments that were done by the
researcher in this research showed a
significant positive effect to the students’
skill in speaking on the tenth grade students
of SMA Santun Untan Pontianak in academic
year 2016/2017.
9
The research was conducted within two
weeks. Each week consisted of two meetings.
At the first meeting, the researcher
introduced herself as the temporary teacher.
The researcher told the students that they
were going to practice speaking. The students
were asked to perform speaking in front of
the class in order to take their speaking score.
In retelling story, there are five components
to be scored. Those five components are
pronunciation,
grammar,
vocabulary,
fluency, and comprehension as mentioned by
Harris (in Anggryadi, 2014).
The researcher asked the students to
make groups and it is based on Ellis and
Brewster (1991) in the objective of retelling
short story technique that stated that the
teacher divides students to work in group in
retelling a short story. Each group consisted
of five students but because of the number of
students that were not possible to make it five
students in each group, so there were some
groups formed as four students and it did not
matter. The researcher gave the students pretest by sharing short stories to each group
members. The students then were given 15 to
20 minutes to learn and understand the story.
They said that they could not do that and did
not want to go in front of the class for
retelling. It took some times to force them to
do retelling and finally they wanted to do it.
In the second meeting, before applying
retelling short story technique, the teacher
first asked the students’ opinions on the way
how they learned the story before retelling.
Most of the students answered by saying they
learned it by memorizing the text of the
story. Then the researcher responded to their
answers by giving feedback, that was,
retelling story was not about memorizing but
it was recounting the same story into the
students’ own words as stated by Karen (in
Yudistira, 2013). So, it was not the students
memorized the whole text to be retold as
exactly the same as the sentences written in
the story, but it was how the students
comprehended or understood the content of
the story then retold it using their own words.
The researcher gave a brief example by
retelling one paragraph of a story. The
students were allowed to ask the meaning of
the vocabularies they did not know or about
how to pronounce the words and it was no
problem for them to use their mobile phones
for helps. The teacher helped the students to
absorb the information and encourage them
to retell the story. Here, the function of a
teacher was as a tutor and it is according to
Brown and Cambourne (in Mowbray, 2010).
After the students were done learning and
understanding the story, they were asked to
do retelling and each member of the groups
went to the front of the class for retelling
even though some of them did the retelling
by memorizing. The first treatment was done
in one meeting.
In the third meeting, where it was the
second treatment, the activity was the same
as in the first treatment. The students were
asked to do retelling in front of the class.
Some of the students seemed to be bored
because always did the retelling for many
times. By seeing such condition, the
researcher gave them support and said that
retelling story was not as difficult as they
thought. The researcher tried to give them the
translation of the story in order to make them
easier to understand the story.
Again, based on the study of Brown
and Cambourne (as cited in Mowbray, 2010),
in retelling story, the function of a teacher is
as a tutor. Sometimes the students face
difficulty in understanding about the meaning
of the story so the teacher has to help the
students by giving some clues related to the
story. The researcher reminded the students
that they should not learn the story by
memorizing but asked them to try to
understand the content of the story. Then the
students again went to the front of the class
to perform the retelling short story.
Here, they started being trained to
retell using their own words. Even though it
still seemed a little bit difficult for them, the
researcher appreciated them because they had
showed their courage and efforts to go in
front of the class to do retelling. It is in line
with the statement of Ellis and Brewster
(1991) in the third objective of retelling short
story that retelling story can help build up
10
students’ confidence and encourage them to
speak up. It was different as when they did it
in the pre-test.
In the fourth and the last meeting, the
researcher gave the students post-test. The
post-test was also in form of retelling short
story through the same group members from
the beginning and done in front of the class
but the stories given were different with the
ones given in the pre-test. All the groups
came in front of the class and performed the
retelling. They showed some progress when
they were doing the retelling. It had been a
bit easier for them in retelling short story
using their own words. Most of them could
do the retelling relaxively and started to
enjoy it as it could be seen from their own
willingness to go in front of the class
retelling short story. It was shown that their
speaking improved and kept on progress
meeting to meeting. Not only on their
speaking, but retelling story also improved
their other skills in some aspects, such as
listening,
grammar,
vocabulary,
and
concentration as it was stated in the fifth
objective of retelling short story by Ellis and
Brewster (1991). The post-test was done in
one meeting.
Finally, based on the data analysis, the
researcher found that there was an
improvement of the students’ achievement in
speaking skill. It could be proven by
comparing the mean score of the pre-test and
post-test. Based on the score indicated
students’ performances in post-test was better
than in pre-test. This finding showed that
there was a difference score of pre-test and
post-test after receiving the treatments.
CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
Conclusions
Based on the research findings, the
conclusion of this research can be described
as follows: (1) Retelling short story technique
highly significantly improves the students’
speaking skill since there is a significant
improvement on the students’ speaking
performance. It was shown by the students’
mean score of post-test which is higher than
the students’ mean score of pre-test, and the
effect size is categorized as high. (2)
Retelling short story has the strengths and
weaknesses. One of the strengths of retelling
short story technique is that it motivates the
students to speak up in front of class. One of
the weaknesses of retelling short story
technique is that it could be not fun for the
students who were not really excited with it.
However, it is still considered as significant
in improving the students’ speaking skill on
the tenth grade students of SMA Santun
Untan Pontianak in academic year
2016/2017.
Suggestions
By looking at the research findings and
what happened during the research, there are
some suggestions that the writer would like
to expose to improve the teaching learning
process, especially in teaching speaking. The
suggestions can be described as follows: (1)
The researcher suggests the teachers to use
Retelling Short Story as the technique to
improve the students’ speaking skill due to
Retelling Short Story capable of making
students speak up in front of class. (2) The
teacher should introduce a creative way to
encourage the students to have a good
concept to speak. Retelling Short Story
builds the students’ creative thinking since it
forces the students to think fast and retell
using their own words. (3) In applying
retelling short story, teachers need to control
the students’ activity and manage the class
situation well, so that both listeners and
storytellers can create a good atmosphere in
the class.
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