Abstract:
This study aimed at exploring the role of using short stories in improving narrative writing skills at secondary schools. The researcher followed the empirical and the descriptive methods. Two instruments have been used as main tools for collecting data relevant to the study. Firstly, a questionnaire was distributed to teachers of English Language at Karrari locality. Secondly, pre-posttest was conducted to students of third –form at Karrari secondary school for boys. The study sample of a questionnaire comprised (20) teachers whereas the study sample of pre-&post-test comprised (60) students. The researcher applied (SPSS) program as representative in a Chi-squared test to analyze and verify the hypotheses. The results have shown that teaching short stories has an effective role in improving narrative writing skills at secondary schools, and it helps secondary schools students, to enrich their English vocabulary. In addition to, encouraging secondary schools students to write effectively with a good organization for the layout of a written context besides spelling and punctuation marks. Moreover, using short stories reduce students' anxiety towards narrative writing skills and motivating teachers to teach narrative writing skills effectively. The study has recommended that short stories should be taught to improve narrative writing skills at secondary schools. Furthermore, teachers should be given ample time to practice narrative writing skills with their students when using short stories. Besides, teachers should be well- trained in recognizing how to use short stories in teaching narrative writing skills at secondary schools. in addition to that teachers should encourage their students to write many short stories to develop their narrative writing skills. Finally, Some suggestions are proposed for further studies.
