Improving Students’ Speaking Skill through Storytelling of Narrative Texts at Grade VIII-A of SMPN I Tempuling Indragiri Hilir.

Students of class VIII-A SMPN I Tempuling had problem in speaking narrative texts. The purposes of the research are to find out whether storytelling can improve students’ speaking skill of narrative texts and the factors that influence the changes of students’ speaking skill of narrative texts. The participants of the research were the students of class VIII-A of SMPN I Tempuling, which consisted of 13 students; 8 females and 5 males. The research was a classroom action research which was conducted in two cycles consisting of ten meetings. Each cycle consisted of Plan, Action, Observation, and Reflection. The data in the research were gathered from observation checklists, field notes, interviews, and speaking test during the research. The research findings showed that using Storytelling could improve the students’ speaking skill of narrative texts. It could be seen from the improvement of the students’ score in speaking test of narrative texts. The average score of students in cycle I was 57.2 and in cycle II was 71.1. Then, the factors that influence the improvement of students’ speaking skill by using storytelling of narrative texts were material, students’ motivation, classroom activity, and teacher’s guidance. In conclusion, the implementation of Storytelling could improve students’ speaking skill of narrative texts at grade VIII A of SMPN I Tempuling. It improved students’ score in speaking test and their interest in speaking activities.