Speaking English will be easy to learn by the students, if the students read short story before. From reading short story, the students can learn speaking, and it is can make their speaking improved. In this research, the writer uses the short story as the treatment to students of the third grade at SMP N 21 Samarinda. Reading short stories as the media to improve their speaking retell the chain story. And it can make interest of the students in speaking English.
The purpose of the study is to know the effect of reading short story on students’ speaking ability for the third grade at SMP N 21 Samarinda.
The design of this study is pre-experimental study. Pre-experimental design is selected because this study uses one group pretest posttest. The writer gave reading short story as the treatments. The population of study is the third grade students of SMP N 21 Samarinda in academic years 2008/2009. The writer gave pretest to the students before they were given the treatment for 8 times. After that, they were given posttest. The result from pretest and posttest were analyzed by using t-test to find out whether there is a significant effect of reading short story toward students’ speaking ability. In assessing students’ speaking ability, the writer uses the Clerk Four Scale Systems.
The result of the study shows that the students’ speaking ability in retell chain story of the third grade at SMP N 21 Samarinda is improved before the students did the treatment, their average score 1.525. after the students did the treatment, their average score 2.86. The result of computation of both pretest and posttest by t – test, found that 3.82 > 2.13 or computed was greater than t table.
Since t computed greater than t table, it means that the Null Hypothesis (Ho) is rejected and the Alternative hypothesis is accepted. There is a significance between pretest and posttest for the third grade at SMP N 21 Samarinda who have been taught by reading short story. The writer found that reading short story has positive effects on the students’ speaking ability.