Justification of Short Story

The activity chosen for the short story The Best Older Sister is to produce a creative
invitation card addressed to their friends or family members that they would like to invite for
the birthday party. This activity is applicable to the Humanism theory where in context of
learning, place great importance on affective and emotional factors and hold the view that
success in learning occurs only if the learning environment is right, and the learners are
interested in, and have a positive attitude towards, the new information (Chitravelu,
Sithamparam, & Teh, 2005). Therefore, the teacher should use a positive approach to
motivate and allow conducive learning environment for the students in order to keep the
students interest as the utmost importance of the lesson.
The main objective of the lesson is to enhance the students interest in English
language literature for the sake of enjoyment for the students of a Malaysian ESL primary
classroom and hence infer the moral values learnt from the selected text. Hence upon
selecting the text the language level and potential level must be ensured as to not be overly
challenging. In terms of lexical aspect the vocabulary used was simple and understandable
which is important to provide motivating and challenging experience suitable for the learners
age. The story entitled The Best Older Sister represents a range of structural difficulty level
such as complex, compound and simple sentences. An example of complex sentence, She
promised herself that she would give him the best first birthday party ever (Sook in
Foresman, 2004, p. 64). Thus, simple and repetitive lexical aspect is suitable and motivates
the children to inculcate good reading habits.
In conclusion, the use of an invitation card is an efficient way to assess the
pupils level of language and comprehension of the story selected by providing the students
with a conducive and non-threatening environment. Hence, allowing the learner to set their
own goals according to their own pace.

Justification for Poem

The activity planned for the poem Lemonade for Sale is Word makes pictures,
which involves the teacher reading the poem aloud for the students. The rationale of this
activity is coherent with one of the teaching approaches and methods, which is Task-Based
Language Learning. According Larsen-Freeman & Anderson, 2011, this method of language
learning is to learn by doing. Thus this method is emphasising not on the text, but primarily
engaging the students to carry out tasks that have a clear outcome to assess the students
understanding of the activity. In order to teach imagery to young children without confusing
them with the terms definition the need of instilling the knowledge of literary device is
accommodated by allowing the students to creatively draw the images that is formed in their
head as they are reading of listening to the poem indirectly learn by carrying out a task. This
approach is view language as a meaningful medium to accomplish the task given
additionally this method is suitable for a mixed ability class.
The pupils, at first, will listen carefully as the teacher recites the poem aloud and asks
afterwards the teacher asks the pupils to close their eyes and listen. The teacher asks the
pupils what pictures came into their minds as they heard the words recited.

Galda &

Cullinan, 2002 claims that literature entertains and informs and it enables young people to
explore and understand their world and enriches their lives and widens their horizons and
through literature children learn about people and places on the other side of the world as
well as ones down the street. In a Malaysian ESL primary classroom a task-based approach
is preferred as all the language skills are emphasized and any of the skills can be utilized
depending on the task given by the teacher. Thus this approach is coherent with the
Cognitivist theory whereby the use of cognitive ability is essential in order to stimulate the
pupils to think and learn on their own facilitated by the teacher.
In conclusion, the teacher can guides the pupils understanding of the newly learnt
literary device to enhance their understanding on the poetry learnt through a creative
approach of using pictures. This method does not only aid comprehension, it also improves
pupils listening skill.

Justification of Short Play

The activity chosen for the short play is Act it out. Communicative Language
Teaching main objective is to enable students to communicate in the target language
(Larsen-Freeman & Anderson, 2011). Communicative Language Teaching, emphases on the
aspect of communicative competence through the use of communicative activities such as
information gaps, role-plays and language games. Act it out is a role-play activity which is
conducted in groups to encourage a student-centred learning besides of inculcating the
sense of belonging for the children and the value of teamwork to ensure the students are
able to tolerate, accept and give opinions openly as to enhance their communicative
competence.
The focussed skill of the activity is listening and speaking suitable with the approach
of Communicative Language Learning. The students are able to improve their listening skills
through the role-plays that will be performed by their peers and their speaking skills will
indirectly be improved as the students re-reads the script a few times to comprehend and to
practice the accurate intonation as to give the best performance. Besides that, the role-play
activity gives the students the opportunity to practice the communicative skills in different
social context and different social roles and later the students are to receive a feedback on
whether they had been able to communicate effectively or not (Larsen-Freeman & Anderson,
2011). Thus, the activity can be related to Cognitivist theory of learning as it stimulate the
students to think and the teacher act as a facilitator in order for the student to complete the
activity.
In conclusion, the need of the knowledge of the form of language alone is insufficient
for communicative purposes instead students must also comprehend its meanings and
function to ensure that a competent communication takes place. Stories are motivating for
young learners, and stories can create a happy and enjoyable learning environment. Stories
are the most ideal sources for young learners in effective language learning. Children like
stories, and they find stories easy to access and understand. Stories provide an outstanding
opportunity for young learners to master the foreign language (Mart, 2012).