Building Confidence Through Narrative Texts

Darby 2Photo Caption: SMAN 2 Sangatta Utara teachers lesson planning for the Narrative Text unit.

This month ETA Darby Jones and her counterpart decided to rethink the way narrative texts are normally taught in English classes at SMA 2 Sangatta Utara. To help students prepare for the upcoming local and national WORDS competition, the instructional team chose to move up the narrative text unit to be this semester’s first lesson. Using and modifying materials ETA Allison Cwikla in Temanggung prepared, Darby introduced her students to the popular American story “A Series of Unfortunate Events”, a text that highlights the resilience, resourcefulness, and determination of three orphaned children. The class started by reviewing the structure, purpose, and key components of a narrative text. To get students excited about the story, Darby played the trailer from the film adaptation of the book in class before students started reading.

Darby 1

SMA 2 students absolutely blew Darby and the teaching team away. While the adapted text (an entire book cut down to four pages) featured challenging vocabulary, complex sentence structures, and no Indonesian translations, students persevered as they read in groups and leveled up to the challenge presented. Recapping as a class after each page showed that students were grasping the major ideas of the text and applying the narrative text structure to the storyline. After each class finished the text, the students recognized what a feat they had just accomplished and applauded themselves. Darby and the students will be viewing the film in an English club in the coming weeks, and they are all looking forward to seeing the story on the big screen!

Darby Jones is currently teaching at SMAN 2 Sangatta Utara, East Kalimantan

Last Updated: Dec 13, 2019 @ 3:30 pm
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