The background of the study in this research is based on teaching speaking process, which needs media to make the lesson well. The students often get problem in expressing their idea orally. The writer introduced story maze as a medium to tell a story in speaking. Story maze is a story that consists of some pictures, and the students should tell a story based on the pictures. By using story maze, the students can create their thinking and enrich their vocabulary, so that they can tell a story easily. The writer wants to make the students interested in studying English.
This research is aimed of finding the answer to the following research questions:
1. How is the students’ speaking skill before the treatment?
2. How is the students’ speaking skill after the treatment?
3. Is the application of story maze as a medium can increase students’ speaking skill?
The research methodology was an experimental research. This research was held in SMP Muhammadiyah 8 Mijen, Semarang. The population in this research was the eight grade students of SMP Muhammadiyah 8 Semarang. Writer took two of four classes; they were VIII A as a control class and VIII B as an experiment class. Writer used observation and test to collect data. In conducting the test, the students tell a story one by one in front of class about three minutes. In analyzing data, writer used T-Test. It was used to determine whether there was a significant difference between students’ score in experimental class and students’ score in control class.
After the data had been analyzed by using t-test, it was found that the average score of pre-test were 48.4286 for experimental class and 48.0000 for control class. While, the average score of post-test were 66.8571 for experimental class and 60.4248 control class. The obtained t-test was 3.5335, whereas the t-table was 1.6736 for a = 5%. The t-test score was higher than the t-table (3.5335 > 1.6736). It was meant that Ha was accepted while Ho was rejected. Since t-test score was higher than the t-table, story maze was effective media in increasing students’ speaking skill in SMP Muhammadiyah 8 Semarang.