Overcoming Students’ Difficulties in Retelling Orally the Content of a Reading Text

 

 

Conny Handayani

 

 

Everybody can speak in a simple daily conversation, but transferring messages fluently isn't easy for everyone. According to Indonesian language teachers at SMU I, a state college at Semarang, students can make sentences easily, but they can't retell fluently a reading text. They can't compose sentences into paragraphs by organizing logically their ideas. A Classroom Action Research (CAR) was done.

 

Subject

40 students of the 1st Grade Class

 

Aims

To overcome students' difficulties on retelling orally reading texts.

To find interesting themes and the way of enriching vocabularies.

CAR was done in 4 Cycles, consisted of Planning, Applying, Evaluating, Analyzing, Reflecting followed by Observing and Revising after each cycle.

 

Data

Gathered by Tests, Questionnaires, Interviews, Observations, Teacher Documentations.

 

Result

There was an improvement of the Average Score of Reading Comprehension and Speaking form the 1st to the Nth Cycle.

·         Reading Comprehension: 64 -69 -74 -77

·         Speaking: 60 -66 -78 -76

 

Conclusion

·         Speaking Score depends on the Reading Comprehension Score.

·         Training to look for principal ideas, to resume stories plot, to organise ideas logically helps students in reconstructing stories.

·         Dividing students in small groups discussions improves the competences of the timid and students lacking confidence.

 

 

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Handayani, C. (2005, April). Overcoming students’ difficulties in retelling orally the content of a reading text. Paper presented at the RELC International Seminar, Singapore.

 

 

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