Hsiao-fang Cheng
This study was undertaken to investigate whether narratives can be used as an effective approach to increasing participants’ knowledge gains and improving learning attitudes. Sixty-eight fourth graders from Taiwan, divided into a control and an experimental group, participated in this study. The results showed that participants in both groups made good progress after the instruction; however, those in the experimental group made significantly better advancement than those of the control group. The survey also revealed that they preferred the narrative approach to traditional lecture method. They stated that in the course of writing narratives about what they felt they had learned, they tried to recall the gained knowledge, and at the same time, relate the newly-learned knowledge to their previous knowledge or life experience, before finally express this in their own words. They further mentioned after composing their narratives, they could recall more correctly what they had been taught, retain the new knowledge for a longer period of time, and clarify their comprehension, doubts, or misconceptions. The result of this study demonstrated that using narratives as a beyond task had positive effects on the acquisition of content knowledge and the improvement of language skills.