The Effect of Retelling Technique to Students' EFL Learning in Narrating Past Events

Lack of students’ mastery of grammar and limited number of vocabulary have been identified as
sources of their low competence in EFL Learning to speak in West Sumatra Senior High Schools.
Therefore, a constant effort to develop these two essential elements needs to be conducted especially
in rural areas where advance technology of information is almost inaccessible. To deal with the issue,
we have implemented Retelling technique to Grade X at Senior High School 1 Hiliran Gumanti. A
group of science class (N=48) have been chosen to be the experimental and control groups. A typical
treatment for the experimental class began with scaffolding the text. Discussion was focused on
elements of text and in groups of four or five students, teacher encouraged the students to retell
another story. After 15 minutes discussions, each group was encouraged to retell the story starting
from the first member (story-teller) and continued to the other members till the end of the story. Some
extra pictures were accompanied the students to help them of the events. After several meetings, both
classes were tested to retell another story. Post test scores of the groups were compared to
investigate the difference. The finding showed that mean score of post test of experimental class was
73.25, higher than control class (66.58). Meanwhile, standard deviation of experimental class was
higher than control class (sd= 6.79>66.58). While t-calculated was 3.71 and t-table 1.678 with
a=0.05 and degree of freedom 46 greater than t-table (3.71>1.678) meaning that students’ better
speaking skills were mainly due to the application or effects of Retelling technique.