TANG SIEW TIEN LGA 3033EPISMP TESL SEM 4JUSTIFICATION

Language is always fun to learn but children these days are afraid to enter language classes especially the English class due to poor command or formality basis. Teachers should be creative enough to attract young learners to learn language by providing a non-threatening atmosphere. Stories are an amazing tool for teaching languages, especially to children. Stories contain authentic, natural language and are a goldmine for language teaching points like vocabulary, grammar structures which they picked up when they hear or retell the story. Choosing the correct stories can be challenging but when a teacher focuses on the correct pedagogical principles and purposes, there is no option for diverting from the path. Different genres of stories allow a teacher to be talented to use the stories creatively and effectively in English classrooms. It will be good if the teacher tells the stories by using the props. The story that I choose for my students in the primary ESL classroom is The Frog Prince which is suitable to be used in Year 3 classroom. The genre of this story is folktales. The story is suitable to be used in the primary classroom based on the KSSR English Language Curriculum Specifications. The story is under the theme World of Stories. In this story, a princess loses her favourite ball in a pond. However, a frog appears on the scene and promises to retrieve her ball if she loves him, let him lives with her, eat from off her golden plate and sleep upon her bed. Desperate to have her ball back, the princess agrees, but when the frog appears at her door the next day she is disgusted by the prospect of being honest and fulfilling her promise. But her father, the king, gives her no choice and she is compelled to carry out her promise. When the promise has been fulfilled, the frog disappears, its place being taken by a handsome prince with whom she falls in love. The princess fell in love with the prince. Grateful that she has been honest and kept her promise, even if it was on her fathers insistence, she marries the prince and they live happily ever after. The reason I choose this story is because teaching children folk stories and fairy tales offers a number of practical benefits, including sharing cultural traditions between generations and exploring important life lessons. Children develop a sense of imagination when reading and studying folktales, and retelling the tales to others helps practice important communication skills. Children learn communication skills by talking with others and by developing an interesting message to attract the attention of listeners. Retold folktales allow young people a way to practice memory skills by learning stories to share with others. Students can perform based on the story under the guidance of the teacher. Children sometimes add a unique interpretation of the story and give personality to the characters to spin the tale with a personal touch. Reading to folktales and listening to tales also helps to reinforce the child's basic listening, speaking grammar and vocabulary skills. Besides that, the pedagogical principles that can be found is the story chosen would grab the childrens attention where it will make them interested to learn more as students like folktales. The interest and needs of student is also considered as we dont want to make them feel bored or waste time which will lead to inactive classroom environment which will affect all the other pupils, so I choose story which is in genre of folktales. This will help them to add their vocabulary and knowledge. Apart from that, extremely young children accept fictional characters with special or magical skills and talents, and teaching literature through folktales helps children develop a sense of imagination. Folktales give children easy-to-follow examples of storytelling for use in their own fictional writing. Talking about folktales and teaching fairy tales in a formal classroom setting gives the teacher opportunities to explore imagination and reality with children and to discuss the difference between the two different concepts. Another one that we need to consider when selected the story is age appropriateness. As we know, the songs that have been selected must be appropriate with the age of the students. This story is suitable with the students age. This is because this story will match with the age and the maturity of the students. In their age, they will be able to enjoy the story meanwhile they will know the good personality that should be practiced. Besides that, language level is also one of the pedagogical principles. The story should neither be too difficult nor too easy for them. Thus, we might have to consider the story that is more suitable for our students level of proficiency. This is because students level of proficiency is considered in the aspects of sentence length and word length of the sentences and also the complexity of the sentence structure. The language and sentence patterns used in this story are quite simple and understandable. The language level of the song is suitable for Year 3 students as the language is easy such as the words princess, palace and so on. We need to choose those stories which are sufficiently simple in terms of grammar and vocabulary for our learners to be able to grasp what they are about. It simply means that there should not be too many new items so that they are discouraged and robbed of enjoyment as they learn. Furthermore, tales with morals create a foundation to talk with children about important life lessons which will be planted in their young minds and that they can ponder upon as they grow older. At a tender age of 9 years old, the students at this point are starting to make connections between what they read to the real world. They are able to think imaginatively even while listening or reading stories in accordance to how the story describes the setting, characters and events which took place in the story. In this way, besides ofentertain the kids, we areteaching them valuesthat will be useful for their growing. This story enables to help the teacher to instill the moral value among the students. The bonds that you form with others will also be more fulfilling because you live your life. This fictional tales present an important life lesson for moral development for young readers in stressing the importance of telling the truth and keeping a promise, even when the action causes distress. This moral value is important in our daily lives as if we were dishonest and did not keep our promise, people will not be trust us anymore. Apart from that, according to the content standard of the primary English language curriculum standard document, by the end of the 6-year primary schooling, pupils will be able to express personal response to literary texts. According to the learning standard, through this story, it can fulfill the objective as the students will be able to respond to characters and place with guidance which stated in the learning standards of the primary English language curriculum standard document 4.2.1. Besides, for the content standard, by the end of the 6-year primary schooling, pupils will be able to plan, organize and produce creative works for enjoyment and the learning standard is the students will be able to perform with guidance based on the stories which is stated in 4.3.2 in KSSR syllabus.