Shaping Narrative Writing Skills through Creating Picture Books

Institucion Universitaria Columbo Americana UNCA. Calle 19 # 2A - 49 Third Floor, Bogata, Columbia. Tel: +571-281-1777 Ext 1291; e-mail: [email protected]; Web site: https://latinjournal.org/index.php/gist/index

Y

24

Narration; Writing Skills; Picture Books; Writing (Composition); Skill Development; Writing Instruction; Writing Processes; Elementary School Students; Grade 5; Second Language Learning; English (Second Language); Teaching Methods; Illustrations; Creative Writing; Story Telling; Foreign Countries; Self Expression

1692-5777

This research sets out to unveil the potential enrichment of initial narrative writing processes in a group of EFL 5th graders through the implementation of picture books as useful tools which can be used to shape the natural ability of telling an event or a sequence of events systematically of EFL students at this level. In this qualitative approach study, writing was regarded as a formal description of structured data which is outlined in the mind, and which has different cognitive stages and works with pre-established categories, as proposed by Flower and Hayes (2008); furthermore, the learning was contemplated from a genre-based approach in which recognizing the needs and proficiencies of the students was the major concern, and this was fueled and supported by the use of familiar routines and cyclical activities in social contexts during the writing process. After following up and analyzing the whole process 5 graders went through in terms of creating a narrative story embodied in the form and principles of a picture book, it was determined that thanks to the use of illustrations, and words students were able to tell simple but meaningful and creative stories about characters (mostly creatures) they used as the protagonists in their picture books. Equally, it was found that the habitual written practices they were exposed to, contributed to a significant extent, to the enhancement of basic narrative writing skills as they were able to express their view of reality in a concrete and simple form, place their basic grammar and lexicon to the service of the narrations they were trying to render and most importantly, they displayed a better capacity of telling an event or a sequence of events systematically.

As Provided

2019

EJ1237370