A comparative study on the effects of storytelling and picture series techniques on the reading comprehension achievement of the pupils of St. Carolus Elementary School Surabaya

In language learning, there are four language skills that the EFLpupils have to learn, they are: Speaking, Listening, Writing, and Reading. Each of the language skills is important, including reading. However, there are many problems faced by pupils in comprehending their reading texts. As a result, they become reluctant and less motivated to read. Husband (1961:51) states that storytelling can be used to solve the problems of reading comprehension. It motivates pupils in learning English especially learning a reading comprehension. This technique will help a teacher to break the routine activities, avoid the boredom, and arise the pupils’ motivation as well as attract them to participate in the classroom activities. Furthermore, Husbands (1961:45) states that pictures may furnish valuable clues to the story by showing the characters in action and by indicating the plot of the story. A storytelling and picture series play an important role for the success of teaching-learning reading comprehension. Besides storytelling and picture series facilitate pupils in learning process, encourage the pupils’ participation and increase their motivation. This experimental study was then to make a comparative study on the effects of storytelling and picture series techniques on pupils’ reading comprehension of St. Carolus Elementary School Surabaya. The subjects of this study were the sixth year pupils of St. Carolus Elementary School Surabaya who belonged to Class A (which was the Experimental group) and class B (which was the Control group). Meanwhile, class C is used as the Pilot group. During the research, these groups were given different treatments. The experimental group was taught reading using storytelling technique where-as the control group was taught reading using picture series technique. As for the materials and the reading comprehension exercises following them were exactly the same. In order to find out the effect of the storytelling technique to teach reading comprehension for elementary school pupils, the writer used a set of reading comprehension test which consisted of ten items. The set of test was administered twice, the pre-test, which was given before the treatment and the post-test which was given after the treatment. The scores obtained by the pupils in the post-test and pre-test were compared and then analyzed using the t-test. The purpose was to see whether the effects of storytelling technique gave different positive effects on the pupils’ reading comprehension. The result of this study was that teaching reading comprehension through storytelling technique was more effective in improving the pupils’ reading comprehension achievement better than picture series technique, because the result of this study pointed out that there was significant differences between the pupils taught using storytelling technique and using picture series technique in their reading comprehension achievement