Improving Children’s Confidence Through Storytelling

Abstract

Self-confidence is an important aspect for children to have in Early Childhood Education (ECE). Having self-confidence can help children to fully involve and engage in the playing and learning process. This research aims to examine how storytelling activity can improve children’s confidence by providing numerous learning activities. The design of the study is classroom action research that consists of two cycles. Meanwhile, the participants of the study are 20 children who are 4-6 years old attending a public kindergarten in Kendari, Southeast Sulawesi, Indonesia. This action research has four steps, planning, action, observation and reflection in conducting the study, at the same time, data collection techniques used in this classroom action research consisted of interviews, observation and documentation. Children’s self-confidence was divided into four categories, namely Undeveloped equals to 1; Starting to Develop equals to 2; Developed as Expected equals to 3, Very Well-Developed equals to 4. The results show that through storytelling children have improved their self-confidence as shown in the initial observation only 25% to 64% and 92% respectively in the first and second cycle. In the second cycle, 10 out of 11 aspects are achieved such as children listen well to the teacher deliver learning materials about the question and answer activities; and children can show a friendly attitude both to the teacher and their peers. The increase is also influenced by the teacher’s ability to modify the learning as well as to link children’s experiences into the story.