Using fairy tales to motivate studenta interesrts and the effectiveness in learning writing

DEPARTMENT OF THANH HOA EDUCATION AND TRAINING DIVISION OF NGOC LAC EDUCATION AND TRAINING THE EXPERIENCED INITIATIVE USING FAIRY TALES TO MOTIVATE STUDENTS’INTERESTS AND THE EFFECTIVENESS IN LEARNING WRITING Performer: Đàm Thị Thúy Position: Teacher School unit: Kien Tho Secondary School Field: English THANH HOA, 2016 Part I Introduction Statements of the problem Writing is one of the four skills in learning English It is a big obstacle to not only teachers but students as well; especially students come from mountainous areas where the learning equipment and conditions is far too inadequate Moreover, writing skills need lots of requirements such as grammatical rules, vocabulary, creative, imagination, etc It is true that many language teachers have difficulties to find good ways which are not only interesting but also challenging enough to encourage students to learn writing Most of the learners consider that they usually meet troubles in mastering writing skills Normally, they feel writing lessons create a boring and monotonous classroom atmosphere which can discourage language learners from participating actively during the teaching-learning process Moreover, students of Kien Tho Secondary School mainly come from countryside, thus the learning environment is not beneficial for them to practice their language skills This has a great influence on students’ competence In order to actively engage language learners in the learning process, teachers should provide a supportive environment in which students can learn language skills in a meaningful context Giving students real-life situations in which the language is used naturally will stimulate them to express their ideas and raise their motivation in learning In other words, their critical thinking and participation will eventually increase Once, when teaching the fairy tales “The lost shoe” and “How the tiger got his stripes” in the text book English 8, issued by Vietnam Education Publishing House, I found that most of the students became much eager and interested in learning As a result, the writing lesson was no longer stressful and my students were more than willing to the writing tasks That is because fairy tales help enhance the memory, stimulate the imagination and emotions and associate ideas In addition, fairy tales are short enough and also rich in terms of vocabulary, less grammatically and syntactically complex than many other forms of text in order to keep students interested in writing not only simple sentences but the whole passage as well Furthermore, according to King (2001: 2), “stories encourage students’ participation and student-centered learning; students may not only interact with each story through a series of right-brain activities, but stories also have an exponential quality in that they stimulate the telling of more stories” Finally, these stories are so closely familiar that they can be adaptable to many types of students with different levels Although fairy tales are not widely used in the English curriculum in secondary schools, they are very interesting, understandable and useful in developing students’ language skills in class The results of this initiative will bring practical benefits to teaching English, especially teaching writing Firstly, the initiative will bring insights into the writing skill development of students in the 8th class at Kien Tho Secondary School in Ngoc Lac Secondly, the initiative will help me suggest a better way to improve students’ writing skills in certain contexts Thirdly, the initiative will prove that fairy tales as an aid increase the effectiveness of teaching writing skill for students Finally, the initiative will be a helpful suggestion to make students keen on learning and the writing lessons will be more interesting and effective In short, using of fairy tales in teaching writing is an effective way of enhancing learner’s ability to develop practical and creative skills Not only will students be developing their writing while writing their own fairy tales, but they will have comfortable and enjoyable moments as a useful motivation during the lesson as well That is why I have decided on choosing “Using fairy tales to motivate students’ interests and effectiveness in learning writing ” as the topic of my experienced initiative Objectives of the study Being a secondary school teacher, I realize that most of my students face many problems in learning writing This is due to the fact that writing lessons are so boring and difficult that students often feel tired and stressed Therefore, it is essential for a teacher to find out effective teaching methods to make the lessons more interesting and understandable so that s/he can attract students’ attention and help them improve their writing proficiency as well That is why the objectives of my initiative are: - To raise students’ interests and find out the effectiveness of using fairy tales in learning writing - To make suggestions to using fairy tales in teaching writing The setting and subjects of the study The study has been conducted on the 60 eighth-grade students at Kien Tho Secondary School in Thanh Hoa where I have been teaching They all come from rural area and have two-year experience in learning English, therefore, the difference of their writing competence level is not considerable Unlike the English instruction program for the th and 7th graders, the 8th ones have to study language skills separately Because of the difficulty and the complexity of a great amount of knowledge of vocabulary, grammar rules, syntax and so forth, writing skill is normally assigned in the end of each unit in the textbook In the first term of the eighth grade, students have studied some familiar fairy tales like “The lost shoe” and “How the tiger got his stripes” which were translated into Vietnamese Therefore, it is helpful for them to understand and analyze and employ these stories into different tasks of writing such as completing the passage, giving the correct forms of verbs, writing up sentences, writing a summary or another ending for the story Methods and data collection instruments The initiative aims at exploring students’ opinions about using fairy tales and their effectiveness in teaching writing and measuring the writing activities for students through fairy tales, therefore I tend to use the interview, questionnaires and tests as useful tools for my study The combination of different instruments used in this initiative would help to gain reliable data and help me have a positive result in the subjects’ development * Questionnaires The questionnaire has been conducted to reach two aims First of all, it focuses on collecting the students’ viewpoints or attitudes toward fairy tales And the other emphasis is on surveying the effectiveness of using writing techniques with fairy tales that students can get in the classroom * Interviews Through the questionnaire, I have carried out some interviews to find out the reasons for students’ choices In order to obtain students’ opinion concerning the use of story, then students were interviewed later to express their ideas or reasons for their choices *Tests Test items are the main tools used for data collection as primary sources to measure how students develop their writing skills The tools are used to elicit the data involve one pre-test and two post-tests PART II DEVELOPMENT Theoretical basis 1.1.Overviews of writing and teaching writing 1.1.1 Writing and teaching writing Writing is a complex process with a lot of requirements of grammatical features, the sounds, syllables or words of language, capitalization, spelling and punctuation, word form and function, etc Writing is often revised by writing sentences, paragraphs or longer compositions using recently learned grammar Thus, it takes writers much time and effort to practice writing skills According to Nunan (1989: 36), …[W]riting is an extremely complex cognitive activity in which the writer is required to demonstrate control of variables simultaneously At the sentence level, these include control of contents, formats, sentence structures, vocabulary, spelling and letter formation Beyond the sentence, the writer must be able to structure and integrate information into cohesive and coherent paragraphs and texts Besides, writing requires writers to commit words or ideas and to convent ideas, think about how to express them, and organize them into statements and paragraphs The writers have to generate ideas, organize, draft, edit, read, re4 read to produce a product, a paragraph, an essay or a report and writers try to express their ideas, feelings to impress their readers in certain ways 1.1.2 The purposes for teaching writing According to Foong (1999: 3-5), there are three purposes to teach writing The first is “writing for language practice” Writing can be taught primarily for practicing language forms to develop accuracy and correctness Practicing can via the imitation That is using models of content or form as a stimulus for writing This is applied to language learning in which accurate use of the language was learned through reinforcement, constant practice and imitation In such language-based writing tasks, students will be given writing exercises that will reinforce language structures that they have learned through the manipulation of grammatical patterns The second is “writing for communication” With the emphasis of communicative competence as a goal in language learning (Widdowson, 1978; Brumfit and Johnson, 1979), teaching of writing begins to shift its emphasis on accuracy and patterns to the ability to understand and convey information content Everything such as ideas, opinions, thoughts or anything else, what a writer need to express without being used through spoken form, can be shown in written texts to inform to readers Obviously, these written texts, at that time, should be considered as a means of communication between a writer and his/ her audiences The communicative writing tasks, which require greater awareness of writer's purpose, audience, and the context of writing, would stimulate real life situations where a writer would write to convey some information to a reader The last is “writing as a discovery and cognitive process” Writing is viewed as an expressive mode through which writers use writing as a means to explore and discover meaning for themselves and develop their own voice In order to enhance their imagination ability and creativity, students or writers should be encouraged to generate their own ideas by writing freely Free writing is able to develop fluency and the writer's creation The role of the teacher is a facilitator whose task is to promote a supportive learning environment This environment provides learners with opportunities to write about their own ideas and discover their voices rather than act as a judge whose task is to identify students' errors 1.1.3 Approach in teaching English writing Normally, a writing process is taught in three stages with different activities which are classified as follows: Stages Pre-writing While- writing 1.2 Post-writing Activities Reading (extensively) a passage Skimming or scanning a passage Brainstorming Discussing a topic or questions • Controlled writing: Gap-filling sentences/paragraphs Sequencing jumbled words Transformation writing Completing sentences Parallel sentences • Guided writing: Questions & answers Writing based on cued words Writing based on provided information • Free writing: Writing about pictures Writing in response to a situation Writing with background knowledge Feedback & correction Revising Editing Evaluating T O ve rv ie w s of fairy tales 1.2.1 Definition of fairy tales There are a lot of different definitions of fairy tales Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines “a fairy tale as a story (as for children) involving fantastic forces and beings (as fairies, wizards, and goblins) – called also fairy story; a story in which improbable events lead to a happy ending” According to Kinsella, …[A] fairy tale is one type of story under the heading of "folk tales." There are many types of folktales: a tall tale, a cumulative tale, an animal story Sometimes, people use the term folktale and fairy tale to mean the same thing A fairy tale is a folktale, but a folktale is not always a fairytale Fairy tales often have some sort of royalty involved in the story (including the fairy realm); the main character (s) goes on a journey where he/she is tested; they have some sort of magical help along the way; good triumphs over evil; there is a transformation or reward at the end They usually start with "a long time ago, in a place far away" and end "happily ever after." 1.2.2 The elements of fairy tales To understand a fairy tale, students need to analyze or clear these elements: 1) Plot: The plot is a writer’s arrangement of events that will express his attitude toward the human condition 2) Setting: The time, place and the origin of main characters of a fairy tale are very clear Without them the story would be vagueness 3) Characterization: How the writer reveals what will relate to the characters to the reader 4) Theme: It contains an idea of the story The theme is something that can be derived from the story, like moral 5) Point of View: The narrative technique that the writer uses to tell the story In other words, who is telling the story? 1.2.3 The advantages of fairy tales Fairy tales are stories related to children’s childhood memories These stories captivate the imagination of young minds and enhance their creativity and reasoning skills Thus they are not only useful in the classroom but also in real life Students might not explicitly comprehend the issues involved, but will absorb the lesson deep in the subconscious and find the joys while learning with fairy tales due to these following benefits: “Fairy tales are enjoyable but meaningful” (Hanlon, 1999) They signify human experience, values, and history; hence they can provide both entertainment and opportunities for further discussion They set as an excellent example of the multifaceted mixture of history and fantasy Moreover, they can be analyzed in short essays as well as in some more complicated research Because of their universal values, similar plots and values, most people find it easy to remember fairy tales Fairy tales are short enough This advantage has added more opportunities to use fairy tales in language classroom since teachers not have to be afraid of adjusting most of their lesson plans when using fairy tales Alternatively, teachers can assign their students to read them at home before further discussion in the next meeting Fairy tales are rich in terms of language yet less grammatically complex and syntactically speaking than many other forms of literature Their simplicity has made fairy tales consistent in style and form 1.2.4 The role of fairy tales in teaching and learning English Fairy tales usually consist of a great source of vocabulary, grammar structures and syntax And in addition to that fairy tales contain interesting topics to keep students interested long enough to the lessons Fairy tales help children notice language areas such as past tenses, adjectives, comparatives and etc Teachers could use passages from the fairy tale to point out grammatical features For example, to ask students to find irregular verbs, to write down all adjectives or to locate the words and phrases that indicates position in place or time Texts with continuous meanings are more authentic than the connected sentences which are often used as examples in grammar books Story books often contain extended examples of dialogue that use a wide variety of punctuation marks, in more natural context than is possible in grammar exercise books Word-order can be taught through reading fairy tales as well 1.2.5 The role of fairy tales to writing process Writing is not the only important thing that comes out of teaching fairy tales Fairy tales teach students analytical skills Stories often have familiar structure and plot can create a supportive context for learning about the writing process, building students' background knowledge In the lessons, students will explore the concepts of beginning, middle, and ending by reading a variety of stories and charting the events on storyboards As they retell the stories, students are encouraged to make use of sequencing words (first, so, then, next, after that, finally) Starting with prewriting questions and a storyboard, students construct original stories, progressing from shared writing to guided writing; independent writing is also encouraged Stories give students insights and help them write in second language in a more imaginative way Students become more creative by comparing their own point of view with that/ those of the main character(s) of the story Whenever students read, they interact with the text By interacting with the text, they interpret what they read By interpreting what they read, they can work toward writing English more creatively The existing state of problems before using fairy tales in teaching writing skills 2.1 Students’ condition and factors cause difficulties in teaching and learning writing 2.1.1.Students’ condition Most of the Kien Tho Secondary School students, who are the subjects in this study are in grade 8, come from mountainous area They not have good conditions in order to join extra lessons Especially, they almost not care much about study English In addition, students hardly have much time to practice writing in class The biggest difficulty most of the students meet is poorly combining the knowledge of grammar, word forms, etc, to write up sentences or a passage, a paragraph Above all, most of them are not interested in learning writing because of lots of synthetic requirements of vocabulary, grammar, imagination, etc in writing skills 2.1.2 Factors There are so many factors cause difficulties for learners in writing such as the inadequacy of vocabulary, grammar rules, the weakness in generating ideas, etc Besides, students’ first language affects learning the target language as one of the other important factors This is why students make certain mistakes and repeat them In general, there some factors cause difficulties in writing as follows: a The teaching method and the environment are the main causes of students’ weaknesses in English In fact, teachers’ weak qualification in English has a great influence in students’ results An inappropriate method will lose learners’ motivation and interest in the lesson b The limitation of vocabulary Vocabulary plays an important role in generating writers’ ideas Without words, writers hardly express their thoughts in mind, but they normally repeat the same words This hinders their creativity and makes monotonous writings Apparently, students couldn’t give voice to their thoughts because of the inadequate stock of vocabulary c English language learners don’t use invented spelling and their written texts are restricted to words which they know d The inflexibility in using tenses Most of the learners, especially, those who have elementary level, tend to use the present tense in their writing e The illness of grammar rules Writing skills obviously require a qualified knowledge of grammar such as spelling, punctuation, the combination of tenses, cohesion, cohesive, etc f Students not realize their own mistakes because of not getting suitable feedback from their partners or teachers 2.2 The result of a survey before teaching writing skills with fairy tales To measure students’ proficiency in learning writing, I carried out testing on 60 eighth-grade students by a test Thanks to the result of this test, I can identify what the most weakness is that students meet in writing Pre- test - Time allotment: 45 minutes Part Write a short passage about your idol Use the following questions as prompts - Who is your idol? - What does he/ she look like? - What is he/ she like? - Why you love him/ her? Part Read the passage about Ba’s friendship in the textbook at page 13, then write another end for the story Students’ result in writing before learning with fairy tales The data in the pre-test shows that most of the students (account for 56%) were at medium proficiency level with the scores from to 6.5 Only 10 students (account for 17%) reached the points from to 8.5 Whereas, no one could gain or 10 point, among 60 subjects who were quite bad at writing score below An investigation and interview later with these students has proved that there are many factors influenced on their low scores in writing The main factor is student’s motivation Moreover, the topics for writing before conducting with fairy tales in the pre-test are not interesting enough to appeal them to activities Other elements that decide to students’ scores are the poorness of vocabulary, grammar rules and ideas for writing Especially, in the topics in the pre-test, students’ creativity was limited Procedure and solutions I conducted this study on three steps ` Step 1: I have designed a close questionnaire to investigate about a, Students’ background information, Question 1: How was students’ ability of writing skills with options for students choose (good/ rather good/ medium/ bad) b, Students’ attitudes toward fairy tales Question 2: What you think of writing skills? (Difficult/ rather difficult/ easy) Question 3: How you prefer to use fairy tales into writing lessons? (like very much/ like/ dislike) Question 4: What are aspects cause difficulties for you during the writing process? (unable to find ideas/ limited vocabulary/ the influence of writing style in the first language/ poor grammar structure) Question 5: What are beneficial elements of fairy tales you may get? (familiar plot of story/ interesting topics/ understandable language/ simple grammar structure/ colorful images, others) c, The effectiveness of stories on writing learning process of 60 students from two classes Question 6: Which activities did you usually in writing lessons with fairy tales? (guessing vocabulary in the context/ discussing the plot of story/ answering comprehension questions/ writing with provided information/ creating the end of the story, others) Question 7: What were your reactions after using fairy tales into writing lessons? (my writing is unchangeable/ I feel more enjoyable and comfortable/ my grammar structure is consolidated/ my vocabulary is enriched/ my writing is better and more creative, others) Step 2: Base on the results from the survey, I would like to introduce some suggestions to select suitable stories and how to apply these stories into teaching a writing lesson Solutions- Suggestions to using fairy tales in teaching writing Suggestion Selection of stories Selecting of stories suitably plays an important role to the effectiveness of teaching and learning process In order to please both teachers and students, 10 Stage 2: While-writing -Teacher (T) asks Ss to read the story aloud in front of the class -T gives out some exercises to practice controlled to free writing activities * Controlled writing activities: controlled writing focuses on establishing grammatical patterns, sentence structure, punctuation and word order Controlled writing exercises provide students more challenges but still limit their creation -T may tell Ss to these exercises as follows: + Controlled composition + Sentence combining + Jumbled word sequencing + Listing information For example for listing information activity: to enrich vocabulary and consolidate grammar knowledge for students in story “The lost shoe”, T may ask them to read the story again then list out some common nouns or descriptive adjectives or irregular verbs - Common nouns: mother, father, wife, daughter, famer, village, fairy, clothes, prince, festival, etc - Descriptive adjectives: poor, cruel, upset, beautiful, new, excited, etc - Irregular verbs: was, found, held, had, fell, made, went, etc + Gap-filling sentences/ stories For example: T has Ss complete the story with available words: Was grazing, was, left, said, appeared One day, as a farmer was in his field and his buffalo _nearby, a tiger The tiger wanted to know why the strong buffalo was the servant and the small man _ the master The famer _ he had something called wisdom, but he it at home that day (Adapted from English 8) • Guided writing activities: Guided writing is an instructional writing context chiefly teaching the writing process through modeling, support, and practice (Tyner, 2004) Guided writing activities are used to develop students’ skills than writing These activities may be: + Questions and Answers - After asking Ss to read the story, T should put some questions to check their comprehension For example: What was Little Pea’s new mother like? How did she feel when her father died? What happened as Little pea ran to the festival? + Writing based on cued words This kind of exercise aims at improving students’ grammar knowledge 14 For example: Little Pea/ be/ beautiful / hard- working/ girl She/ live/ father/ new cruel/ mother Fortunately/ Prince/ married/ when/ he/ find/ lost shoe + Writing based on provided information For example: Ss are told to write a short description of Little Pea These questions as prompts will help you What did she look like? What was she like? Why you like or dislike her? How did her life end? Do you think its ending is reasonable? Through controlled or guided writing activities, students will focus on consolidation both grammar rules and vocabulary Above all, students are able to learn how to generate ideas and develop their language proficiency in their writing • Free writing activities: In this activity, Ss may make some mistakes of using words or grammar structure However, they are completely free to express their own views or ideas By giving this task, teachers can evaluate how students develop their critical thinking in writing The activities of this step may be writing tasks with students’ background knowledge such as: - Write summary of the story in your own words - Writing another end of story - Writing your own story - State your ideas about story/ a character For example: Students can give their ideas about the story “The lost shoes” as follows: “This is a meaningful story It has a happy ending This story helps us to understand one important thing that good people like Little Pea will be rewarded and certainly, evil ones like Stout Nut’s mother and daughter will have nothing in the end” (Nguyễn Thành Phong- 8A1) - T gives a test for Ss to measure their writing development As long as teachers can measure students’ language proficiency or creativity, the testing time may be short or long and its level can be easy or a little bit difficult Stage 3: Post-writing The activities of this stage may be: • Peer feedback & correction Firstly, let Ss re-read your writing, make sure sentences make sense Next, exchange their writing to others in the class This motivates Ss to find errors themselves • Revising: Ss should: 15 + Add phrases to make the story flow smoothly (cohesion markers, pronouns, conjunctions) + Eliminate unnecessary or redundant details + Check for spelling, vocabulary, grammar errors • Editing + Let their partners edit their writing, first and then T gives feedback and correction in order to have a perfect final draft • Evaluating + To controlled and guided writing tasks, T should focus on the ability of correctly spelling and using of grammar rules and vocabulary +To free writing tasks, teacher should not pay at attention much to the length of sentence or numbers of word or grammar and vocabulary errors in students’ writing because of their elementary level Instead, T should evaluate their idea generation and creativity ability + To testing activity: T can compare the result of the tests to the ones students did before This aims at measuring the effectiveness of using fairy tales compared to other texts in writing learning Step 3: After applying fairy tales in teaching writing, I have conducted on a group of 60 students as experimental samples who are chosen randomly to two tests (two post-tests) The results of the two post-tests are compared each other in order to evaluate students’ progress • Post-test - Time allotment: 45 minutes Part Write a short passage about your favorite fairy character Use the following questions as prompts - Who is your favorite fairy character? - What does he/ she look like? - What is he/ she like? - Why you love him/ her? Part Read the story “the lost shoe” in the textbook at page 41, then write another end for the story • Post- test - Time allotment: 45 minutes - Read the story “The lost shoe” again and write a short description (5 sentences) to express your opinion about Little Pea (What you think about Little Pea?/ explain why you love or hate her?) • The results of the two post-tests After finishing two post-tests, I have gained the positive results as follow: 16 Students’ score progress in comparison between post-test and post- test Surprisingly, the results in two post-tests indicate that the drop of percentage of students from 36% in the pre-test ( before using fairy tales in teaching writing) to 7% in the post-test and 0% in the post-test at below point is quite remarkable Conversely, it is interesting that the increase in number of students reached at grades from to 8.5 and to 10 is rather significant The number of students reached up 44 (account for 73%) in the posttest and 46 (account for 77%) in the post-test To the range from to 10, the percentage of students was 7% in the post-test and 13% in the post-test although no one achieved that level before It is considered that the positive change of the scores among these tests give teachers right attitudes toward how students make progress and how the program of language instruction has been reinforced Recapitulation of the effectiveness of fairy tales and students’ improvements 4.1 Students’ attitudes toward writing skills and fairy tales As for writing skills, according to many students, not excepting language learners and researchers, it is still a great challenge The results of the survey from 60 students have revealed that the portion of students’ acknowledgement toward the difficulty of writing skills is respective (52% is for difficult level and 48% is rather difficult) This approximate percentage has been proved via 65% of the students have medium writing proficiency 4.2 The contributions of fairy tales 4.2.1 The contribution of fairy tales to classroom atmosphere According to the data from the results of the questionnaire and interviews which have been done and analyzed in the previous chapter, it can be seen that using fairy tales in teaching writing is more interesting than using other common texts Stories can make students more enjoyable in learning English in general and writing lessons in particular As mentioned to the benefits of fairy tales above, stories are short and fun enough to attract students to the lesson An investigation of students’ reaction after being taught with fairy tales has proved that most of the respondents (68%) claim they feel more enjoyable and comfortable while learning In short, with the help of fairy tales, not only is the 17 classroom atmosphere no longer boring and monotonous but students also completely get entertained to be ready to engage in writing tasks 4.2.2 The contribution of fairy tales to writing skills It is undeniable that beside grammar and vocabulary, the generation of ideas also plays a crucial role to writers’ success And factors cause difficulties to writing process namely; the limitations of vocabulary, grammar structures and ideas are more prominent In contrast, all three elements above are beneficial things of fairy tales according to the majority of respondents Therefore, it is true that stories provide a useful and motivating source of input for the kind of writing The use of stories enables learners to be more aware of the use of English language and to express their feelings, opinions and imagination more easily All these advantages of fairy tales help students master their writing skills effectively 4.3 Students’ writing improvement According to students’ reactions from the data of investigation, 52% of students claim that their writing is better and more creative And 68% of them admit they feel effective after using fairy tales into writing lessons Obviously, students have felt more confident while working with familiar texts like fairy tales That is the reason why they not feel afraid of engaging in writing tasks Moreover, stories enable students to be free to show their imagination and ideas while writing Similarly, students’ progress has also been found in the results of two post-tests A large number of students have achieved higher scores than they did in the pre-test An observation from students’ writings in these tests has indicated that students make less errors of ungrammatical words in the post-tests than they made in the pre-test Further, their creativity and idea generation in more sentence writings in the post-tests are also more remarkable In general, students’ level has increased in using the words and creating new ideas in their writings and in making fewer grammatical errors in their writing in comparison to before being taught with fairy tales Part III Conclusion Conclusions It is generally claimed that students find writing boring and uninteresting The present study has clearly revealed that this problem can be solved by using fairy tales This has proved through the result of tests and questionnaire which have been done and analyzed in the previous chapter It can be seen that almost students favored of fairy tales because of not only their potential enjoyment but their advantages such as familiar content, typical structure, simple grammar rule and plot and understandable language as well Therefore, teaching writing through fairy tales more interesting and appealing to the students It can make students more enjoyable and interested in learning English in general and in writing in particular 18 In summary, it is stated that there was a positive change in students’ writing ability after employing fairy tales into classroom This means that fairy tales have had a positive effect on their writing skill development Suggestions for further studies Despite the great efforts in performing the study, I still realize that there have existed some limitations The limitation of time is the first fact factor influence the result of the study I not have enough time to carry out the experiment with all participants Only 60 of them are picked up randomly to testing on three tests (one pre-test and two post-tests) Therefore, to some extent, the results of these students in the tests cannot be representative outcomes for all Another problem lies in the limitation of students’ mastery to suggested activities for the writing process that I have given above Because of students’ elementary level, these activities mainly aim at the consolidation of language skills such as vocabulary and grammar use and the exploitation of ideas for students rather than the fluency in writing However, I hope that this experienced initiative somehow brings beneficial ideas to language teachers to make writing teaching and learning better The results of this study also led the teachers to realize the need for language learners to have extensive opportunities to recall their childhood memory and enrich their language skills and imagination in writing Because of the advantages of stories that have been presented in the previous parts, I am thirsty for having more and more fairy tales used as useful applicable materials in the English curriculum for secondary-school students in the future For example, while teaching about the past simple tense used in making sentences, writing habits in the past, etc, to students in grade 7, or about the way to form a reported speech for students in grade 8, etc, we can use fairy tales which contain full of these grammatical features as illustrations in order to appeal students’ interests in learning process With the help of fairy tales, teachers will make the teaching learning process more enjoyable and understandable Thus, it is expected that the findings of the study on using fairy tales to motivate students’ interests and the effectiveness in learning writing will be useful suggestions for language teachers AFFIRMATION OF THE HEADMASTER Thanh Hoa, April 10, 2016 I assure that I this experienced initiative myself 19 Đàm Thị Thúy REFERENCES • Foreign authors Adas, D and Bakir, A (2013), “Writing difficulties and new solutions: blended learning as an approach to improve writing abilities”, International Journal of Humanities and Social Science Vol No Akhand, Md M and Hasan, Md K (2010), “Approaches to writing in EFL/ ESL context: balancing product and process in writing class at Tertiary Level”, Journal of NELTA Vol 15 No 1-2, 78-80 Arslan,R Ş and Zibande, S (2010), And they wrote happily ever after: fairy tales in English language writing classes, Pamukkale University Journal of Social Science Institute, 110 Bettelheim, B (1989), The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales, Vintage Books & Random House, New York Bruti, S (November, 1999), “Approaching writing skills through fairy tales”, the Internet TESL Journal, V/11 Byrne, D (1988), Teaching writing skills, Longman handbooks for language teachers, London: Longman Foong, K.P (1999), “Teaching writing: A look at purposes, writing tasks, and implications”, the English Teacher Vol XXVIII, 3-5 Hanlon, T L (1999), General Guidelines for Teaching with Folk Tales, Fairy Tales, Fables, Ballads, and Other Short Works of Folklore retrieved July 2013 King, I (2001) Beyond Cinderella: using stories with secondary and adult learners BETA- IATEFL retrieved 12 June 2013, http://www.betaiatefl.org/813/blogpublications/beyond-cinderella-using-storiessecondary-adult-learners Language and Linguistic Studies, 4(2), 20 10 Kirkgoz, Y (2012), Incorporating short stories in English language classes, Research on Youth and Language, 6(2),110-125 11 Nunan, D (1989), Understanding Language Classrooms: A Guide for Teacher-initiated Action New York: Prentice Hall, 36 • Vietnamese authors 12 Hoang Van Van (2007), “Innovations in teaching writing skills to students of English in Vietnamese upper-secondary schools”, VUN Journal of science, foreign language, T.XXIII, No1 13 Nguyen Bang and Nguyen Ba Ngoc (2002), A course in TEFL: theory and Practice, Nat ional University Press • Online sources 14 http://www.marilynkinsella.org/ /Fractured_Fairy_Tales.htm 15 http://najmimaulana.wordpress.com/2008/07/02/snow-white Appendices Appendix 1: Questionnaire Dear my beloved students, Here are the questions in the questionnaire of my study I would love to find out more about your opinion to fairy tales and how they help you improve your writing skills Your answers will be useful data for my research on “developing students’ writing skills through fairy tales” Please stick on your choices Thanks so much for your cooperation I Students’ background information How was your ability of writing? Good Rather good Medium Bad II Students’ attitudes toward using fairy tales in learning writing What you think of writing skills? Difficult Rather difficult Easy How you prefer to fairy tales into writing lesson? Like very much Like Dislike What are the aspects cause the difficulties to writing process? Unable to find ideas Limited vocabulary The influence of writing style in first language Poor grammar structure 21 Do not get suitable feedback What are beneficial elements of fairy tales? Familiar plot of story Interesting topics Understandable language Simple grammar structures Colorful pictures III The effectiveness of fairy tales to teaching writing Which activities did you usually in writing lesson with fairy tales? Guessing vocabulary in the context Discussing the plot of story Answering comprehension questions Writing with provided information Creating the end of the story Summarizing the main points of the story What were your reactions after using fairy tales into writing lesson? My writing is unchangeable I feel more enjoyable, comfortable and effective while writing Studying is ineffective My grammar structure is consolidated My vocabulary is enlarged My imagination ability is better My writing is better and more creative Which marks did you get in the pre-test and two post-tests? Pre-test Post-test Post-test under under under 5->6.5 5->6.5 7->8.5 7->8.5 7->8.5 9->10 9->10 9->10 5->6.5 22 Appendix 2: Test items I Pre- test Time allotment: 45 minutes Part Write a short passage about your idol Use the following questions as prompts - Who is your idol? - What does he/ she look like? - What is he/ she like? - Why you love him/ her? ………………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………… Part Read the passage about Ba’s friendship in the textbook at page 13, then write another end for the story ………………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………… II Post-test Time allotment: 45 minutes Part Write a short passage about your favorite fairy character Use the following questions as prompts - Who is your favorite fairy character? - What does he/ she look like? - What is he/ she like? - Why you love him/ her? ………………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………… 23 Part Read the story “the lost shoe” in the textbook at page 41, then write another end for the story ………………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………… III Post- test Time allotment: 45 minutes • Read the story “The lost shoe” again and write a short description (5 sentences) to express your opinion about Little Pea (What you think about Little Pea?/ explain why you love or hate her?) ………………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………… 24 Appendix 3: Writing assessment criteria Criteria Organization of content (clarity, coherence, paragraph development) Range (grammatical structures, vocabulary) Complexity of sentence structures Accuracy of grammar (tense, agreement), sentence structures (word order, connectives, etc.), spelling and punctuation Fluency (feel for the language appropriateness, use of idioms, etc.) (Adapted from Hedge’s writing assessment criteria, 2000) Base on Hedge’s writing assessment criteria above, the researcher suggests particular criteria for each grade level as follows: Total mark (10) Levels 9-10 Excellent 7-8.5 Good 5-6.5