Lingual: Journal of Language & Culture (Volume 13, No.1, May 2022) English Department, Faculty of Humanities, Udayana University 66 THE IMPROVEMENT OF STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILL THROUGH STORYTELLING Maya Marsevani, Diana Merliana Rahman Universitas Internasional Batam maya@uib.ac.id, dianamrliana22@gmail.com Abstract This research was conducted in an Islamic private junior high school in Batam. It was conducted on 7th grade students with a total of 10 students. This research uses Classroom Action Research (CAR) method. Started with the problems that were faced by the students such as lack of vocabulary, lack of the proper motivation to study and speaking practice, not confident to speak. Responding to the problems, the right method of learning to speak English should be how to train memory, pronunciation and hearing simultaneously, namely storytelling. Before the storytelling method was applied, students were given a pre-test to get the average grade for the class. After that, the average value of the class that has been obtained will be measured by the rubric. The total students’ average was 2.2 (poor). After looking at the results of the pre-test, researcher saw that with practice conversation, speaking skills of students can’t develop well. Because of that in the treatment 1, application cycle 1 and also post-test, the post-test results were 2.76. It can be said that the storytelling can improve students' speaking abilities. Keywords: speaking, storytelling, skill I INTRODUCTION In teaching English there are several skills that need to be learned one by one, these skills have their respective techniques. Gynan and Baker (2011) states that there are several language skills, such as speaking, listening, reading and also writing. All of this language skills are important for daily life, especially speaking skills. English speaking skills may be defined as the skill of an individual to communicate his thoughts to anyone orally or directly. Speaking skills need continuous practice in order to develop and improve, exercises can be done directly with people in the surrounding environment such as classmates or teachers who can speak English. Supriyadi (2005) also revealed that if someone has good speaking skills, he will get social and professional benefits. Therefore, speaking skills must be possessed by everyone who learns English because speaking skills have goals and benefits. According to Syakur (1987) briefly, English teachers should be able to be creative in developing their teaching process to create a better atmosphere, by improving the skills of speaking to the students, giving attention to the speaking components and can make English lessons more interesting for the students. Speaking is also a very important part of learning and teaching a second language Chaney (1998). However, the purpose of teaching speaking is an effort to improve student’s communication skills because students can express themselves and learn how to use language. Based on the experience of the researcher who has done practical work in teaching English in Islamic schools, the researcher found out students’ problems in the classroom when teaching English. They had difficulty in speaking English, they are not very confident and tend to be very passive in speaking. Ur (1996) also reveals that there are some factors that prevent students from speaking, such as: self-restraint, nothing to say, low or unevenly participation, and also because of mother-tongue use. Responding to the problems above, the right method of learning to speak English should be how to train memory, pronunciation, and hearing simultaneously, namely by applying storytelling learning in teaching English. The goals are to make the speaking skills easier, to improve structure of language, to increase the vocabulary and train the listener because of his ease with the message of the adversary. According to Samantaray (2014) storytelling is an enduring teaching technique. Students could briefly summarize a story heard from someone who had previously, or they could create their own story to tell to their classmates. According to Collins (2005), the purposes of storytelling are: a.) It can develop students' imagination, b.) It can broaden the listener's horizons, c.) It can provide enjoyment for students. It is in line with Harmer (2007) storytelling as one of methods in teaching the ability to speak that states students can briefly summarize stories or stories they heard from someone before, or they can create their own stories to tell to their classmates, so students can share their own ideas or paragraphs in telling stories. Moreover, in pedagogical theory there is strong support for storytelling techniques to be used in language teaching. Briefly, stories are an interactive approach between students, teachers and the mailto:maya@uib.ac.id mailto:dianamrliana22@gmail.com The Improvement of Students’ Speaking Skill Through Storytelling | 67 suggested materials to perform in class. Irawati (2003) says that storytelling is an oral activity where language and gestures are used in a colorful way to create scenes done in a sequence, however is made up of more than telling. As part of the pre-teaching activity in class, storytelling is also an effective teaching tool that enables students to focus on the structure of the story. Several research about storytelling has been conducted by previous researchers. Agustina (2016) from University of Muhammadyah Jember has been research “Improving Speaking Ability by Using Storytelling Technique at X Akuntansi Class of SMK Trunojoyo Jember In The 2015/2016 Academic Year”. In this research, she saw many students in the vocational high school still have difficulty in speaking, felt unmotivated in speaking, especially speaking English. So, she used storytelling technique to increase students speaking skill. For the results in this research, storytelling can improve their speaking skill by giving short story to retell by own words, also can improve student active participation by giving more practice and ask them to perform the task in front of the class. Susanti (2019) from IKIP PGRI Bojonegoro conducted a research about “Improving Students Speaking Skill by Storytelling Technique”. In this research the she told that there are some problems that make students have difficult to speak English because several factors, such as lack of vocabulary, lack of ideas to speak, they afraid to make mistakes when speaking English and their motivation is still low. So, the researchers made the suitable technique to solve these problems by choosing storytelling technique to change the student’s skill in speaking. Mujizat (2016) from Faculty of Educational Sciences Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University Jakarta has a research entitled “The Effectiveness of Using Storytelling Technique on Students Speaking Skill”. In this research, the subject was students in SMAN 1 Bekasi have some difficulties in speaking because of several factors such as students sometimes feel worry, nervous when they spoke or communicated using English in front of their friends and then students always lack of many ideas or initiative to speak English because lack of vocabulary, patterns of grammar and lack of practicing speaking skills. Because of that problems, he solved the problems with storytelling technique to enhance their speaking ability. For the results of this research, storytelling technique is effective to be applied in teaching speaking skill. It can develop confidence, vocabulary, grammar, and comprehension. It concludes that storytelling technique were enhanced more effectively. Aforementioned studies above conducted the research in senior high school level from different cities in Indonesia. It can be highlighted that there are no previous studies conducted the research in junior high school level. Furthermore, the use of storytelling had not been used in this junior high school before. The students claimed that they just focused on text book and just listened what teacher said. It means that the students never practice their speaking skills in learning English. Hence, the researchers intended to use storytelling method to improve students’ speaking skills. II MATERIALS AND METHODS 2.1 METHODS This research uses Classroom Action Research (CAR) method. Bogdan (1992) explains that action research is a systematic collection of information designed to bring about social change. This study uses the material cycle (Kemmis, S. and Mc. Taggart, 2002) which says that the CAR consists of 4 stages. They were: (1) Organization, (2) Measure, (3) Observing, and (4) Reflection. 2.2 PARTICIPANTS This research was conducted in an Islamic private junior high school in Batam. Researchers chose this school because the researchers had already made brief observations on the site. As a result of these observations, researchers have identified the issue that became the subject of this study. Furthermore, it strengthened researchers to choose the participants. This research was conducted on 7th grade students with a total of 10 students. The researchers chose grade 7 to be used as research because currently grade 7 was studying one of the English language skills, namely speaking skills in class. By observation also, grade 7 is the most weaknesses about speaking, this because grade 7 was still very junior and had not been familiar with vocabulary. Hence, this reason fortifies the researcher to choose grade 7 as a participant to support this research. 2.3 INSTRUMENTS Before the cycle was applied directly in the classroom, the researchers had conducted classroom observations to find out the problems experienced by students when learning English. After being 68 | Maya Marsevani, Diana Merliana Rahman Lingual (Vol. 13, No.1, 2022) observed and analyzed, the researchers applied a direct cycle with the storytelling method which aims to develop students' speaking skills well, increase vocabulary knowledge and also train students' listening skill. 2.4 DATA ANALYSIS Before the storytelling method was applied, students were given a pre-test to get the average grade for the class. after that, the average value of the class that has been obtained will be measured by the rubric below Fluency Pronunciation and Accent Vocabulary Grammar Details 5 Clear, forthright and smooth; very confident; excellent and strong volume. Pronunciation is very good; very well done. There’s a lot of excellent vocabulary; right selection of vocabulary. Excellent of accuracy; and excellent of the structure. An excellent description; complete and exciting content. 4 Clear, forthright and smooth; quite confident; excellent and strong volume. Pronunciation is very good; well done. There’s a lot of good vocabulary; quite right selection of vocabulary. Good of accuracy; and excellent of the structure. An excellent description; complete and nice content. 3 Quite clear and smooth; not really confident; excellent volume. Pronunciation is good; well is quite done. Lack of vocabulary; quite right selection of vocabulary. Quite of accuracy; and quite of the structure. Quite of description; complete and not really good at content. 2 Not clear and forthright but smooth; not really confident; low volume. Pronunciation is poor; No effort; not well done. Lack of vocabulary; not right selection the vocabulary. Lack of accuracy; and quite of the structure. Lack of description; not complete and bad content. 1 Not clear, forthright and also smooth; there’s no confident at all; low volume. Pronunciation is very poor; not well done. Poor and lack of vocabulary; poor in selection the vocabulary. Poor of accuracy; and lack of the structure. Poor of description; not complete at all and very poor content. Table 1. Students’ Rubric Scores After getting the results from the pre-test, the researcher immediately carried out the post-test, namely applying storytelling learning, by making a group of 3 people and then one of the groups was required to take one of the pictures in front, after that continued to develop the story based on the picture they see on the paper, then after that they are obliged to present/tell it in front of the class. Researcher will pay attention to fluency, pronunciation and accent, vocabulary, grammar and details, including cohesiveness and cooperation. After that the average value will be taken based on the assessment table above. III RESULTS AND DISCUSSION The researcher used storytelling to improve the ability of students' speaking skills because with the storytelling, students not only heard but could see the visual first-hand and could practice it first-hand. Hamid (2011) also revealed that the methods of learning by using audio (hearing), visual (sight or picture) learning style, and kinaesthetic (actions) students can increase student mastery of the material given because students will do and feel their own experience as learning for themselves. Thus, The Improvement of Students’ Speaking Skill Through Storytelling | 69 researcher needed learning innovation to energize students, to have the motivation to learn speaking by using the storytelling method. Pre-test grades was taken from students' speaking skills before the use of storytelling. Students had carried out speaking skills with researcher in class using conversational techniques. Researcher directly asked students to create a conversation consisting of two people who were interviewing and then the student came forward to the class to practice it. From these exercises, the researchers observed first and took the scores of speaking skills from it. Researcher took scores by paying attention to their fluency, pronunciation, accent, vocabulary, grammar and other details, whether it was appropriate or not. Researcher gave the scores based on the rubric that researcher have used above. Here are the resulted of pre-test scores from students who carried out speaking skills with conversation. Name Fluency Pronunciation Vocabulary Grammar Details Participant 1 4 3 3 1 4 Participant 2 2 2 2 1 2 Participant 3 3 3 1 1 1 Participant 4 1 1 1 1 1 Participant 5 3 2 2 1 1 Participant 6 2 2 2 1 1 Participant 7 5 4 4 1 3 Participant 8 4 4 4 1 3 Participant 9 3 1 2 1 1 Participant 10 3 3 4 1 3 MEAN 3 2,5 2,5 1 2 Mean Total 2,2 Table 2. Students’ Pre-Test Scores Aspect score categories Fluency : 1 (very poor), 2 (poor), 3 (average), 4 (good), 5 (very good) Pronunciation : 1 (very poor), 2 (poor), 3 (average), 4 (good), 5 (very good) Vocabulary : 1 (very poor), 2 (poor), 3 (average), 4 (good), 5 (very good) Grammar : 1 (very poor), 2 (poor), 3 (average), 4 (good), 5 (very good) Details : 1 (very poor), 2 (poor), 3 (average), 4 (good), 5 (very good) After viewing the table of speaking skills of the students above, it indicates that their speaking skills was unspecified as good, the average of fluency was 3, average 2.5, student’s grammar 2.5, grammar 1, and details 2. After gaining the average scores of students speaking skill, the researchers intended to implement storytelling to improve their pronunciation, vocabulary and especially grammar. (Behmer, 2000) revealed that Storytelling can be believed to be a tool for sharing values and knowledge between one person and another. It is an excellent way to learn from others about something they can feel in a relationship with them. Storytelling also enables people to exchange information with others. In this regard, people can learn from one another through storytelling. After seeing the pre-test scores, researchers applied storytelling to improve students' speaking skills by 3 times. In March, 29 the researchers had observation and had a treatment 1 with the students, in the treatment 1 this action is performed by teaching storytelling speech to improve the ability of students' speaking skills, the researchers form a group of 3 to 4 students inside. Then, one of the students 70 | Maya Marsevani, Diana Merliana Rahman Lingual (Vol. 13, No.1, 2022) from the group take prepared color pictures at the front of class with the researchers, then developed a story and one of the students had to retell the short story in front of the class. For the results of the treatment 1, the students did not achieve a target, because some of them still lacked vocabulary, they were still not good at pronunciation, not confident and still confused what will they speak. Many of them still had less vocabulary because they still found unfamiliar words and had not motivation in learning new vocabulary. Brown (2000) revealed that the self-anxiety factor is considered to be one of the most influential affective factors for learners in the speaking skill of the class. These self-anxieties can cause various difficulties for learners to respond appropriately in speaking activities. Only some students active in each group. This means that the standards mean the scores and the requirements to speak of the subject in the treatment 1 of this research have not been accomplished and can be said to be unsuccessful. In April, 18. The researchers to had just first meeting that is action implementation cycle 1 with the students, to improve their speaking more, the researchers tried in this meeting have needs to be repaired by creating activities that are not grouped together anymore. Afterwards, each student had to come to the front of the class to retell a short story in front of the class using their own words. Having seen the results of the treatment 1 in which progress and improvement were not complete, in this meeting researchers tried again to find the best way to solve the problems students were facing. As follows: (3-1) The teacher tries to explain more about the material and gives the direction to the students to be more understanding. (3-2) The teacher does not divide the student into groups anymore, but the teacher divides individual students to make students more active. (3-3) The teacher gives different activities and different short stories to make students better understand about the story. (3-4) The teacher also does not forget to motivate the students to be enthusiastic and not afraid to make mistakes and to be more confident in front of the class and teacher to teach the students just as treatment 1 before. In this action, the implementation cycle 1 were followed in the same way as the treatment 1, but only they were not divided into groups, just individuals. That way students can become more active and easier to express their own words. For the results of the exam speaking in implementation cycle 1 is finally indicate that there is a development in student speaking skill, the students speaking in this implementation was much better than the previous one. They became more confident, enjoy, willing to talk and learn from the mistakes. Morrow in Bachruddin (2008) claims that storytelling can provide pleasure and stimulate the imagination of children. Continued in April 20, students carried out post-tests in the classroom, using techniques that were in implementation cycle 1. It is known that the last previous which is implementation cycle 1 was held individually and the results was much better than working together in a group. Post-test is done for 60 minutes, during the post-test, students were very calm and smooth. This was because they had been trained from previous meetings. For the results were quite satisfactory researchers, because many of them experience an increase in speaking skills, pronunciation is quite clear, vocabulary develops and more confident but still experiences shortcomings in grammar. Researchers took grades based on rubrics as before, following the grades of students who carry out post-tests. Name Fluency Pronunciation Vocabulary Grammar Details Participant 1 5 4 3 2 4 Participant 2 3 3 3 2 3 Participant 3 3 4 3 2 2 Participant 4 3 2 2 1 2 Participant 5 3 3 2 1 2 Participant 6 2 2 3 2 1 The Improvement of Students’ Speaking Skill Through Storytelling | 71 Participant 7 5 3 4 2 4 Participant 8 4 2 3 1 4 Participant 9 4 4 3 1 3 Participant 10 3 3 4 1 3 MEAN 3,5 3 3 1,5 2,8 Mean Total 2.76 Table 3. Students’ Post-Test Scores It can be seen from the table that there was an improvement from speaking skills of students, the average of fluency 3.5, pronunciation and vocabulary up from 2.5 to 3, grammar also gets an increase to 1.5, details 2.8. As compared with the results of the pre-test earlier, speaking skills student experienced an increase from the average 2.2 to 2.76. As Collins (2005) stated that the use of storytelling can increase the students' imagination, expand a listener's horizons, and give the students pleasure. It is line with Cameron (2016) that the storytelling makes students more active in learning English because they can fan fantasize and receive impressions that give an active soul. Moreover, Moeslichatoen (2004) revealed that telling or storytelling is a method that could share the learning experience for a child by giving a story to the child directly or verbally. The stories a teacher gives should attract and pay attention to the child and not escape the educational purposes of the child. Telling a story is supposed to help share interesting experiences for the child so that the child can tell stories that have been heard in an effort to improve the ability to speak and again meaningful value from the content of the story. IV CONCLUSION Based on the results of the data retrieved that has been applied, it can be stated that storytelling could overcome speaking skill problems and can also improve students' speaking skills for the better. The results of the increase can be seen from the results of the last assessment on the post-test that has been carried out. In the initial results of the pre-test, students still lacked in almost all aspects, but after holding several meetings, at the last meeting, namely the post-test, students were able to develop speaking skills well. The average score on the post-test increased by 2.16 from the pre-test. In the pre- test, the students' assessment results were taken from their conversational practice, but apparently this practice could not improve students' speaking skills well. After conducting various studies, the researchers finally tried to apply the storytelling technique to students' speaking learning. After knowing that storytelling technique can improve students' speaking. Because by storytelling, students not only speak but also listen, think and also remember. Usually students like to tell stories, therefore the researchers decided to apply storytelling techniques in the classroom so that students still enjoy learning while at the same time improving their speaking skills. REFERENCES Agustina. (2016). Improving speaking ability by using storytelling technique at X akuntansi class of SMK trunojoyo Jember in the 2015/2016 academic year. International Journal of Langauge and Literature, 1(2005), 105–107. Bachruddin. (2008). Improving students’ english speaking competence through storyteling. International Journal of Language and Literature., 10(1), 119–134. Behmer. (2000). Literature review digital storytelling: examining the process with middle school students. The Journal of the Learning Sciences. Bogdan. (1992). Qualitative research for education: an Introduction to theory and methods. Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 24(4), 157–162. Brown. (2000). Principles of language learning and teaching. New York: Longman., 185–190. Cameron. (2016). 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