Characteristics of Effective Media

32 4 Opportunities to learn other things in addition to language through linking work with other areas of the curriculum. This also involves developing appreciation of literature. 5 Opportunities to learn through organizing lessons which provide opportunities to develop learning strategies. Deeply, Brewster et al 2002: 196-197 explain the techniques of storytelling. First, start with a short session which does not demand too much from the children when the story is unfamiliar for them. Second, arrange the children to make a half circle and sit on the floor to make sure they can see pictures of the story and hear teacher‟s voice clearly. Third, read the story clearly and slowly. Fourth, comments the illustrations and direct students‟ attention to some points. Next, involve the students into the story by asking questions and repeating key vocabulary items and phrases. Then, help them to convey the meaning through gestures, mime, and facial expressions. After that, use variation of voice pace, tone, and volume. Next, in order to give dramatic effects and time for children in relating things they hear and see, the teacher can stop telling the story where appropriate and make sounds effect. Ninth, disguise characters‟ sound by disguising your voice. Last, repeating, expanding, and reformulating stories are not prohibited. Moreover, delivering stories can be done through recorded and live version Brewster et al, 2002: 196. Using recorded version allow children to hear stories spoken by someone else. It usually contains sound effects which amuses children and helps them to guess unknown words. On the other hand, the teaching and 33 learning will be a monotonous and passive activity because of the lack of interaction between teachers and children. The best way in delivering stories is through live storytelling. Teachers are able to interact with children and involve them actively. They can use different intonation, gesture, mime, or ask questions to get children‟s attention and elicit their understanding. Furthermore, teachers can stop and repeat stories when children ask them to.

b. The advantages and disadvantages of storytelling

Story takes part in children‟s live. They have an important role in child‟s language development. It gives opportunities for children to create imagination and pictures of the stories. Using stories in education gives advantages and disadvantages. Here are the advantages of storytelling proposed by Brewster et al 2002: 186-187: 1 Stories are motivating, challenging, and fun and can develop positive attitudes, and also create a desire to continue learning. 2 When children are able to identify the story characters and interpret the narrative and illustrations, they can be personally involved in the story, and their own creative powers are developed. 3 Stories provide a link between fantasy or imagination and children‟s real world. They enable children to make sense of their everyday life and create links between home and schools. 34 4 Since listen to stories is a social experience, it accommodates children the chance to share responses of laughter, sadness, excitement, and anticipation which is enjoyable, helps them to build up confidence, and also encourages them to develop their social and emotional development. 5 Listening to stories permits teacher to introduce or revise vocabulary and structures. Children enrich their thinking and gradually enter their own speech as the language is exposed to them. 6 The awareness of rhythm, intonation, and pronunciation of the language can be increased when children listen to stories. 7 Stories cater for different learning styles and develop the different types of intelligences that contribute to language learning, including emotional intelligence. 8 Stories provide ideal opportunities for presenting cultural information and encouraging cross-cultural comparison. 9 Stories help children to develop their learning strategies such as listening for general meaning, predicting, guessing meaning, and hypothesizing. 10 Stories address universal themes. Children can play with ideas and feelings and think about important issues. 11 Stories provide positive concrete outputs. They can be in the form of games, competitions, quizzes, drama, songs, projects, book making, etc. On the other hand, Woodhouse in Duveskog et al 2012: 225 state that there are disadvantages of storytelling. First, the preparation for storytelling takes time. Second, children require a safe environment and may feel uncomfortable to share