Investigating the effect of story-telling teaching on the level of verbal intelligence and vocabulary of preschool children

Dissertation for Master's Degree in Educational Technology (M.A)

Abstract:

The purpose of this research is to investigate the impact of storytelling teaching on the level of verbal intelligence and vocabulary of preschool children. The method used in this research is a quasi-experimental type with pre-test and post-test and two experimental and control groups. The population that is the target of this study is the preschool children of Sarpol Zahab city in the academic year of 92-93 and the selected samples are 30 people (15 people in the experimental group and 15 people in the control group) and were selected as available samples. The research tool includes Wechsler's verbal intelligence scale, which was implemented in two stages before and after the implementation of the research for both groups, and for the experimental group, 8 sessions of 45 minutes of storytelling were performed. The data collected in the research was analyzed using spss software and descriptive statistics methods, and in the inferential statistics section, covariance analysis, Landay-Wilks test and Mbox test were used. The results showed that there is a statistically significant relationship between the teaching of storytelling on the level of verbal intelligence and the vocabulary of preschool children, which means that the H0 hypothesis is rejected. Keywords: Storytelling, intelligence, verbal intelligence, vocabulary

1-1- Introduction:

There are many purposes hidden in storytelling with methods that have been common among people since the distant past.    In telling stories with the usual methods, a lot of attention is paid to the development of the power of imagination, the development of cognition, the development of artistic taste, the flourishing of the passion for reading, and even the ability to improve literacy and education. Storytelling with older ways gives the child the ability to learn about his ethnic and national heritage and form his identity due to the direct and face-to-face communication between the storyteller and the audience. By participating in storytelling sessions and listening to stories, children hear new expressions, expressions, words and terms in the old ways of storytelling and get to know the language and literature of their people. In this way of storytelling, children encounter different feelings, thoughts and values, which are new and fun for them. Stories bring children's imagination to the wild and bring them into a field of adventures that they would never have the chance to dream about (Poladi, 1387). He pays attention to the value of the correct placement of adjectives and adverbs and is aware of the power of ambiguity when choosing his words. He knows that when telling a story, he can convey the feeling of touching, tasting and smelling with words. He also knows that he can use words to describe color, sex, and even temperature in such a way that he draws his listeners into the world of fantasy. The storyteller is an illustrator who uses words instead of colors, and his pictures with the artistic use of words have the same coloring that his fellow painter creates with colors. The storyteller's job is not only to be aware of the power of words and what they can do with the human imagination if they are used properly and sit in their place. Rather, the storyteller is also worried about how these words reach the listener's ears through this oral art (Chambers, 2008, p. 37). Storytelling is like many things that a child does, such as playing and drawing. It can have positive effects on his upbringing and education. According to Afshari, stories open new doors of expression and meaning for children and provide them with different means and tools to recount experiences, observations and feelings, telling stories is indirect education of children in the field of books and reading. Storytelling indirectly teaches children the benefits of ethical behavior. Storytelling softens emotions and feelings, entertains, raises the level of reading, expands the vocabulary, strengthens the power of expression and memory, cultivates artistic taste, fulfills the psychological needs of the listeners, and so on. (Hanif, 2013). The story helps children to discover the world around them, recognize and familiarize themselves with the names of actions and objects, achieve more fruitful speech and enjoy the wonders of language.The story helps children to discover the world around them, to recognize and familiarize themselves with the names of actions and objects, to achieve more fruitful speech and to enjoy the wonders of language. Many children's first experiences of literature are obtained with picture books and it helps them to give meaning to their vocabulary. Reading stories for children is that reading them strengthens the child's power of expression and speech and enriches his vocabulary and information. On the other hand, the child gets to know the problems and issues of life through a suitable story and acquires more social skills. At the same time, we should not forget that storytelling fills the gap between the ability to read and the ability to understand in a child (Rahman Doost, 1381).

1-2- Statement of the problem:

Story and storytelling have their roots in the history of mankind in such a way that mankind has depicted his life in the framework of stories and stories have shaped, transformed and transformed human life. Stories are our representation of ourselves and our experiences. Life is a continuous process of ordering and organizing experiences. When there is no complete understanding of the world, the need to attribute meaning to experiences is felt. In this way, the experiences and events of each person's long life become stories. When telling a story, people discover sequences and meaningful relationships and gain a deeper insight into their own situation (Davoydi, 1997).

Storytelling in our country has a long and old history, but the influence of mass communication tools and in addition to modern life has caused the role of storytelling to fade throughout the ages, especially in educational systems. Storytelling is still not considered as an art and there is no proper place for storytelling in the education system. Storytelling is a type of oral literature. Getting to know the oral type of literature gives the child a new understanding of language. Legends, proverbs and anecdotes that are told to children in the form of stories enrich their language knowledge. Verbal intelligence means the ability to use language and understand words without the person performing actions. such as memory, verbal reasoning and spatial visualization (Nazimi, 2015, p. 64). The story comes to life in the form of words, and the child's first encounter with the story is by hearing the words, short and compound sentences, the tone of the words. Even if they don't use that language and don't use its words, they will experience the language of the story and encounter a new linguistic world. In this way, the child will learn the language indirectly, and the learners will help to understand many words, words and literary concepts through their feelings and learn to use them correctly. From the point of view of some psychologists, language greatly helps children's mental development, and according to these materials, we find out what important role storytelling plays in children's understanding and also children can use storytelling to gain more vocabulary in everyday conversations and understand the meaning of many words. The problem that has arisen in this research is a scientific question whether teaching through storytelling can increase the level of verbal intelligence and vocabulary. 1-3- The importance and necessity of research: Teaching through storytelling helps educators to better understand the characteristics of children's verbal intelligence and vocabulary. Also, storytelling brings us closer to the factors that help in increasing intelligence, and it will definitely help education officials, psychologists and teachers in educating students. Children are fascinated by stories and storytelling, and stories have a deep impact on a child's language. They create familiarity and in this way, in addition to playing an important and serious role in language learning, they create a good opportunity to correct slips and language problems. Along with telling stories, children can be asked to say, for example, what the hero's name was, where he moved from, what he saw, what he said and what he did. The important necessity of this research is that the story can convey many concepts to children due to its attractiveness, beauty, and role in arousing curiosity. Also, by conveying concepts in an indirect way, it not only causes better and faster absorption of concepts into the child's mind and language, but also makes their understanding more objective and simple, for this reason, storytelling is considered one of the most serious and fundamental methods of conveying concepts to the world of the audience, especially children. Simple scientific and natural concepts and even the meaning of words can be conveyed through stories without the need for explanation.