Learn English with Stories

Prose is one of the language elements that is of course important to learn about it. Learning language through prose truly can improve students' knowledge, because it teaches about how to read comprehensively. Kinds of prose include novels, short stories, fairy tales, essays, etc. I have experiences of all those kinds that I mentioned before. I started reading when I was in kindergarten. I remember my father bought me a bilingual (English-Indonesian) story book for children back then when I was about eight year old, but unfortunately I forgot its title now. It was my very first time reading an English book. I was so excited so I immediately read the book even though I had to read the Indonesian texts as well. As I recall, it was also my first time to learn some English vocabularies for example dog, chair, sit, and smile. Years later, especially when I am majoring English education program like I do now, I realized that reading a story can improve children’s English skills. It can be said clearly that with stories, not only entertained, children will also know some vocabularies, even how to say or write something in English. 

The use of stories in learning English gives many advantages to children, especially for students in every stage. Murdoch (2002) states that stories if selected appropriately, will provide enhancement of students' skills in ELT. By reading stories, students are expected to be able to retell the stories with their own words. Besides, they can also create dialogue and portray characters in the story. Reading a story will stimulate students to think imaginatively and will help their brain to think more creatively. They need to guess what will happen next and imagine how the story will unfold, how the setting or even how the character is doing their jobs, in case the story does not have pictures on it.

Recently, I love one of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s works entitled The Little Prince. I might recommend this book for my students because it not only entertains the readers but also gives many moral values to be a person who can respect others’ perspectives. The other book is The Railway Children by E. Nesbit. I haven't finished reading it yet, but from this book I learned many new classical English words that I didn’t know before. However, for the young-age learners or the beginner students, I would recommend Dr. Seuss - Oh, The Places You'll Go! and E. B. White - Charlotte's Web. These books are suitable for children ages who are often to use their imagination and love fictional characters.

For language learning in the classroom, I will probably implement one of my ideas that is using a creative module. I will use the module that contains many kinds of text in English, but all of them are still types of stories. This time, I am targeting the beginner class. First, I choose one of the stories in the module. Then, I will guide the students to read aloud the text and ask them to underline words that they do not understand yet. Next, I ask the students to translate the story together with their friends. Lastly, I randomly ask questions which have been told in the story and I ask them to remember the vocabulary they found before. Through this activity students improve their skills in learning English. As Johnston (2015) indicates that read-aloud activity can increase the vocabulary development, enhances fluency and oral language. It is obvious because with read-aloud, students are able to listen carefully to what the messages are being conveyed. Apart from that, I also provide recording tapes containing stories and let the students listen to it. Students will be able to recognize the words which are new for them as well as understand the story well. They may be able to hazard those new words and become able to understand how the intonation is used in speaking (Lazar, 2004). Students will be accustomed to using English to express their feelings while communicating. However, I also have an idea for the young learners that is a book review. They will be given one month to finish one English book they love. After that, they will fill the review form based on their experiences. By reviewing a literary work, they will broaden their knowledge. As Maley & Kiss (2017) state that various literary texts often deal with social, cultural and human issues which will be expanded language teaching. Therefore, learning English through literary work such as stories is highly recommended because of the many benefits it provides.

The Template of Book Review

source: Canva

References:

Johnston, V. (2015). The power of the read aloud in the age of the common core. The Open Communication Journal, 9(1).

Lazar, G. (1993). Literature and language teaching: A guide for teachers and trainers. Ernst Klett Sprachen.

Maley, A., & Kiss, T. (2017). Creativity and English language teaching: From inspiration to implementation. Springer.

Murdoch, G. (2002). Exploiting well-known short stories for language skills development. IATEFL LCS SIG Newsletter, 23, 9-17.