ENGLISH LEARNING FOR ELEMENTRY SCHOOL

“LISTENING AND READING FAIRY TALE METHOD”

DOSEN PENGAMPU : Drs. H. Herli Salim,M.Ed.,Ph.D.

ASISTEN DOSEN : Bpk. Muhamad Hanif

Created By :
Name : Siti Laelatul Anita
NIM : 1903056
Class : 2A PGSD

What is Fairy Tale?

A fairy tale is an instance of a folklore genre that takes the form of a short story.

How Can Easy English Fairy Tales Help You Learn the Language?

Not only are fairy tales entertaining and fun to read, but there are many factors that make them a
great choice for English young learners.

For starters, they’re short, so we can usually read them in one sitting. Shorter works are also
easier to start out with so that we don’t feel overwhelmed by too much English at one time.

Additionally, young learners are probably already familiar with fairy tales since they’re
translated into many different languages and taught all over the world to children. Already
knowing what the story is about will help you follow along in English.

Since fairy tales are typically meant for children, they tend to use lower-level English vocabulary
and sentence structure, meaning that they’re the appropriate level for beginner English learners.
Fairy tales also often include easy dialogue or repetition to tell the story, which means you’re
able to easily learn English through these stories.

How to apply this Method in English Class?

Fairy tales provide a wealth of possibilities for teaching English topics. Each fairy tale has its
own magical setting and is split into several scenes. Within each scene there are sets of
vocabulary that you can exploit. Below we will look at a few of the better known fairy tales and
highlight some of the possible areas you can concentrate on in class.

Aims :
 For the learners to hear in English what are probably familiar stories in their own
language.
 To allow the children to see English in an imaginative context.
 To introduce various vocabulary sets such as family, food, clothes or parts of the body.
 To help older primary school children notice language areas such as past simple,
comparatives, etc.

Materials:
 Fairy tale story books
 Worksheets for post-reading activities
 Flashcards (laminated photocopies of selected scenes from the stories)

Five hot tips when using a fairy tale in class

1. Create a mystical atmosphere with your body language, voice and lighting if possible.
2. Don’t over do the scary characters with very young learners.
3. Involve the children as much as possible. Get them guessing the next episode throughout
the story.
4. You don’t need to systematically pre-teach vocabulary. Arouse their interest? Yes - with
the picture on the front cover, 'Who’s this?' 'Is this the wicked witch or the friendly fairy?'
'Does the princess look sad or happy?' etc. You can go back over vocabulary after the
story e.g. 'Can you remember what this is called?' (pointing to the picture).
5. Don’t use it just as a time filler. The children will get much more out of it if done over a
series of lessons or if it ties in with a larger topic.

Something to remember about fairy tales is that they are fairly long stories and they don’t
always have the repetitive language that is almost essential for teaching English to young
learners. The key here is to spend a little time simplifying the story text and making it into a
series of repeated patterns of language.