Western Mindanao State University

College of Teacher Education

Graduate Studies
Normal Road, Baliwasan, Zamboanga City

Submitted by: BABARAN, KAREN O.

TASK 2

EXPLOITING SHORT STORIES IN THE EFL CLASSROOM

Short stories have been an essential source of teaching and learning materials because they
demonstrate a wide range of language use in authentic contexts. We all know that short stories are product of
writer’s/author’s imaginary and creativity, and this creativeness of the author provides a language and have
many pedagogical benefits for teachers and learners. This educational material is motivating, authentic and it help
students to understand the culture of our ancestors and diverse cultures. And if teachers would be able to choose a
story which fits for the subject matter and be able to use it wisely, it can make the teaching and learning process
into a tremendous, pleasurable, and worth undertaking and make the language learning fun.

During our college days we were taught on how to write the flow of the lesson plan. So every time
we enter into the classroom, we always follow our lesson plan. On this Journal, the lesson plan that was
developed by the author is his own approach or strategy in presenting the short story to his undergrad students.
On lesson 1, the flow is quite the same with our lesson plan in Senior High School.
The teacher instruct the students to read the story at home before presenting it to the class to save time and
spend more time on discussion. In my class I always do a heterogeneous group and call some members of the
group to read it aloud while the other groups are listening, and sometimes I ask one representative from each
group to retell the part of the story that was assigned to them. As stated by Morrow (1985), retelling is an active
procedure that involves children in the reconstruction of text and also allows interaction between adults and
children. After the storytelling that’s the time that we will discuss the story. I find it meaningful of the time
allocated for the students to have an argument and encourage them to interact with their peers and teacher
because it will create classroom environments more helpful to learning and meet students’ developmental,
emotional and educational needs.

On the next day or lesson, it is very clear that it is the continuation of the 1 st lesson. The teacher
started the lesson with feedback on home reading-answering quiz. As a teacher, we usually give quizzes after
every topic, this is to know the intellectual capability of the students. And then the teacher presented a new
lesson or a new topic, but this time students were asked anticipated questions without them given enough time
to read the whole story. The flow of the 2 nd lesson or story that was presented by the teacher on the lesson 2 of
the lesson plan is different from that of the 1 st lesson, same with the new lesson presented on lesson 3. These
different approaches and strategies of the teacher is a good idea so that the learners will not get bored or familiar
with what will happen next on the teaching and learning process. This is also for the teacher to know the
intellectual capability of the students to answer questions when having enough time to read the story and when
they are not given enough time to read.

The second from the last part of the lesson plan is the writing activity and I think this is the most
important part for the teacher because the teacher would be able to determine the individual comprehension or
understanding of each student. This activity design focuses on the narrative and argumentative competence
which enhance the critical thinking of the students. Because each and
individual has his own understanding or interpretation of the texts. Like for example, in a creative writing
classes, there are discussion revolving around the ”Death of the author.” If you are a follower of Roland
Barthes, you will argue that, to interpret a text, you must not consider the motives and limitations of its authors.
“To give a text an author is to impose a limit on that text. The Death of the author tells us that if we are going to
interpret a text, we must not consider the background of the author, his purpose why he wrote the story, and to
whom the story is intended for, because your interpretation of the text would be limited. We must interpret the
text itself to come up with a lot of interpretation. In this way, the teacher is honing students to have a good
reading, speaking, and listening and writing skills and to become a critical thinker.

The exciting part is the announcing of project. There’s a lot of strategy that teachers could give to
his students for example, visual or audio visual presentation. Teacher should also choose an activities suitable
for the EFL language learning and make all students engage in the activities. For me, it is a good idea to utilize
short-stories in my class because during the discussion you would be able to touch the lives and emotions of
your students. In that way, it would help enhance the critical thinking of your students.