USING EMOJIS IN IMPROVING NARRATIVE WRITING

Writing lessons are often perceived as boring and difficult for the young learners. The pupils found words were difficult to be comprehended easily. Previous studies showed that young learners understand better through the use of visual aids. The wide usage of pictographs of faces, objects and symbols known as emojis in electronic messages has seemed to gain attention. Instead of using emojis to express emotions and ideas, this innovation attempted to improvise its use for writing lessons. Therefore, this action research aimed to explore the effectiveness of using emojis in improving narrative writing among Year 4 pupils. The samples consisted of 35 pupils with low level of English language proficiency selected from three primary schools located in Bekenu, Sarawak; Tenom and Sandakan, Sabah in Malaysia. Data was collected and triangulated both qualitatively and quantitatively using pre-test and post-test, questionnaire and interviews. Then, the interview and questionnaires were tabulated while the pre and post-tests results were analyzed using inferential statistics. It was found in the results that the pupils enjoyed the writing lessons and able to write better sentences. In conclusion, the intervention of using emojis in a modular approach found to be effective in improving narrative writing for low English language proficiency to certain extent.