THE USE OF BILINGUAL FOLKTALES TO ENHANCE ENGLISH VOCABULARY KNOWLEDGE OF PRIMARY 3 STUDENTS

Abstract

The objectives of this research were to 1) develop bilingual folktales lessons to meet the efficiency criterion of 70/70, and 2) study students’ vocabulary knowledge achievement before and after using the lessons. A sample of 12 primary 3 students at Nong Rad Wittaya School in academic year 2020 was obtained by using purposive sampling. The instruments consisted of a pre-test, a post-test, and 4 bilingual folktale-based lessons. Each lesson included 1) an illustrated bilingual folktale, based on the local literature orally narrated by community scholars, 2) 10 words in the vocabulary part presented with their related pictures, and 3) vocabulary exercises. The words were selected using basic English vocabulary for primary school students according to the English Language Institute, Office of the Basic Education Commission. The lessons were employed through three stages of storytelling activities including pre listening and reading, while listening and reading, and post listening and reading. These lessons, with the efficiency criterion of 70/70, were also validated by experts for their content accuracy and suitability which were found at moderate levels. The pre- and the post-tests had the IOC ranged from 0.67 and 1.00. Mean and standard deviation were used to analyze the data on students’ vocabulary knowledge before and after the lessons. The findings showed that 1) the bilingual folktales lessons had the efficiency level of 84.67/79.58 which exceeded the criteria, and 2) the students’ English vocabulary knowledge increased after implementing the bilingual folktale-based lessons. Before using the lessons, the pre-test mean score of students’ vocabulary knowledge was 12.50 (S.D. = 4.01) and their post-test mean score was 15.92 (S.D. = 2.68).