IMPROVING NARRATIVE WRITING SKILLS THROUGH STORIES AT ELEMENTARY LEVEL

As a productive skill, writing is a crucial skill to master in order to be successful in one’s academic pursuits. Due to its importance, writing is an important skill cultivated in an English language classroom at elementary level. The impact of materials upon the development of Second language teaching and learning is unavoidable. On the other hand, the commercialization of education has resulted with a plethora of materials flooding the language development arena, each claiming to be effective in its own way. As a result, field practitioners are facing a new dilemma; identifying the ‘best’ materials for their classes. Thus, it is beneficial for practitioners to acquire the knowledge of how such materials are produced. Such knowledge would develop the teachers’ ability to evaluate the potential of a teaching material and perhaps develop oneself. Stories are considered by many to be an important skill for narrative writing, and some have argued that the teaching of stories might help students avoid copying from source texts. This research work presents the results of using stories in the classrooms to improve the writing skills of the students. The students in the study found the skills taught to them useful, and they were able to apply them in a limited way. However, the results from the study indicated that the skills did not help the students equally. Students’ perception of their confidence in their learning abilities and the task assigned may not accurately reflect their writing skills. The researcher highlighted students’ perception of the skills taught to them and whether these skills actually helped them to become better narrative writer. Furthermore, stories are even claimed to be more effective in language teaching than traditional teaching methods. It was concluded that story telling is a potential source for the students to improve their writing skills. Based on the findings, the researcher recommends that English language teachers should use stories for teaching English in general and for teaching writing skills in particular at elementary level