INSTITUT PENDIDIKAN GURU KAMPUS TEMENGGONG IBRAHIM JALAN DATIN HALIMAH, 80350 JOHOR BAHRU, JOHOR DARUL TAZIM.

LGA 3103 STORIES FOR YPUNG LEARNER ESL CLASSROOM TASK 1: WRITTEN ASSIGNMENT

NAME INDEX NO. GROUP LECTURER DATE OF SUBMISSION

: MUHAMMAD HILMI BIN PARHIN : 2012121340163 : 4 PISMP TESL 4 : MADAM SOHAILA BINTI ATAN : 2ST AUGUST 2013

Discuss how stories can be used to exploit childrens aesthetic, linguistic, cognitive and moral development. In writing the essay, you should also provide examples of appropriate stories and suitable activities that could be used for this purpose.

The teaching of English to children has become especially important in recent years. One of the recent approaches in primary English language teaching methods is "the Theory of Multiple Intelligences" (Gardner, 1993, 2000). Literature is an expression of life through the medium of language and in the ESL classroom it is often seen as an authentic means of learning the target language. A literatureenriched curriculum not only helps learners improve their reading and writing skills but more importantly helps them internalize grammar and vocabulary. Stories are the best way to integrate learning with much purpose such as to be exploit childrens aesthetic, linguistic, cognitive and moral development. To really discuss how stories can exploit these aspects, we must know what really are they? Linguistic is the study of the nature, structure, and variation of language,
including phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, sociolinguistics, and pragmatics. Aesthetic here meaning to be concerned with beauty and art and the understanding of beautiful things. Meanwhile cognitive bring the definition of the mental process of knowing, including aspects such as awareness, perception, reasoning, and judgment. Lastly, moral development is to b or concerned with the judgment of the goodness or badness of human action and character: moral scrutiny; a moral quandary. (Oxford Advance Learners Dictionary,2010). These aspect are essential to be developed by stories are because we use language to express inner thoughts and emotions, make sense of complex and abstract thought, to learn to communicate with others, to fulfill our wants and needs, as well as to establish rules and maintain our culture. help develop language and children's imagination to cope with stress or a break from daily routines to relax. Stories somehow help children think, make decisions, form judgments, values and teach children about art through picture book illustrations. I choose the story of The Xenophobic Xylophone by Wong Ching Hsia. This book is for level 1 student. This is due to the simple content, some enhanced vocabulary with simple, direct word and sentences. Good flow of story, with excellent illustrations which describe the story, this book is can be used to exploit language development in student. Some appropriate exercise and activity such as syllable counting which directions to the

student: "We're going to clap syllables. Bean has one syllable but beanstalkhas two syllables. How many syllables do you hear in '____'?" Another one is Sample stimulus items. Example from the story; fun, hunting, play, music. Teacher can also have the syllable deletion exercise. Directions to the student: "We're going to leave out syllables (or parts of words).From the story, Say '____' (word) without '____', " (syllable) (e.g." "Say 'Butterflies' without 'butter'. ") Learning to read does not begin when oral language is complete. Rather, oral language acquisition leads the way to written language. Among the most basic cognitive skills are perception, attention, imitation, and memory. Childrens ability to retain memories increases over time, and they learn strategies to help with remembering, for example, practicing what they want to remember. The ability to combine cognitive skills helps children to expand their learning. This is related to Blooms Taxonomy cognitive domain (1956) of remembering, understanding, applying, analysing, evaluating, and lastly creating. Teacher can ask the student to recall som eof repeating sentences or language structure in the story such as the birds slept in their nest, the dogs slept in their kennel. This will enhance ones memory. Creating the taxonomy will test the childrens creativity and high order thinking skills. Another skills is to ask students to create an alternate endings for the story. In this process, children will brainstrom ideas with their imagination and cracking cognitive development in healthy participation of learning. Besides that, the story of the Miserable Moon can be related to their social life as growing children. Stories can be exploit childrens aesthetic, linguistic, cognitive and moral development. "Pictures can communicate much to us, and particularly much of visual significance - but only if words focus them, tell us what it is about them that might be worth paying attention to. it is not accidental that we speak of 'visual literacy', of the 'grammar' of pictures, of 'reading' pictures. Reading pictures for narrative meaning is a matter of applying our understanding of words" (Nodelman, 1988.) Children make meaning by blending information gathered from the visual images as well as from hearing the text. Marie Clay (1995) notes that many children learn how to read by interpreting the pictures that accompany the text in picture books and not using the written word as the guide. For a good example, The Miserable Moon by Wong Ching Hsia portrayed many illustrations accordance with the text and flow of story, an ease for children to interpret and as a guide for them to learn enjoyable story thus recognize symbols and picture with the text that they do not understand. Activity can be done to this is to draw their own picture or do choral reading in class. With theme of Nature, children draw and appreciate their art thus the subject nature itself.

Another very important theme that childrens stories tend to relay is the idea of morality. In this way, the stories are used to showcase principles like integrity and wisdom in a way thats easy for children to digest. Don't let your special character and values, the secret that you know and no one else does, the truth - don't let that get swallowed up by the great chewing complacency. (Aesop, N.D). Teacher can teach children life lesson outside their experiences using stories and appropriate activity like role play and playing games. The story of The Xenophobic Xylophone appears to be an excellent story for teaching the value acceptance of others. Different students can play the characters, and the dialog to be memorized is limited. The story essentially demonstrates the acceptance of other musical instrument to the xenophobic xylophone. This is related to Lawrence Kohlberg's (1969) paradigm of moral development. An advantage of this breaking out of the process of moral perception, judgment, and decision is that it shows the complexity of getting from a perception of a moral issue to appropriate action.

In conclusion, children have an innate love of stories. Stories create magic and a sense of wonder at the world. Stories teach us about life, about ourselves and about others. Storytelling is a unique way for students to develop an understanding, respect and appreciation for other cultures, and can promote a positive attitude to people from different lands, races and religions.
(1080 Words)

Reference

1. Chitravelu, 2007. ELT Methodolgy. Principles and Practice 2 nd edition. Oxford Fajar. 2. Robert Fulghum (1937). Everyday rules for behavior: Mothers requests to young children.Developmental Psychology, 3. Oxford Advance Learners Dictionary,2010 4. Hay, D. F. (2006). Yours andmine: Toddlers talk about possessions with familiar peers.British Journal of Developmental Psychology 5. Nodelman, 1988, Some attributes of adjectives used by young children. Cognition, 6. Ramsey, P. G. (1987). Possession episodes in young childrens social interactions. Journal of Genetic Psychology 7. Gardner, H. 1993. Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences. (Second Edition). London: Falmer Press. 8. Gardner, H. 2000. Multiple Intelligences: The Theory in Practice. (Second Edition). Alexandria, VA: ASCD 9. Garvie, E. 1990. Story as Vehicle. Clevedon: Multilingual matters. 10. Hester, H. 1983. Stories in the Multilingual Primary Classroom. London: ILEA. 11. Krashen, S. 1981. Second language Acquisition and Second Language Learning. Oxford: Pergamon.