The Role of Turkmen Folk Tales in Children’s Education

Abstract

The aim of this research is investigating the role and the mission of fairy tales for the elementary school children and finding out what kind of contribution they might have for pedagogical sphere in general. Four fairy tales and their pedagogical components have been studied. Brief summaries are presented. We tried to show that fairy tales, when selected carefully, play an important role in developing children individually and socially and thus can become an important aspect of children’s education. Children who are the main factor of the educational process may become more successful when they play an active role in this particular process rather than being a participant of the ‘classical’ teaching methods when the knowledge is being presented directly by the teacher. Fairy tales, which are one of the most important aspects of active involvement in learning, form a fundamental ground for children’s involvement in the process of acquiring knowledge. Children can identify themselves with a hero of a particular tale, thus having an opportunity to experience the events presented in that tale. This allows a child to gain permanent knowledge and decreases the possibility of forgetting the acquired information.