DOES RETELLING TECHNIQUE 

IMPROVE SPEAKING FLUENCY?

Noor Rachmawaty

(itaw75123@yahoo.com)

Istanti Hermagustiana

(dulcemaria_81@yahoo.com)

Universitas Mulawarman, Indonesia

Learning a new language is both an autonomous process and a collaborative one. It is autonomous when a learner learns independently, while it is 

collaborative when learners and a teacher work together. Lindsay and 

Knight (2006) point out that the language learning process itself can be divided into five stages: 

Input, Noticing, Recognizing Patterns and Rule Making,Use and 

Rule modification, Automating.

Lindsay and Knight (2006) further explain that input of the target language is essential for learners; it can be an exposure to the language in either 

oral or written forms, in formal or informal settings. The next stage is noticing in which learners become aware of the language to which they are exposed. Teacher’s role in helping learners know the gap in their learning is 2 TEFLIN Journal, Volume 21, Number 1, February 2010     

also countable in this process. Once learners have the capability of noticing 

the rule patterns of the target language, they will start to apply their knowledge in writing or speaking activities. At a certain point learners will begin 

to use the target language intuitively more like the way they use their first 

language (L1).  At this stage, the target language has been stored in their 

memory so that it is immediately accessible and remains there.

Though individuals have similar process of learning a language, they 

have different capability of processing the input they get. Students in one 

class have different abilities in absorbing the knowledge as well as in performing the competencies in the target language. Therefore, teacher often 

finds a number of students who have low proficiencies in producing the 

target language they are learning. 

Normally, in the English  Language Teaching program in Indonesian 

universities/colleges, the students are trained to be English teachers at elementary to senior high school levels. This means being proficient in English is important as they will be role models for their future students. Therefore, in the first up to the fourth semesters, the students must take some micro skill courses such as Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing. These 

courses are the pre-requisites before they take the higher level courses. 

Knowing that being able to produce both spoken and written English 

fluently and accurately is important for future English teachers, we decided 

to focus on students who have low proficiency in English. Speaking class 

was considered an appropriate class to conduct the study as we could categorize students into different levels based on their performance. The students or respondents in this study were those who had joined Speaking I to 

Speaking III classes and were taught by the same lecturer. Their ability in 

producing spoken English was considered ‘low’ though they had joined the 

speaking classes. The term ‘low’ in this case means that when the students 

were asked to speak there were problems:  there were  pauses, unnatural 

speech patterns which were difficult to listen to, incorrect pronunciations

and sentence structures, and lack of vocabulary. 

One of the goals in an  EFL Speaking class is improving students’ 

communicative skill so they can express themselves using the target language appropriately based on its social and cultural contexts. In order to achieve the goals teachers apply different teaching techniques in the classroom. Yet, it is widely known that no best single method or technique to

apply in the teaching and learning process; the choice of methods depends 

on the types of learners, learners’ motivation in learning new language, 

learners’ attitudes towards language learning and so on.Rachmawaty & Hermagustiana, Retelling Technique  3

Storytelling technique has been known as one of teaching activities in 

second or foreign language classes. One of the reasons is because it relies 

so much on words, offering a major and constant source of language experience  for children (Wright, 1995 in Xu, 2007). In addition, stories themselves can be considered language treasures to use as models of language 

for students of different levels and ages. 

Kalmback (1986) in Stoicovy (2004) states that retelling is a process 

of re-memorizing what we listened to and read. Further, Stoicovy states that 

in relation to language teaching, retelling technique can be used as a way to 

promote students’ comprehension and understanding of discourse.

Stoicovy (2004) also points out that based on several studies, retelling 

has positive influence in language learning as it promotes students’ ability 

in rearranging information from the text that they have read. In addition, 

Brown & Cambourne (1987) mention that during the retelling process students apply and develop their language knowledge through the internalization of the texts’ features. 

Retelling helps teachers identify the level of students’ comprehension 

of what they listen to or read. In addition retelling is a common way that 

many people use as part of their communication. To overcome the difficulty in using the target language, telling stories is one of the recommended 

techniques which can help language learners in improving his  knowledge 

of vocabulary, grammatical structures, and pronunciation. Moreover stories 

provide various topics for learners to begin a conversation with others 

(Deacon and Murphey, 2001). 

Based on the arguments  for the positive influence of retelling in language learning,  we decided to see the influence of retelling  of  students’ 

fluency by conducting this study. The students here were students whose 

language proficiency was categorized as ’Low’.

METHOD

The research subjects were six English students in  a remedial class. 

The students were placed in this class  because  they had some speaking 

problems. 

We made use of an English reading text to gain some data in this 

study. The subjects were required to read a story and then retold it. Their 

speech was recorded and transcribed. Additionally, a questionnaire was 

used to support the data found in the transcripts. The questionnaire basically elicited the students’ strategies in pre and while ‘Retelling’.4 TEFLIN Journal, Volume 21, Number 1, February 2010     

To collect the data, we provided the subjects a short reading text to retell. First, each subject read the text for 30 minutes. Then, they had a few 

minutes to get prepared before retelling the text on their own. While retelling, each subject’s speech was recorded. This recording was then transcribed and analyzed to figure out the speaking fluency level and the subjects’ comprehension of the text. The last step was to give a questionnaire 

to all of the subjects to discover the use of speaking strategies in the retelling process.

We gave a total of six reading texts when we conducted the treatments. 

The procedure of retelling in the treatment period was similar to that in the 

pre-test and the post-test. The data were analyzed by calculating the mean 

scores of the pre-test and the post-test. After the result was obtained, we 

used a test of correlation. It was used to find out whether the retelling technique affected the students’ speaking fluency significantly.

Two raters did the scoring of the tests in order to achieve inter-rater reliability. Moreover, the data from the questionnaire were also analyzed to 

figure out the speaking strategies applied during the process of retelling the 

story.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

After the pre- and post-tests were given, we had the overall scores of 

retelling performed by the participants along with the calculation of the 

mean scores.

Table 1. Overall Scores of Pre-Test and Post-test

Pre-Test Post-test

Scorer 1 Scorer 2 Mean Conversion Scorer 1 Scorer 2 Mean Conversion

30 17 23.5 D 57 52 54.5 C

17 17 17 E 52 57 54.5 C

17 17 17 E 44 52 48 C

52 43 47.5 C 65 57 61 C

30 17 23.5 D 39 52 45.5 C

9 9 9 E 39 48 43.5 C

Data Analysis

We arrange the data into a table which shows the number and the letter 

conversion. This is to show whether the retelling techniques given during 

the treatment gave a significant effect to the participants’ speaking fluency.Rachmawaty & Hermagustiana, Retelling Technique  5

Table 2 contains of the percentage of the participants’ speaking score 

in the pre-test. It shows that 16.7% of the participants were good at retelling 

the story. This was proven by ‘C’, meaning good enough when we converted it into the rubric of assessment. The other participants with the percentages of 33.3% and 50% obtained ‘D’ and ‘E’ respectively.

Table 2. The Percentage of the Pre-test

Conversion letter Frequency Percentage

A+ 0 0

A 0 0

A- 0 0

B+ 0 0

B 0 0

B- 0 0

C+ 0 0

C 1 16.7%

C- 0 0

D+ 0 0

D 0 0

D- 2 33.3%

E 3 50%

Total 100%

Table 3 comprises the percentage of the participants’ speaking scores 

in the post-test. It shows that there was an increase in the participants’ fluency in retelling the story. 16.7% of the participants were better at retelling 

the story compared to the pre-test. In addition, no participants in the posttest obtained ‘D’ or ‘E’. 

Table 3. The Percentage of the Post-test

Conversion letter Frequency Percentage

A+ 0 0

A 0 0

A- 0 0

B+ 0 0

B 0 0

B- 0 0

C+ 1 16.7%

C 4 66.6%

C- 1 16.7%

D+ 0 06 TEFLIN Journal, Volume 21, Number 1, February 2010     

Table continued

D 0 0

D- 0 0

E 0 0

Total 100%

From the scores of the  pre- and post-tests, we  ran a t-test to see whether 

significant difference exists in this study. The calculation shows that the ttest value was statistically greater than the t-table value. We came up with 

the final conclusion that the retelling technique given during the treatment 

period had a significant effect on the participants’ English speaking fluency.

Some aspects in speaking will be discussed in accordance with the participants’ progress in retelling the story. The first criterion is comprehensibility. In the pre-test, for example, the sixth participant misunderstood the 

story. Instead of saying “He was not very happy”, she said “He was very 

happy”. This was fatal, for it changed the content of the story. However, the 

implementation of  retelling technique could reduce the mistake. This was 

apparent in the transcript of the post test done by the first subject. In the 

pre-test, the subject could only deal with less than 80% of the whole story, 

whereas, in the post-test, he was able to finish the story. 

Vocabulary is also of importance. This aspect became a consideration 

when the participants’ speaking fluency was assessed. The increase on vocabulary can be seen clearly as all participants showed good progress in 

retelling the story. Some participants have successfully applied words different from the original text but had similar implied meanings. The following is an example:

They the turtle see many new things.

The phrase new things was used by the fourth subject to replace the phrase 

in the sentence “You can see mountains, oceans, and cities-all the things 

you want to see.”

Generally, the strategies used by the participants in retelling a story 

began with rewriting the text by deleting some unknown words, then memorizing it. When they had trouble recalling the words in their draft, they 

tried to continue the story in some ways: by skipping the forgotten words, 

or trying to speak in a halting manner. We argue that what they have implemented is part of strategic competence that they use to negotiate the content of the story. This is in line with the definition of strategic competence 

as the ability to use strategies such as paraphrasing, repetition, avoidance of 

the unfamiliar words or terms, and word guessing (Savignon, 1997).Rachmawaty & Hermagustiana, Retelling Technique  7

From the abovementioned discussion, we come up with a conclusion 

that the research subjects or the participants have applied various strategies 

in the retelling process and those strategies are able to help them speak 

fluently.

CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS

Based on the research findings, we draw some conclusions as follows. 

Retelling is considered a technique which can be applied to improve students’ speaking fluency. This is indicated a number of statistical data, First,

all of the participants produced higher scores in the post-test than those in 

the pre-test. Second, before the participants used the technique of retelling, 

the mean score was 22.9, and after the treatment was given to the participants, the main score was 51.17. Third, the t-score was 7.77. This score was 

higher than the t-table, 2.571. This shows that the treatment given to the 

participants affects their speaking fluency significantly.  In addition, the 

study revealed some findings regarding the remedial students’ retelling.

First, before retelling a story in English, the students made some notes in 

which there were a list of words, phrases, or simple sentences used as a 

speaking guide. Secondly, there was a tendency of avoiding unfamiliar 

words in the texts; instead, they preferred using their own words. Additionally, from the transcripts, it is seen that that strategy was frequently used in 

retelling the stories.

In accordance with the previous conclusions, we suggest some points 

for the improvement of speaking fluency quality of English students. First, 

speaking lecturers are expected to implement the retelling technique more 

often than usual in order to develop students’ speaking fluency. Second, the 

students themselves need to actively collect short stories to retell in or outside the class. This is advised to be done in pairs or groups. The last suggestion is for  researchers to carry  out further research that may  study the 

aspect of techniques or methods on students’ speaking fluency. Further studies should involve a bigger number of research subjects, be carried out in 

a longer time frame and consider the length of the text as well as the proficiency level in order that the more valid and generalizable findings can be 

gained. http://journal.teflin.org/index.php/teflin/article/view/207/149 

Abstract

Does retelling technique improve speaking fluency?

Learning a new language is an autonomous and collaborative process, learners can learn by themselves or with a teacher. According to Lindsay and Knight (2006) there are five stages in the language learning process such as: input, noticing, recognizing patterns and rule making, use and rule modification and automating. The research was made up with a population of Indonesian students that are going to be English teachers, and that are supposed to skill all the stages named above and a sample of six low level students who does not speak fluently. First, the initial level of the research was determine through a pre-test the student’s skills, then the treatment which consisted on retelling stories six times, and finally a post-test to determine if the treatment was efficient. The data was analyzed through speaking transcripts to see the progress, showing that student’s fluency increased a lot by improving their vocabulary and comprehensibility.