An Empirical Research On Applying Fairy Tales To Primary School English Teaching

Literature is of great significance in language learning.As the most representative genre of Children's literature,fairy tale is popular among children for its vivid plots and splendid imagination.The importance of fairy tale in primary education is highly valued by Chinese and foreign scholars.Not only in China,but in some developed countries such as Japan,American and South Korea,fairy tale plays an important role in native language teaching in primary school.And naturally,correlative researches about fairy tale and native language teaching have sprung up,while there are few researches about fairy tale and foreign language teaching.But during my internship in three primary schools in Yan'an,Yangling district and Hanzhong,Shaanxi province,it is easy to find that most of the time,English class activities such as listening,speaking and writing activities revolve around the textbooks.For primary students,the teaching contents limited in English textbooks cannot attract their attentions effectively,also students' comprehensible input is not sufficient.Therefore,the better teaching aims cannot be achieved.In this way,reading materials which is suitable for primary students to read such as fairy tales can be applied in English teaching activities.After summarizing the domestic and foreign researches,this study trying to find out whether it is an effective way of English learning for primary students by using fairy tales in English class.Students from the fifth grade of primary school in Yan'an were selected as research objects.Research tools were questionnaire and tests.During the experiment,the English teaching contents of the experimental class is fairy tales each Thursday,while the teaching content of the control class is English test paper.The experiment lasts one semester.The major findingsof this study are as follows: First,using fairy tales in primary school English teaching can significantly increases the students' interest in English learning;Second,using fairy tales in English teaching in primary schools can improve students' English comprehensive achievement.By analyzing the collected data,a conclusion was drawn that students can benefit from using fairy tales in English teaching.