Fairy tales in listening comprehension

Abstract

Fairy tales have been valuable resources for learning a foreign language, for this reason, this research focused on analyzing the effectiveness of fairy tales in listening comprehension. The population was 16 participants 12 males and 4 females between the ages of 8 and 9 from fifth grade at Unidad Educativa "Giovanni Calle" of Pelileo. The researcher used a quantitative approach with a pre-experimental design, and bibliographic and field modality to conduct this research. Furthermore, the researcherselected the A1 Movers exam part 2 and part 4 from Cambridge and used a traditionalfairy tale obtained from the LearnEnglish Kids website for the treatment. In addition,the teacher used different teaching aids, visual aids thought out according to the classobjectives and planned interactive activities to complement the listening. Furthermore, the results of the pre-test and post-test showed that fairy tale stories had a slight impact on the students due to aspects such as short time or lack of interest of the students when performing the activities. On the other hand, the research showed that the students had problems listening for details or listening for specific information. However, at the end of the training, the students were able to identify the specific information as the sequence of the events presented in the story, listen to details as identify characters, and setting, or analyze the general idea of the story and complete the different activities proposed by the teacher. Finally, interactive activities or short stories are useful to avoid disinterest in children.