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

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Part I
Introduction
1. 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 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-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,
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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.
2. 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.
3. 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 6 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.
4. Methods and data collection instruments

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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
1. 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 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. 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:

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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

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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.
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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 do 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

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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.
2. 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 do not have good
conditions in order to join extra lessons. Especially, they almost do 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
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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 do 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 1. 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 do you love him/ her?
Part 2. 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 5 to 6.5. Only 10
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students (account for 17%) reached the points from 7 to 8.5. Whereas, no one
could gain 9 or 10 point, 8 among 60 subjects who were quite bad at writing
score below 5. 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.
3. 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 4 options for
students choose (good/ rather good/ medium/ bad)
b, Students’ attitudes toward fairy tales
Question 2: What do you think of writing skills? (Difficult/ rather difficult/
easy)
Question 3: How do 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 do 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 1. 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,
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stories must be attractive enough, adaptable to students’ proficiency and feasible
in the context of instruction program. To cover these conditions, these notices
for selection of stories are essential.
- Topic/ theme: It should be interesting, familiar to appeal students’
attention for long.
- Plot: It should be fun and relevant to students’ life experience and
interests. This helps to raise their motivation so as to approach the writing lesson
easily. Especially, the plot needs an open end to develop the imagination ability

and arouse the curiosity and creativity of the students.
- Language level: Because of different language competence, stories given
in the lesson need to satisfy with all of the students. Therefore, containing great
numbers of plain words and simple grammar structure is crucial to engage all
student in given activities.
- Length: It must be short well enough to handle within the teaching hours
and help students to complete given tasks and give them a feeling of
achievement and self- confident.
- Images: The more colorful pictures the story contains, the more students
are attracted.
Suggestion 2. How fairy tales are used in teaching writing
As mentioned in the premise above, most of the students meet difficulties in
writing. The reasons are the limitation of vocabulary (students do not use invented
spelling, this makes their written texts restricted to words which they know and
hinders their creativity), the lack of grammar knowledge (students usually use the
present tense in their writing or poor writing due to ill-structured sentences…), and
inadequate understanding of the format of writing a passage or a story, etc.
Meanwhile, fairy tales contain a variety of words or vocabulary and the rich
grammatical mix and have clearly format of text. Through stories, students can
reinforce their grammar knowledge and vocabulary and then involve writing
activities easily and effectively. That is why I have realized that in order to develop
students’ writing ability, fairy tales should be used because of their benefits as
follows:
2.1. Enriching a great source of vocabulary
Obviously, passages from fairy tales include a rich term of adjectives,
adverbs, common nouns, etc. Students can enrich their words in order to develop
ideas and expressions in their writing.
For example: Students learn familiar vocabulary in the story “Snow White
and the seven Dwarfs” as follows:
•

•
•
*

Adjectives: beautiful, lovely, jealous, happy, asleep, dreadful…
Noun: Well, dwarf, stepmother, cottage, mirror, castle, forest….
Adverbs of manner: Hopefully, fitfully, joyfully, gratefully, suspiciously…
Irregular verbs: laid, said, slept, sang, grew……….

2.2. Improving grammatical features

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From passages of stories, teachers can also clarify language areas such as
past tenses, comparatives, reported speech, etc. These language scopes will
enable students to reinforce their grammar rules and make less grammatical
mistakes in writing.
For example: Most of the fairy tales use past forms as prominent tenses.
• Past simple and perfect tense:
+ There upon she closed her eyes and departed. Every day the maiden went out
to her mother’s grave, and wept, and she remained pious and good. When winter came
and the snow spread a white sheet over the grave.
(Cited in the story “Cinderella”)
+ When the merchant had finished his business, he set off for home. However, a
sudden storm blew up, and his horse could hardly make headway in the howling gale.
Cold and weary, the merchant had lost all hope of reaching an inn when he suddenly
noticed a bright light shinning in the middle of a wood.
(Cited in the story “Beauty and the Beast”)
• Reported speech:

+ “I wonder who lives here?” she said to herself.
+ The dwarfs said to Snow White: “You can live here and tend to the house
while we’re down the mime”.
(Cited in the story “Snow White and the seven Dwarfs”)
+ The goldfish swam up and demanded: “What is it, old man, you are
wanting?”
+ He bowed to her feet and said humbly: “Greetings, oh mighty Tsaritsa!
Now I hope that your soul is contented!”
(Cited in the story “Fisherman and the Golden Fish”)
• Comparatives:
+ The water is as blue as the prettiest cornflower, and as clear as crystal.
+ Blossoms like flames of fire; the fruit glittered like gold
+ The fourth sister was more timid,
+ But she said it was quite as beautiful there as nearer the land.
(Cited in the story “Little Mermaid”)
+ The wood became thicker and thicker.

(Cited in the story “Little Red Riding Hood”)
2.3. Writing up simple sentences or a whole passage.
As stated about the notions of fairy tales above, fairy tales usually have:
- a special beginning and ending. They begin with: once upon a time, or
there once was, or there once lived. And end with: and they lived happily ever after.
- a format with a beginning, middle, end, as well as conflict and more
specifically a “good” and “bad” character and a magical component. an obstacle
must be overcome.
- a typical structure namely a castle or forest, monster or witch, prince or
princess.
- sequencing words such as first, so, then, next, after that, finally to write
the story in chronological order.
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- Here is a new typical version of the story “Snow White and the Seven
Dwarfs” which consists of necessary elements of a story.
SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS
Once upon a time, there lives a little girl named Snow white. She lived
with her aunt and uncle because her parents were died.
One day, she heard her uncle and aunt talking about leaving Snow White in
the castle because they both wanted to go to America and they didn’t enough
money to take Snow White.
Snow White did not want her uncle and aunt to do this. So, she decided it
would be best if she ran away. The next morning she ran away from home when
her aunt and her uncle were having breakfast. She ran away into the woods. She
was very tired and hungry.
Then she saw this little cottage. She knocked the door but no one
answered.
So, she went inside and fell asleep.
Meanwhile, the seven dwarfs were coming home from work. They went
inside. There, they found that Snow White was sleeping. Then Snow White
woke up. She saw the dwarfs. The dwarfs said, “what is your name?” Snow
White said, “My name is Snow white.”
Dwarfs said, “if you wish, you may live here with us. “ Snow White said,
“oh , could I? Thank you.” Then Snow White told the dwarfs the whole story.
And Snow White and the seven dwarfs lived happily ever after.
(Adapted from />
Suggestion 3. Suggested activities for a writing process
The study focuses on a three-stage model of writing process. Thus, I
would like to introduce some suggested activities (which go from controlled to
free writing activities) for each stage as follows:
Stage 1:Pre-writing

This stage aims at helping students to make acquainted with stories and
have an anticipatory look to the issue of the lesson. The teacher may perform
these activities to introduce the story.
* Put some open questions to elicit the lesson. For example:
+ Do you like fairy tales?
+ Do you know how a fairy tales begin or end?
+ Name some other fairy tales you know.
* Show pictures related to story so that students (Ss) can predict the theme
or the content of story.
* Brainstorm:
+ list out some characters of the story.
+ name some good or evil characters in the story.
+ write any words related to each character.
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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 do 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:
1. What was Little Pea’s new mother like?
2. How did she feel when her father died?
3. What happened as Little pea ran to the festival?..
+ Writing based on cued words

This kind of exercise aims at improving students’ grammar knowledge.
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For example:
1. Little Pea/ be/ beautiful / hard- working/ girl.
2. She/ live/ father/ new cruel/ mother.
3. 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.
1. What did she look like?
2. What was she like?
3. Why do you like or dislike her?
4. How did her life end?
5. 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:
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+ 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 do
two tests (two post-tests). The results of the two post-tests are compared each
other in order to evaluate students’ progress.
• Post-test 1 - Time allotment: 45 minutes
Part 1. 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 do you love him/ her?
Part 2. Read the story “the lost shoe” in the textbook at page 41, then write
another end for the story.
• Post- test 2 - 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 do you think
about Little Pea?/ explain why do 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:

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Students’ score progress in comparison between post-test 1 and post- test 2

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 1 and 0% in the post-test 2 at below 5
point is quite remarkable. Conversely, it is interesting that the increase in
number of students reached at grades from 7 to 8.5 and 9 to 10 is rather
significant. The number of students reached up 44 (account for 73%) in the posttest 1 and 46 (account for 77%) in the post-test 2. To the range from 9 to 10, the
percentage of students was 7% in the post-test 1 and 13% in the post-test 2
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.
4. 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 do 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
1. 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.
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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.
2. 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 do not have enough time to carry out the experiment with all
participants. Only 60 of them are picked up randomly to do 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 do 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 do this experienced
initiative myself

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Đàm Thị Thúy

REFERENCES

• Foreign authors
1.
Adas, D and Bakir, A. (2013), “Writing difficulties and new solutions:

2.

3.

4.
5.
6.
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8.
9.

blended learning as an approach to improve writing abilities”,
International Journal of Humanities and Social Science Vol. 3 No. 9.
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
3 July 2013
King, I. (2001). Beyond Cinderella: using stories with secondary and
adult learners. BETA- IATEFL retrieved 12 June 2013, Language and Linguistic Studies, 4(2), 2

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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. />15. />
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

1. How was your ability of writing?
Good
Rather good
Medium
Bad

II.

Students’ attitudes toward using fairy tales in learning writing

2. What do you think of writing skills?
Difficult
Rather difficult
Easy
3. How do you prefer to fairy tales into writing lesson?
Like very much
Like
Dislike
4. 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

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Do not get suitable feedback.
5. 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

6. Which activities did you usually do 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
7. 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
8. Which marks did you get in the pre-test and two post-tests?
Pre-test
Post-test 1
Post-test 2
under 5
under 5
under 5
5->6.5
5->6.5
7->8.5
7->8.5
7->8.5
9->10

9->10
9->10

5->6.5

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Appendix 2: Test items
I.

Pre- test

Time allotment: 45 minutes
Part 1. 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 do you love him/ her?
…………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………
Part 2. Read the passage about Ba’s friendship in the textbook at page 13, then write
another end for the story.

…………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………

II.

Post-test 1.
Time allotment: 45 minutes

Part 1. 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 do you love him/ her?
…………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………

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Part 2. Read the story “the lost shoe” in the textbook at page 41, then write another
end for the story.
…………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………

III.

Post- test 2
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 do you think about Little Pea?/
explain why do you love or hate her?)
…………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………

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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

<5

Medium
Poor

Criteria
Well-organized content; good and creative ideas
and grammatical words or sentences
There are more sentences or complex sentences
with correct cohesion.
Fairly well-organized; general coherent; good ideas
Fairly and correctly use word orders and various
types of grammatical sentence structures.
Loosely organized, not frequently. The use of
cohesive devices is weak.
There are only simple sentences and few
ungrammatical words or sentences
Lack cohesive devices
Poor vocabulary, grammar structure and ideas.

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