Learning English through childrens literature (Appendix 1)

We cannot doubt that children can learn English better through the childrens
literature. There are a few roles of stories and storytelling in language teaching. They have
many colourful characters in the stories which it will attract children very much. Other than
that, the stories comply with the major objectives which it covers linguistic, psychological,
cognitive, social and cultural for the young learners. Teachers also can use childrens
literature as teaching aids in helping pupils to understand their core materials and as well as
syllabuses. In selecting stories, teacher must choose stories that contain rich and authentic
examples of English as well as literary devices. The stories chosen also must have high
quality and varied illustration in order to support childrens understanding. Normally for
younger children, they always make responses for these stories by using pictorial form while
for older pupils, they used written evaluation focussing on genre.













PURNAMA TRIES NOURISHING CHILDRENS LITERATURE (Appendix 2)
We need to realise that our country lacks of childrens literature books. In order to
overcome this, Pusat Penyelidikan dan Pengembangan Kesusasteraan Kanak-Kanak dan
Remaja (PURNAMA) was establish on last 16 January. It is a research centre,
documentation, production, socialization and encouragement for childrens literature. The
mission of this centre is to promote childrens literature among our society. According to
Proffesor Madya Dr Mahzan Arshad from Fakulti Pendidikan UM, the writing of childrens
book should be encouraged because it can guide our children to face the real life in the
society besides it can act as intellectual entertainment for them. The main features of
childrens literature book are themes that special for children, light and easy language,
attractive illustrations and simple plot. In addition, parents should play the important role in
choosing the suitable books for their children.













LOCAL CHILDREN ARE MORE INTERESTED IN FOREIGN FAIRY TALES (Appendix 3)
Noor Suraya Adnan Sallehudin, the managing director of Adiwarna Publications said
that, the dependence on the foreign writing pieces should be controlled. This is necessary in
order to give the local writers chance to promote the writing pieces. Besides, the
responsible bodies should also play their roles to promote local childrens literature. This
can be done such as organising book festivals for children. Even though they are not a
profitable events in the sense of economy, but it should be done as to motivate publication
companies like Adiwarna to keep on producing childrens literature books.
















AWARENESS OF CHILDRENS LITERATURE IN MALAYSIA (Appendix 4)
Islamic childrens literature has been in our country since long ago. However, lately it
becomes more popular as the local producers have become more creative in producing
attractive book covers, illustrations and contents. According to Popular Sdn. Bhd. the sale of
this genre has increased to 200 percents. This spectacular development has encouraged the
Popular Book Company (M) Sdn. Bhd. to introduce another six exclusive childrens literature
books special for children aged 5 to 9. Parents also showed a great support and interest in
the Islamic Book Expo in Putrajaya recently. They looked for high quality reading materials
that being sold for their children.















Appendix 1
Learning English through children's literature
Submitted by admin on 18 December, 2002 - 12:00
This article is about the British Council's Young Learners Centre in Paris and how they use
children's literature in their teaching of English

The role of stories and storytelling in language teaching
Selecting story books
Pupil responses
Personal and professional development of teachers
Other support materials
Books referred to in this article

The role of stories and storytelling in language teaching
Once upon a time and not so very long ago in the capital city of France, a teaching centre for
little children and not so little children was opened. One little child and then two and then
three and then many, many more came along. And so our story unfolds .. There was a little
red hen, a meerkat in trouble, a brown bear, a black elephant and a white elephant, a very
hungry caterpillar, Spot the dog, a clever tortoise, a big, roaring, yellow, whiskery lion, a
kangaroo from Woolloomooloo and many more.
These are just some of the colourful characters from children's literature who have helped
children aged 5 - 10 attending holiday classes at the British Council's Young Learners Centre
in Paris learn English. These weekly courses take place each afternoon for two hours.

The educational value of using stories and the technique of storytelling has always been
undisputed throughout the world. Now more and more English as a foreign language (EFL)
teachers of young learners are using carefully selected stories from the world of children's
literature because they have become more familiar with an acquisition-based methodology
and because stories comply to the major objectives in most countries for foreign language
teaching to young learners: linguistic, psychological, cognitive, social and cultural. EFL
teachers use stories to supplement their core materials or to create self-contained units of
work that constitute mini-syllabuses. In this way, a story provides the starting point and rich
context for developing a wide variety of related language and learning activities involving
children personally, creatively and actively in an all round whole curriculum approach (see
Ellis and Brewster 1991 and 2002).
Selecting storybooks
Storybooks are carefully selected from the world of authentic children's literature mainly
from the lists of British publishers. We look for stories that have gained an international
reputation and contain rich and authentic examples of English, as well as literary devices
commonly found in children's literature such as repetition and cumulative content, rhyme,
onomatopoeia, humour and suspense, etc; and which allow us to implement a story-based
methodology structured around the familiar three stages of pre, while and post storytelling.
We look for stories with high quality and varied illustrative styles and illustrations which
synchronise with the text to support children's understanding and to develop their visual
literacy.We look for stories that take place in settings other than western and urban and
address issues such as citizenship and multicultural education in order to develop intercultural
awareness; stories that develop social skills and emotional development and stories that allow
links to be made with other subjects in the curriculum in order to build on children's general
knowledge, reinforce concepts and help them learn how to learn. Finally, we look for stories
that offer a concrete outcome in the form of dramatization, related songs and rhymes, book-
making, making a game, a quiz/competition, poster-design, project work, etc.

Pupil responses
The educational gains from using authentic children's literature are very rich indeed as
reflected by pupils' personal response to the stories. Younger children (5 - 7 year-olds)
respond in pictorial form and older pupils complete a more detailed written evaluation
focussing on genre, characters, setting, illustrations, what they liked about the story and what
they learnt from the story. Here are some examples in response to the question, What did I
learn from the story?
The Pied Piper: We must keep our promises and not be greedy.
Tusk Tusk (a story about how elephants became grey and tolerance): I learnt about tolerance
and racism. I learnt to know how to respect others because we can't all be the same. You have
to love each other.
The Very Hungry Caterpillar: I learned the life cycle of the butterfly
Meerkat in Trouble: We mustn't disobey. You have to be obedient to your parents.
The Little Red Hen: You must help people.

Personal and professional development of the teachers
Implementing a story-based approach requires a great deal of energy, creativity and excellent
classroom management skills and flexibility from teachers. In addition, on the final afternoon
of the course children present their work to parents, which provides an ideal way of
strengthening our parent/teacher relationships. This can, however, put teachers under a
certain amount of strain as the performance of their pupils is often equated with their
performance as teachers. As one teacher said it keeps you on your toes! In other words, it
maintains high quality language teaching. Teacher's critical appraisal, resourcefulness and
confidence develop greatly:

I am now able to appraise a prospective storybook for use in class very quickly and decide if
it's suitable and for what age group it could be used with.
I am able to see the potential of a particular book and can create the support material
necessary and that has links to other curriculum areas.
Using storybooks has been an enjoyable experience and has given me another approach to
teaching English to children that is authentic and interactive where both teacher and students
learn something new!
I have developed my storytelling techniques and ways of making authentic language
accessible to foreign language students and techniques for creating worksheets and activities
for exploiting the language in the story.
The choice of the storybook is very important; if a teacher is enthusiastic, often this is
contagious.
Initially some teachers find it difficult to imagine how they can use a storybook for up to 6 -
10 hours. However, once they have used children's literature they often find it difficult to
return to the more conventional specifically written EFL materials which tend to remain at
the mundane and utilitarian level of basic dialogues and daily activities. Storybooks address
universal themes and allow children to play with ideas and feelings and think about important
issues.

Ellis, G., Brewster, J. 1991. The Storytelling Handbook for Primary Teachers.Penguin
Longman
Ellis, G., Brewster, J. 2002 (forthcoming) Tell it Again! The New Storytelling Handbook for
Primary Teachers. Penguin Longman


Other support materials
Other teacher support materials for using storybooks can be found from
Read and Respond series, Scholastic: www.scholastic.co.uk
Literature Units from Teacher Created Materials: www.teachercreated.com
Downloadable guidelines and worksheets from Penguin Readers: www.penguinreaders.com
Downloadable lesson notes and activities from Puffin Books: www.puffin.co.uk
Reviews and ideas for teachers and parents: www.realbooks.co.uk


Books referred to in this article
Stories referred to:
The Little Red Hen: retold and illustrated by Michael Foreman, Red Fox 1999
Meerkat in Trouble: Allan Frewin Jones, Illustrated by Adrienne Kennaway,Happy Cat
Books 1998
Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see? Bill Martin, Jr., Illustrated by Eric Carle, Puffin
Books 1995
Tusk Tusk: David McKee, Red Fox, 1978
The Very Hungry Caterpillar: Eric Carle, Puffin Books, 1970
Where's Spot? Eric Hill, Puffin Books,
The Clever Tortoise: a traditional story from West Africa (see Ellis and Brewster 2002)
A Lion in the Meadow: Margaret Mahy, Illustrated by Jenny Williams, Puffin Books
The Kangaroo from Woolloomooloo: a story from Australia (see Ellis and Brewster 2002)
The Pied Piper: traditional
Gail Ellis, Head of Young Learners Centre, The British Council, Paris










Appendix 2
ARKIB : 04/12/2006
PURNAMA ke arah menyuburkan sastera
kanak-kanak
Oleh ANI AWANG

SASTERA kanak-kanak dan remaja di
negara ini perlu dimantapkan kerana negara
ketandusan penulisan buku genre itu sejak
kebelakangan ini.
Menyedari hakikat itu, Pusat Penyelidikan
dan Pengembangan Kesusasteraan Kanak-
kanak dan Remaja (PURNAMA) telah
diwujudkan sejak 16 Januari lalu.
Ia berfungsi sebagai pusat penyelidikan,
pendokumentasian, penerbitan,
pemasyarakatan dan penggalakan
kesusasteraan kanak-kanak dan remaja.
Bagi melaksanakan fungsinya, PURNAMA telah mewujudkan Sahabat PURNAMA sebagai
satu program ke arah mengumpul individu-individu yang komited dengan usaha untuk
mendekatkan kanak-kanak dan remaja dengan buku dan sastera secara terancang.
Misinya begitu jelas untuk mempromosi kesusasteraan kanak-kanak dan remaja,
memasyarakatkan kesusasteraan kanak-kanak dan remaja, menggalakkan kerja-kerja
kesarjanaan dan penyelidikan dalam bidang itu termasuk penerbitan dan pengedaran bahan
pelbagai media, literasi dan pembacaan.
Selain itu, ia juga menyokong individu/kumpulan yang terlibat dengan kanak-kanak/remaja
dan kesusasteraan kanak-kanak dan remaja.


Artikel Penuh:
http://www.utusan.com.my/utusan/info.asp?y=2006&dt=1204&pub=Utusan_Malaysia&sec=
Sastera&pg=sa_01.htm#ixzz33CxLoabU
Utusan Melayu (M) Bhd
Ketua PURNAMA, Izzah Abdul Aziz berkata, penulisan terhadap sastera kanak-kanak dan
remaja perlu diberikan perhatian yang serius oleh penulis di negara ini.
Beliau berkata, ini kerana kanak-kanak dan remaja perlu didedahkan dengan bahan-bahan
bacaan yang bermutu serta sesuai dengan tahap pemikiran mereka.

SAKI Sasamori (kanan), Dr. Mad Sidin Ahmad Ishak, Izzah
Abdul Aziz dan Dr. Mahzan Arshad pada Forum Kesusasteraan
Kanak-Kanak dan Remaja dan Pembangunan Sosial serta
pelancaran Sahabat PURNAMA di DBP, Kuala Lumpur, baru-
baru ini.

Kita mendapati tidak ramai penulis di negara ini yang mampu menulis sastera kanak-kanak
dan remaja dengan baik.
Menulis sastera kanak-kanak dan remaja perlukan penulis yang mahir dengan kehidupan
remaja, katanya dalam kertas kerja Penerbitan Buku Kanak-Kanak dan Remaja pada
Forum Kesusasteraan Kanak-Kanak dan Remaja dan Pembangunan Sosial serta pelancaran
Sahabat PURNAMA di Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka (DBP), di Kuala Lumpur baru-baru ini.
Yang Dipertua Majlis Kanak-Kanak Malaysia, Tan Sri Zaleha Ismail merasmikan majlis itu.
Jelas Izzah, tanggapan bahawa kanak-kanak di Malaysia tidak gemar membaca adalah salah
sama sekali kerana buku kanak-kanak tidak sampai kepada golongan kanak-kanak dan
remaja.
Sehubungan itu, beliau berharap para ibu bapa perlu memberi sokongan bagi membolehkan
anak-anak memperoleh bahan bacaan yang sesuai dengan golongan tersebut.
Timbalan Dekan Pembangunan dan Penyelidikan, Fakulti Pendidikan Universiti Malaya
(UM), Profesor Madya Dr. Mahzan Arshad berkata, penulisan buku untuk kanak-kanak
sehingga berusia 12 tahun perlu digalakkan kerana ia mampu membimbing kanak-kanak
menghadapi kehidupan dalam masyarakat yang literasi serta memberi hiburan intelektual
kepada golongan itu.
Menurut beliau, ciri utama buku kanak-kanak ialah tema yang khusus untuk kanak-kanak,
bahasa yang mudah dan ringan, ilustrasi yang menarik, teknik penceritaan yang mudah dan
plot yang mudah.
Dr. Mahzan menambah, dia telah membuat kajian terhadap 820 buah buku cerita kanak-
kanak yang diterbitkan dari tahun 1996 hingga 2005.
Sebanyak 50.2 peratus daripada buku-buku itu diterbitkan di Kuala Lumpur dan 35.9
peratus di Selangor, katanya dalam kertas kerja Literasi.
Jelasnya, hasil kajian itu mendapati kualiti penerbitan buku kanak-kanak di Malaysia masih
pada tahap minima.
Pakar runding pendidikan awal kanak-kanak, Saki Sasamori pula berkata, setiap ibu bapa
perlu memberikan kerjasama bagi mendekatkan anak-anak dengan buku.
Ibu bapa hendaklah duduk bersama-sama anak kerana ia dapat membantu anak-anak
memilih buku yang sesuai dengan pemikiran mereka.
Kegagalan ibu bapa dalam membantu anak-anak menyebabkan anak-anak sukar untuk
memilih bahan bacaan yang bermutu dan ini sekali gus menyebabkan mereka terjebak dengan
kegiatan tidak sihat, katanya.
Beliau berharap anak-anak perlu diberikan didikan yang sempurna kerana pembentukan
minat terhadap bahan bacaan menjadikan mereka generasi yang matang dan berilmu.


Artikel Penuh:
http://www.utusan.com.my/utusan/info.asp?y=2006&dt=1204&pub=Utusan_Malaysia&sec=
Sastera&pg=sa_01.htm#ixzz33CxYf38q
Utusan Melayu (M) Bhd




























Appendix 3






Appendix 4