Developing writing skills for student at Kien Tho secondary school through fairy tales = Phát triển kỹ năng viết cho học sinh THCS Kiên Thọ qua các câu chuyện c

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
*********************


ĐÀM THỊ THÚY


DEVELOPING WRITING SKILLS FOR STUDENTS AT KIEN THO
SECONDARY SCHOOL THROUGH FAIRY TALES

Phát triển kỹ năng viết cho học sinh trƣờng THCS Kiên Thọ
qua các câu chuyện cổ tích


M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS


FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY
CODE: 60140111





Hanoi, 2014
VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
*********************

ĐÀM THỊ THÚY


DEVELOPING WRITING SKILLS FOR STUDENTS AT KIEN THO
SECONDARY SCHOOL THROUGH FAIRY TALES

Phát triển kỹ năng viết cho học sinh trƣờng THCS Kiên Thọ
qua các câu chuyện cổ tích


M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS


FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY
CODE: 60140111
SUPERVISOR: KIỀU THỊ THU HƢƠNG, PhD.




Hanoi, 2014

i
DECLARATION

I hereby, ensure that the thesis on “Developing writing skills for students at Kien
Tho Secondary School through fairy tales” is my own research for the Minor
Degree of Master of Arts at University of Language and International Studies,

Vietnam National University, Hanoi. The thesis has not been submitted for any
degree at any other universities or institutions. I agree that the origin of my
paper deposited in the library can be accessible for the purposes of study and
research.
Signature

Đàm Thị Thúy













ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First of all, I would like to express my deep gratitude to my supervisor Dr. Kieu Thi
Thu Huong, for her valuable advice, reliable comments, patient support and
encouragement in the completion of this M.A thesis.
My deep appreciation also gives to all staff, teachers and members at Faculty of
Post-Graduate Studies of University of Languages and International Studies -
Vietnam National University for their instruction and enthusiastic.
I especially thank many other writers who have shared their ideas or opinions in this

field. Their ideas have stimulated my thinking and have supported me to complete
this paper. My debt to the authors listed in the references is equally great.
My next sincere thanks are surely extended to all my students and my colleagues at
Kien Tho Secondary School. Without their enthusiastic contribution and
cooperation, certainly, this research would have hardly been completed.
Finally, I do not forget to send my special thanks to my parents, my husband and
my friends who have always been my great motivation and encouragement to do
this study successfully as possible as I can.

iii
ABSTRACT
This study has been conducted to display how effective fairy tales can assist to
consolidate students’ knowledge of the English language as grammar and
vocabulary and to promote their self-confidence and creative writing skills. Besides
that, the author also mentions stories as a good motivation to raise students’ interest
in writing tasks. The study has been conducted on 60 eighth-form students at Kien
Tho Secondary School. In order to obtain these students’ opinion concerning the use
of fairy tales and their effectiveness toward the writing instruction, a questionnaire
was designed as one of data collection tools. Some open questions were
implemented to interview three experienced colleagues of the researcher about their
attitudes and the results after they employ fairy tales into writing class. In addition,
the researcher has done three experimental tests (one pre-test and two post-tests)
with 30 among 60 students so as to measure how progress they are compared to the
tests with other common texts. The findings from data analysis has shown that most
of the students not only have positive attitudes toward fairy tales but realize their
feasible effects on creating a relaxed learning environment and on improving
students’ writing proficiency as well. Base on findings of the study, the researcher
also supplies some suggestions about the selection of appropriate stories, how to use
fairy tales in learning writing and the employment of a three-stage model of a
writing process with the aim at developing students’ writing skills.

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LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS

Table 1: Difference between product and process approach 9
Table 2: Process approach 10
Table 3.1: Students’ degree of preference to fairy tales in writing lesson. 23
Table 3.2: Topics students like to study 24
Table 3.3: Factors cause difficulties to writing process 24
Table 3.4: Beneficial elements of fairy tales 25
Table 4.1: Students’ activities during learning writing with fairy tales 26
Table 4.2: Students’ reactions after learning with fairy tales 26

Chart 1: Students’ writing proficiency level 21
Chart 2: Students’ responses to writing skills 22
Chart 3: Level of frequency students spends on fairy tales 22
Chart 4: Students’ score progress in comparison between the pre-test and

the post-tests 27















v
TABLE OF CONTENTS

Declaration. i
Acknowledgement. ii
Abstract. iii
List of tables and charts. iv
Table of contents. v
PART A.INTRODUCTION 1
1. Rationale 1
2. Statements of the problem 1
3. Objectives of the study 2
4. Research questions .2
5. Scope of the study 3

6. Significance of the research 3
7. Design of the study 3
PART II.DEVELOPMENT 5
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 5
1. Overviews of writing and teaching writing 5
1.1. Writing and teaching writing 5
1.2. The difficulties of teaching and learning writing 6
1.3. The purposes for teaching writing 7
1.4. The approaches in teaching English writing 9
2. Overviews of fairy tales 11
2.1. Definition of fairy tales 11
2.2. The elements of fairy tales 12
2.3. The advantages of fairy tales 13
2.4. The role of fairy tales in teaching and learning English 14
2.5. The role of fairy tales to writing process 15

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3. Previous works review 16
CHAPTER 2:METHODOLOGY 18
1. The setting of the study 18
2. The subjects 18
3. Data collection instruments 19
4. Procedure 20
CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS 21
I. The effectiveness of using fairy tales in learning writing 21
1. Background information .21
1.1. Students’ background information 21
1.2. Teachers’ background information .23
2. Students’ attitudes and viewpoints toward fairy tales 23
3. The effectiveness of fairy tales to learning writing 26

II. Suggestions to using fairy tales in teaching writing 28
1. Selection of stories 28
2. How fairy tales are used in teaching writing 29
2.1. Enriching a great source of vocabulary 30
2.2. Improving grammatical features 30
2.3. Writing up simple sentences or a whole passage 31
3. Suggested activities for a writing process 33
PART C:CONCLUSION 38
1. Recapitulation of the effectiveness of fairy tales 38
1.1. Students’ attitudes toward writing skills and fairy tales 38
1.2. The contributions of fairy tales 38
1.2.1. The contribution of fairy tales to classroom atmosphere 38
1.2.2. The contribution of fairy tales to writing skills 38
1.3. Students’ writing improvement 39

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2. Limitations .39
3. suggestions for further studies 40
REFERENCES 41
APPENDICES I

1
PART A: INTRODUCTION

1. Rationale
In recent years, the demand for language learning has brought about a great
number of positive changes in language teaching in Viet Nam. Language teachers
have been looking for and using different methods and techniques in order to find
the effective ones in English teaching and learning in general and in writing
teaching and learning in particular. The effectiveness of a teaching methods or

techniques is reflected in learners’ competence. The competence of learners is their
abilities to master four language skills: listening, speaking, reading, writing, among
which writing seems to be the most difficult due to its requirements of the variety of
vocabulary, good knowledge of grammar, etc. It is fact that the question of teaching
writing well and effectively has been the concern of textbook writers and teachers.
Being a secondary school teacher, the researcher realizes that most of her
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 the 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 improve their writing proficiency as well.
2. Statements of the problem
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

2
their ideas and raise their motivation in learning. In other words, “their critical
thinking and participation will entually increase” (Tedjaatmadja and Wijaya, 2009:
2). These goals can be achieved by teaching fairy tales in the language classroom
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,
the researcher found that most of the students became very eager and interested in
learning. As a result, the writing lesson was no longer stressful and her students
were more than willing to do 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-centred 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.
In short, using of fairy tales in teaching writing is a very 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 “Developing students’
writing skills through fairy tales” as the topic of my M.A. research.
3. Objectives of the study
The objectives of the study are:
- To find out the effectiveness of using fairy tales in learning writing
- To make suggestions to using fairy tales in teaching writing.
4. Research questions
The study aims at examining the effectiveness of using fairy tales in teaching
writing skills to secondary students. With the above purposes, the research questions
are:

3

1. What is the effectiveness of using fairy tales in learning writing?
2. How should fairy tales be used in teaching writing?
5. Scope of the study
Because of the limitation of a minor study, the research was only conducted
on the eighth-grade students at Kien Tho Secondary School in Thanh Hoa. The
study mainly aims at the effectiveness that fairy tales bring to students in learning
writing and how activities help students improve their writing skills.
6. Significance of the research
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 the study will bring in
practical benefits to teaching English, especially teaching writing. Firstly, the study
will bring insights into the writing skill development of students in the 8
th
class at
Kien Tho Secondary School in Ngoc Lac. Secondly, the study will help the
researcher suggests a better way to improve students’ writing skills in certain
contexts. Thirdly, the study will prove that fairy tales as aid to increase the
effectiveness of teaching writing skill for students. Finally, the study will be a
helpful suggestion to make students keen on learning and the writing lessons will be
more interesting and effective.
7. Design of the study
* Part I is the introduction which presents the rationale of the study, the
objectives of the study, the research questions, the scope of the study, the
significance and the design of the study.
* Part II is the development which concludes three chapters
- Chapter one is the literature review which copes with the notions of writing,
teaching writing, fairy tales and issues related to using fairy tales in teaching writing
skills.
- Chapter two is the methodology which deals with detailed description of

the setting, subjects, instruments for collecting data and the procedure of data
collection
- Chapter three is the data analysis and findings which clarifies the
effectiveness of the research.

4
* Part III is the conclusion which summarizes the effectiveness of fairy tales,
provides suggestions for how to use fairy stories in teaching writing, as well as
presents limitations and suggestions for further studies.




















5

PART B: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW
1. Overviews of writing and teaching writing
1.1. Writing and teaching writing
Writing process is always a challenging to not only students and teachers but
also many language researchers. The word “writing” itself may imply an act, a
process or a skill, which needs practice and study to develop. It requires both
physical and mental powers from the writers. Thus, many different views of writing
and teaching writing have been attained.
According to Sapkota (2012: 71), writing is a complex process with a lot of
requirements of grammatical features.
[W]riting is the system of written symbols which represents the sounds,
syllables or words of language. Writing skill requires different mechanisms as
capitalization, spelling and punctuation, word form and function. It helps to
convey the meaning clearly. So, writing is an activity to improve our
understanding of any subject. Writing is the ability not only to put ideas from
mind to paper but also to generate more meaning and make ideas clear.
In view of the process approach, White (1990: 4) also sees writing as “an act
of discovery’ and “a potentially powerful educational tool. It is with these thoughts
in mind that both of us, readers and writers, may know embark upon our journey of
discovery”. By engaging in the process of writing itself writers ultimately discover
what it is that they want to say.
Grammar-Translation regards writing as a means of reinforcing language that
has already been dealt with in the spoken form. In other words, 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.
Jordan (1999: 41) considers writing “the method of human inter-
communication by means of conventionally visible marks”. Similarly, White and
Arndt (1991: 3) say:

…[W]riting is far from being a simple matter of transcribing language into
written symbols: it is thinking process in its own right. It is a permanent
record, as a form of expression and as a means of communication. The

6
provision of a model was indeed seen as being very important. The teacher
or the textbook was the source of language, and a good model was crucial.
Favoring Communicative Approach, cited in Hoang Van Van (2007: 52),
Oluwadiya states “writing is basically a process of communicating something
(content) on paper to an audience. If the writer has nothing to say, writing will not
occur”.
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.
Tribble (1996: 3) considers “writing as a language skill involving not just a
graphic representation of speech, but as the development and presentation of
thought in a structured way”.
Besides, Sokolik (2003: 88) defines “writing as a physical and mental act”. It
means that 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.
She also considers writing as a process and product, and writing aims at expressing
and impressing. The writers have to generate ideas, organize, draft, edit, read, re-
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.
According to Roger, Phillips, and Walters (1995: 113), writing involves
seven aspects. They are handwriting, spelling, punctuation, sentence construction,

organizing a text and paragraphing, text cohesion and style.
In general, each view has its own strengths and weaknesses that motivate
teaching writing process to improve and meet writers’ preferences and purposes
gradually.
1.2. The difficulties in teaching and learning writing
Writing may be the most difficult language skill for not only many students
but language teachers as well. There are so many factors cause difficulties for
learners in writing such as the inadequacy of vocabulary, grammar rules, the

7
weakness in generating ideas, etc. Besides, as cited in Adas and Bakir (2013: 255),
Gomaa (2010) also indicates that “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. 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 (Al-Khsawneh, 2010 cited in Adas and Bakir (2013:
254). 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. Rabab’ah (2003 cited in Adas and
Bakir 2013: 255) clarifies that 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 (Adas and Bakir 2013: 255).
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 do not realize their own mistakes because of not getting suitable
feedback from their partners or teachers.
1.3. The purposes for teaching writing
According to Harmer (1998: 79), teaching writing to students of English
includes some reasons as follows:
Firstly, it is reinforcement. Most of the students gain great benefits from
seeing the written language; especially the visual demonstration of language
construction is valuable for both their understanding and committing the new

8
language to their memory. So it is very useful for them to write sentences using new
language after they have just studied it (Harmer, 1998).
Secondly, language development is also a reason for teaching writing. It
seems that the actual process of writing helps students to learn language better.
Because of the great need of knowledge in writing process, students can enhance
their vocabulary, reading skill, analysis ability, critical thinking, etc. As Harmer
(1998: 79) states “the highest level of writing skill involves critical thinking. To
deal with their mental activities, students have to construct proper written texts
using all their learning experience”.
Lastly, the most important reason for teaching writing is that it is a basic
productive language skill. No doubt that the last aim of students’ writing process is
create a product. In order to have a final draft, students need to master writing skills
such as how to organize the ideas, how to state their thoughts in written form.
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 do
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. Here writing
has a social function. The communicative writing tasks, which require greater
awareness of writer's purpose, audience, and the context of writing, would stimulate

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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 tasks in
the classrooms begin to shift their focus to the process of writing which is
influenced by the humanistic and cognitive approaches. 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 (Elbow, 1973;
Graves, 1983; Murray, 1985). The act of composing is "a creative act in which
the process: - the discovery of the true self - is as important as the product" (Berlin,
1988:484) and should be "the result of a genuine need to express one's personal
feeling, experience, or reactions" (Zamel, 1980:74). In order to enhance their
imagination ability and creativity, students or writers are encouraged to generate
their own ideas by writing freely. Elbow (1973) believes that free writing is able to

develop fluency and the writer's unique and authentic "voice". 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.
1.4. Approaches in teaching English writing
There are a great number of ways to teach writing but the two most common
that Nunan (1991) mentions are The Product Approach and The Process Approach.
As cited in Hasan and Akhand (2010: 80), Steele (2004: 1) mentions to
differences of these two approaches in the following table:
Product writing
Process writing
 Imitate model text
 Organization of ideas more
important than ideas themselves
 One draft
 Features highlighted including
controlled practice of those features
 Individual
 Emphasis on end-product
 Text as a resource for comparison
 Ideas as starting point

 More than one draft
 More global, focus on purpose, theme,
text type, i.e., reader is emphasized.
 Collaborative
 Emphasis on creative process
Table 1: The differences between product and process approach

10
The Product Approach concentrates on the end product that writers have to
produce. Teachers following the Product Approach often begin their lessons with
presenting a model text, which is then analyzed on the purpose, language, the
organization, and the style. The aim is to enable learners to produce similar texts.
“Learning is evaluated through text analysis of learner’s work according to some
criteria such as the standard of rhetorical style, accurate grammar, and conventional
organization”. This view has been supported in the work of Brown (1994: 320).
According to Steele’s view (2004) cited in Hasan and Akhand (2010: 78), the
Product Approach comprises of four stages: familiarization, controlled writing,
guided writing and free writing.
Unlike the Product Approach, the Process Approach focuses on thinking and
writing processes. “The Process Approach sees the language learners as creators of
language, decision makers of the message and content”(Brown 1994: 320). It is
argued by Nunan (1991: 87) that “while the product-oriented approach aims at
developing the learner’s writing skill mainly at sentence-level, the process-oriented
approach aims at improving their language at discourse-level”.
As cited in Hasan and Akhand (2010: 79), Steele (2004) considers eight
stages of the Process Approach: brainstorming, planning/ structuring, mind
mapping, writing the first draft, peer feedback, editing, final draft and evaluation
and teachers’ feedback.
According to Nguyen Bang and Nguyen Ba Ngoc (2001), activities of three
stages of writing process are classified as follows:
Stages
Activities


Pre-writing
Reading (extensively) a passage
Skimming or scanning a passage

Brainstorming
Discussing a topic or questions





While- writing
 Controlled writing:
Gap-filling sentences/paragraphs
Sequencing jumbled words
Transformation writing
Completing sentences

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Table 2: Process approach (Nguyen Bang and Nguyen Ba Ngoc, 2001)
(Adapted from Nguyen Thi Ly, 2010: 7)
2. Overviews of fairy tales
2.1. Definition of fairy tales
There are a lot of definitions of fairy tales
According to the Oxford Dictionary of English Folklore, “a fairy tale is the
usual English term for a group of oral narratives cantered on magical tests, quests,
and transformations”. Illustrated Oxford Dictionary has two explanations: 1. a
children’s tale about fairies; 2. an incredible story, a fabrication (Kindersley, 1998:
284).
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”
Fairy tale is a story which tells about challenging adventures with full of luck
and unluck that main characters of the story have to overcome in order to get a

happy ending (Cuddon, 1998).
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.
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

Post-writing
Feedback & correction
Revising
Editing
Evaluating

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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."
2.2. The elements of fairy tales
The following descriptions are explanation of the elements of story by Bliss

(Adapted from Basir, 2010: 36-37) as follows:
1) Plot: The plot is a writer’s arrangement of events that will express his
attitude toward the human condition. In traditional narrative, the plot can be
broken down into the following elements:
a) Exposition- the introduction of the characters and the situation
b) Rising Action - the chain of events that is built from the conflict
c) Climax - the moment of crisis in which the outcome will be determined
d) Resolution - the outcome or the conclusion - the unraveling of the conflict
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?
The minimum of elements of fairy tale are:
1) Special beginning and/ or ending word such as once upon a time, once
long ago, long ago, happily ever after, etc.
2) Good or nice character.
3) Evil or bad character.
4) Royalty and or a castle.
5) Magic.
6) Problem and solution.



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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 teach students positive skills to look back on their own. Students
learn from characters in the stories and this helps them to connect the situation with
their own lives. The stories show children how to have a positive outlook in life. It
also teaches them critical thinking skills.
As cited in Tedjaatmadja and Wijaya (2009: 7), “fairy tales as a part of
folklore can be found everywhere in various forms” (Danandjaja, 1984 and Greenia,
2007). “Every culture has various kinds of fairy tales which provide a vast array of
source for teaching material” (Tedjaatmadja and Wijaya , 2009: 7). In addition,
most familiar tales have been reproduced or adapted and are widely available; thus,
these have added their popularity.
In order to raise the familiarity of universal values and plots in fairy tales to
students (Danandjaja, 1984 and Hanlon, 1999), each culture has its particular fairy
tales. It is fascinating to recognize that there are some resemblances among certain
fairy tales in different societies. Therefore, students can compare and contrast those
cultures, events, or characteristics in these stories.
“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 (Bagg, 1991 cited in Tedjaatmadja and Wijaya , 2009:
7). This advantage has added more opportunities to use fairy tales in language
classroom since teachers do not have to be afraid of adjusting most of their lesson

14
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 (Bagg, 1991 cited in
Tedjaatmadja and Wijaya , 2009: 8). Their simplicity has made fairy tales consistent
in style and form.
2.4. The role of fairy tales in teaching and learning English
There is a great opportunity to make fairy tales as complex and simplistic as
possible depending on the class in which it is introduced. Fairy tales are also 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.
As cited in Kirkgoz (2012: 112), King (2001) states that
…[L]anguage is modeled and reinforced through the rich grammatical mix
offered by stories, their chronological nature, the central role of context,
and their rhythmic qualities. It is also important to observe that stories
enable a stress-free (non-threatening) learning situation which induces an
optimum state of relaxed awareness, allowing for more learning to take
place, including at an unconscious level.
According to Reid (2002) cited in Lepin (2008: 13- 14), “fairy tales help
children to 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. When working in groups, students can
ask and answer content-related questions and learn the word-order of questions and
affirmative sentences.
In Cameron (2001 cited in Lepin 2008: 13- 14),

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…[F]airy tales include unusual words, or words that have a strong
phonological content, with interesting rhymes or sound that are
onomatopoetic. In fairy tales there is used evocative vocabulary, the
language of the fairy world, memorable language such as metaphors,
alliteration, rhymes, and the spoken language of the common people. The
built-up repetition of the words and phrases is one of the features of fairy
tales that is very helpful for language learning. The context created by the
story, its predictable pattern of events and language, pictures, all act to
support the reader‟s understanding of unfamiliar words. Children will pick
up the words that they enjoy and in this way stories offer space for growth in
vocabulary.
“Writing fairy tales follows a typical structure namely a castle or forest,
monster or witch, prince or princess and so forth. In spite of all these invertible
features, writing fairy tales allows for a wider degree of creativity” (Bruti, 1999
cited in Arslan and Zibande, 2010: 110). “Fairy tales also helps students to jog to
their childhood memories” (Chiarantano, 2005 cited in Arslan and Zibande, 2010:
110), reducing the affective filter. Therefore, while learning fairy tales, students can
employ their previous knowledge gained in reading tales in their native language
and use it in learning English. In addition to, they will make use of the advantage of
cooperative learning to reduce their anxiety and have fun while a fairy tale is
employed in EFL classroom (Guglielmini, 2006).
Fairy tales have a great potential to be used as a valuable source in English
lessons. Children’s stories contain uses of language that are considered typical of
poetic and literary texts. Many of these devices offer opportunities for foreign

language learning (Cameron, 2001). In appropriate adaptation these stories are
suitable for all ages and levels.
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” (Stoykova: 2).
…[S]tories often have familiar structure and plot can create a supportive
context for learning about the writing process, building students'
background knowledge, and scaffolding their creation of original stories. 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

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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.
(Adapted from Debozah Kozdras)
Fairy tales particularly might be an alternative to give variety and boast
learners’ writing attitude. The use of stories serves as a useful source of input
and a powerful springboard for student writing, offering valuable ideas in
terms of food for thought, and containing lessons which are highly relevant to
student lives. This is not only due to the more indirect, metaphorical and subtle
nature of stories, but also because the story provides a stimulus to the
imagination as well as supplying a convenient initial frame of reference which
may be readily understood and appreciated by all the participants (King, 2001 cited
in Kirkgoz, 2012)).
According to Kirkgoz (2012: 3), “stories give students insights and help
them to write in L2 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”. According to Oster (1989: 85), “focusing on point of view in literature
enlarges students’ vision and fosters critical thinking by dramatizing the
various ways a situation can be seen”. This could happen because when 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.
Using short stories as a source of input, various writing activities can
be created to help students develop their creative writing skills. Students can
be asked to write dialogues or more complex writing activities in accordance with
the nature of the story, objective of the lesson and the language proficiency level of
students’.
3. Previous works review
A previous research on “developing students’ narrative writing through fairy
tales” was conducted by Riyatun, a student of the University of Negeri Semarang in
2007 in his graduation thesis. The research focuses on an action research which was
done in two cycles. The first cycle with five activities aims at the topic focuses of