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 ELT FORUM 2 (2) (2013) 

 

Journal of English Language Teaching 
 

http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt 

 

 

IMPROVING STUDENTS’ SPEAKING ABILITY THROUGH STORY 

BOARD GAME 

 

Meta Nur Utaminingsih  

 

Department of English, Faculty Language and Arts, Semarang State University, Indonesia 

 

Info Artikel 

________________ 
Sejarah Artikel: 

Diterima September 2013 

Disetujui Oktober 2013 

Dipublikasikan 

November 2013 

________________ 
Keywords: 

Story board game, students’ 

speaking ability 

____________________ 

 

Abstract 
___________________________________________________________________ 

This journal is made based on the action research in order to improve students’ speaking ability by 

using story board game. This action research was conducted in SMA Negeri 1 Grabag. The action 

research was carried out in some steps. Those steps were pre-elimination test, conducting the cycle 

starting with planning and action, observing and reflecting. As data source, observation sheets and 

questionnaire are used in this research. The implementation of the game was reflected on the 

classroom activity and the result of observation sheets. While, he score was gotten from the scoring 

system. By using this game, the students’ speaking ability increased. Some aspects in speaking 

assessment were also increased. The analysis of observation sheets and questionnaire give more 

description about the implementation of this game. According to the study, it can be concluded that 

by using this game in speaking class, students’ speaking ability can be improved. This game is 

good media to help the students in speaking English in more enjoyable way. 

 

© 2013 Universitas Negeri Semarang 

 
 Alamat korespondensi:  

   Gedung B3  Lantai 3  FBS Unnes  

   Kampus Sekaran, Gunungpati, Semarang, 50229 

   E-mail: metanurutaminingsih@yahoo.co.id 

 

 

 

ISSN 2252-6706 

 

 

 

 

 

mailto:metanurutaminingsih@yahoo.co.id


 

Meta Nur Utaminingsih / Journal of English Language Teaching 2 (2) (2013) 

2 

 

INTRODUCTION  

 

One of the language skills which is 

important is speaking. Speaking as one of 

language skill which is being taught in school, 

has become the main concern for teacher.  

Teacher of English should be able to find some 

methods to develop students‟ skills, especially in 

speaking. Teachers mostly spend much time to 

find an appropriate method to encourage the 

students so that their speaking ability will be 

significantly improved.  

Speaking English as foreign language may 

not be too useful for the students; it will not 

affect their daily life. It will affect students‟ 

performance in front of foreigners when they 

cannot construct good speaking. Lack of 

confidence and vocabulary to speak can be the 

main factor in speaking difficulties.  

Vocabulary and grammar also affected 

speaking. Awareness of vocabulary and 

grammar helps the students to practice speaking. 

Here, the problem that faced by students is they 

were lack of knowledge in using an appropriate 

vocabulary and construct it grammatically. The 

concern of this study is to improve speaking 

ability of intermediate students. Intermediate 

students can be described as someone who have 

progressed beyond the novice stages to an ability 

to sustain basic communicative tasks, to 

establish some minimal fluency, to deal with few 

unrehearsed situations,  to self correct on 

occasion, to few compensatory strategies and 

generally to „get along‟ in the language beyond 

mere survival (Brown 2001 :103-108). Here, 

tenth grade students were chosen. After knowing 

the problems in improving students‟ speaking 

ability I conduct the research for intermediate 

students to apply a technique, in order to 

improve their speaking ability. One of the 

techniques is by using games, and games can be 

the alternative technique to teach. The game 

which is used is board game. Board game itself 

is a game which is played by moving the counter 

according to the number from the thrown dice. 

There are many kind of board games. And the 

game which is chosen called story board game. 

It is the modification of board game. 

 

Literature Review 

Speaking in foreign language is not as 

easy as speaking in our mother tongue. It is 

obvious that in order to be able to speak in 

foreign language, it is necessary to know a 

certain amount of grammar and vocabulary 

(Martyn Bygate 1987:3).  

According to Bygate (1987:5-8), speaking 

can be seen as skill based on these basics: motor 

perceptive skills and interaction skills.  

Speakers know how they can speak well 

because of their linguistic knowledge. There are 

some linguistics knowledge like; genre 

knowledge, discourse knowledge, pragmatic 

knowledge, grammar, vocabulary and 

phonology (Thornbury,2000:11).  

This research mostly concern on grammar 

and vocabulary. Speaking is always related to 

vocabulary and also grammar. Vocabulary in 

order to convince the meaning and the context, 

then grammar affects in how speaker construct 

the spoken- sentence. Grammar also helps the 

students to derive meaning from some 

instructions or contexts. The teacher can assess 

their ability to discriminate one form meaning 

(Celce Murcia, 2001:260). 

From the definition about speaking, it can 

be concluded that speaking is one of language 

skill which construct the meaning and need 

certain grammar and vocabulary used to make 

communication with other.   

Classroom circumstances or classrooms 

hours may be the only part for EFL learners to 

expose their English. As teacher those 

circumstances should have something for 

students need to accomplish. Brown (2001:117) 

gives some guidelines to help the teacher 

compensate for the lack of ready communicative 

situations outside the classroom. Those are: 

a) Use class time for optimal authentic language 

input and interaction 

b) Don‟t waste class time on work that can be 

done as homework 

c) Provide regular motivation-stimulating 

activities 



 

Meta Nur Utaminingsih / Journal of English Language Teaching 2 (2) (2013) 

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d) Help students to see genuine uses for English 

in their own life 

e) Play down the role of tests and emphasize 

more intrinsic factors 

f) Provide plenty of extra-class learning 

opportunities 

g) Encourage the use of learning strategies 

outside the class 

h) Form a language club and schedule regular 

activities 

An important concept for teachers to 

understand is that while students are at the 

beginning or intermediate levels of language 

learning, that is, while they are still developing 

their fluency, accuracy and also proficiency 

often work against each other (Bailey,2005:5).  

According to Gerlach and Elly (1980: 

254), to select the appropriate media, the teacher 

must take note of the characteristics of students 

which directly relate to the learning process such 

as verbal abilities, visual and audio perception 

skill, experience, intelligence, motivation, 

personality and social skills. Because of the 

important role of media, teacher must be able to 

choose appropriate media and use the good 

method in teaching and learning process in order 

to get satisfactory results. 

Chen and I-Jung (2005) state that game 

offer students fun filled and relaxing learning 

atmosphere. In teaching and learning process it 

can be denied that relaxing and enjoyable 

situation of the class plays important rule.  

According to 

http://www.storytreeonline.com/Storyboards.html 

story board game, is defined as another way to 

explore narrative possibilities or to rehearse a 

performance. A good story board can help you 

learn an unfamiliar story or facilitate the 

development of an original story.  

 While, in conducting the research the 

writer used classroom action research. 

According to Chamot and friends, (2011:2) 

action research is classroom based research 

conducted by teachers in order to reflect upon 

and evolve their teaching. The purpose of the 

research is to gain understanding of teaching and 

learning within one‟s classroom and to use that 

knowledge to increase teaching efficacy and 

student learning. Chamot also gives some steps 

in doing action research. The steps is similar 

with another experts did such as; choosing the 

research questions, deciding the information 

needed, analyzing the data, organizing and 

writing up the data, and the final step is 

incorporating the results. 

 

RESEARCH METHOD 

 

In this research, the method which is used 

was classroom action research. The writer 

conducted 2 cycles and a preliminary test. The 

subject of the study was the tenth grade students 

of SMA Negeri 1 Grabag class X.3. Twenty five 

students were following the cycles. In this 

research, the writer used observation sheets and 

questionnaire to collect the data from different 

sources. Scoring system was used to assess the 

students in their speaking performances. To 

avoid the bias and subjectivity, the researcher 

used data source triangulation. It means that the 

description of the result was not only from the 

writer‟s side but also from students and teacher 

class side. In analyzing pre-elimination test, 

cycle 1 test, cycle 2 test, the researcher asked the 

students to perform in front of the class to retell 

the story (narrative). Then the researcher 

assessed the students‟ performance based on the 

scoring system. The research used the mean of 

the results to be compared whether there was 

some significant improvement or not.  

The observation sheet was analyzed by 

the result of the criteria on the observation sheet. 

The result described about the students‟ interest 

and students‟ response about the conducting of 

the story board games in the class. Besides, it 

also described about students‟ activity, students‟ 

attendance and student‟s participation during 

the teaching and learning process. The 

researcher used some blank papers to take note 

of the observation and anything happened 

during the implementation of the game.  

Since the questionnaire was given to the 

students after the last cycle, the result of the 

questionnaire reflected student‟s interest based 

on their own answer. Because the questionnaire 

was closed questionnaire, the procedure of 

http://www.storytreeonline.com/Storyboards.html


 

Meta Nur Utaminingsih / Journal of English Language Teaching 2 (2) (2013) 

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analyzing the questionnaire was based on the 

most answers made by the students. The result 

described student‟s interest, like and dislike, and 

also their impression in English speaking class 

from their point of view.  

 

RESULT AND DISCUSSION 

 

Before conducting the research, the writer 

conducted the preliminary test in order to know 

about students‟ difficulties in speaking. The 

score of preliminary test were not good enough. 

Here, the researcher what aspect that would be 

improved. The researcher was conducting the 

cycle 1 by using the first story board game. The 

teacher class observed the students and filled in 

the observation sheet. The writer then assessed 

the students‟ speaking performance. Table 

below, shows the result of cycle 1 test 

Result of Cycle 1 test 

Speaking Aspects Mean of cycle 1 test 

Pronunciation  1.92 

Interaction  1.60 

Vocabulary and Grammar 2.04 

Fluency and Coherence 1.60 

Intonation  1.52 

Stress  1.24 

Mean  1.65 

 

After cycle 1 test, the researcher reflected 

the result with the game. Cycle 2 was conducted 

because there was some aspect which needed 

improvement. Story board game type 2 was used 

in this cycle. The result of cycle 2 test was better, 

and the improvement was significant. Table 

below shows the result of cycle 2 test 

 

Result of Cycle 2 test 

Speaking Aspects Mean of cycle 2 test 

Pronunciation  2.72 

Interaction  2.20 

Vocabulary and Grammar 2.60 

Fluency and Coherence 2.32 

Intonation  2.16 

Stress  2.12 

Mean  14.12 

 

Based on the result from preliminary test, 

cycle 1 test and cycle 2 test, table below shows 

the summary result and the improvement of 

each aspect 

 

Summary Result 

Speaking aspects 
Mean of the score 

Improvement 
Preliminary Cycle 1 test Cycle 2 test 

Pronunciation 1.56 1.92 2.72 1.16 

Interaction 1.16 1.60 2.20 1.04 

Vocabulary&Grammar 1.72 2.04 2.60 0.88 

Fluency&Coherences 1.20 1.60 2.32 1.12 



 

Meta Nur Utaminingsih / Journal of English Language Teaching 2 (2) (2013) 

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Intonation 1.24 1.52 2.16 0.92 

Stress 1.16 1.24 2.12 0.96 

Mean  1.34 1.65 2.35 1.01 

 

From the table above it can be concluded 

that the improvement in students‟ speaking 

ability was good. Here is some of description of 

the improvement in each aspects: 

a) Pronunciation 

In this aspect, the result shows that there 

was improvement in students‟ pronunciation. 

The students start to make a clear 

pronunciation. They understand how to 

pronounce the word correctly. They could make 

a clear distinction in pronouncing some word 

(e.g in preliminary test some of them still 

pronounced “handsome” with [hʌnsɔm]. but 

after the first action was conducted, their 

pronunciation improve. They can pronounce the 

word “handsome” correctly [hænsəm]. The 

average score of pronunciation showed the 

improvement. The mean of preliminary was 

1.56 and cycle 2 test was 2.72. Since they got 

difficulties in pronouncing some words, in cycle 

1 and cycle 2 there was some correction, so they 

could pronounce the words better than before. 

Though the improvement was only 1.16 from 

preliminary and cycle 2 test, it could be said that 

the improvement was good enough.  

b) Interaction 

In telling the story, an aspect of speaking 

which was assessed was interaction. In 

preliminary, students did not be able to make 

good interaction, but by doing cycle 1 and 2 

these aspects increased. In preliminary the mean 

was1.16 and the cycle 2 test was 2.20. It 

improved 1.04 for this aspect. It was good 

enough for the improvement. The students were 

able to make good interaction after getting the 

action. They could make good interaction with 

the audience while telling the story. Inside their 

group, they were also be able to make good 

interaction. Not only in retelling the story but 

also gave the response to their friends.  

c) Vocabulary and Grammar 

This aspect was the aspect which has 

better improvement than other. The students 

were able to use and construct the sentence in 

good order and grammatically correct. For 

example in cycle 1 they made sentences such as 

“one day live a handsome boy named Malin 

Kundang”, in cycle 2 they could make a correct 

sentence to “one day lived a handsome boy 

named Malin Kundang.” It could be seen from 

the improvement of average score of this aspect. 

The average score of preliminary was 1.72 and 

the average score of cycle 2 test was 2.60. It was 

different from pronunciation and interaction, 

those aspects got the improvement with the 

value 1.44 and 1.04, and this aspect only got 

0.88. But at least, the result was higher than 

other aspects. 

d) Fluency and Coherences 

These aspects were the aspect which 

became the problem for the students. Some of 

the students were fluent in telling the story but 

they did not comprehend the story. Some others 

comprehended the story but got difficulties in 

telling it. However, by doing the action, those 

two aspects could be improved, not only fluency 

but also the comprehension. The students could 

increase these two aspects in the same way. The 

average score was 1.20 in pre elimination test 

and in the cycle 2 was 2.32. The improvement 

for this aspect was 1.12. This improvement gave 

the best result for the students, since they were 

be able to comprehend the story and fluent in 

telling the story.  

e) Intonation 

This aspect was the important aspect in 

assessing speaking. It could give the meaning 

when we are speaking.  The mean score of 

intonation on preliminary was 1.24 and in the 

cycle 2 test was 2.16. Though the improvement 

was 0.92, the students could make better 

intonation, so when they were telling the story; 

it sounded well and did not flat, the feel and 

meaning of the tone of story was getting better. 

By the improvement of this aspect, it was hoped 



 

Meta Nur Utaminingsih / Journal of English Language Teaching 2 (2) (2013) 

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that the students would always pay attention in 

this aspect. 

f) Stress 

From the comparison between 

preliminary average score and cycle two test 

score, there was improvement in this aspect. The 

students were able to make clear difference in 

spelling the words. It sounded clearer than 

before. They could make good harmonization in 

pronunciation, intonation and stress. Though it 

was difficult for the students, there was some 

improvement. The improvement was 0.96, from 

1.16 in preliminary and 2.12 in cycle 2 test. The 

students and the audience could recognize the 

word and the meaning of the sentence.  

 From all of the result and the 

comparison, there was improvement in students‟ 

speaking ability by using story board game. The 

students felt easier and also confident in 

speaking. Here is the figure of the result: 

 

 

Beside the result, the description about 

students‟ activity and students‟ response were 

delivered by analyzing the observation sheets 

and questionnaire. From the result of 

observation analysis, students‟ activities in the 

classroom were getting better, students‟ 

responses about the game also high.  

Based on the result of the analysis from 

the implementation of story board game, 

observation sheet, and the questionnaire, the 

purpose of this study that is to find out how the 

story board game being applied to improve 

students‟ speaking ability was accomplished.  

 The second purpose of this study was to 

find out the students‟ achievement of speaking 

ability after being taught with this game. It could 

be drawn in the changes of students‟ behavior 

(observation sheet) and the improvement of the 

result (preliminary test, cycle 1 test and cycle 2 

test).  The result of each aspect showed the 

improvement. By the improvement of the result 

of the test, it can be concluded that the students‟ 

achievement in speaking improved after being 

taught with story board game.  

 

 

 

CONCLUSION 

 

In addition, by using story board games, 

students enjoyed the teaching and learning 

process and they also had motivation in learning 

speaking with this game. It can be seen from the 

questionnaire result that the students liked this 

game to be applied in the classroom. The 

students also felt different when they were 

taught with this game.  

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

pre-elimination

cycle 1

cycle 2



 

Meta Nur Utaminingsih / Journal of English Language Teaching 2 (2) (2013) 

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By using this game in the classroom 

activities students‟ achievement in speaking 

improved. The use of this game can be applied 

in the classroom to help the students improving 

their speaking ability especially in spoken 

narrative (telling story).  

 

REFERENCES 

  

Brown, Douglas. 2001. Teaching by Principles: An 

Interactive Approach to Language Paedagogy. New 

York:Longman 

Bygate, Martyn. 1987. Language Teaching: 

Speaking.New York:Oxford University Press 

Celce, Marianne and Murcia. 2001. Teaching English 

as a Second or Foreign Language. USA: 

Heinle&Heinle 

Thornbury, Scott. 2000. How to Teach Speaking. New 

York:Longman. 

Chen and I-Jung. 2005. Using Games to Promote 

Communicative Skills in Language Learning. 

In the Internet TESL Journal.X12. 

Gerlach, V.S and D.P Elly. 1980. Teaching and 

Media “Systematic Approach”. New 

Jersey:Prenctice Hall.  

Bailey M, Kathleen.2005. Practical English Language 

Teaching:Speaking. New York: Mc Graw Hill 

Chamot, Annah Uhl and Sarah Barnhardt et al. 1998. 

Conducting Action Research in The Foreign 

Classroom. New York: National Capital 

Languge Resource Centre. 

 

 

 

 

 


