Making Use of Children Storybooks in Designing Writing Activities for Children Learning EFL

Abstract

Writing is said as the most difficult skill to be taught. Teachers often simply conducted free writing activity and ask students to produce paragraphs of writing piece. Therefore, writing activity is often unachievable for Indonesian elementary school students as beginner English learners. This paper presents part of a research project on a course preparing Indonesian student teachers who were candidates of elementary school English teachers. This paper aims to share how elementary school student teachers design meaningful and fun writing activities from children storybooks. The study was conducted in 'Writing and Dictation for Elementary School' course, in an English Concentration of Elementary School Teacher Training (henceforth PGSD, Pendidikan Guru Sekolah Dasar). The project-based learning was implemented in the course. It was conducted in a whole semester, consisting of 16 meetings. The project was designing writing activities for elementary school students based on children storybooks. There were 32 of 7 th semester of PGSD students included in this study. They were asked to choose, sort, select, and analyse some children storybooks based on the characteristics of elementary school students. About 50 books were chosen, 32 books were sorted and then selected into 16 books. The books were analysed using six qualities of effective writing called "the 6+1 traits of writing". The PGSD students were then asked to design writing activities for children. Practically, the project has shown how to make use of those children books in the writing class for children learning EFL. Qualitative data analysis includes a field note, the student teachers' children storybook review and report, and the designed writing activities for elementary school students. The result of the study shows that PGSD students have demonstrated their ability to design achievable, meaningful and fun writing, from controlled, guided, to free activities for children learning English in Indonesian elementary school.