The use of nursery rhyme in improving low proficiency students email writing skill in a form 2 English language lesson in Lahad Datu

Amielia Karim

Abstract

One of the main goals of pedagogy is to prepare students for the real world. Educators are using creative methods to ensure that students are equipped with real world skills, such as e-mail writing skill. One such method is the use of nursery rhymes in lessons. This study investigates the impact of using nursery rhymes in English Language lessons in improving the e-mail writing skill of low proficiency students. The objectives of this study are to examine the effectiveness of using nursery rhymes to improve e-mail writing skill of low proficiency students and to investigate the students’ perception to the use of nursery rhymes in English Language lessons. This study was conducted by holding an English Language lesson using nursery rhymes for a sample comprising 35 Form 2 students who have low English Language proficiency from Lahad Datu, Sabah. The quantitative approach is used for this study by collecting data of the students’ 5- Point Likert scale survey and e-mail writing test results from before and after the lesson was held. The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software is then used for a descriptive and paired-sample T-Test analysis to compare and analyze both sets of the collected data. According to the data analysis, the students' test scores for their email writing after the lesson was held demonstrate a statistically significant improvement of the students’ e-mail writing skill. Furthermore, based on the Likert scale analysis, the overall questionnaire's mean score was 4.06, indicating that many of the students agreed that using nursery rhymes did help them achieve a higher score for their e-mail writing test. In conclusion, the use of nursery rhymes does help low proficiency students improve their e-mail writing skill, and it is possible that this approach could be extended to their descriptive writing skill as well. Keywords: nursery rhymes, e-mail writing, students’ perception.

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