Story-telling as a technique of teaching speaking to SMA students

Most of the SMA graduates in Indonesia cannot speak English fairly well, although they have learned it since they were at SMP. It happens because the teaching of speaking does not get the same attention as that of teaching of grammar and reading. The teaching of speaking gets less time than the teaching of grammar and reading since the objcective of teaching English to SMA students stresses more on reading than on speaking. Furthermore, if the teachers teach speaking, they only give dialogues as the materials to the students and ask them to perform the dialogues through memorization. Everything the students say is all concerned with the written dialogues. The students, here, focus their minds on memorization, not on how to express their thoughts. In memorization, they are afraid of making mistakes that can ruin the whole memory. This can cause the students to be reluctant to participate in a speaking class. As a result, the speaking skill is insufficiently mastered by most of the students. Due to the above reason, the teachers are supposed to choose the appropriate materials that provide opportunities for the students to express their thoughts well. So that, the students can really learn their lessons. One of the techniques which is suitable for teaching speaking is telling stories because this technique enables the students to express their feelings, ideas thoughts, etc. There are many stories to tell and the teachers are supposed to choose the easiest ones which the students know well. If the students know a story well, it will facilitate them to tell the story. The stories which fulfill such requirements are personal stories. They can easily tell about their everyday’s life, families, friends, schools, pets, hobbies, and so on. In this study, the writer takes the stories which could be conducted to the first year of SMA students. Finally, the writer hopes that this technique may be used the English teachers in order to develop their students’ speaking skill and to achieve one of the objectives of learning English, that is, to able to speak in English