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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
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their stories. Third, topics may challenge personal values and therefore be threatening. Forth, children may need directions and guidance at various stages of
storytelling. Then, c hildren‟s response depends on their earlier exposure to
storytelling. The last, storytelling requires visualization skills and may not suit everyone‟s learning style.
Even though there are some drawbacks of storytelling activities, the benefits are still dominant. Storytelling provides children the opportunities to experience
fun learning, to connect imagination with real world, to develop their learning strategy and intelligence, and to practice concrete language outputs.
c. Picture series as Instructional Media
Picture series can be categorized into visual media and art teaching media. It also belongs to picture category. According to Yunus 1981: 49, picture series is
a number of related pictures which placed in a sequence. Its main function is to tell a series of events or to tell a story. Picture series help the learners to negotiate
their understanding of images and their knowledge of the world. In addition, Wright 1989: 68 describes pictures series as a sequence of
pictures which shows several actions in order to meet the teaching needs. Using pictures in the teaching and learning process helps students to understand various
aspects of foreign language. General context or particular points of illustration can be provided by pictures. If pictures which illustrate a story are understood by
students, it is hoped that the new language will also be understood
.
Harmer 2001: 135 states that pictures can be used for several ways. It can be used as aids in drilling vocabulary, playing communication games, giving
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understanding, putting ornamentation, making prediction, and leading a discussion. Deeply, Wright 1989: 2 states that pictures contribute to three
aspects that are interest and motivation, scene of the context of language, and specific reference point or stimulus. Pictures help students to gain motivation, to
make the subjects they are dealing with clearer, and to illustrate the general idea and forms of a particular object. Using the suitable pictures as one of the media in
the teaching and learning process can speed up the process of students meaning assimilation.
As visual media, picture series also has four functions of visual media Levie and Lentz 1982 in Arsyad, 2002: 17. The first is attentive function. Picture
series attracts and draws students‟ attention to concentrate on the material. Secondly, it has affective function. Looking at picture series while listening to a
story will make students enjoy the story. It also has good effect on their emotional development and attitude. The third function is cognitive function. Some
researches prove that using picture series helps students to achieve the teaching and learning goals that are to understand and to remember information contained
in the pictures. The last, it has a compensatory function. Picture series accommodates students who have difficulty in understanding a story with the
story illustrations. By paying attention to the pictures, students will be able to organize the information contained in the text and recall it.
In teaching listening through storytelling, picture series will benefit students in understanding the story because of the following factors Yunus, 1981: 49:
