According to (Philip Pullman, 1980, para.

1), ‘After nourishment, shelter and

companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world’. As long as I’m concerned, stories
are one of the best methods to teach our pupils in an English language classroom and the
educational value of using stories has always been undisputed throughout the world. In my point
of view, stories are the only method which provide relevant and enjoyable context to expose the
language to the pupils and an opportunity to familiarize them with rhythms, sounds and intonations
of English language.

I had chosen the story ‘The little Pink Rose’ which was adapted from a story by Sara Cone
Bryant who was the author of various children’s book in the early 20th century. This story focuses
on a little pink rose bud which lived in a dark house under the ground and how she managed to
be in the midst of a beautiful garden at last. In my perspective, I would say that this story is very
suitable to teach level one pupil who are in year one, two and three from Malaysian primary school
classroom.

The story ‘The little Pink Rose’ is suitable for level one English language classroom
because of its language and the content of the story. The language that is being used in this story
is not sophisticated as it only conquers simple and compound sentences such as ‘Once there was
a little pink Rosebud, and she lived down in a little dark house under the ground’. And besides
that, the vocabulary level that is being used in the story is simple and understandable for level
one pupil. Vocabularies such as house, rain, sunshine, sad, window, and rose are words that they
are very familiarize with.

Besides that, when we focus on the stories content, I could say that the plot of this story
is simple for level one pupil. I have looked through many stories in the process of finding an
appropriate story for level one pupils and when I look through this story I could say that the story
line of this story is very interesting as in the expository stage the little pink rose is being introduced
and followed by the rain and the sunshine in the rising action stage. When I was reading this story,
I got to knew that the conflict of this story do happens when the rain and the sunshine meet up
with the little pink rose and at last it live happily ever after with other flowers in the beautiful garden.
This story gives us a happy ending which inculcate good moral values among our young pupils.

According to (Kate Prudchenko, 2012, para. 2), characters are an important element in
short stories because they drive the story as a whole and the types of characters that are involved
in a story create different types of conflicts and tensions as well as different types of resolutions
where these characters’ desires, hopes, dreams and thoughts are the driving force of the whole
story. Even characters are also an important aspect in a content of a story as in this story we
could see the little pink rose as the main character and the rain and the sunshine as the sub
characters where they make the whole story interesting to listen.

This type of genre with interesting characters would motivate pupils to explore the story
by expressing their imaginations or thoughts through various kinds of activities in the ESL
classroom. And furthermore, pupils would show their eagerness to listen to the story if there is
something different in the content of the story such as the conversations between the little pink
rose, the rain and the sunshine. Thus, a content of a story is crucial in the aspect of sharing stories
to level one pupil as could help pupils to understand the story better. Thus, I think that those
criteria are suitable for level one intermediate pupil as through these learners could develop their
cognitive skill by thinking critically and creatively.

According to Poe (Abrams, 1970: 158) “short stories are considered as a narrative that
can be read at one sitting of from one-half hour to two hours, and that is limited to ‘a certain unique
or single effect,’ to which every detail is subordinate” seems to be the most suitable one to use in
public schools.’ In my point of view, I would suggest all the teachers in an ESL classroom to use
stories as their medium to teach language in the classroom as through teaching stories we could
focused the four important skills which are listening, speaking, reading and writing.

As for my reading skill, I would use an activity which is called as reading theatre. This is
the technique that I would use to involve my pupils to read aloud by reading the provided script of
the story ‘The little Pink Rose’ without the help of costumes and props. This is one of the strategies
where the reading practice and performing skill do combine to enhance the pupils reading skills
and encourage them by giving them a chance to practice reading with a purpose which is to
improve their sounds, rhymes, pronunciation, enunciation and clarity. By improving this, pupils
could be a very good story teller in the future. According to (Educational World, 2015, para. 2), "I
love the active involvement in this approach and moreover It's hard for a child to be a passive
observer when you have a script in your hands,’ said Susan Finney, a retired educator and author
who gives seminars about improving reading instruction.’

Furthermore, as for my writing skill, I would use rebus as my activity for my level one pupil
where this technique can be employed to the use of pictures to represent a word. For example, I
could provide a small text to my pupils with some rebus puzzles of a little pink rose or rain or
maybe sunshine in between the words in the text. Through this, pupils would think critically and
write down the text by substituting the rebus puzzles into words. By taking the boredom out of
learning to write, pupils in the level one may discover their interest in writing. ‘But even before you
can expect your children to put pencil to paper, there are certain essential building blocks that
need to be in place in order to help them write with ease and fluency and rebus could help you
out with it.’ (Kumon, 2012, para. 2)

Besides writing skill, I would also teach stories for listening and speaking skills in the ESL
classroom for level one learner. I would use describing pictures as my activity to teach my pupils.
As the first process of this activity I would divide pupils into four to five different groups. For the
first group I would give them a piece of paper with a picture of the first part of the story ‘The little
Pink Rose.’ I would give the opportunity to the respective group of the pupils to describe the
picture. Then I’ll give the second part of the story in the form of a picture to second group and
they would describe it. The story will come to an end when the last group takes in charge to tell
about the end of the story in the form of a picture to the rest of the pupils. Through this activity, I
encourage them to look carefully to the picture and give them the opportunity to explain it clearly
to others while the rest of the class listens carefully to the description of the picture.

In conclusion, a teacher should take the responsibility to teach language skills in an

enjoyable way rather than flipping textbooks. They should also understand each and every young
learner’s potential and ability before conducting a story session. Thus, stories are one of the best
methods that can be implementing in Malaysian English Language classroom.