LANGUAGE CIRCLE Journal of Language and Literature Vol. VIII/1 October 2013 11 ENHANCING THE STUDENTS’ ABILITY IN STORY RETELLING THROUGH MOVIES Lenny Agustina Indrawati Mondial Education Semarang ABSTRACT The research was based on an experimental design at Pre-School of Mondial School in the academic year of 2011/2012. The objectives of the research are to investigate (1) the effectiveness of movie as a medium of teaching, (2) the significant deference in using movie as a media of treatment and using discussion strategy as a media of treatment in improving the students’ mastery in story retelling, (3) the students’ socio-cultural background takes part in determining their achievement besides the effect of seeing movies as a means of improving their story retelling ability. The empirical data were obtained from Pre-Test and the Post-Test. The data were then measured and analyzed in form of statistical and descriptive analysis. The result of this study showed that the group used movies as medium in story retelling got better improvement in the average scores than those without movies. Moreover, it was also found that most of the high achievers, both in the experimental group and in the control group, came from social environment with the more capability to encourage the students to make use of movies for the benefit of their study, especially of retelling story. Key Words: students’ ability, story retelling, movie. INTRODUCTION Language is a means of communication. It makes people try to find and learn a language which can be understood easily by others. English then, plays an important role as an international language. This is why the Indonesian government chooses English as the first foreign language to be taught at schools. Introducing English at school means developing students’ skill on using English for communication, whether in written form or in spoken form. The objective above implies that the students must be able to improve their spoken and written ability. However, some problems may appear when the students are learning English. One of the problems in learning English may come from the students themselves. For example, in speaking, they may have the knowledge about the material which has been discussed, but in practice it is difficult for them to speak up. Those problems also appear in Mondial School, especially in Pre-School classes. There are 19 students in that class. They come from different socio-cultural background. Some of the students come from social environment with the more capability to encourage them to make use 12 LANGUAGE CIRCLE Journal of Language and Literature Vol. VIII/1 October 2013 of English for interaction and the others come from many different aspects. However, almost all of them are able to speak English. They can communicate with their friends and the teachers using English. They are also able to master the materials which are given in English, but when the teachers ask them to retell the story which has been read by the teachers; it seems that they find it difficult to express the ideas in their mind. They lack self confidence. To build their confidence, students need more practice and the teachers have to create and use interesting method. Generally, story retelling is liked by the students, especially Pre-School students, because they like stories. However, good media are needed to make story retelling more interesting and enjoyable for students. Movie is one of the media that can be used to teach story retelling. Using short English movie for kids as means for teaching story retelling can be very pleasing and interesting. By using short English movie, students will be more interested and more active in learning. Based on the explanation above, the phenomenon that short English movies can improve students’ ability in story retelling and the possibility that the students’ socio-cultural background take part in determining their achievement in story retelling will be the main issues that need to be seriously investigated. LITERATURE REVIEW Watching movies for young learners is very important as it increases their visual and critical awareness. Watching movies in the classroom can be realized if the teachers have the willingness to make his/her class more fun. The teachers have to try making this activity of movie-watching an active rather than a passive one. This can be done in a variety ways as setting questions about the movie, promoting discussions in small groups, asking the students to comment on various things, inviting criticism, etc. The teachers may also stop the movie from time to time and ask the students what has happened so far or guess what might happen next. Another way might be turning the sound down and asking the students to imagine or make up dialogues. The teachers may also give assignments to the students, for example retell about the students’ favorite movie. When a preliminary discussion is done before watching the movie the above activities may produce interesting speaking activities. These kinds of activities also contribute to the promotion of critical thinking especially in evaluating movies and improving language skills. Other ways of using movies in the classroom are: segmenting the movies, pre-watching, while-watching and post- watching activities, which are very useful as cloze oral exercises, quizzes, games, discussions, etc. Teachers should be creative and decide themselves for the LANGUAGE CIRCLE Journal of Language and Literature Vol. VIII/1 October 2013 13 procedures that they feel that have worked well. Nowadays, people have realized the importance of English in communication. They try to learn English in many ways, for example by joining English courses or having English private lesson at home. Some people even put their kids in some schools which use English as the first language. These schools are one of the ways out to help parents to improve their kids in using English in their daily activities. One of those kinds of schools in Semarang is Mondial School. Mondial started as an English Course. It widely opened for young learners who are interested in learning English for their daily conversation. As it growing bigger, in 2005 Mondial is officially opened as a National plus School. It still follows the curriculum of Indonesian Government but uses English as the first language to communicate. It means that all of the students and the teachers are asked to speak English as long as they are at school. The teachers are also administering the materials using English. Here, the materials are taken from English books which are suitable with the Indonesian Curriculum and culture. Mondial School is divided into two levels. The first level is Pre-Primary. It is a term which is used for “Taman Kanak- Kanak”. In that level, they have Nursery class which is for 2 – 3 years old kids, Playgroup class which is for 3 – 4 years old kids, then Pre-School class which is for 4 – 5 years old kids, and the last one is Kindergarten which is for 5 – 6 years old. The second level is Primary. It consists of grade 1 up to grade 6. For Pre-Primary, especially for Pre- School class and Kindergarten class, Mondial teachers provide a lot of fun activities which will develop the students’ ability in listening and speaking, for example indoor and outdoor games, computer educational games, watching short movies for kids, singing and dancing, listening to stories, etc. One of the students’ favorite is listening to stories. This listening session is held every day for about 10 to 15 minutes. Here, the students are listening carefully to the teachers’ story. The story can be from the story books or the teachers create their own story. Even, once a while the teachers asked students to retell the story they have heard. By giving a chance for the students to retell the story, it will develop not only their knowledge but also their speaking ability. METHODS The study is based on a true experimental design at Pre-School of Mondial School in the academic year of 2011/2012 to investigate the effectiveness of using movie in teaching story retelling to an experimental group of students and to compare it to another control group. This study is also to investigate the relations between the students’ improvement with their socio-cultural background. In this study, the writer deliberately controlled and 14 LANGUAGE CIRCLE Journal of Language and Literature Vol. VIII/1 October 2013 manipulated the conditions which determined the speaking skill she wanted to investigate, introduced movie as an intervention and measured the difference that it made. The empirical data were obtained by giving treatments to the experimental group, observing the teaching-learning process in both the experimental and control groups, and from which the data were then measured and analyzed in form of statistical and descriptive analysis. The researcher scored the Post Test result of both groups by using the rating scale modified by David P. Harris and Walter Bartz. It evaluated five categories in speaking assessment; knowledge, voice, accuracy of retelling a story, audience contact, and sequence. The aggregate scores of each group are than categorized into two groups according to their achievement levels, i.e. (1) the scores of high achievers and (2) those of low achievers. As a result, there will be four groups of scores ready for analysis using ANOVA. The main reason for categorizing the scores into high and low achievers is for us to uncover the distinction between the high achievers and the low achievers of the experimental and control groups in perceiving the materials under study. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION During the pre-test, both of groups were given the same movie and they were asked to do the test individually in retelling the story of the movie in 3-5 minutes. The Experimental Treatment After conducting the pretest, the writer conducted the experimental treatment. The writer taught three times a week for experiment group by using movie as an alternative way of teaching speaking. On the other hand, the control group was taught by their own English teacher without using movie. The procedure of the treatment between experiment group and control group can be seen in Table 1. Table 1 The Procedure of the Treatment Experiment Group Control Group 1. First meeting 1) The writer asked the students to watch the short movie entitled "The Very Hungry Caterpillar”. 2) The writer explained what the story is about. 3) The writer asked the students to watch it one more time. 1. First meeting 1) The teacher told the short story entitled "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" to the students. 2) The teacher explained what the story is about. 3) The teacher asked the students to listen to the story one more time. LANGUAGE CIRCLE Journal of Language and Literature Vol. VIII/1 October 2013 15 4) The writer explained the difficulty words found in the movie. 5) The writer gave example how to pronounce the difficult words correctly. 6) The writer asked the students to work in group of 2. 7) The students retold the story to their friends in group. 4) The teacher explained the difficulty words found in the story 5) The writer gave example how to pronounce the difficult words correctly. 6) The teacher asked the students to work in group of 2. 7) The students retold the story to their friends in group. 2 Second meeting 1) The writer asked the students to watch the same short movie given in the previous meeting. 2) The writer asked the students to come forward and retell the story in front of the class. 3) The writer and the students gave comment to the students' performance. 2 Second meeting 1) The teacher asked the students to listen to the story given in the previous meeting. 2) The teacher asked the students to come forward and retell the story in front of the class. 3) The teacher and the students gave comment to the students' performance 3 Third meeting 1) The writer asked the students to watch the short movie entitled "The Ginger Bread Man". 2) The writer explained what the movie is about. 3) The writer asked the students to watch it one more time. 4) The writer explained the difficulty words found in the movie. 5) The writer gave example how to pronounce the difficult words correctly. 6) The writer asked the students to work in group of 2. 7) The students retold the story to their friends in group. 3 Third meeting 1) The teacher told the story entitled "The Ginger Bread Man" to the students. 2) The teacher explained what the story is about. 3) The teacher asked the students to listen to the story one more time. 4) The teacher explained the difficulty words found in the story. 5) The writer gave example how to pronounce the difficult words correctly. 6) The teacher asked the students to work in group of 2. 7) The students retold the story to their friends in group. 16 LANGUAGE CIRCLE Journal of Language and Literature Vol. VIII/1 October 2013 4 Fourth meeting 1) The writer asked the students to watch the movie given in the previous meeting. 2) The writer asked the students to come forward and retell the story in front of the class. 3) The writer and the students gave comment to the students' performance. 4 Fourth meeting 1) The teacher asked the students to listen to the story given in the previous meeting. 2) The teacher asked the students to come forward and retell the story in front of the class. 3) The teacher and the students gave comment to the students' performance. 5 Fifth meeting 1) The writer asked the students to watch the movie entitled "The Hare and the Tortoise”. 2) The writer explained what the movie is about. 3) The writer asked the students to watch it one more time. 4) The writer explained the difficult words found in the movie. 5) The writer gave example how to pronounce the difficult words correctly. 6) The writer asked the students to work in group of 2. 7) The students retold the story to their friends in group. 5 Fifth meeting 1) The teacher told the story entitled "The Hare and the Tortoise" to the students. 2) The teacher explained what the story is about. 3) The teacher retold the story one more time. 4) The teacher explained the difficult words found in the story. 5) The writer gave example how to pronounce the difficult words correctly. 6) The teacher asked the students to work in group of 2. 7) The students retold the story to their friends in group. 6 Sixth meeting 1) The writer asked the students to watch the same movie given in the previous meeting. 2) The writer asked the students to come forward and retell the story in front of the class. 3) The writer and the students gave comment to the students' 6 Sixth meeting 1) The teacher retold the same story given in the previous meeting. 2) The teacher asked the students to come forward and retell the story in front of the class. 3) The teacher and the students gave comment to the students' performance. LANGUAGE CIRCLE Journal of Language and Literature Vol. VIII/1 October 2013 17 performance. The Post-test After the experiment was conducted, the writer conducted the post-test. It was conducted on 8th February 2012.The writer conducted the test at the same time. The writer and the teacher administered the experiment and control group together. The students were asked to retell the story individually in 3-5 minutes and the writer recorded their voices one by one. The Computation In order to see the significant deference between the experimental group and the control group, it is necessary to verify them using factorial design. In this design the scores of the experimental group and those of the control group are divided into two factors based on the level of achievement. This results in such distributions as presented in Table 2 which contains scores, sum of scores, and Sum Squares of each group. Table 2 The Scores, Sum of Scores, and Sum Squares Experimental G Control G E1 E2 C1 C2 95 80 85 70 Experimental G Control G E1 E2 C1 C2 80 75 80 70 80 75 75 60 75 75 75 60 75 65 75 0 405 370 390 260 164025 136900 152100 67600 Based on the scores in Table 2, the square of scores and sum of score squares in each group (representing factor) as can be seen in Table 3. In order to prove whether there are significant differences among the mean scores of the groups, first of all the writer determined the hypotheses, the critical value, and the variants as follows. 18 LANGUAGE CIRCLE Journal of Language and Literature Vol. VIII/1 October 2013 Ho: u1 = u2 =u3 = u4. H1: At least two of the means are not equal at f table: 3.29. Table 3 The Scores, Sum of Scores, and Sum Squares Experimental Group E1 95 80 80 75 75 405 164025 E2 80 75 75 75 65 370 136900 Control Group C1 85 80 75 75 75 390 152100 C2 70 70 60 60 0 260 67600 This f-Table was obtained by looking into the following rules. V1: total number of cells – 1 = 4 – 1 = 3; V2: total number of scores – number of cells = 19 – 4 = 15; F table is obtained by seeking the melting point between v1 and v2 = 3.29. If F Stat < F Table, it means that there is no difference in achievement among the four groups under study. it means that there is no difference in achievement between the experimental and the control groups in perceiving their material be it using movies or conventional. On the other hand if F Stat > F Table, it means that at least two of the means of the four groups are not equal meaning that the means of the experimental group is significantly different from that of the control group in that the experimental group achieved better that the control group in retelling stories. Based on the rules above, it can be presented here that: (3) Error Sum of Square (ESS) = TSS – TSG Error Sum of Square (ESS) = 22081.25 – 1200 Error Sum of Square (ESS) = 22087.3 When the results of the computations were put into the ANOVA Table, it yielded the performance as seen in Table 4.The F- Statistics was then consulted to the F- LANGUAGE CIRCLE Journal of Language and Literature Vol. VIII/1 October 2013 19 Table as presented above. In this study it was found that F=Stat > F-Table, i.e. 92.01 > 3.26. It means that Hypothesis work stating that At least two of the means are not equal was confirmed. Table 4 The Results of ANOVA Sum of Squares Degree of Freedom Mean of Squares F-Stat F Table Treatment 23281.3 3 7360.417 92.00521 3.29 Error 1200 15 80 Total 22087.3 18 The scores could also be presented in Graphic 1 Based on the results of the ANOVA, it can be inferred that there was really a significant difference between the experimental group and the control group in retelling stories, meaning that the group equipped with audio visual aid achieved significantly higher scores than that taught using conventional tools. Discussion The aim of the test is to know the students' achievement in speaking through the use of movie as medium for Pre-School students. In the pre-test, the average score of the experiment group is 31 and 35.5 for the control group (see in appendix 7). Further the result of the post-test of the experiment 0 5000 10000 15000 20000 25000 Sum of Squares Degree of Freedom Mean of Squares F-Stat F Table Series1 Series2 Series3 20 LANGUAGE CIRCLE Journal of Language and Literature Vol. VIII/1 October 2013 group is 81.5 higher than the result of the control group 72.3 (see in appendix 8). The result difference indicates that after getting treatment the experiment group got better understanding than control group. It can be seen that there was significant difference in the improvement of students' mastery in story retelling using movie and without using movie. It can also be seen that movie is an effective medium in teaching speaking. There are some factors that are influenced the students in story retelling after they got the treatment using movie. After conducting the research, the writer found that the students in the experiment group really looked excited with the use of movie as medium to teach speaking. They followed the teaching and learning process enthusiastically. The existence of the pictures helped the students to understand the story and to get the meaning of a certain words. Thus, movie would not be really difficult for the students. It had not happened to the control group that got little improvement in speaking test. The improvement of the students in the control class was not good. The explanations below show the advantages of using movies as medium for the students. (1) Movies gave the students real and exact data of the things they were telling about, such as the pictures. Through movie, the students can express their ideas in their story retelling product easily. (2) The students would be more interested in following the lesson since at their age they are curious at anything. (3) The students can enrich their new vocabularies. They are able to know the meaning of a particular word by looking at the pictures. From the researchers’ observation, it was found that most of the high achievers, both in the experimental group and in the control group, came from social environment with the more capability to encourage the students to make use of movies for the benefit of their study, especially of retelling story. Such encouragement among other things includes their parents’ habit of speaking and telling their children stories in English, the availability of stories as well as movies at home, the students continual practice of English beyond classes, their frequent exposure to English through such media as international channels on television, books, and other printed English materials, and their higher motivation to use English for interaction. We all know that every technique has its limitation. It also happens to this media. The use of movies also has disadvantages that may give problems to the teacher. The disadvantages are that (1) It spends a lot of time to prepare the equipments. The teacher needs more time for the preparation; (2) Not all of the students like to watch movie which is provided by the teacher. LANGUAGE CIRCLE Journal of Language and Literature Vol. VIII/1 October 2013 21 CONCLUSION The main objective of this study is to determine whether there is any significant difference in improvement of students' ability in story retelling between the group using movies and without using movies. Based on the results of the ANOVA, it can be inferred that there is really a significant difference between the experimental group and the control group in retelling stories, meaning that the group equipped with audio visual aid achieved significantly higher scores than that taught using conventional tools. The difference is shown by the development of the average scores. The group that used movies as medium in story retelling got better improvement in the average scores than those without movies. The writer concluded that the movies helped Pre-School Students of Mondial School to improve their ability in story retelling. Such ability may better be achieved by providing certain socio-cultural aspects in their environment encouraging their interest to watching movies and (re)telling stories in English. Moreover, from the researchers’ observation, it is also found that most of the high achievers, both in the experimental group and in the control group, come from social environment with the more capability to encourage the students to make use of movies for the benefit of their study, especially of retelling story. Such encouragement among other things includes their parents’ habit of speaking and telling their children stories in English, the availability of stories as well as movies at home, the students continual practice of English beyond classes, their frequent exposure to English through such media as international channels on television, books, and other printed English materials, and their higher motivation to use English for interaction. REFERENCES Brown, H.D. 2004. Principles of Language Learning and Teaching (4th edition). New York: Pearson Education, Inc. Finocchiaro, M. 1974. English as a Second Language from Theory to Practice. New York: Regents Publishing Company, Inc. Gerlach, V.S., and Elly, 1980. Teaching and Media: A Systematic Approach. New Jersey; Prentice Hall. Inc. Harmer, J. 1998. How to Teach English. England: Addison Wesley Longman Limited. Harris, D. P. 1969. Testing English as a second Language. London: McGraw- Hill Book Company. Nunan, D. 1992. 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