Retelling as a Strategy in Enhancing Students’ Reading Comprehension of Recount Text; A Classroom Action Research

ABSTRACT


IINTRODUCTION
The current curriculum English teaching goal is to guide students to be able to communicate either orally or in writing in all language skills.In general, the 2013 curriculum aims to prepare Indonesians to live as individuals and citizens who are faithful, creative, productive, effective, and innovative, and capable of contributing to the life of society, nation, and state, as well as world civilization (Hermawati et al 2023).
As a result, understanding the meaning in functional texts and short essays such as descriptive and recount fluently and acceptably in the context of daily life is especially important for teaching English in accordance with the 2013 curriculum.Furthermore, it is necessary to comprehend meaning in short essays in the form of recount and narrative in order to interact with the environment fluently and acceptably.Because understanding text is critical, students should learn more about it, particularly recount text, which is a text that tells the reader or listener what happened in the past through a sequence of events (Sukma, 2015).Readers can gain life experience by reading about the past.According to Hyland (2004), as cited by Krishnapatria et al (2019), the recount is a social genre that retells events to provide information or entertainment.Students must understand the structure of this type of text in order to grasp the meaning of the text.The orientation, series of events, and reorientation are the generic structures of recount texts (Aprilina et al., 2022).
Based on her experience teaching English, the teacher noticed that the majority of the eighth-grade students at MTs Bustanul Ulum struggled to understand the recount text.As previously stated, recount is the first short essay introduced at the start of the semester.They frequently struggled to understand and complete the teacher's assignments.It was clear from their responses to the questions.They frequently copied the passage directly, without understanding the questions or the passage's content.As a result, they included all sentences in their answer sheet when answering the questions.In this study, the researchers attempted to analyze the factors that caused the problems that occurred, and the factors that were analyzed served as the foundation for selecting the strategy in this study.The first factor is the students' lack of vocabulary knowledge, motivation, and interest.During reading activities, the researcher observed that most students lacked knowledge of word and sentence structure.As a result, they are unable to gather certain information from the English text being read.When asked to describe what they had read, many of them were unable to do so.It demonstrated that they read the text without comprehending it.In another situation, when the teacher asked them to complete reading assignments, they were unable to respond.They were unable to successfully complete the task.As a result, most of the students tended to mimic their peers' work.In fact, their English subject score was low, and their ability was quite disappointing.After that, they lose interest in reading.The teacher frequently advised students to bring a dictionary to help them find the meaning of difficult words.In fact, only a few of them were eager to bring it.As a result, many of them were passive during Others were conversing with their friends, resting their heads on the table, or doing something.As a result, they frequently submitted their tasks incompletely.They didn't know how to find the answer in the passage and lacked vocabulary.These circumstances led the students to believe that reading provided no pleasure or benefit to them.That is why they were bored and had no desire to engage in reading activities.These poor conditions had an impact on the students' ability to learn language, particularly reading.
The final issue comes from the teacher.Previously, the teacher had used a group discussion strategy to teach reading, but the students' performance was still unsatisfactory.In this strategy, not all students participated in the discussion, with the remainder either talking or remaining silent.The majority of the students were overly reliant on their peers.As a result, the group discussion did not go smoothly.The students' ability to comprehend reading recount text did not improve significantly because of these learning and teaching activities.
Recognizing the phenomenon and theory described above, the researchers, a teacher, and her colleague, desired to develop an appropriate strategy for teaching recount text reading.Alternative strategies for providing adequate practice and participation for students in learning and teaching activities in the classroom should be used.It is consistent with the k-13 curriculum expectation that the teacher be able to create and provide numerous alternative strategies to make the students more active than the teacher.The description of these conditions influenced students' achievement in recount text reading comprehension.As a result, the researchers are interested in assisting students in developing reading skills so that they can improve their reading comprehension, particularly on recount text.As a result, conducting classroom action research using the retelling strategy is worthwhile.Some research on the effects of retelling-based reading programs indicates that retelling is an effective tool for improving students' overall text comprehension and their ability to recall entire texts (Rudiawan & Jupri, 2020).Retelling is defined by Morrow (1989) in Defrioka (2015) as post reading or post listening recalls in which readers or listeners tell what they remember either orally or in writing.This procedure enables students to relate story events and comprehend the text's content.
Students must read the passage thoroughly and write down as much as they remember what they have read in their own words when using the retelling strategy.Furthermore, as stated by Defrioka (2015), retelling assists teachers in determining the level of comprehension of what students listen to or read.Students practice their writing, speaking, and listening skills with this strategy.Therefore, the researcher and collaborator believe that this strategy can overcome students' difficulties in understanding recount text because it allows students to recall the story in the text.As a result, it is hoped that the retelling strategy contributes positively to the improvement of students' reading ability in comprehending recount text.

RESEARCH METHOD
This study is called classroom action research.Pelton (2010:3) the text was too difficult for them.The students' difficulties are reflected in their reading test scores.Their recount reading test score did not meet the minimum criteria for achievement (MCA).The researchers discovered that only 7 students (or 23.3%) passed the MCA, while 23 students (or 76.7%) failed.According to the test results, students' English subject scores at grade 8.4 did not meet the MCA.At MTs Bustanul Ulum, the MCA for English is 7,5.In fact, students' reading comprehension of recount text is low, and they struggled with language features such as vocabulary (synonym, word meaning), re-ference, and inference(Iriana, 2018), as well as understanding the generic and social function of recount.The researcher attempted to analyze the problems by looking at the facts listed above.A variety of factors influence the success of teaching and learning reading comprehension.Students' reading comprehension is influenced by factors other than the students themselves.It is also consistent with a study conducted by Lazarus (2020), which was cited by Rojas (2022), which revealed socio-demographic factors influencing reading comprehension among students, such as school social environment, type of school, and gender of learners.According to Suwanaroa (2021), the factors influencing students' reading comprehension are vocabulary, understanding, grammar, personal experience, students' attitude, teaching and learning in the classroom, and family support.
Only a few students were actively participating in the reading discussion.
defines classroom action research as a systematic approach to improving teaching practices.Action research is a type of applied research that can be used to examine specific issues or address problems in the classroom, school, or society.It is appropriate in facilitating this research because the goal of this research is to improve students' reading comprehension of recount text.This research was carried out in several steps, which are plan, action, observation, and reflection.Eighth-grade students of Mts Bustanul Ulum especially Grade VIII.4 participated in this research because they got problem in understanding recount text, and they need a solution for better improvement.Grade VIII.4 had 30 students.Because this is classroom action research, the researchers used two cycles and the instruments used in this process were task, test, observation, and interview.Task and test were used to find the students' score improvement, then observation and interview were used to find factors causing its improvement.The researchers used both qualitative and quantitative data analysis to analyze the information gathered.DISCUSSION Regarding the research findings obtained over two cycles, the answer to two research questions was revealed."To what extent can a retelling strategy improve students' reading comprehension of recount texts in MTs Bustanul Ulum, Pekanbaru, grade VIII.4?" "What factors influence the students' reading comprehension of recount texts at Grade VIII.4 of MTs Bustanul Ulum, Pekanbaru?"These two inquiries had been satisfactorily addressed.The following is a more in-depth explanation: The first answer