Preface

I am writing this unit because of the desperate need for more oral language
instruction. Today more than ever students are coming into school with
insufficient language knowledge. Our students oral language skills are not
developed enough to support the curriculum and objectives we teachers are
pushing so hard. They require formal language instruction before they can be
expected to become fluent readers, writers, and thinkers.
This unit is a focused, intensive unit on storytelling. Storytelling is the strategy I
use to help obtain oral language proficiency among second language learners
and students with deficient language skills. Storytelling gives the students the
daily practice they need in order to advance their language skills. This unit will
help the students understand how telling stories and story structure enable them
to express themselves more clearly. The students will also learn through
storytelling that their ability to listen to others will increase, expanding both their
vocabulary, knowledge base and sentence structure.

Background
I teach second grade at a dual language school focusing on international
communication. Demographically, the majority of my students are of Hispanic
and Black descent. Many of the students at John C. Daniels speak Spanish as
their dominant language. It is through our dual language program that students
learn English or Spanish as a second language. As a result, in the early grades,
many students oral language skills in their second language, more so than in
their primary language, are far below grade level. When I formally tested my
students oral language level based on the MONDO oral language assessment, I
found that some of my students scored at a Kindergarten level. Students at this
level have difficulty following simple instructions and understanding texts read to
them. The majority of my students scored at a beginning First Grade level,
meaning they have difficulty comprehending texts above a DRA level of 6 read in
class. Only a few of my students scored on a second grade level, in part because
many of my students learned to read in Spanish. I found these results alarming.
How can I, as the teacher, force a curriculum onto these students who have not
yet acquired the necessary fundamental skills to understand and tackle it
successfully? My answer to this question is that I cant and we as teachers need
to make an adjustment in our teaching to account for this. Much of the
curriculum we are expected to follow is intended for students who are on grade
level. Based on the assessment data I have for my classroom- which is that the
majority of students fall below grade level in oral language, leading also to their
deficiencies in both reading and writing- the second grade curriculum proves to
be too advanced. Many of the books have vocabulary and structure that are too
complex for their academic level. I see this a lot in my classroom where my

students are able to read at a higher level than they can speak and function. One
example of this is a student in my class who is able to read at a DRA level 12, yet
his oral language level is so low that he cant structurally put a sentence
together well enough to ask me if he can use the bathroom. Another example I
see in students who have low language skills is that they look like fluent
readers when you listen to them read, but when it comes down to
comprehension questions and being able to retell what they have just read, they
can not do it. They do not have the language skills or background to support a
clear understanding of the story. Much of this discrepancy can be addressed if we
as teachers take the time to focus on formal language instruction. We need to
remember that you need to be able to speak and listen in order to read, write,
and think.
Storytelling is perfect strategy to use with the students at my school because it
also fits in with our international communication magnet theme and will honor
the students cultural roots and individuality. The students at my school have
rich heritages and it is through this unit that they will be able to express
themselves and learn about the diverse backgrounds of their fellow classmates.
Because this unit is focused on second language learners, my partner teacher
who teaches the Spanish component will be working with the students who are
learning Spanish as their second language, while I am working with the students
who are learning English as their second language.

Oral Language
Oral Language is what gives children the foundation for literacy development.
English language learners (ELLs) need and require daily language practice. It is
through listening to other people that they gain much of their vocabulary and
sentence structure. By listening to other people they also learn the context in
which words are used. These children require not only listening to others but also
a safe and comfortable environment in which they can practice the skills that
they have learned. Children must learn to speak and carry on conversations
before they can become active readers.
Formal language instruction is needed to assist our students to achieve the
proficiency necessary to become successful learners in the classroom. In order to
do this we need to bridge the gap between the informal language spoken at
home and the formal instructional language they hear at school. To do this,
students need language instruction so they can learn to speak appropriately and
to listen. Oral language instruction will help students to be fluent and understand
structured academic language.
Storytelling is a perfect avenue to explore when looking for ways to develop the
oral language skills of second language learners in a classroom. This unit will

encompass many of the techniques and strategies used to increase language

skills as stated by Crevola and Vineis (MONDO 2005). For example this unit will:
Develop personal relationships among all the children.
Provide daily opportunities for language development.
Create opportunities to interact regularly on a one to one basis.
Challenge students to talk, think, and explore their knowledge of the world.
Support students as they develop the language and learning strategies
necessary to articulate and extend their interactions with the w
Storytelling
Storytelling has long held an important role in history. People have passed down
stories from generation to generation. It has served as a way to explain and
understand the world. There are many different types of stories, which are told
for many different purposes. Stories help explain different phenomena, cultural
beliefs, attitudes, traditions, and much more. In this unit we will be focusing on
folktales and traditional stories arising from the students heritages.
Storytelling has many key values for both the individual telling the story and the
people listening to the story being told. Among the values that storytelling instills
in its participants as stated by Margaret Read Macdonald, in The Storytellers
Start-Up Book, is that it hones our literary and imaginative skills. We improve
our ability to listen, speak, imagine, compose phrases and create stories (Pg.
101). Macdonald continues on in her book to say that storytelling broadens our
awareness of our own as well as other cultures, allows us to understand
ourselves better, gives us a sense of belonging to a group and increases our
vocabularies. Jack McGuire lists the benefits in his book, Creative Storytelling, by
stating, The specific educational and social benefits to storytelling from a
childs point of view are numerous and well documented (Pgs. 13-14). Some
of the values McGuire touches upon are helping a child recognize patterns in
language, stimulating a childs powers of creativity, providing a child with
problem solving and decision making activities, strengthening a childs capacity
to form objective, rational and practical applications, assisting a child to develop
skills in dialogue and cooperative interpersonal behavior. It also familiarizes and
introduces a child to symbols, and traditions of different cultural heritages shared
among the people around them. There are tremendous gains to be made through
storytelling as a strategy to increase the oral language of second language
learners in particular.

Goals and Objectives

During this unit students will be given the opportunity to have daily language
practice in the safe and relaxed environment of their classroom. This daily
language practice will allow the students to interact on a personal level with both
the teacher and fellow classmates. The students are able to gain language
knowledge from their participation both as speakers and listeners. These
personal interactions are meaningful because the students are able to interact
with one another, carry on conversations, and hear significant rules being
modeled involving sentence structure. Each lesson within the unit will focus on a
particular aspect or skill set of storytelling, each week building upon the last in
complexity. The skills learned in this unit will help to develop the students oral
language, which is necessary to become successful academic learners in the
classroom. This will further prepare the students to effectively take on the
second grade curriculum.
In this unit students will meet the following objectives:
Students will develop vocabulary through listening, speaking, reading and
writing.
Students will listen to and respect the opinions of others about written, oral
and visual texts.
Students will listen to, read and respond to texts about and from many
cultures and times.
Students will recognize values and beliefs included in a text.
Students will determine purpose, point of view and audience, and choose an
appropriate written, oral or visual format.
Students will use oral language with clarity and voice to communicate a
message.
Students will use strategies to generate and develop ideas for speaking,
writing and visual activities.
Students will read, listen to and tell stories from a variety of cultures, and
identify the similarities and differences in the way language is used.

Strategies
Week 1, Day 1
This unit on storytelling begins with the teacher. In order to become successful
teaching a unit on storytelling I had to be comfortable telling stories and had to
become a storyteller myself. After all you wouldnt become a football coach if
you didnt know how to play football. There is no need to be nervous about this;

there are many resources (as listed under my teacher references) available to
help you become an effective storyteller.
To introduce the unit on storytelling I begin by becoming a storyteller myself and
I tell the students an intriguing, exciting story. I make sure to model all the
important components of a great storyteller that I expect to see from the
students during this unit. To do this, first I choose a folktale that I love. The story
I tell my students is The Three Billy Goats Gruf. I choose this folktale because it
is one that I remember hearing and loving myself as a child. It has strong
characters and a clear storyline that is easy to follow. Before I tell the story I
make sure that I practice it a few times. This story is fun to tell because you can
change your voice to fit and portray each character. Then, I give it my best effort
and tell the story to my students as if I were a professional storyteller. It is
exciting watching the students listen to my story and seeing their ears and eyes
perk up with excitement as they listen.
After telling the students my story I introduce formal storytelling to them. I begin
a discussion with the students and ask them a series of questions. I start out by
asking them what storytelling is. In my own research I came across Esme Raji
Codells website where she suggests a good way to tell your students about
what storytelling is. She says, I tell them that in Africa, there is a saying: Every
man dies two deaths. The first, when his body dies. The second, when the last
person remembers him dies. Stories, too, die when the last person who knows
the story dies. So the trick is not only to know the story, but to make people
remember the story, so it will live on and on. After telling the students this
about storytelling we discuss what she means. I also ask the students what
makes a good storyteller, how do you become a storyteller (I let them know that
some peoples job is to be a storyteller), and why stories are important? Once I
have spent some time discussing storytelling, I tell the students that we are
beginning a unit on storytelling. I tell my students that by the end of this unit
they will all become storytellers.
Week 1, Days 2-4
As the students first opportunity or trial with storytelling, I partner the students
up into pairs. I put one student with high language skills and one student with
low language skills together in a group. This allows for the higher skilled student
to act as a model for the lower skilled student. This is meaningful for the lower
leveled student because they are able to hear correct sentence structure in a
safe environment made up of his or her peer. This will allow the student to feel
confident in producing and attempting oral language.
I have learned from past experiences that for my students first time speaking
in front of an audience (the class), they always feel more comfortable with a
buddy or friend at their side, taking a bit of the attention off themselves. In order
to do this I use a series of books by Mary Anne Hoberman entitled You Read to
Me, Ill Read to You. These books are filled with short stories in dialogue form.
One student reads the left side of the page and the other student reads the right
side of the page, taking turns. Anything in the middle they read together. Each

part is color coded so the student knows what line is his or hers. These stories
are great because they are very short, including fairy tales, scary stories, stories
from the 21st century and more. They are perfect for the students first
storytelling experience because they are simple, and fun and they can be told
with a partner.
After each pair of students chooses the short story they would like to perform out
of this series of books, I tell the students the objective of the lesson. In this
lesson the students will be focusing on the important mechanics of storytelling.
These include speaking in a loud, confident voice that their audience can clearly
hear, making eye contact with the audience, speaking fluently, and becoming
involved with the story through props, emotions, and actions. At the end of the
week, on Friday, each pair of students will have the opportunity to tell their story
to the class. Before the pairs begin to practice I hand out a rubric to each group
so that they can see how they will be assessed. I score the students by giving
either a 0,1, or 2 for each category. An example of a rubric I use is as follows:

During the week I allow the students time each day to practice reading the skits
together with their partner. I allow enough time for each group to read the skits
at least three times through and discuss with one another how they can become
great storytellers as they tell the story to the class. The students, as they
practice, each have a copy of the rubric in order to focus their attention on the
objectives of this lesson. As the students are practicing their stories, I circulate
around the room, spending time with each group continually focusing each group
on the mechanics of storytelling that we are focusing on this week. I go through
each of these mechanics with the pair, checking for understanding and asking
the students what they are doing to make sure they are addressing each
category. At times I need to model these mechanics and get involved with each
pair, to increase the students understanding.
My students get very excited with their skits and it gives them a sense of
ownership over their story if they have a copy of it to take home and practice. I
make copies of the skits so that they can take them home and practice them for
homework. I tell the students that hopefully by Friday they will not need their
paper any more to tell the story. Some of the students are able to perform their
skits without the script in their hand.
It is important to allow the students sufficient time each day to work on their
stories. This gives the students with low language skills more confidence and the
daily practice they need in order to learn to tell the story. This activity is great for
increasing oral language because it allows the students to create a personal
relationship with a fellow classmate. This gives the students with low language
skills the opportunity to hear correct sentence structure, learn vocabulary, and
practice using language in a safe and comfortable environment.
Week 1, Day 5

On Friday, or the last day of the week, it is storytelling day. This is the day the
students will finally be able to tell their stories to the class and begin the process
of becoming storytellers. Before the students tell their stories I always make sure
to go over respectful behavior. I remind the students to be polite, and tell them
that there is no talking during storytelling because in storytelling the audience
also plays a very important part. The audience has the role of listening and
learning. I also remind the students that it is polite to clap at the end of a
performance. In addition, before the storytelling begins I go over the rubric one
last time to focus the students on the objectives of the lesson. I try not to make it
seem like I am grading the students because this is supposed to be fun, not an
intimidating activity like a test.
As each pair tells their story I fill out a rubric for each student. This allows the
student to see where he or she needs to concentrate and what he or she can do
to improve his or her storytelling. I also allow the audience to give the students
constructive feedback. I call on two or three students and encourage them to tell
the group something they learned, what the group did well or something they
think the group can improve on.
Before concluding on Friday, I always ask the students if anyone would like to
share anything that they enjoyed or learned. I ask if there is anything, as a pair,
that they need to improve on, what they found difficult and what they enjoyed.
Lastly, I tell the students that next week we will continue our unit on storytelling
and be able to choose a story we would like to share with the class.
Week 2, Day 1
The second week of storytelling takes more preparation time on the part of the
teacher. I pre-select stories the students will use this week for storytelling. The
students will be given the opportunity to choose a story from the pre-selected
books that they will be using for this weeks storytelling experience. I chose a
wide variety of books for the students to look through. Each of the stories has
simple language, strong characters, and a clear beginning, middle, and end. The
students begin this week of storytelling by reading the different stories until they
find a story that they love or have some connection with. There are many
websites online that are great resources to use when choosing books for
storytelling such as,
http://www.planetesme.com/storytelling.html#storytellingbibliography and
http://www.augusthouse.com/. I give the students time the first day to choose
the story they want to tell and to get used to the story. The students should have
enough time to read the story twice silently to themselves and once out loud. I
allow the students to take the story home to read and practice the story for
homework. I let the student know that this is the story they will be using this
week as they continue the quest to become a storyteller.
Week 2, Day 2
Graphic organizers can be very helpful tools when learning to tell a story. In this
lesson the students use a graphic organizer to clearly layout the story structure

and to use as an aide when telling the story (see below for graphic organizer).
Today, the students spend time filling out the graphic organizer. This graphic
organizer will help the students see how the story is broken down and what the
important elements are to include when telling a story. In each space provided on
the graphic organizer, the student needs to draw in the story element. This
graphic organizer also acts as a visual aide for the student when telling the story.
Week 2, Days 3 & 4
During centers this week the students continue to work on their stories. On
Wednesday and Thursday I pair each student up with a different partner and
have them practice retelling their story to their partner using the graphic
organizer as an aide. The students who are listening to the story also have a job.
They fill out a rubric as their partner tells his or her story. Once the student is
finished telling his or her story their partner shows him or her the rubric. The
group then has the opportunity to discuss the rubric and the listener can tell
what he or she thinks was done well and what he or she thinks can be improved
on. Before the students get into their groups I remind the students of the
mechanics they focused on last week (voice, eye contact, volume, fluency,
actions) so that the rubric or expectations are fresh in their minds.
The students continue to take their stories home and practice telling them to
their families at home. I tell them that if no one is around to listen to their story
they may want to tell their story in front of a mirror for extra practice.
Week 2, Day 5
Students will be working in groups of four or five students today. Each group is
assigned a section of the classroom. Today students will be telling the story to
their group that they have been working on this week. This will act as a practice
session so that each student will see what he or she did well, what was improved
on from last week, and what he or she can make further improve on. One at a
time, each member of the group will stand up and tell his or her story. The rest of
the group will act as the audience. I again remind the students how a good
audience behaves prior to starting. After each student has a turn telling his or
her story, I allow time for questions and comments pertaining to each story.
Peers usually act as good teachers as long as they know the difference between
negative criticism and constructive criticism. This should be taught prior to this
lesson. I make it a rule that the students must begin by saying a positive
comment. I also remember to allow time at the end for a whole group discussion.
I ask the students if they learned anything new today in storytelling and allow
time for positive comments. I then ask the students how the graphic organizer
was able to help them become better storytellers. Continuing the discussion, I
ask how they think they could become better storytellers and what types of
qualities make a good storyteller?
* Now that the students have been working on storytelling for a few weeks it is a
good time to invite a professional storyteller to come into the classroom. This is

great for the students to see, so that they have a clear model of what a true
storyteller is and the qualities that they possess.
Week 3, Day 1
This week the students will be working on and coming up with their own stories
to tell. These stories will be true stories coming from their own lives, including
family history, traditions, personal experience, a time when they got hurt, a
vacation, a favorite relative, etc. To begin this lesson I model a story from my
own personal experience as an example. The example I use is a story about my
two brothers and me. In this story I make my brothers strong characters with
distinctive personalities. There is a clear beginning, middle, and end to the story,
giving it a simple structure. This makes the story easy to follow and understand,
yet exciting to listen to. After I have told my story to the class, the students are
usually very talkative, each student wanting to tell his or her own story relating
to family. All of this talking is not bad. The students are actually practicing telling
stories to each other. I give the students a few minutes to talk to their friends
and tell each other their stories before moving on.
Next, I tell the students that this week the stories we will be telling are true
stories about our own lives. With the students help I make a list of the different
types of stories they can choose to tell this week. After generating a list and
giving the students many options, I give the students two minutes to silently
think of and choose a story to tell. Once the students have come up with a story I
ask them to think of the beginning, middle and end of their stories so that it is
clear in their minds. Then, I have the students turn and talk to their neighbor,
telling their stories. When both of the partners have had a chance to tell their
story, I have a discussion with the class. I start by asking the class if they used
any of the techniques they have learned about storytelling. Then I ask what
techniques they used and how they were helpful. If time allows I have the
students fill out the graphic organizer used previously as an aide for future use.
The students homework tonight is to go home and talk to their families. The
students need to come up with a story relating to their family. The story might be
how their families came to New Haven, a special cultural tradition they may
have, a vacation they have gone on, etc. I have the students take home a
storytelling graphic organizer that they can color and fill out to help them tell the
story the next day in school. On the back of the graphic organizer I write a letter
to the parents explaining the unit on storytelling and telling the date of the
storytelling festival coming up.
Week 3, Day 2
I divide the class into groups of three and the students take turns telling the
story that they did for homework last night. When the students are finished
telling their stories to one another I allow time for group members to ask each
other questions, and to tell what they did well and what they could improve on.
Next, we all move to the carpet. I tell the students that todays focus will be
using the five senses when we are telling our stories. To begin, I start by asking

the students to raise their hands if they can tell me one of the five senses. Once
the class has named all five senses we take time to discuss each of these senses,
one by one. We also talk about how using the five senses in our storytelling can
help improve our stories and make them more exciting. After we have discussed
the advantages of using the five senses to elaborate and make our stories more
descriptive, each student returns to his or her seat and takes out his or her
graphic organizer.
Using their graphic organizers, the students job is to look at each box and add
a sense to the box. The students first need to write the name of the sense that
can be used to enhance their story at the top of the box; then at the bottom of
each box they need to write how they used it, either through something they
smelled, what they heard or saw, what an object felt like or what they said. When
they retell their stories again they will add in these details, making their stories
more interesting and descriptive. I allow the students five more minutes to retell
their stories again but this time using their five senses.
Homework: I ask the students if they know what props are, then I tell them that
props are used to help people imagine, understand, and get a better image of a
story. Next as a group we come up with a list of items that are props. The
students need to go home and find two or three props that they can use
tomorrow to help to enhance their stories.
Week 3, Days 3 & 4
The students will continue working on their family stories, now adding the props
that they brought from home to help tell their stories. Students can work with a
partner, when they finish their centers, practicing telling their stories including
both the five senses in their stories as well as the props that they brought from
home.
Week 3, Day 5
This is the class storytelling day! The students will take turns telling their stories.
I will use a rubric to score the students, adding in both the five senses and the
use of props.

Week 4, Days 1-4

This is the last week of the storytelling unit. The students this week will be able
to choose one of the three stories they told in the past three weeks to share at
the family storytelling festival. The students parents, guardians, and relatives
will be invited to attend the festival during the school day on Friday. The festival
will be held on the school stage. The students will be able to use a microphone
and become a real storyteller.
This week will be spent practicing and getting ready for the big day. To do this
there will be a storytelling center, giving students time to practice and get their

stories ready. Once the students have chosen the story they want to tell, the
students will need to work on making it better, adding the five senses and props
to the story. We will have a dress rehearsal on Thursday on the stage to get
the students comfortable and ready for the festival the next day.
Week 4, Day 5
This is the big day, the storytelling festival. To make this as professional as
possible I create a program listing the individuals who will be storytelling. To
begin the festival, I invite a professional storyteller to come into the school and
perform for the start of the festival. After the professional storyteller is finished
each student performing tells his or her story taking turns on the stage. After the
students have finished telling their stories I allow about fifteen minutes for food,
drinks and mingling. To end the festival each student is awarded a storytelling
certificate, making them an official storyteller.
*Because John C. Daniels is a dual language school and not all of the parents
speak either English or Spanish a translator will be necessary in order for the
students to tell the story in their second language and still allow all the parents
to understand what is being said.

Connecticut Literacy Standards

Standard 1: Reading and Responding
Students read, comprehend and respond in individual, literal, critical and
evaluative ways to literary, informational and persuasive texts in multimedia
formats.
1.3 Students select and apply strategies to facilitate word recognition and
develop vocabulary in order to comprehend text.
Students will develop vocabulary through listening, speaking, reading and
writing.
1. Students communicate with others to create interpretations of written,
4 oral and visual texts
Students will listen to and respect the opinions of others about written, oral
and visual texts.
Students will share opinions and judgments based on texts heard, viewed or
read.
Standard 2: Exploring and Responding to Literature
Students read and respond to classical and contemporary texts from many
cultures and literary periods.

2. Students recognize how literary devices and conventions

1 engage the reader.
Students will identify the elements of a genre and interact with the text.
Students will read or listen to a text and explain its appeal.
2. Students explore multiple responses to
2 literature.
Students will develop and discuss multiple responses while reading, listening
or viewing texts.
2. Students recognize and appreciate that contemporary and classical literature
3 has shaped human thought.
Students will make connections between characters lives and the real world.
Students will listen to, read and respond to texts about and from many
cultures and times.
Students will compare and respond to text about multicultural experiences.
2. Students recognize that readers and authors are influenced by individual,
4 social, cultural and historical contexts
Students will recognize values and beliefs included in a text.
Students will describe how the experiences of a reader influence the
interpretation of a text.
Students will discuss the influence of culture, history and ethnicity on themes
and issues in literature.
Standard 3: Communicating with Others
Students produce written, oral and visual texts to express, develop and
substantiate ideas and experiences.
3. Students use descriptive, narrative, expository, persuasive
1 and poetic modes.
Students will use oral language with clarity and voice to communicate a
message.
3. Students prepare, publish and/or present work appropriate to audience,
2 purpose and task.
Students will determine purpose, point of view and audience, and choose an
appropriate written, oral or visual format.
Students will use strategies to generate and develop ideas for speaking,
writing and visual activities.

 Students will begin to revise texts for organization, elaboration, fluency and
clarity.
Students will publish and/or present final products in a myriad of ways,
including the use of the arts and technology.
Standard 4: Applying English Language Conventions
Students apply the conventions of standard English in oral, written and visual
communication.
4. Students use knowledge of their language and culture to improve
1 competency in English.
Students will read, listen to and tell stories from a variety of cultures, and
identify the similarities and differences in the way language is used.

Resources
Bibliography for Teachers
Bierhorst, John. Latin American Folktales. New York: Pantheon Books, 2002.
*A collection of Hispano-American folk narratives, good for storytelling.
Codell, Esme Raji. Storytelling!. 1999-2006 18 May 2008
http://www.planetesme.com/storytelling.html#storytellingbibliography>.
*Gives the benefits of storytelling and also a sequence of lessons to use when
teaching storytelling.
Crevola, Carmel, and Mark Vineis. Lets Talk About It . New York, NY: MONDO
Publishing, 2005.
*Oral language research and background information.
Ellis, Brian, and Stephanie McAndrews. Storytelling Magic Enhancing Children S
Oral Language Reading And Writing. Fox Tales International. 2004. Reprinted
From the Illinois Reading Council Journal. 6 Apr 2008
http://www.foxtalesint.com/Articles/StorytellingMagicEnhancingChildrenSOralLan
guageReadingAndWriting>.
*Gives background and benefits of storytelling including its connection to
education and oral language skills.
MacDonald, Margaret Read. The Storytellers Start-Up Book. Little Rock: August
House, 1993.

*Includes techniques for learning and performing stories and ideas for
incorporating storytelling into the classroom.
Maguire, Jack. Creative Storytelling. New York: McGraw Hill Book Company, 1985.
*Provides information on becoming a storyteller.
Maurano, Margaret. Oral Language. Exemplary Practices that Support Early
Literacy. 2003. Bridgewater State College. 6 Apr 2008
http://www.bridgew.edu/Library/CAGS_Projects/MMAURANO/OralLanguage.htm>.
*Outlines the importance of oral language acquisition in the early grades and
factors that support it.
McWilliams, Barry. The Art of Storytelling. 1997. 6 Apr 2008
http://www.eldrbarry.net/roos/art.htm>.
*Lists techniques and provides links to additional resources to use and research
how to tell stories.
Mellon, Nancy. The Art of Storytelling. Rockport, MA: Element Books, Inc., 1992.
*A guide outlining the essentials of a good story through the use of visualization
and imagination.
Mellon, Nancy. Storytelling with Children. Gloucestershire, UK: Hawthorn Press,
2000.
*How to become a confident storyteller.
Phelps, Ethel Johnston. Tatterhood and Other Tales. New York, NY: The Feminist
Press, 1978.
*Folktales and legends where the central characters are successful females.
The Education Alliance at Brown University , Oral Language. Teaching
Diverse Learners. 2206. Brown University. 6 Apr 2008
http://www.alliance.brown.edu/tdl/elemlit/orallanguage-prt.shtml>.
*How to improve oral language of ESL learners
Yolen, Jane. Favorite Folktales from aound the World. New York: Pantheon Books,
1986.
*A collection of folktales.
Reading List for Students
Bierhorst, John. Latin American Folktales. New York: Pantheon Books, 2002.
Hoberman, Mary Ann. You read to me, Ill read to you: very short fairy tales to
read together. New York: Little, Brown, 2004.

Hoberman, Mary Ann. You read to me, Ill read to you: very short mother goose
tales to read together. New York: Little, Brown, 2005.
Hoberman, Mary Ann. You read to me, Ill read to you: very short scary tales to
read together. New York: Little, Brown, 2007.
Finch, Mary. The Three Billy Goats Gruf. Cambridge, MA: Barefoot Books, 2001.
McDermott, Gerald. Anansi the Spider. New York, NY: Landmark Production,
Incorporated, 1972.
Musgrove, Margaret. The Spider Weaver. New York: Scholastic Inc., 2001
Phelps, Ethel Johnston. Tatterhood and Other Tales. New York, NY: The Feminist
Press, 1978.
Yolen, Jane. Favorite Folktales from aound the World. New York: Pantheon Books,
1986.

Storytelling a good way to learn English

EVERY effort by the Education Ministry to improve the English proficiency of our
students and teachers alike, must be lauded.
Storytelling is a common activity used in teaching English to primary as well as
secondary students.
Storytelling competitions with attractive prizes are held to encourage students to
develop their oratory skills in the language.
But then again, let us ask who are those telling the stories? More often than not,
they are the average or above average students who get to participate.
What about the below average and no-hopers in English?
Do they get a chance to tell their stories? Most teachers will be quick to point out
that since these students cant even construct a simple sentence correctly, how
can they be expected to tell a story in English?
When I was a secondary school principal, I often took on certain relief periods for
the last classes in the lower forms.
Students in these classes were branded as low achievers, uninspired and
unteachable.
Most of them were from vernacular primary schools; they had little or no grasp of
the English language. In fact, they felt shy and embarrassed to speak the
language.
I went into these classes to teach them English! At times I chose the storytelling approach.

In order to do that, I had to first encourage them and to make them feel easy and
relaxed.
They needed to understand that the principal standing before them was now a
teacher just like any other.
I would randomly select a student and get him to start the story by speaking out
on a topic that came to his mind. Next, another student would construct a
sentence to build on the story. Another student would continue and that is how a
story was developed.
The students did not discuss the storyline before they engaged in their
storyelling.
Each student just used their respective ideas to make the story interesting. I
helped to correct their sentences whenever necessary.
These students though branded as low-achievers and English no-hopers, had
come up with imaginative storylines when they were given the freedom to
explore.
There was a sense of camaraderie and much laughter as they teased on the
ideas put forth. Let me describe a scene from a class where I encouraged
students to come up with an interesting story.
The first sentence: I have a cat as my pet. Another student then said: I have a
dog as my pet. And, so, the battle lines were drawn.
The story continued: The cat has a fight with the dog. They then continued
saying that it led to a quarrel betweeen both the pet owners.
They looked for a tai kor (middleman) to settle things.
The final solution was that the owners had to exchange their pets for a short
period to gain understanding of their respective pets behaviour.
The story had a happy ending with the owners and pets shaking hands!
Well, this was certainly not Aesops Fables! But, it generated much interest
amongst the students.
I was most touched when they asked for new words to express themselves.
They had asked me to translate to English certain Chinese words it was
interesting and it showed that they were trying their best to converse and find
the right phrases in English.
They were no longer pai seh or embarrassed and no English word was too
difficult for them to pronounce.
My point is that I managed to get a hopeless class to achieve some super
storytelling skills!

They had enjoyed the experience and I believed it had also, to a small extent,
built up their confidence in using and speaking the language. It was a good start
for them!
LIONG KAM CHONG
Seremban, Negri Sembilan
Storytelling in the EFL Speaking Classroom
Xu Jianing
Suzhou Industrial Park Institute of Vocational Technology (Jiangsu Province,
China)
jianing61 {at} yahoo.com.cn
Introduction
As English becomes increasingly important in various fields such as business,
finance, industry and education, most Chinese students hope they can speak
English fluently. However, from my observations and many EFL teachers'
descriptions of their oral English classrooms, a considerable number of students
are not responding actively in speaking exercises. How to motivate the students
in EFL speaking classrooms has long been our concern. First of all, it is necessary
to find out the main factors affecting their participation.

Why Stories?
As we all know, stories have always played a significant role in children's growth.
Stories not only help in stimulating children's imagination and understanding of
the world, but also in developing children's language ability and appreciating
literature (Aiex, 1988; Cooper, 1989; Koki, 1998; Zobairi & Gulley, 1989). It is just
as Wright wrote, "Stories which rely so much on words, offer a major and
constant source of language experience for children" (Wright, 1995).
The primary reason to recommend storytelling in the EFL speaking classroom is
that stories are motivating and immensely interesting, can best attract listeners
and promote communication. "The excitement and drama of storytelling provide
a context that holds students' attention." (Cooter, 1991; Bla, 1998).
Secondly, stories are an enormous language treasure. For hundreds of years,
thousands of stories have been created and passed down. Many old stories are
regarded as the models of language and treasures of the culture, from which
learners at various language levels and age groups can find suitable stories to
read and tell. It would be a waste and pity if they are neglected in the course of
EFL/ESL. In addition, stories are easily accessible; storybooks can be found in
bookstores and borrowed from libraries or friends. Today, the most convenient

and quickest way to find stories is from the Internet. Storytelling costs
nothing, is enjoyable, and can be used anywhere and at any time (Zabel, 1991).
Thirdly, the lively atmosphere and real life environment created by stories
encourages the students to talk and discuss with each other. When telling and
listening to a story, the learners will easily be plunged into the plots and the
scene and forget about themselves, which will, to a great degree, relieve their
nervousness. Colon-vila (1997) also commented that storytelling helps EFL
learners become more self-confident to express themselves spontaneously and
creatively. However, teachers have not been zealous to use it in the classroom
(Alvey, 1977).
Some students say that they have no time to meet with their partners and
practice dialogues when they fail to do it well. Though sometimes it is just an
excuse, nevertheless, storytelling helps solve the problem: partners are not
indispensable to practice storytelling though it is better to have an audience.
To Whom to Use Stories?
Stories are often connected with children. In fact, they are not only loyal
listeners; they also like to tell stories. The language classroom is just the place
for children to share stories and show their language abilities. In China, there are
various kinds of storytelling competitions in kindergartens and schools, attracting
many children to participate. As long as the teacher gives proper instruction,
children would be very pleased to learn storytelling in English. Besides, many
stories can be adopted into short plays and children enjoy performing.
It should also be pointed out that stories are not only for children. There are
many stories for EFL learners of different levels and ages. I have tried using
stories in college English classrooms and found that even the poorest storyteller
can be the center of attention.
How to Use Stories?
The following are just a few examples of using stories in the EFL speaking
classroom arranged in the order of difficulty. At first, if the students are not
confident in their speaking skills, it is recommended that the students be given
enough time to prepare. As the students build their confidence and the
classroom language environment becomes more free and active, the teacher
could gradually increase the difficulty and make the game more versatile. To
motivate and encourage the students, points and prizes are granted to good
tellers and groups each time.
Warming Up

The students listen to some stories downloaded from the Internet and repeat as
they listen. This gives them an opportunity to improve their pronunciation, stress
and intonation. They are offered three stories each time and required to practice
the one they like best. A competition is held every two weeks. When every
student has learned to tell three to five stories naturally and expressively, they
feel much more confident in telling stories in English than before.
Activity 1
Divide the students into groups and each group prepares a story. Each member
of the group tells two to three sentences and the next one continues until the
end of the story. The length of the story could gradually increase from two or
three minutes to four or five minutes. Before the lesson, the students could
divide their tasks in advance and practice their own parts. They could also be
given a few minutes to practice in class the whole story if necessary. The teacher
moves among the groups and chooses two or three groups to present their
stories before the class. Because the students have enough time to prepare and
they are working together, this helps them build confidence and create a lively
and brisk atmosphere.
Activity 2
Ask each student to prepare a story (about two minutes long) in advance. Divide
the students into groups with four to five members in each group and ask them
to tell his/her story in the group. The best storytellers in each group win ten
points and compete for the best storyteller of the class. The winner wins another
ten points for each member of his/her group and the second best wins eight
points and so on. Since the performance of each representative is connected to
the score of everyone, the students will be greatly involved in the whole process
and listen to the stories attentatively, which will in turn promote the performance
of the storytellers.
To avoid the few best storytellers dominating the activity, the best storytellers
will be arranged in the same group next time. They will have to work harder in
order to win again. This will make the winners stronger and at the same time,
increase the opportunities of others and promote the whole class participation.
Activity 3
Divide the students into four to five groups and each group is given an opening
of a story and asked to finish the story in about 20 minutes. Then select one
student from each group to tell their story in the class and the best one wins 10
points for their group.
To get everyone fully involved and avoid the liability that each group just asks
their best storyteller to do the job, the storytellers are selected by drawing lots

instead of being chosen by themselves. This also helps enliven the atmosphere
of the classroom. So each group must work together to make the story as
interesting as they can. An alternative way is to ask each member of the group
to tell a part of the story and make a whole.
Activity 4
Ask each group to hand in an incomplete story and redistribute them among the
groups. Give the students 20 minutes to read their stories and finish them. After
each group presents their story, compare it with the original one. The most
interesting one and the one closest to the original win.
Activity 5
The teacher gives the first sentence to the class and then each student adds one
more sentence to make a whole story impromptu. Because there is no
preparation and no body has any idea about what the next person will say and
where the story is going, there are often lots of fun and surprises in the game.
This game is suitable to the classes with no more than 20 students. If there are
too many students, the students will wait too long to make his/her sentence,
which is likely to make the game sluggish; also, the students may not hear each
other clearly and this will reduce the success of the game.
In the process of using stories, the teacher could, in different cases, choose to
encourage the students to rewrite the stories, using their own language or ask
them to keep the original language as much as they can. The former way
encourages the students to understand the stories and adds their own
characteristics to the stories and the latter prompts them to learn to use new
words and expressions. Besides, pictures, movies and other materials would also
be great help in storytelling. After a few months, the students speaking ability
can be improved to considerable degree.
Conclusion
There are many ways to use stories in the oral English classroom. It is also
advised to encourage the students to find more interesting stories and create
different ways to use them. Besides, in the course of looking for, rewriting and
completing stories, their reading, writing and imagination can be further
developed; teamwork and friendship will become stronger by working in groups.
So let stories be a member of your oral English class!
References

Aiex, N. K. (1998). Storytelling : Its wide-Ranging Impact in the Classroom.

[ED: 299 574]. Alvey, R.G. (1974). The Historical Development of

Organized Storytelling to Children in the United States. Phd Dissertation,

University of Pennsylvania.

Chen, Xiaohua. (2004). Sun Yatsen University Forum, Vol.24 No.5

Colon-vila, L. (1997). Storytelling in the ESL Classroom. Teaching K-8, 5859.

Cooter, 1991 in Adventures with Words, Black, 1998.

Cooper, P. (1989). Using storytelling to teach oral communication

competencies K-12. Paper presents in the Annual Meeting of the Speech
Communication. Association (75#, San Francisco, CA). [ED: 314 798]

Koki, Stan. (1998). Storytelling: the heart and soul of education. [ED: 426
398].

Wright, A. (1995). Storytelling with children. Oxford University Press.

Zable, M.K. (1991). Storytelling, Myths, and Folk Tales: Strategies for
Multicultural Inclusion. Preventing School Failure, v36, nl, 32-34.

Zobairi, N. & Gulley, B. (1989). The told tale: Oral storytelling and the
young children. [ED: 319 517]

Zhu, Hua. (2003). Journal of Liaoning Educational Administration Institute,

Vol.20 No.9

CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Activation is a technique of teaching English that ask student to active in
speaking. And story telling is one of way for teaches students to communicate
creatively in learning English. As a second or foreign language, English is not
easy to learn by the students at the beginning of the study. For them, English is
likely to be one difficulty in learning. One of the basic skills in English is speaking.
Speaking is the ability that requires the process of communicative competence,
pronunciation, intonation, grammar and vocabulary improving. For the beginner,
speaking exercise of story telling is difficult to try. Naturally, they feel confused
on the rule, like: grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, and fluency. Some of
students are afraid to be active in speaking. This phenomenon makes many
students have low scores in English. The lessons must be relaxed and
comfortable. So, the students feel confident, they will not need to try hard to
learn language.
It will just come naturally and easily. In addition, they say that learning English is
confusing activity. For them, English is different from Indonesian. The students
also say that they frequently get bored when learning English, especially
speaking in story telling. Some of the teachers state that it is caused by the

teaching technique which is applied by them. They are unable to create an

interesting classroom situation. The teacher tells that when teaching learning
process occurs in the classroom, students often seem unwilling to learn. Some of
them are singing, some are laying their head and writing something that is not
related to the material. In conclusion, they do not pay attention to the teachinglearning process.
CHAPTER TWO
TEACHING SPEAKING OF STORY TELLING
Storytelling is a creative art form that has entertained and informed across
centuries and cultures (Fisher, 1985), and its instructional potential continues to
serve teachers. Storytelling, or oral literature, has many of its roots in the
attempt to explain life or the mysteries of the world and the universe--to try to
make sense out of things (Tway, 1985). In doing so, the characters and themes in
the stories have become cultural and often cross-cultural archetypes of historic
and continuing importance (Lasser, 1979). Even in today's technological world,
we have not changed to such a degree that the archetypes presented in
traditional oral literature are no longer applicable (Livo and Rietz, 1986.
Highlights for beginner educational story telling is dedicated to helping children
grow in basic skills and knowledge, in creativeness, in ability to think and reason,
in sensitivity to others, in high ideals, and worthy ways of living--for children are
the world's most important people. This study investigated the relationship
between reading comprehension and oral storytelling as abilities. Reading
comprehension was measured by the Reading Comprehension subtest of the
Peabody Individual Achievement Test. Storytelling was measured by (a) the Oral
Production subtest of the Language Assessment Scales using the standard
scoring protocol and (b) a story structure analysis. A comparison of the standard
scoring protocol and reading comprehension revealed no relationship, while the
comparison of the story structure analysis and reading comprehension revealed
a significant correlation. The implications of these results for language
assessment of bilingual students are discussed.
1. Nature of Story Telling
Storytelling has been used as a means of communication since earliest times.
Many religions started with a person who told stories that conveyed values in a
memorable and moving way, and which were also capable of being understood
at many levels. Storytelling however today is becoming one of the key
ingredients to managing communications, education, training, and innovation in
the 21st century. Educators have long known that the arts can contribute to
student academic success and emotional well being. The ancient art of
storytelling is especially well-suited for student exploration. As a folk art,
storytelling is accessible to all ages and abilities. No special equipment beyond
the imagination and the power of listening and speaking is needed to create
artistic images. As a learning tool, storytelling can encourage students to explore
their unique expressiveness and can heighten a student's ability to communicate
thoughts and feelings in an articulate, lucid manner. These benefits transcend
the art experience to support daily life skills. In our fast-paced, media-driven
world, storytelling can be a nurturing way to remind children that their spoken

words are powerful, that listening is important, and that clear communication
between people is an art.
2. Basic Concept of Story Telling
To build children's storytelling skills, Plourde (1985) recommends activities that
focus on role playing, generating character, helping students find an appropriate
voice, and developing the ability to make logical conclusions. Plourde elaborates
on a dozen techniques appropriate for children in kindergarten through grade 6.
One, for example, has the teacher or one child relate the beginning of a familiar
fairy tale and another child make up an entirely new ending. The United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (1984) offers several
suggestions for making low-cost crafts materials that facilitate storytelling.
Among them is the construction of a simple mini-cinema illustrating sequential
events of a story. These stages of the story may then be presented with a flexible
strip of drawings operated by pulling a string.
Gross and Batchelder (1986) present exercises for older elementary and middle
school students designed to improve group dynamics and create a learning
environment for storytelling. One technique involves using a circle to practice
games inspired by modern dance education and Native American rituals. These
exercises help older students who are apt to be self conscious to become more
confident, willing to participate, and supportive of the storytelling process.
Music--classical or popular, recorded or live--can also be used to set the scene for
storytelling, as can puppets and other simple props. (Sidorsky, 1985) But
effective storytelling is a versatile strategy that stirs the imagination and enables
children to visualize with few or no visual aids at all.

CHAPTER TRHEE
A. PROCEDURE
For a classroom teacher who wishes to use storytelling, it is best to begin by
choosing a simple story with only a few characters and an uncomplicated plot.
The story should have action, the plot should be understandable to the listeners,
and the events of the story should have a definite climax that leads to a
conclusion the students will find satisfactory. Folk and fairy tales are the easiest
kinds of stories for beginning storytellers to communicate (Ramey, 1986; Taub,
1984). In selecting these or any story, it is important to keep in mind the age of
the children in the audience. Scott (1985) advises the storyteller to be flexible, to
expect unexpected reactions, and to remember that enjoyment the first and
chief consideration. Scott and other researchers (e.g., Ramey, 1986) emphasize
that a storyteller need not be a "performer," but rather a person who has good

memory and listening skills, who sincerely likes the story chosen for telling, and
who knows the story so well that it can be recreated for an audience without any
uncertainty or panic. Storytellers who are too "actorish" usually fascinate the
audience, but at the expense of the story.
The second consideration in effective storytelling should be to encourage
exploration and experimentation with language (Schwartz, 1987). Constructing
meaning through use of language is an implicit goal in storytelling. A language
development focus can recommend retelling. Stories that are told and retold
develop a patina with each new telling. Children's participation in storytelling
provides not only novelty to stimulate the child's curiosity, but also enough
familiarity to allow a child to perceive relationships and to experience success at
using language (Wason-Ellam, 1986).
B. ANALYSIS
Perhaps storytelling's greatest value for a teacher is its effectiveness in fostering
a relaxed and intimate atmosphere in the classroom An experienced teacher or
storyteller, explains how this practical and general objective can relate to the
other benefits from using storytelling: It can 1) introduce children to a range of
story experiences; 2) provide young students with models of story patterns,
themes, characters, and incidents to help them in their own writing, oral
language, and thinking; 3) nurture and encourage a sense of humor in children;
4) help put children's own words in perspective; 5) increase knowledge and
understanding of other places, races, and beliefs; 6) introduce new ideas and be
used to question established concepts without threat to the individual; 7) lead to
discussions that are far ranging and often more satisfying than those arising from
formal lessons; and 8) serve as the most painless way of teaching children to
listen, to concentrate, and to follow the thread and logic of an argument.

CHAPTER FOUR
CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION
A.CONCLUSION
B.SUGGESTION
After read many books and finished this paper, the writer would like to put
forward suggestion as follow:
1. The beginner must be encourage to use English every time
2. The beginner need to develop their ability especially of speaking English
3. The teacher shouldnt force the students in making their speak but she should

be able to make students interest in learning English especially in story telling

4. The teacher be able to select a good technique in teaching English especially
in teaching speaking.

Bibliography
1. Lillian M. Logan and Virgil G. Logan a Leona Paterson. Creative
Communication, Teaching the Language Art, Mc Graw Hill Ryerson Limited,
Canada.1972.
2. Paul Roberts, Understanding English, Cornell University,1958.
Posted by UNIVERSITY OF IBN KHALDUN BOGOR-INDONESIA at 3:31 AM
How to Learn English with Stories
By Jody Hanson, eHow Contributor

Read more : http://www.ehow.com/how_7730569_learn-english-stories.html

The art of storytelling -- like writing personal letters -- is being lost in the highspeed world of technology. Reintroducing the art is an effective way to learn
English. If your students come from traditional cultures, particularly Africa or
South East Asia, the art of storytelling may still be alive and well. But even if they
come from Paris or Hamburg, stories can effectively be used to learn English. And
no matter if your students are five or 55, everyone has stories to tell and likes to
hear the ones other people have to offer.
Other People Are Reading

Read more : http://www.ehow.com/how_7730569_learn-english-stories.html

"Stories and their importance in Language Teaching"

by Andrew Wright
Page 1 of 2
This article was written for and first published by The Pan-Hellenic
Federation of foreign language School Owners. Hence the Greek
references in the body of the article.

Summary In this article I ofer the argument that stories are central to society
and should be central to language teaching for three reasons. The first reason
given is that stories ofer so much richness in language learning and teaching.
The second reason given is that the aim of most language learning is to be able
to present oneself as a whole person through the foreign language and that is
done very powerfully through storytelling. The third reason given is that many
language teachers accept their broad responsibilities to the students as 'student
developers' not only concerned with the foreign language development of their
students. Stories are fundamental to one's sense of identity and to dealing with
experience.
What I mean by 'stories'
I use the word stories with an extensive meaningany description of a series of
events whether true or untrue.
Stories, for me, include: myths, legends, fairy stories and fables which originated
in the oral form. But stories also include written fiction and in particular short
stories: also theatre and film. Furthermore, for me the word 'story' includes our
own personal anecdotes, descriptions of the development of a firm or a nation
('The Story of British Steel'), the news (The top stories today are) and, more
difficult to grasp as an idea, the story in which we live (That's the story of my
life!). I believe that we are producers, directors, costume directors, make up
artists and actors in our own filmsbut films which have to be constantly
adapted to changing circumstances.
This wide range of meanings for the word story is not due to my idiosyncrasy as
our language shows:
Tell me a story daddy. (the most obvious sort of story)
These trousers have shrunk! That's my story and I am sticking to it. (information
asserted as factpartly wry humour)
The story of Anglo-French relations. (selective fact)
He told me the story of his life. (selective fact)
BBC/ITV/CNNThe top stories today are(selective fact)
BBC/ITV/CNN Breaking story(situation happening at the moment)
She told me a story about a tarantula spider breeding in a cactus she bought at
Marks and Spencers. (probably fiction but offered as fact)
It would be interesting to hear his side of the story. (selective fact)
Its the old storymoan, moan, moan! (behaviour)
She just tells one silly story after another. (lie purporting to be the truth)
Writing and telling stories
Of course, the written story will always be important! However, the orally told
story is now rampant and this will increase in the future as computers become
more and more powerful and have enough memory to carry long videos and
have developed voice recognition to a sophisticated level.

For a long time we have been given the feeling by our teachers that the spoken
word is inferior to the written word. Now we have universities (Nottingham and
Birmingham in the UK) giving respectability to the spoken wordeven producing
spoken grammars.
Many of the forms we have in written English did not derive from the 'natural'
growth of the language but were added by influential individuals imposing
concepts of quality based on the classical languages of Greek and Latin. This
artificiality was regarded as a positive virtue in the past rather like the tight
clipping of hedges and pruning of trees in a symmetrically planned French
gardennature dominated by man. Now more people give value to the 'natural'
development of a language. Grammars are no longer written by erudite
individuals crouched over their desks but based on enormous computer data
banks revealing how language is actually used.
Oral storymaking and telling (in the broad way in which I define it in this article)
is now and will become even more so, an immensely important form of
communication and, as language teachers, we have an opportunity to contribute
to the development of our students in developing their powers in this direction.
The importance of stories in language teaching
There are three broad reasons for language teachers to take the use of stories in
their teaching very seriously for all kinds of student from children to adults and
from beginners to advanced. The first is a short term reason: The cornflakes of
the classroom
The second is longer term: What it means to be Greek when speaking
English in international settings
The third is a fundamental educational reason: We are the stories we hear
and make.
I would like to examine each one of these reasons
The cornflakes of the classroom
Cornflakes contain a wide range of nutritional elements. A plate of cornflakes a
day provides a good basic set of the elements we need. Stories are similar.
Here's why Everybody wants to hear a story. That is why stories are so central
to our society. The students walking into our classrooms are not just language
students, they are peoplemade of storiesand wanting more stories
We are who we are through stories.
Words are the most common medium for conceiving and communicating
stories Language teaching and stories are all about words surely stories
should be central to language teaching!
Here is a list of benefits in the classroom from the use of stories in language
teaching either creating them or responding to them

1 Some exams expect the student to be able to give an explanation or story

behind a picture, etc. Preparing for the exam is a motivating factor for most
students.
2 Some people are only involved and only use their full intelligence if they can be
creative. Making and responding to stories is one way of being creative.
By being creative rather than imitative we sharpen our observation and
encourage our curiosity. We see the possibilities of new relationships between
bits of information. We learn to be able to do something about our perceptions
and have the confidence in ourselves to do it. We revel in sharing it with others,
confident that they will be open to it if not in agreement with it.
We learn to associate the second language with experience of feelingsnot at
one removedthrough translation but as a first hand element in real events
which matter to us.
By doing all of this in the foreign language we make it into a second language
rather than a foreign language to be used for real at some time in the future.
3 Making or responding to stories is one of the best ways of developing fluency
fluency is one of the most difficult skills for the students to acquire and they
need reason and opportunity to do so.
4 Stories offer an effective way of introducing new language, making it
meaningful and memorable.
5 There are so many activities you can do with stories.in my book, Creating
Stories with Children published by OUP, I list 94 ways of using storiesI am sure
there are many more.
6 Stories have a natural role to play in cross curricular work. In a story there can
be a range of geographical, historical, sociological and cultural information.
Activities arising out of stories might range from a study of foods in the Hungry
Caterpillar story for young learners to a study of hubris in the story
of Bellerophon and Pegasus for the most advanced students.
7 Stories are a distinctive manifestation of cultural values and perceptions.
Stories invite reflection on values and culture. For example there are hundreds of
variations of the story of Little Red Riding Hood. In one version Little Red Riding
Hood plays a trick on the wolf and gets away (traditional French country version),
in another she and her grandmother are eaten and that is the end of the story
(Perrault), in another a man saves the two of them (Grimm) and in another LRRH
and her Grandma trick the wolf, kill it, skin it and then take it in turns to wear the
wolfskin as a coat (Liverpool women's group)!
8 Making and telling stories requires the students to organise information into a
cohesive and coherent whole in order to communicate to other people and
develops the students' ability to sustain a monologue

9 Making and telling stories develops in the students a heightened sense and
awareness of English due to familiarity with sustained texts
10 Stories invite empathy and sharing between students in class and later
between the students and other users of English they meet. Indeed, anecdotes
are a key part of everyday conversationshe's very kindI remember only last
week I.
11 Stories and metaphors are the classic way of explaining something. To able to
use stories and metaphors fluently, appropriately and naturally is one mark of an
accomplished speaker and writer. The language class offers an opportunity to
develop this ability.
12 Of course we can 'teach' new words by translating them. However, we all
know that translation is far from being a perfect method! Very often the
associations with the two words will be different. The word 'countryside' for a
Greek and an English person are likely to conjure up very different images, not
only sensually different but in terms of value. Furthermore, the superficial ease of
translation does not help to make the word memorable.
If we want to create the concept of 'courage' in someone's mind how better to do
it than through a story? And then the word, 'courage' associated with the
experience of the concept is more likely to be meaningful and memorable.
13 Making and telling stories gives the students an opportunity to reflect on their
own concerns, perceptions and values. Listening to the stories of other students
presents an opportunity to reflect on the perceptions of others and to respond to
those reflections.
Our own anecdotes help us to give shape and meaning to our livesother
peoples anecdotes throw a new light on our own experience and become part of
our own experience..
14 Making stories can give personal dignity and awareness. One student I
worked with once told me, "I didn't know I had any stories in me and now I know
I do."
15 Frequent listening to stories develops the students' listening skills.
16 Studying and learning stories contextualises language diversity in dialect,
register, narrative description, speech.
17 Retelling stories develops awareness of language change from a written story
to its spoken form
18 Storytelling develops in the teller a heightened feeling of the nature of spoken
language and a feeling for the relationship between, language, voice and body
and objects related to different content, contexts and listeners.

Stories link verbal language to the languages of voice and body. The voice can be
used with great variety: pace, pitch, volume, rhythm, pause, timbre all used to be
clear and to be expressive.
Similarly, the body can be used to help to communicate content meaning and
feelings in conjunction with the words being used.
Summary
The teacher may reasonably ask, "But what proficiency level of student are you
talking about?"
The whole range of students from beginner to advanced can benefit from the use
of stories and in particular the making and telling of stories. Beginners can be
encouraged to 'have a go' at putting together the words they have and
combining these words with pictures, drama or music to become 'real' storying.
By using dramatic art beginner students can even make a story out of the two
words, 'Yes' and 'No'.
More advanced students can use English to develop their general story making
and storytelling skills so crucial in social intercourse.
This article is not primarily on methodology and I can only refer you to my
book, Creating stories with children published by OUP in which I offer 72
activities for helping teachers to help students to make stories.
But one thing is for sure, the students may be so used to trying to avoid mistakes
that they are incapable of risking mistakes through their creative. Somehow one
has to strive to bring into the language classroom that joy of dancing whatever
shape and size you are and whatever the level of your skill which seems to fill
Greeks after dinner when the music starts to play!
Storymaking and telling in the classroom can only flower if that spirit of joy is
normal and as much a part of everyday life as dancing.
What it means to be Greek when speaking English in international
settings.
Some Greeks may have no wish to be seen as Greeks in international contexts.
Such people might prefer to be like chameleons and to melt into the background
of whatever culture they happen to be in.
But many Greeks are understandably proud of being Greek and want to offer
their 'Greekness' to the world wherever they are.
But don't you show your Greek character and perceptions and values partly
through the stories you tell? And remember 'stories' for me range from the
current news items you decide to pass on to your personal anecdotes right
through to your wonderful Greek myths!

The form and manner of the 'Greekness' you choose to manifest is your choice
and your students' choice. The stories you choose to tell are thus your choice. It
is not for me to say that you should be able to tell Greek myths so that you can
grip company at dinner or a companion on a train journey or your hosts' children
at bedtime with the passion of your Greek myths. But if you could do so your
listeners would never forget you!
Why should language teachers concern themselves with this aim which must
seem rather distant from the classroom and even from the examination? I
believe it is worth specifically working towards because students are motivated
by the sense of itand being motivated are more likely to use the full potential
of their brains and heartsand so learn and remember better.
How can language teachers help the students to develop their ability to tell
stories and not to merely describe their pets, favourite music and say how many
brothers and sisters they have got?
In this part of my article I will pass on a few thoughts about stories and the craft
of storytelling. For a fuller version of these ideas please look at my
books, Storytelling with Children, Oxford University Press and Creating Stories
with Children, Oxford University Press.
"Stories and their importance in Language Teaching"
by Andrew Wright
Page 2 of 2
Stories
The whole range of stories I refer to above are relevant to the idea of being
Greek in English. However, I would like to enthuse a little about the Greek myths.
The Greek myths have influenced all Western societies and more broadly, the
world at large. For me the Greek myths are not mere curiosities of a past culture
but living metaphors for our hopes, fears, aims, for love, treachery and passion. I
have no problem in telling Greek myths to large classes of teenage students;
they are gripped. Teachers say to me afterwards, 'Do you realise you have had
all the naughtiest students in the school in this room and I could have heard a
pin drop.' 'I have never heard silence like that before, in this school!'
The students listen and they retell and make the stories their own. And they can
practise retelling with the idea that they really will tell Greek myths in the
families where they will stay when they go to Britain or North America, just as
they might sing a Greek song or dance a Greek dance.
The stories which are the most useful for the language classroom and, later, the
hosts' dinner table, are the shorter ones rather than the long sagas like the
labours of Hercules. I recommend, for example:
Orpheus
Demeter and Persephone

Narcissus and Echo

Bellerophon and Pegasus
King Midas
But also help the students to learn those extra little snippets like the story
of Tithonus the cicada.
Eos loved Tithonus. She loved him so much that she begged the gods for his
immortality. Unfortunately, she forgot to ask for immortal youth for him. Tithonus
has immortal life but he is getting older and older. For a long time he has been
nothing more than a little stick of a cicada with his high, hard ticking in the
evenings and at night when he is thinking of Eos. But Eos became tired of him a
long time ago.
Here is a version of the story using lower proficiency level English.
Eos loved Tithonus. She didn't want him to die. She asked the Gods, "Please let
Tithonus live for hundreds and thousands of years. Let him live for ever!"
The Gods agreed. Wonderful? No! Eos forgot to ask for Tithonus to be young. He
became older and older and older. He became thinner and thinner and smaller
and smaller until he became a cicada. Eos didn't love him anymore! Tithonus was
very angry. He couldn't shout because he was very little so he rubbed his hard,
thin stick legs against each other and made a high, thin noise every evening and
every night.
I advise that the students discuss the values and perceptions evidenced in the
stories so that they can link their storytelling to whatever conversations are
going on before they launch into their story telling. Of course, the students need
a reasonable proficiency level of English to discuss storiesif their level is too
low to do it satisfactorily then you might, for example, offer them five sentences
expressing different opinions on the story and ask them to put them into their
order of preferenceyou can adapt the activity out ofDictation by Mario
Rinvolucri and Paul Davis, Cambridge University Press in which the teacher
dictates five sentences about the story and the students write them at the top of
the page if they agree with them, in the middle if they half agree with them and
at the bottom if they don't agree with them.
Of course you want the students to get their English right but emotionally it is
more important to help the students to work on their craft of telling. The craft of
telling is a big subject but I can list a few points which might be of some practical
use. If you want to see more then look at Storytelling with Children OUPor
come on one of my Craft of Storytellingcourses in Godollo. Write to me for
details.
Here are some of the basic considerations in developing a craft of storytelling:
1 Usually listeners have to be prepared in some way for the idea that you are
going to launch into a storyunless it is a short personal anedote.

2 Always concentrate on how you can give the story and your feelings about it to
the listener rather than thinking about yourself.
3 Of course, tell the story with feeling and put everything you have got into it.
4 The main components are: the gist of the story, crucial details, rich and precise
words, expressive use of voice and body.
The students can work in groups to develop these skills and you can make audio
and video recordings to study and analyse.
We are the stories we hear and make.
Our bodies are made out of the food we eat and our minds out of the stories we
have heard and made.
The fundamental developmental importance of stories is significant to the
language teacher if the teacher accepts her or his responsibility for contributing
to the building of the individual student's values, perceptions, identity and
relationships with others.
All teachers do affect the personal growth of students, particularly young
students, whether the teachers accept partial responsibility for this or not! For
this reason I will note some of ways in which stories play a central part in our
society at the adult level as well as for children. Stories are certainly not just for
little children!
A few years before my mother died she asked me if I believed in an after life and
in being able to speak to the dead. In those days I believed that truth was the
most important thing and I said, "No"! Today I would probably be, at least,
evasive in my reply. My mother was not gloomy about her own impending death
except in so far as it would cut her off from the family she loved. That is why she
hoped for the possibility of talking to us once she had 'gone to the other side'.
My mother accepted what I said, but replied, "But you must admit one thing! We
live on in the people we have afected. Even a smile at a bus stop afects us but
how much more so a life of stories and shared experiences."
When my mother died my brother and I had to sort out all her thingsand
decide what to do with them. In her later years she had bought some rather good
naturalistic water colours of Derbyshire which she loved. John and I agreed to sell
them. The dealer who had sold the pictures to my mother agreed to come to the
house. I expected him to be a ruthless business man and I had my price ready
and all my determination not to budge!
The dealer came, sat down, looked at the first picture and said how nice it was! I
was amazed! This was no way to do business!
"Your mother was woman of great taste!" he said. "These are excellent pictures!"
"How much will you give me for them?"
"No, you are selling them. You must tell me the price you want for them!"

I gave him my upper price expecting to have to begin to bargain. He took out his
cheque book and signed a cheque without speaking a word. He gave the cheque
to me and said,"I can't cheat your mother! They are worth twice as much!"
My mother lived on in his action.
In 1997 the DNA of a 9000 year old skeleton found in the Chedder Gorge, in
England, was examined. A local man, Adrian Targett, whose family, as far as he
knew, had always lived in the Chedder Gorge area was found to have some
crucially identical parts of the same DNA pattern. Adrian now knows that he is
descended from the man whose skeleton was found in the cave! Adrian said that
he had often been in the cave but had never known that it was his family home.
Physically, people of only 9000 years ago looked just like usdress them up and
put them on a bus and you wouldn't think about it.
My mother was right; we live on in other people. How many of Adrian's gestures
are similar to those of his ancestor from 9000 years agothe way he walks and
smiles? But what about his values and perceptions? What about his stories and
the roles and behaviour he lives by? We are the stories we have heard and the
stories we make.
I have lived in Hungary for about five years. I have not settled down here in the
sense of adopting the Hungarian story as my own. On the other hand I am apart
from my own story setting. In England I could feel the meaning of every stone in
an old building, I could see the ridge and furrow in contemporary fields and 'see'
the peasant making them in the middle ages before the fields were enclosed.
When I use the word cow I can 'see' the Saxon farmers raising the cows. When I
use the word beef I can see the Norman French speaking invaders eating the
meat (boeuf).
Sometimes, in this different story setting, I feel 'story less' and barren and lost.
Without stories we are without identity. Stories bring us into being.
But what sort of stories should we live by?
Once, in Vancouver, a man called Croft Island, a dealer in real estate who was
small, wore a coffee coloured raincoat whenever I saw him and always wore dark
glasses so that I never saw his eyes, suggested that I live in North America. I said
I would miss my family furniture which dates back to 1650 and my friends and
the ridge and furrow in the fields and the sound of the curlew high on the moors.
Croft replied, as he drove his long Chrysler smoothly through the traffic, "Listen! I
don't own anything. Not this car, not my home, not my clothes, not even my
shades! And I'll tell you something, I don't even own my name. I just invented it
one day and had it accepted in law."
Could you live in a life story in which you just hire yourself another story to live
in? Who is Croft Island? I am not too worried about the possibility of his reading
this part of the articlehe will have a new name by now, I supposeand may
even have no memory of the man I met.

At an art school where I was a lecturer many years ago a colleague asked his
students to write down ten things about their values and behaviour and ten
things about their habits. He then asked them to spend one week living out the
exact opposite of each one. He told me that some of the students never returned
to their previous stories!
When people experience a sudden and horrific tragedy their lives are destroyed
and specialist psychiatrists have to be brought in to help them to sort things out.
They are living in their story and suddenly a calamity hits them and knocks them
out of their story. One moment the people in Locherbie, in Scotland, were living
out their normal evening lives at home and the next moment the airplane, blown
up above them, crashed onto their village. People in a state of shock, stare,
hardly respond to normal events around them. They have been derailed. A train
without a track goes nowhere.
The psychiatrists must help them to build a new story which allows them to
incorporate this horrific change to their circumstances.
Of course some people have a story which incorporates the notion of change and
even of inevitable disaster so that when it comes it is not so shocking for them
and they recover more quickly.
We are facing a millennium of great changes. Are the stories we are giving our
students flexible enough for them to adapt to change, even horrific change. On
the other hand, do the stories we are giving them offer stability and security,
identity but the strength of good relationships with others?
There is no story we can give our students which does not contain values and
perceptions. One bar of chocolate doesn't do anyone any harmregular
chocolate makes you fat and makes your teeth drop out. One story manifesting
questionable values probably does no harm to anyone but a regular diet of
stories offering violence as a solution to problems, offering narrow roles for men
and women, etc.?
Are stories and mental health the concern of the language teacher? Each teacher
decides.
I would like to take a different tack and look at other analogies for the
phenomenon I am calling story.
Some people refer to 'maps' and 'life maps' which are given to us and which we
modify and which we travel across.
Some people refer to our 'path'a lit path through darkness with bottomless
depths of chaos on either side.
Some people refer to our 'films' in which we are the director who has to adapt to
a real setting not a studio controlled one. The film is partly the result of what the
weather is like at the time of shootingand is partly the result of the
performance of the various actors although we are also casting director and we

have done our best to choose who we want for each partjust what our wife
should be like and what she should think and behave likewe are our costume
directorat least of ourselves as protagonistsome people place themselves in
a minor role in their own film and others demand the central role.
Some people prefer to think of living in their own 'soap opera'.
I believe the travelling actors in the Commedia del Arte didn't have a fixed script
but entered situations in character and responded according to their characters.
Our lives are loosely scripted
We are loosely knitted together by our stories
Well! Well! Well! This is all pretty ethereal stufffull of trendy assertions!
But
The British royal family has appointed a 'spin doctor', a person whose job it is to
find good stories about his or her employer and to give them to the press. He or
she might even tell the queen how to dress, have her hair done, how to modulate
her voice and what to say.
But you might argue that the British royal family is presented as a story so it is
not surprising that they should employ a professional storymaker and teller to do
it for them!
The British government employs spin doctorsor, at least, the British New
Labour party does. Their job is to send good stories about Labour to the press
and to find and write up and send bad stories about the other parties to the
press!
Every political party in the West employs spin doctors.
Every car advertisement on the television tells a story rather than giving a list of
technical information. You buy a car as a ticket into a story as much as a way of
getting from A to B. The news readers of BBC, Sky News and CNN begin the news
by saying, "The top stories today are". How honest journalists are! They begin
by telling us that they are going to tell us a story albeit based on a selection of
information from 'real' facts.
The toughest and most powerful people in the world: politicians, the bosses of
commerce, warlords and church leaders and media chiefs all know that
controlling stories means controlling the way people think and behave.
We are in a world made of stories and in so far as we, as teachers, feel partly
responsible in influencing how our students grow, so we will, or will not, take the
role of stories in language teaching, very seriously indeed.
Further reading

Morgan, J. and M. Rinvolucri. 1983. Once Upon a Time. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press.
This was the first book in the field of using stories in foreign language teaching
and is excellent.
Rosen, B. 1988. And None of It Was Nonsense. London: Mary Glasgow
Publications.
The author has done a lot of work using Greek myths with inner city London
teenagers.
Wright, A. 1995. Storytelling with Children. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
This book offers ways of helping students to respond to stories, most of the
activities can be applied at most proficiency levels.
Wright, A. 1997. Creating Stories with Children. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
This book offers ways of helping students to make stories.

Andrew Wright is an author, illustrator, teacher trainer and storyteller. As an

author he has written books for Oxford University Press, Cambridge University
Press and Longman. His books include: Storytelling with Children, OUP; Five
Minute Activities, CUP: 1000 + Pictures for Teachers to Copy, Longman. As a
storyteller he has worked with about 40,000 students in the last ten years in
about ten countries.
In this extract from 500 Activities for the Primary Classroom, Carol Read tells us
how to incorporate story-based lessons and drama activities into the Englishlanguage classroom.
Storytelling and drama share a number of features which make it natural to
integrate them during lessons. Both build on childrens innate capacity for
fantasy and imaginative play, and even very young children can differentiate
between the conventions of a story or drama and real life. Through stories and
drama, children develop understanding of themselves and the world around
them. The distance afforded by characters and events which are not real also
helps children to explore significant issues which are relevant to their daily lives,
in a way that is safe and enjoyable.
In storytelling and drama, the usual norms of time, place and identity are
temporarily suspended as, for example, in a story which spans a hundred years
yet takes three minutes to tell, or a drama activity which transforms the
classroom into a jungle and all the children in it to hungry lions. Storytelling
and drama are above all shared, communal classroom events which engage
childrens interest, attention and imagination and develop their language skills in
a holistic way. They also appeal to children with different intelligences and
learning styles and provide a framework for fostering social skills and attitudes,

such as active listening, collaborating, turn taking and respect for others, in a
positive way.
Learning through stories
Most children start school familiar with stories and narrative conventions in their
own language and quickly transfer this familiarity into a willingness to listen to
and participate in stories in English. Stories provide a natural, relevant and
enjoyable context for exposure to language and an opportunity to familiarize
children with the sounds, rhythm and intonation of English. The discovery and
construction of meaning is supported through things such as visuals, mime,
gesture, voice and characterization, and children also develop learning strategies
and thinking skills, such as predicting, hypothesizing, guessing and inferring
meaning. Stories help young children to develop concentration skills and also
aspects of emotional intelligence, such as empathy and relating to other people.
Stories also provide a springboard for a wide range of activities which develop
language, thinking skills, positive attitudes and citizenship, as well as
appreciation of other cultures, or understanding of content from other areas of
the curriculum. As children increasingly develop their ability to understand,
retell, act out and/or create their own stories in English, this also has a positive
effect on their motivation, confidence and self-esteem.
There are various possible approaches to using stories in class. These range from
occasional use of stories to supplement a topic or structure-based course book,
to using a story-based course book, and possibly supplementing this with
additional stories as well, to basing the whole language programme and syllabus
on a selection of stories which the children study over a period of time, e.g. two
or three stories per term.
Choosing stories
Stories can be selected from a range of sources, including graded readers, story
websites on the internet or picture books originally written for children whose
first language is English. Whatever the source, the most important thing is that
the story you choose is suitable for the children it is intended for. You need to
check that the content is relevant, interesting, appealing and memorable and, if
the story is illustrated, that the visuals are clear and attractive and will support
childrens understanding. The language level of the story also needs to be
appropriate and to fit in at least partially with your syllabus. Other features, such
as whether the discourse pattern of the story is repetitive, cumulative or includes
a rhythmic refrain (and therefore promotes participation, aids memory and
practises a particular language pattern) will also influence your choice. Over
time, it is important to vary the kinds of stories you use, including, for example,
traditional stories or, with older children, spoof or modern versions of these,
fables or stories with a moral, myths, legends, funny stories, rhyming stories,
stories with flaps or pop-ups, biographical stories, stories which help children
understand their own feelings, stories from other cultures and stories which are
linked to content from other areas of the curriculum.

Telling stories
Before telling a story to children for the first time, it is usually advisable to
practise how you are going to do this, including for example, mime or actions
you plan to use to convey meaning, the way you are going to use your voice, e.g.
for different characters or to create surprise or suspense, and the places you are
going to pause or ask questions to encourage the children to show their
understanding or predict whats going to happen next. When you tell the story,
you need to make sure that everyone can see and hear you and, if you are using
a picture book, hold this up and show each illustration slowly round the group.
With younger children it is usually best if they can sit on the floor in a semi-circle
near you and you may also like to introduce the story with a rhyme to settle the
children before you begin (see 6.1). As you tell the story, it is a good idea to
maintain frequent eye-contact with the children, in order to help them stay
focused and attentive. You also need to give them time to think, look, comment,
ask or respond to questions and, if appropriate, encourage them to join in with
you as you tell the story. At the end, it is important to invite a personal response,
e.g. by asking children if they like the story, or have had similar experiences or
feelings to the characters in the story, and be ready to recast or extend their
contributions in English as necessary. Above all, it is important to show and share
your own enjoyment of the story its catching!
Planning story-based lessons
As with other listening and reading activities, it can be helpful to plan storybased lessons following the three stages of before, while and after. If you decide
to use a story in an extended way over several lessons, then this is likely to be a
cyclical process which starts by creating interest, motivation and attention in the
story and predicting what it is about, followed by an initial telling of the story,
related activities and follow-up. The cycle can then be extended through a
combination of retelling(s) of the story in a variety of ways, interspersed with a
series of appropriately selected activities that lead children from an initial, global
understanding of the story to using more and more of the language it contains.
In some cases, the storytelling cycle may lead to children producing their own
versions of the story or dramatizing some aspect of it in a role play.
With older children, as part of their understanding of storytelling, it is also
important to develop their awareness of how stories are constructed and to give
them opportunities to create stories themselves.
As part of activities in the storytelling cycle, and in order to enrich and enhance
childrens learning, it is often appropriate to integrate storytelling with drama.
Learning through drama
Drama provides opportunities for multi-sensory, kinaesthetic responses to stories
and engages children in learning by doing at a number of different levels. At a
basic level, through listening and responding to storytelling and doing short,
introductory drama activities, children use mime, sounds, gestures and imitation

to show their understanding and to make connections between language and

corporal expression. This helps young children associate actions, words and
meanings and memorize key language in a natural and enjoyable way. As
children become familiar with the story, more extended drama activities provide
opportunities for recycling the language it contains through retelling or acting
out, either by the children themselves or by the children using puppets. In these
activities, the use of drama provides a focus and support for children to use
(some) language from the story in an independent way and also contributes to
building up their confidence and self-esteem. At a more sophisticated level, the
use of drama techniques such as hot seating, role play or thought tunnel
provides opportunities for children to go beyond the story and explore the issues,
problems or moral dilemmas that it contains. This not only provides opportunities
for children to use language they know beyond the story script within a clearly
defined framework but also encourages them to develop critical and creative
thinking skills and to work with others in a collaborative way.
In addition to classroom drama, it may sometimes be suitable to use a story the
children have specially enjoyed as the basis of a class play. The preparation of a
class production for an audience of parents and others is different from other
classroom drama activities in this section, which put the emphasis on using
drama as part of a process of personalized learning. However, preparing and
performing a class play can also have enormous benefits for childrens language
development, confidence and self-esteem and prove extremely worthwhile and
rewarding.
Managing drama activities
Drama activities with children can be risky in terms of classroom management
and need to be handled carefully and sensitively. It is usually advisable to
introduce drama gradually, in activities which are short and where you use
techniques such as freeze or shaking maracas to control the action. In addition
to general points about classroom management, it is vital to show yourself
willing to participate in classroom drama and to model the kinds of responses
you expect from the children. Although it is important to give children
encouraging feedback after doing a drama activity, it is best not to look at them
(too) directly during the activity, as this may unwittingly convey an impression
that you are judging them. This can be off-putting to some children, who will be
drawn in naturally as long as they do not feel under pressure. If you regularly use
story-related drama activities with your classes, over time you may be surprised
at the increasingly confident and mature way in which children respond.
Reflection time
As you use the storytelling and drama activities in this section with your classes,
you may like to think about the following questions and use your responses to
evaluate how things went and plan possible improvements for next time:
1. Interest: Did the story engage the childrens curiosity, interest and
attention? Why? / Why not? If so, how was this sustained?

2. Participation: Did the children participate actively? What factors

encouraged or discouraged this?
3. Creative thinking: How did the children respond to activities which invited
a creative or imaginative response? Did this affect the way they used
language? If so, how?
4. Kinaesthetic learning: How did the children respond to activities involving
mime and movement? In what ways did such activities seem to help or
detract from the childrens learning? What were the reasons for this, do
you think?
5. Collaboration: Did the children collaborate and work well together? What
factors influenced this?
6. Enjoyment: Did the children enjoy the story and related activities? Why? /
Why not? What effect did this have on their motivation, confidence and
self-esteem?

Do you remember a favorite story from your childhood? Or perhaps a favorite storyteller,
such as a grandmother or an uncle? Storyteller Luca Gonzlez does her Great Aunt Nena.
As a young girl growing up in Cuba, Luca and her cousins would gather to listen to Nena's
scary stories, and to this day, Luca says, they still talk about those stories at family reunions.

Your stories
Everyone has stories to tell favorite folk tales or fairy tales, stories from childhood, stories
learned from friends or other family members, or stories about what happened yesterday.
Here are six reasons why storytelling is such an important gift to share with your children.

Heritage: Stories give children a strong connection to their family and their heritage.
Stories may provide them with a connection to a place that is far away or people they
would like to know better, and stories about your life provide them with a special
connection to you. Your children may also find that their friends from different
countries have learned similar stories!

Language: Stories are a rich way to strengthen your child's language skills and
vocabulary, whether it's in a first or second language. Tell your stories in the language
that is most comfortable to you.

Reading Skills: Storytelling enforces reading skills by helping children become

familiar with different parts of a story, such as characters, sequence, and the plot.
Even if you share your stories through conversation, you will provide your kids with
important tools that will help them once they begin to read stories.

Lessons Learned: Telling stories can be a gentle way to share a lesson or talk about
a difficult topic with your child. Ask your child what he has learned from the stories
and characters you share with him.

Anytime, anywhere: You can tell stories just about anywhere - in the car, at the
dinner table, or at bedtime. And you can tell stories with or without a book. For
example, Luca's Great Aunt Nena never learned to read, but that didn't stop her from
telling unforgettable stories!

Imagination: Listening to stories encourages children to use their imagination and

immerse themselves completely in another world, whether it's funny, exciting, or a

little bit scary! This ability to create a "movie" in their mind will help them with
comprehension as they learn to read - and will help them come up with ideas when
they begin writing.

Storytelling Tips
If you're having trouble thinking of a story, remember your childhood. Were there folk tales
or legends you heard in school? Were there family stories that were repeated over and
over? What experiences do you remember when you think about your childhood? It's ok to
start with something small! When you tell a story, use:

different voices and facial expressions

descriptive language

repetitive phrases for younger children

toys, puppets, or stuffed animals if you have them available

Finally, don't hesitate to tell younger children the same story many times or a story that uses
the same line or phrase many times the repetition will help them build their language
skills, and one day they'll be able to tell you the story!
You may not think of yourself as a storyteller now, but once your children discover your
secret talent, you will be surprised at how popular your stories become in your fa

1 The importance of storytelling

Do you have a favourite story that you remember from your childhood? Perhaps
it was a story that made you wonder or laugh, or a story that made you
thoughtful or sad. Maybe it was a story where you learned something new.
Maybe you can remember a story that frightened you. Stories are so memorable
that most of us can recall at least one story from when we were very young, and
even where we first heard it and who told it to us.
In our daily life as adults we continue to tell stories about what happened to us
on the way to work, what we saw on the bus, or what happened yesterday in
school. Many of us switch languages when we do this for instance, do you use
mainly Hindi for some words, or mix in English phrases? We often switch
languages and use different voices when we tell a story to emphasise a point or
get our meaning across in the most effective way.
Pause for thought
When you were a student in school, did your teacher tell or read stories? Can you
recall any of these?
Was there a special story time in your classroom when you were a young
student? Teachers often tell a story at the end of the school day. Maybe you
remember this as a relaxing time, without the stress of lessons. Telling and
listening to stories is a pleasurable activity that can bring teachers and students
together in a shared experience.
Experienced teachers know that students will remember any information very
well when it is told to them as a story. Storytelling can be a powerful teaching
method because you (the teacher) are in direct communication with your class.
Stories and storytelling require only one resource you, the teacher. Storytelling
allows you to ask open questions such as What do you think will happen next?

and Why do you think he does this? that encourage students to think, recall,
reflect, imagine and respond which will all develop their language skills.
It is good practice to tell and read stories regularly in the classroom, because
these are learning opportunities as well as fun occasions. In India we are
fortunate to have many stories from folklore and tradition that teachers can draw
upon to promote language learning in the classroom.
The aim of this unit is to develop your skills in using stories for English language
teaching, but of course it will be natural and expected in the classroom to mix
languages (English, mother tongue and other local languages) especially in the
early years of school.
2 What stories teach
There is a traditional saying: If you don't know the trees you may be lost in the
forest, but if you don't know the stories you may be lost in life.
Stories are how we make sense of life and how we understand the lives of others.
This is because stories are narratives that provide a comprehensible structure to
information. A story is, after all, a sequence of linked events. Stories can be
personal (this happened to me), reported fact (this happened yesterday, or
long ago), or fiction (imagine this happening!). Stories cover the full range of
life experience: they can be light-hearted, funny, thoughtful and moralistic, or
they can be strange, serious, frightening and tragic.
What is the significance of stories for students learning?
Stories offer students a safe way to explore powerful feelings such as love,
sadness, fear and anger. Stories can help students to develop empathy and
understanding of how others feel.
Stories boost students intellectual development by presenting them with new
information about the world. Through stories, students learn about nature, social
systems, history, traditions and culture, as well as unfamiliar, faraway worlds and
cultures so that they understand them better. Stories invite students to solve
dilemmas, challenges and problems.
Stories promote students language development by exposing them to new
words and high-level literary language: vocabulary, metaphors, similes and
complex sentence structures they are not yet be able to read independently.
Stories develop students listening and speaking skills, which are vital in their
own right and are important stepping stones to reading and writing. Stories can
motivate and inspire students to persevere with reading and writing.
Pause for thought
What are some other words that have the same meaning as staggers?
What are some other words that have the same meaning as weaves, in this
story?

Traditional stories often have gender stereotypes, such as the husband and wife
roles in The Moon and His Two Wives. How would you talk to students about
this? Could the story be changed, to make it less stereotypical?
Of course, there is a scientific explanation for the way the moon changes shape.
Do you think the story The Moon and His Two Wives could cause students to
develop misconceptions? Would you introduce the astronomical concepts at the
same time as you tell this story? How would you talk to students about the
differences between the science and the story?
Think other traditional stories that you know. Do they present problems of
stereotyping and scientific misconceptions?
What makes illustrated storybooks such a good resource for teaching
young learners of English? The British Councils Gail Ellis, co-author of
a storytelling handbook for primary English language teachers,
explains. Listen to an interview with Gail in our podcast and register for
her webinar taking place on Thursday, 2 October.
Illustrated storybooks provide an ideal resource for helping children learn
English. This is because children love listening to stories. Storybooks present
language in familiar and memorable contexts, and high quality illustrations help
children understand as they match what they hear to what they see. In this way,
children develop their visual literacy and appreciation of art. They also discover
different styles of illustration and learn about the culture of the illustrator.
Why use storybooks in the classroom?
Teachers can use storybooks to complement an English language course or as
the main teaching resource. Storybooks can act as a springboard for a wide
variety of activities to develop childrens English language skills and bring other
areas of the curriculum to life, through the theme or content of the book. They
are also very motivating as they exercise childrens imaginations and appeal to
different interests and learning styles. Storytelling is a shared social experience
and provokes a response of laughter, sadness, empathy, excitement and
anticipation, all of which encourage social and emotional development. Another
important benefit is that storybooks encourage children to enjoy language
learning and foster their appreciation of literature.
Storybooks can meet a variety of learner needs
The expansion in the teaching of English around the world to ever younger ages,
and the variation in policy from one country to another, means that teachers are
finding themselves teaching classes of children with diverse learning needs and
varying levels of English. Storybooks help teachers meet these various needs, as
all children can understand the overall meaning of a story with the help of the
teachers storytelling techniques and the beautiful illustrations. Each child can
respond according to their linguistic level and cognitive ability.
Selecting the right storybook

The key to successful storytelling is having the right story for the linguistic and
cognitive ability of the children. They may have limited knowledge of their
second language but still have ideas, concepts and aspirations relevant to their
developmental age. Teachers need to be aware of the criteria they can use to
choose storybooks, such as level, subject matter and motivation. (The
storytelling handbook Tell it Again! lists these criteria in full to help teachers
make informed choices).
Once youve picked a storybook, you need to analyse its potential for the class
and prepare a sequence of tasks which incorporate preparation activities, midstorytelling activities and follow-up activities. Its important to tell children at the
start of the lesson what the outcome will be: a presentation of the story, a
project, making something, designing their own book, and so on. This gives
children a purpose for their work and keeps them motivated and on task.
What to consider when reading a story aloud
Reading a storybook aloud requires preparation. You need to familiarise yourself
with the book, its layout, the illustrations and the story. Practise reading it aloud
several times before you read it to the class so you can deliver the story
confidently, making use of a variety of storytelling techniques such as pointing to
the illustrations, commentating, asking questions and encouraging children to
predict and repeat. Other techniques include pausing at the right time, varying
the volume or tone of your voice, and using gestures, expressions and sound
effects.
Discovering new storybooks
For me, the wonder of storybooks is that I am always discovering new titles, and
not just recent publications but old classics as well. The discovery of new titles is
always an exciting moment! My colleagues and I have shed many a tear as we
share our favourites such is the power of storytelling to provoke emotional
responses. My latest discovery is a book published in 1949 calledThe Important
Book. There is something almost surreal with this storybook that appeals to me
greatly its way of finding something special, even in the simplest of objects
such as a spoon!
Storybooks are contagious and once you start using them, youll find it hard to
return to the more conventional ELT materials.
'Mobile apps encourage interaction, calling out to the child to touch, tap, swipe,
shake and talk to the device.' Photo: British Council
As we release our latest app for primary learners of EnglishOpens in a
new tab or window. (ages 6 - 11), mobile learning consultant and young
learner specialist Tracy Dumais provides advice for parents and
teachers on getting kids talking in English.
When we ask parents about their aspirations for their childs English language
abilities, 'speaking English with confidence' is almost always at the top of their

wish list. Yes, they want their child to read well, have a wide vocabulary and a
firm understanding of English grammar, but mostly they want to hear them
speak -- and speak with confidence and enjoyment. Yet, as those of us who have
ever tried to learn a language know, when it comes to speaking skills, confidence
and enjoyment are often hard-won, especially if you are shy or introverted.
So how can parents and educators help make the transition to speaking English
with confidence a little easier for children?
Games
The gamification of education divides opinion. Those who argue against the use
of games in education talk about 'chocolate-covered broccoli' -- the attempt to
mask dull rote learning with a superficial game. Yet good games seem to
promote learning effortlessly, and children gamify life all the time. Games can
be used to promote speaking in two ways. First, by providing opportunities for
direct practice: from a simple game of I-spyOpens in a new tab or window. in
the car to a more challenging game of pictionaryOpens in a new tab or
window.. Second, games can stimulate very fruitful discussion. Ask children to
talk about their favourite game, be it Angry BirdsOpens in a new tab or
window. or MinecraftOpens in a new tab or window., and get them to talk
through what they are doing. The enthusiasm for communicating the games
purpose will quickly overcome any inhibitions they may feel about speaking in
English.
Stories
Stories provide children with a context for speaking English. This is especially
valuable if they arent able to experience an immersive language-learning
environment (try getting a monolingual class of children to speak only English,
and you will understand the struggle). Experiencing a story together in English
places children in a small world where English is a given. The storyteller (either a
parent at home or a teacher in class) reads a line and pauses. If the child is
familiar with the story after having heard it a few times, she will be able to
assume the role of storyteller. A practised storyteller will also sense when to
pause and ask questions; not just simple questions like What colour is this
flower? and What is the bear doing? but more challenging ones that get the
child to make predictions (What will the mouse do next?), reflect (Why do you
think the boy looks sad?) and explore their own emotions (Have you ever felt
like that?).
If you are interested in promoting reading through apps, Nosy CrowOpens in a
new tab or window. have some of the most beautifully designed interactive
storybooks in the app store and the British Councils LearnEnglish Kids:
Phonics StoriesOpens in a new tab or window. combines seven stories with
flashcards and games.
Songs

Songs and rhymes give children the chance to play with spoken English in a
stress-free way. By listening to songs and singing them, children begin to hear
the sounds of the language and experiment with the way the mouth works to
produce those new sounds. They notice relationships between words that sound
similar through the rhymes at the end of the lines, and how words in combination
create rhythm. Speaking and singing while clapping -- a familiar activity in any
primary school -- reinforces this understanding. When children sing or chant with
the lyrics in text form in front of them, they start to notice the fascinating (and
sometimes frustrating) relationship between spelling and sound. The British
Councils LearnEnglish Kids siteOpens in a new tab or window. is one of
many resources for animated songs.
Video
Many parents (and teachers) worry that screen time is not only wasted time, but
detrimental to the healthy development of a childs learning. However, used in
moderation, video can be a pleasurable and stimulating English language
learning tool, especially in situations where a native speaker model is
unavailable. Child-friendly channels like the British Councils LearnEnglish
KidsOpens in a new tab or window. and the BBCs CbeebiesOpens in a
new tab or window. are safe enough to watch without the need for
supervision. Other video platforms like YouTube are a great source of childfriendly material, but the barrage of adverts and potential exposure to offensive
comments or external links means that learning with a teacher or parent is
preferable. Like games, videos help children improve their speaking and can
stimulate discussion, singing and reading.
Apps
Mobile apps for phones or tablets can provide a wide variety of learning
experiences that combine some (or all) of the activities above in a safe digital
environment, designed especially for children. This means so much more than
cute pictures and carefully graded content. The touch screen gives children
access to a digital world in an intuitive way that a keyboard and mouse
combination (designed for adults) never could. Additionally, mobile apps
encourage interaction by calling out to the child to touch, tap, swipe, shake and
talk to the device as much as possible. In other words, mobile devices are not
passive screens churning out mind-numbing edutainment, but dynamic and
challenging digital playmates. If the app is thoughtfully designed, it will offer
motivation, support, rewards and praise at just the right moment.
LearnEnglish Kids Playtime app
LearnEnglish Kids Playtime
combines games, songs, stories and videos in one place. The stories have
subtitles and narrated audio that can be turned on and off. Children can develop
speaking confidence in the following stages:

1.

Audio and subtitles on The child can start by listening to the audio and
reading the story, joining in when they hear and see familiar words and
phrases.

2.

Audio off, subtitles on As they become more confident they can turn off
the audio and read the subtitles themselves.

3.

Audio and subtitles off Finally they may choose to turn off the subtitles
too and tell the story in their own words, using only the animated images
as a prompt.

To help make this journey to independent story(re)telling easier, each video

comes with a 'listen' and 'record' activity which allows children to listen to short
words and phrases in isolation from the main video. They can also record
themselves to compare their pronunciation with that of the narrator. In addition,
each pack of videos comes with games that consolidate spelling, vocabulary,
grammar or simple comprehension.
Stories and storytelling have long played a central role in my efforts as a parent
and a teacher of bilingual children. Human beings have an innate interest in
hearing stories, and I try to take advantage of that natural tendency by
flooding the childs world with narratives in the minority language. By
increasing the amount of stories heard, and the forms in which those
stories are told, a parent or teacher can enrich the childs exposure to
the target languagewhich will enrich the childs language ability.
Stories, of course, are readily available in TV programs and movies, and this form
of exposurein modest amountscan certainly be useful as a small part of
larger efforts. In our case, TV shows and DVDs in English have been very helpful,
I think, but we consciously limit the time spent in this way, particularly on
weekdays.
To effectively enrich the childs exposure to the minority language through
stories, a whole range of ways can be pursuedand the more you incorporate
these forms of exposure on a regular basis, the more your childs language
ability will benefit.
Listening to stories
Stories told through conversation
Make a point of telling your children stories from your day, or from your past.
Kids love to hear about memorable moments from their parents lives. At the
same time, try spinning some fanciful made-up memories. These can be a lot
of fun, especially when you make your children the main characters.

Strange-But-True-Tales: Baby Chicks in the Bathtub

Using Made-Up Memories to Engage Bilingual Kids

Stories told through reading aloud

As I continually stress on this blog, one of the most important ways of supporting

the minority language is by reading aloud to your children. In fact, if

you dont read aloud regularlyand your kids dont attend a minority language
schoolit will be far more difficult for them to develop active ability in that
language.

The Secret to Raising a Bilingual Child

Recommended Resources: Good Books on Reading Aloud

How to Get Your Child Hooked on Books

Stories told through audio recordings

In addition to music in the minority language (here are some suggested CDs
ofchildrens music in English), look for recordings of stories, too, and play these
at home and in the car. If English is your target language, I highly recommend
the work of Grammy-winner Bill Harley, a terrific entertainer who tells funny, kidfriendly narratives through both song and story.

Recommended Resources: The Captivating Songs and Stories of

Bill Harley

Stories told through captive reading

Once your children begin to read in the minority language, an effective way to
increase their exposure to reading material is through the idea of captive
reading: posting stories in the bathroom or other captive location in the
house. I have done this continuously since my children were small and I believe
the impact, over time, has been substantial.

What Is Captive Reading and How Will It Help My Bilingual Child?

Turn Your Kids into Eager Readers with This Fun, Simple Strategy

Telling stories
Children not only enjoy having stories told to them, in these various ways, they
also enjoy telling stories themselves. And, of course, in telling stories, they have
the opportunity to stretch their command of the language as well as their ability
to shape a clear narrative.
In addition to encouraging your kids to tell stories from their own livesand
produce some made-up memories, toohere are some storytelling games that
have worked well with my kids and students. And because these materials
rely only on images, not words, they can be useful in supporting any
language you like.

Tell Tale and Tell Tale Fairy Tales

Each set of 60 cards comes in a handy round tin. Colorful illustrations are found
on the front and back of each card, for a total of 120 images. The basic idea
involves making up a story based on a handful of images, whether working alone

or as a team. More an activity than a gameas there are no winners or losers in

telling a talethese sets of cards have been a big hit with my children and my
students and I recommend them highly as a valuable resource for nurturing both
language ability and creative thinking.

Rorys Story Cubes and Rorys Story CubesVoyages

The concept is the same as the Tell Tale cardscreate a narrative from various
imagesbut in this case, the materials are dice, not cards. Each little box
contains nine dice, with six images on each individual diethats 54 images in
all, less than half the number of images available in a set of Tell Tale cards.
Moreover, the images on the dice are simple line drawings, in black and white.
For these reasonsthough I recommend these products, tooIve had more
success with the colorful Tell Tale cards, particularly with younger kids.

1
Storytelling Helps ESL Learners to Improve their Vocabulary
Michael Dony Danardana111214018
Abstract
The objective of this paper was to give information and
argumentsalong with supporting facts which based on a research on whystorytell
ing is an effective learning activities to
improve students
Vocabulary. The fact that ESL learners have lack of vocabulariesis the main
problem that teachers should overcome. Inadequateexposure to English
language and boredom to memorize newVocabulary are
the malefactors
behind insufficient ESL
learners
Vocabulary, which then could
hinder ESL learners development.
This paper therefore suggest storytelling to be
teachers choice to
help ESL learners to improve their Vocabulary.
Keywords: storytelling, VocabularyIntroduction

Vocabulary is the heart of a language and significant in language learning. Itis

impossible to comprehend a written text before having knowledge of
thevocabularies which consist it. Therefore, Vocabulary learning strategies are
the processes by which information is obtained, stored, retrieved and used (Sch
mitt,1997). The problem arising is that many English as a second language (ESL)
learnershave difficulties to acquire the Vocabulary. It is because the Vocabulary
learning isdone through rote memorization learning which results in low
enthusiastic to learnnew Vocabulary and inadequate exposure to English
language. If these problems arecontinued, they will result both poor Vocabulary
of ESL learners and performance inthe communicative use of previously learned
Vocabulary. Therefore, ESL learnersneed a learning activity which could eradicate
their problems and facilitate them inacquiring new Vocabulary. The solution lies
in storytelling. The aim of this paper isto elicit the importance of storytelling in
improving
learners
Vocabulary and to prove that storytelling
could improve learners
Vocabulary.

2
Review of related literature
StorytellingStorytelling existed along with the history of human being has been
used sincethe early ages of education by the elders and by all kinds of
educators. According toDelette (1997), storytelling is the oral interpretation of a
story, during which thestoryteller invites the listeners to create meaning through
conversation andimagination. There are some importance
of storytelling in improving learners
Vocabulary. First, Storytelling gives an opportunity for students to expand
theirVocabulary as they decode the meaning of words, focused on the context of
the storythey hear or read. Also listening to
stories improves students unders
tanding ofgrammar and literary devices as they see them within a story
(Wojciechowicz, 2003).

In

the second importance

,
Dujmovic stated that:

Children enjoy listening to stories over and over again. This frequentrepetition
allows certain language items to be acquired while others
are being overly reinforced. Many stories also contain natural repetition ofkey
Vocabulary and structures. This help children to remember everydetail, so they
can gradually learn to anticipate what is about to happennext in the story.
Repetition also encourages participation in thenarrative. Following meaning and
predicting language are importantskills in language learning. Listening to stories
allows the teacher tointroduce or revise new Vocabulary and sentence structures
by exposingthe children to language in varied, memorable and familiar
contexts,which will enrich their thinking and gradually enter their own
speech.
Then, he added that l
istening to stories develops the childs listening and
concentrating skills via:1.

Visual clues (for example, pictures and illustrations),2.

Their prior knowledge of how language works,3.

Their general knowledge.This allows them to understand the overall meaning of

a story and to relate it to their personal experience.

3
Dujmovic summarize the other importance of storytelling as follows:

Stories are motivating and fun and can help develop positive attitudes towards
thesecond language and language learning. They can create a desire to
continuelearning.

Stories exercise the imagination. Children can become personally involved in

astory as they identify with the characters and try to interpret the narrative
andillustrations. This imaginative experience helps develop their own
creative powers.

Listening to stories in class is a shared social experience. Reading and writing

areoften individual activities; storytelling provokes a shared response of
laughter,sadness, excitement and anticipation which is not only enjoyable but
can help
build up child s confidence and encourage social and emotional development.
VocabularyVocabulary has different definitions. According to Oxford
Dictionary,Vocabulary is defined as: "the body of words used in a particular
language or
in particular sphere of activity". Then, according to Hatch and Brown (1995: 1),Vo
cabulary is a list or set of words for a particular language which can be used
byindividual speakers of language. Vocabulary is important in any language
learning. Itis the words which sound and meaning interlock each other. So that
allow people tocommunicate with one another. Also, it is the word that can be
arranged together tomake sentence, conversations, and discourse of all kinds.
The mastery of Vocabularyis important for people who study English as a second
language. We know and usethe words that fit our particular purposes and learn
new words as long as we live. So,everybody who learns a language as a second
language is liked to know and masterthe Vocabulary to improve the language
skills. Gradually, Vocabulary plays animportant role because it appears in every
language skills.
What is storytelling?

Storytelling is a skill that can be effectively directed to improve other

skills, such as writing, grammar, listening and speaking. Donald Davis, a
noted storyteller, teaches storytelling as a bridge between a childs first
language [gestures and speech] and second language [writing].

Storytelling is the oldest form of education. Cultures around the world

have always told tales as a way of passing down their beliefs, traditions,
and history to future generations.

Storytelling in any form is a natural way for students to build literacy

skills. Learning how to tell a story by writing it down, talking about it, and
learning to actively listen to someone elses story. All these activities teach
essential language skills in vividly meaningful contexts.

What ways can we exploit using storytelling?

Storytelling provides a valuable source of authentic language materials and
there are hundreds of ways to exploit it in ELT. Listening to stories can develop
important skills such as prediction, guessing, hypothesizing, and message
decoding, etc. There are lots of different fun activities that spin off from stories:
story completion, summary writing, discussion, role playing, story experience,
the narrative approach, story act-out, spinning stories, group story, story
interpretation, story writing, change the story, picture story, jigsaw story, strip
story, tell a story, etc.
Pros and Cons:
There is strong evidence to support the use of storytelling in the ESL/EFL
classroom. This provides learners with a comprehensible input that facilitates
language acquisition (Hendrickson, 1992) in a fun way. Using storytelling in the
classroom has pros and cons. What are they?
Pros:

Gains the students attention

Enables the students to be exposed to a moral dilemma

Enables the students to be exposed to a problem-solving exercise

Shares stories of success

Develops a sense of community

Explores personal roles

Makes sense of learners lives

Contains linguistic information including vocabulary, grammar, and

language sense

Reduces learners intensity of the language-learning phobia

Invokes learners curiosity, concentration, imagination and critical thinking

Enhances facilitation

Develops rapport and respect

Provides moral lessons

Cons:

Time (Rosen 1988)

Preparation

Proportion of session

Students require a safe environment.

Topic may be threatening if it challenges personal values (Fairbairn 2002).

If students are being asked to write, they may need direction.

Previous exposure.

It requires visualisation skills.

It may not suit the learning style (Davidson 2003).

Dependant on the enthusiasm of the lecturer (Weimer 2002).

In Conclusion:
Storytelling serves many functions; it will always be the cornerstone of teaching.
It is the task of a teacher to find out how to use it effectively, skillfully and
develop students competence. A teacher can excel and train his/her students to
be good story-tellers using good breath control, careful enunciation, appropriate
gestures effective pauses and other speech techniques that make a good
speaker.
Storytelling can be stimulating not only to increase students interest,
motivation, creativity, critical thinking skills, imagination and verbal selfconfidence in language learning, but also to maximize their authentic selfinvolvement, community-interaction, and prolific production. Using storytelling
has always been my passion and I have always been happy, both as a learner
and a teacher, to take the challenge of using it whenever possible. I would
strongly recommend using storytelling in ELT as I know students will also enjoy it
a lot! Good luck and have fun!

References:
Davidson MR. (2003) .A phenomenological evaluation: using storytelling as a
primary teaching method. Nurse Education in Practice 3: 1-6
Fairbairn GJ. (2002). Ethics, empathy and storytelling in professional
development.Learning in Health and Social Care 1: 22-32

Fitzgibbon, H.B. &Wilhelm, K.H. (1998). Storytelling in ESL/EFL Classrooms. TESL

Reporter. Volume 31-32. P.21-31
Hendrickson, J.M. (1992). Storytelling for Foreign Language Learners. (Eric
Document Reproduction Service No. ED355842).
Rosen B. (1988) And None of it was Nonsense: the power of storytelling in
school.London, Mary Glasgow Publications Ltd.
Weimer M. (2002) Learner-Centred Teaching: five key changes to practice. San
Francisco, CA; John Wiley & Sons.
Useful Websites:
http://www.thestoryteller.ca/index.html
http://www.uoregon.edu/~leslieob/pizzaz.html
http://www.storyarts.org/lessonplans/lessonideas
http://www.proteacher.com/070163.shtml

http://www.shambles.net/pages/learning/EnglishP/story
http://www.cas.usf.edu/eliteachers/marystory/storyhandout.htm
http://www.creativekeys.net/storytelling power/ article1014.htm
http://www.storytellingarts.org/teachers guide.htm
http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/type1430.html
http://www.manythings.org/proverbs/proverbs1.html
Storytelling Magic Enhancing Childrens' Oral Language Reading And
Writing

Once upon a time, before Deweys public school revolution, before

Guttenburgs printing press, storytelling was the basis of all good teaching.
Storytelling was an honored practice in ancient times as people huddled around
campfires sharing stories in an attempt to explain and understand the natural
and spiritual world. Storytelling also was the proven means by which a village
could assemble its knowledge and survive. Folktales grew out of the lives and
imaginations of the people, or folk, as families, young and old alike, tribes, or a
kings court gathered to hear the wise and clever storytellers. All cultures have
passed tales from generation to generation through the oral tradition. Folktales
traveled from country to country through traders, storytellers, and the migrations
of peoples (Huck, Hepler, Hickman, & Kiefer, 1997).

According to Anderson (2002) and Russell (1997), some stories were told for pure
entertainment. Others were used to share the history of a group of people, to
teach lessons, and transmit cultural values and beliefs. These stories helped
explain natural phenomena. Still others involved religious beliefs, such as
creation, and were an attempt to understand our place in the universe and how
the world was made.

After ten thousand years of storytelling, the printing press was invented and
many of these oral folktales were written down. Jean de la Fontaine translated
Aesops fables, including the Fox and the Crow and The Tortoise and the Hare and
wrote some of his own in the late 1600s. In 1697, Charles Perrault recorded the
tales his nursemaid had told him as a child and published them in England in
1729 as Tales of Mother Goose. Stories included The Sleeping Beauty, Little Red
Riding Hood, and Cinderella. Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm collected stories and
published their first volume, Nursery and Household Tales in 1812. Popular
stories included Hansel and Gretel, Rumpelstiltskin, and Snow White. In 1846,
Hans Christian Andersens Fairy Tales were published in English, including his
original stories of The Little Mermaid, The Emperors New Clothes, and The Ugly
Duckling. Joseph Jacobs English Fairy Tales, including The Three little Pigs, Henny
Penny, and Jack and the Beanstalk, were published in 1898. These traditional
folktales became an integral part of American education.

When books became readily available in public schools, students were taught to
read, and less emphasis was placed on storytelling. However, storytelling is not
only a social experience, it also acts as an effective building block, easing the
journey from oral language to literacy (Dyson & Freedman, 1991). Recently there
has been a -revival in the art of storytelling. The goal of this article is to
invigorate classrooms with storytelling in order to motivate and enhance
childrens oral language, reading, and writing development.

Elements of Folktales

There are several distinctive elements of folktales that make them ideal for
beginning storytellers. The story usually begins with a short formulaic opening,
such as "Once upon a time." The setting is often generalized and universal such
as a road or a bridge or in a forest. The characters are flat, not well-developed,
and stereotypic, such as good or evil. These features can be presented in a few
sentences, allowing a storyteller to concentrate memory and mental energy on

the development of the plot. There are generally two types of plot structures
linear and cumulative. In the linear plot a problem is introduced, followed by a
series of events as the character attempts to solve the problem, such as in
Sleeping Beauty. In cumulative tales, the characters, problem, and actions build
upon each other. It often includes a repetition of phrases, such as in the
Gingerbread Man. This repetition eases the memory load for younger
storytellers. Folktales often end abruptly with a short, sweet resolution and a
formulaic ending, such as they lived happily ever after (adapted from Buss &
Karnowski, 2000).

In addition, most students are familiar with the genre of folktales and can tell and
comprehend them better than other genres.

Fairy tales and fables are of primary importance because they are the roots of all
great literature. Countless novels, operas, poems, and modern short stories are
the fruits born from classic fairy tales. Much of our political jargon, media doublespeak, and commercial messages borrow their punch lines from classic fables. If
students are unaware of the roots of this cultural history, they miss many of the
subtle metaphors and innuendoes of modern communication. They are less able
to be active citizens, players in the game of life, if they are ignorant of these
cultural motifs that influence so much of modern society. When the Grimm
Brothers tales have been translated into 166 languages and La Fontaines fables
show up in a Wall Street investment advertisement, there is clear evidence of the
importance of these stories. The authors of the movie Shrek did a great job of
tumbling together these subtle innuendoes, but the movie begs the question: If
students are unfamiliar with the underlying stories, how many of the jokes did
they miss?

Telling Stories

Storytelling, considered an art form, can be mastered by most people (Morrow,

2001). Storytelling is both an in-bred talent that we are all born with and a
learned skill. We are storytelling creatures; it is in our genetic code. At the same
time, with practice and coaching, we can become more proficient tellers of tales.
Think about storytellers you have seen. What do they do to bring the story to
life? Who were your favorite professors, teachers, preachers, and politicians?
What techniques did they employ to hold your attention, to make ideas live and
breathe? Different personalities tell stories differently. The most important thing
is to find a presentation style that suits your personality. With this said, there are
a few general techniques to consider:

Use your voice to create characters, express emotions, and experiment

with pacing, tone, accents, and sound effects.

Use your body language, facial expressions, and gestures to convey the
unspoken and reinforce the words you are speaking.

Use your imagination and include all five senses in the tale as you tell it.
The more real you can imagine it, the more real it becomes for your
audience, even if it is a work of fiction.

Involve the audience with simple rhetorical questions or complex sing-along songs. Within the body of the story, allow the listeners a chance to
discuss an idea with a partner or add elements of plot or characters to the
story as you tell it.

Invite them to sing-a-long or stand up and act out part of the story.

Engage the audience as a partner in the telling of the tale.

Use your voice, body, imagination, and the audience to tell, not read, the
story.

For more about storytelling techniques visit www.foxtalesint.com and click on the
fox.

Beyond technique, the most critical element is your passion for the content. If
you can tell the story in a manner that conveys this excitement, your contagious
enthusiasm will be the key to a successful telling.

Learning Stories

The most important thing is that you choose a story that you really enjoy and
could imagine yourself telling. If you don't love it, do you think the audience will?
When you have found that favorite folktale or story, read it over several times.
Read it once out loud for feeling, rhythm, and tone; once to get to know the
characters (imagine you are each of them); once to get to know the place or
setting (imagine you are in that place); and once to learn the order of events.
Write a brief outline of the five main events or make a story map with five
sequential pictures to help you. Do not memorize the story. Simply remember the
important scenes, feelings, images, and phrases. Remember the bare bones and
flesh it out differently each time you tell it. Be in your story and let your words
describe what is happening in your mind. Decide ahead of time how to use

gestures, props, voices, and audience participation to make the story come alive
for the children.

Practice, Practice, Practice! These are the three keys to success. Tell the story to
each family member, every friend who will listen, the dog, the cat, and the
goldfish. In the beginning ask only for positive feedback, such as What am I
doing right? What is working? Later, when you are able to screen good from
bad, ask for constructive criticism. Tape record the story or tell it in front of a
large mirror so you can critique yourself.

If you have the time and inclination, research the story for accuracy and
authenticity. Read similar tales or look for different versions of the same tale.
Compare and contrast these tales. Read about the lives of the author, and the
culture and time period in which they wrote. A wonderful way to enhance your
storytelling is by actually going where the stories took place. This past summer,
the authors had a unique opportunity to visit Denmark, Germany, and France to
study the folktales and cultures of those countries. In Germany, we traveled the
Marchen Strasse or fairy tale road, learning about the Brothers Grimm and the
German culture (see Figure 1). We experienced and told stories as we hiked in
the Black Forest as if we were Hansel and Gretel, stood in the parapet of
Rapunzels Castle, walked in the footsteps of the Pied Piper in the town of
Hamlen, and held onto the bronze figure of the Bremen Town Musicians for good
luck. These inspiring experiences added depth and breadth to our storytelling.

Teaching Storytelling

The only way for students to learn storytelling is by doing it! If teachers can
model the imaginative, creative, dramatic telling of tales and allow students a
chance to tell their own stories, there will be a flowering of storytelling in their
class! I tell, We tell, You tell is a simple strategy for learning and teaching a story.
First tell a short, short story, such as Once There Was an Old Witch to the
children:

Once There Was an Old Witch

Once there was an old witch, (cackle)

Stirring her pot. (Stirring with your arm, shoulders, and your entire torso.)
Along came two ghosts. (Changing your voice to sound like a ghost.)

I wonder what shes got? (Pointing.)

Tiptoe, tiptoe, BOO! (Use your hands like feet to tiptoe and then scream BOO!)
I got you! (Take a bow.)
Then invite your students to tell it together with you using call and response.
Then invite them to take turns telling it to a partner. Finally, invite a few students
to tell the same story to the class. With younger students, insert an extra step
before telling it together by having them listen and then repeat while you tell the
story in parts. Tell Once There Was an Old Witch with great panache. Cackle like
a witch! Talk in an old English ghostly voice. Tip-toe with a whisper and then
scream your boo to scare the listeners. With this type of jump tale the important
thing is timing. If you lower your voice and pause with each tiptoe, you draw your
listeners in and set up a suspense that you can shatter with a good, loud boo.

Challenge the students to work on their timing and try to scare their partner
even though they know whats coming. If time allows, ask a few students to
stand up and tell the story to the class. Always follow one of these performances
with a round of applause and a compliment.

Once you learn one story and the process for telling that story, it becomes very
easy to learn and tell many stories. If you can tell this simple, four-sentence
story, you are ready for Shakespeare! There are many short, simple stories like
this that you can use in this process but this is a favorite. Once students learn a
few short stories, you can use this same process to teach children a little longer
story like a fable or pourquoi story.

Play theater games to help students work on articulation, dramatic

interpretation, pantomime, dance, and body language. Play the circular
storytelling game in which you start a story and then allow students to add to it
as they pass it around a small group of four. Encourage parents to tell and invite
storytellers to your class so your students can see different styles of telling.

From Storytelling to Reading and Writing:

Oral language development contributes to better reading and writing. By telling

stories and giving students a chance to tell stories, teachers can improve
students vocabulary and reading comprehension, model good literature, and
motivate writing. To help students become better writers and learn critical

reading strategies, why not copy from the masters? Allow them to read several
versions of the same Grimm Brothers story and then rewrite the story creating
their own version with modern language and idioms. Compare and contrast La
Fontaines fables with Aesops fables, discuss the cultural differences, and then
challenge students to write their own version with modern American cultural
motifs.

Read aloud Perraults Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty with the Grimms
Aschenputtel and Snow White. Compare these to the American Indian story The
Rough Faced Girl by Rafe Martin. Discuss the time of ashes and the need to
stand separate from your parents to find your inner beauty. Ask students to write
a personal narrative that exemplifies this lost in the forest feeling and how they
woke up to some new awareness. This might sound heady for elementary
children, but the stories make these abstract ideas concrete and give the
students metaphors for discussing their lives in these terms. Folktales also
provide models for this kind of complex writing and story development.

After immersing students in a study of fables and fairy tales from many cultures,
invite them to use the elements of a good folktale to create their own! When
children create their own folktales, they are able to integrate their knowledge of
language, culture, folktale themes, and story structures (setting, character,
theme, plot episodes, and resolution) into their own creative stories. Allow them
to tell these stories to the class or better yet, host a storytelling festival in which
your students perform for other classes and their families, so that the whole
community will grow richer in tales tall and true! Invite a storyteller to your
school to perform and teach creative writing in an artist-in-residence program.

Conclusion

Storytelling is an exciting way to engage children in listening, speaking, reading,

and writing throughout the curriculum. We hope this article provides an invitation
to incorporate the joy of storytelling into your classroom, so that both you and
your students will live happily ever after. For more storytelling ideas and lesson
plans, please visit the One-Room School House at www.foxtalesint.com.

About the Authors

Stephanie McAndrews is an assistant professor in the Department of

Curriculum and Instruction at Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville. She

teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in early and content area literacy,
literacy assessment, diagnostic instruction, and clinical practica. She is an
experienced elementary classroom teacher, reading specialist, and Reading
Recovery Teacher. Recently she piloted the Illinois Snapshot of Early Literacy
Assessment.

Brian Fox Ellis is a published poet, professional storyteller, freelance writer,

and the author of seven books, including a collection of original science
stories, Learning From the Land (Teacher Ideas Press, 1997). He is the artistic
director of Prairie Folklore Theatre and a frequent keynote speaker at educational
conferences. One of his goals is to awaken the taleteller in us all and help
listeners connect to their family history through story and song.

References

Anderson, N. A. (2002). Elementary childrens literature: The basics for

teachers and parents.
Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Buss, K., & Karnowski, L. (2000). Reading and writing literacy genres.
Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

Dyson, A. H., & Freedman, S. W. (1991). Writing. In J. Flood, J. M. Jensen, D.

Lapp, & J. R. Squire (Eds.), Handbook of research on teaching English language
arts. New York: Macmillan.

Huck, C., Hepler, S., Hickman, J., & Kiefer, B. (1997). Childrens literature in
the elementary school. Boston: McGraw-Hill.

Koki, S. (1996). Storytelling: The heart and soul of education. Honolulu, HI:
Pacific Resources for Education and Learning. Retrieved from:

Morrow, L. M. (2001). Literacy development in the early years: Helping children

read and write. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Mallan, K. (2000). Teaching storytelling as part of university and professional

development courses. In N. Yelland (Ed.), Innovations in practice: Promoting
meaningful learning for early childhood professionals (pp. 5966). Washington,
DC: NAEYC.

National Council of Teachers of English and the International Reading

Association. (1996). Standards for the English language arts. National Council
of Teachers of English and the International Reading Association

Phillips, L. (1996). Storytelling to young children. Retrieved from:

http://www.home.aone.net.au/stories/doc/young.htm (Editor's Note: Site has
since been removed.)

Russell, D. L. (1997). Literature for children. New York: Longman.

Tompkins, G. E. (2003). Literacy in the 21st century (3rd ed.). Upper Saddle
River, NJ: Merrill Prentice Hall.

Trostle, S., & Hicks, S. J. (1998). The effects of storytelling versus story
reading on comprehension and vocabulary knowledge of British primary school
children. Reading Improvement, 35, 127136.

Zabel, M. K. (1991). Storytelling, myths, and folktales: Strategies for

multicultural inclusion. Preventing School Failure, 32.

Folktale Bibliography

Andersen, H. C. (1993). Complete Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales. Owens,

L. (Ed.) New York: Gramercy.

DeSpain, P. (1993). Thirty-three multicultural tales to tell. Little Rock,

AR: August House.

Forest, H. (1996). Wisdom tales from around the world. Little Rock, AR: August
House.

Perrault, C. (1959). Famous fairy tales. New York: Grolier.

Tatar, M. (1999). The classic fairy tales. New York: W.W. Norton.

Winter, M. (1994). The Aesop for children. New York: Scholastic.

Yolen, J. (1986). Favorite folktales from around the world. New York: Pantheon.

Zipes, J. (1987). The complete fairy tales of the brothers Grimm. New York:
Bantam.

Digital Storytelling is a way of telling stories with the use of technology. The
arrival of approachable technology has enabled educators to go for digital
storytelling. With this, they can personalize stories using audio, text and pictures
to make it meaningful for the learners.
Digital storytelling is a great way for students and teachers to share their
knowledge. It offers new ways to combine several medium such as animation,
website, audio, graphic, video to create powerful stories to hear and see.
Importance of Digital Storytelling
Digital Storytelling is a powerful tool for students that help them to understand
concepts and subjects. It offers various types of learning and enables students to
use their visual, auditory and kinesthetic skills. Digital storytelling is great tool
that enhances creativity and thinking skills in the students when they brainstorm
to make a story. It also helps students to learn how to collaborate and work in a
team.
Digital Storytelling create collaborative environment where students actively
participate and share ideas and carry responsibility to complete academic goals.
Such environment promotes life-long learning. Digital Storytelling is one of the
way teachers can understand students outlook. While creating stories they can
develop their management, organisational as well as language skills.
Digital Storytelling for English Language Classroom

Digital Storytelling can enhance students listening and writing skills. It is also
helpful in understanding information and developing vocabulary. Digital
Storytelling improves literacy skills of the students like: writing, reading,
listening and speaking. Teachers can also assess students English language
understanding and find out areas where they need to work with their students.
These elements of digital storytelling are helpful in improving language skills a
lot:
o

the point of view

dramatic question

emotional content

the gift of voice

the power of soundtrack

With all these above mentioned elements of the digital storytelling, educators
can enhance all fours skills (writing, reading, listening, and speaking) of their
students.
For example, the educators can look or improve their students creative writing in
skills by asking them or helping them in building the plot to evaluate their
writing.
Then, the educators can also evaluate the students progress in reading by
observing at their self-reading and flow of reading in the storyline.
Educators can also observe students speaking skills by observing how they
pronounce, word stress and sentence intonation for the narrative part.
Digital Storytelling Tools for Students
StoryRobe
Storyrobe is an advanced tool that has lot of features like:
o

Add Photographs

Add Narration

Send to YouTube

Email Story

Saves the story and import into iPhoto

Create Threaded Stories

StoryKit

StoryKit is also an amazing tool to create digital storytelling. It is free of cost and
can be used iPad, iPod Touch and iPhone.
VoiceThread
Create and share vibrant storytelling with voicethread on iPod Touch, laptop,
iPad, iPhone and Android.
Animoto
Using amazing features of Animoto, you can do beautiful storytelling using
videos online and much more. It is free but you need to pay to upgrade. Animoto
can be used on iPad, iPod Touch, iPhone, and laptop.
Article excerpt
Introduction
In the earliest of times, prior to the advent of writing, storytelling was the only
tool available by which individuals within their communities could preserve and
share their heritage. Stories not only explained life and preserved history, but
also ensured the continuity of experiences from one generation to the next.
Civilizations survived because of storytelling.
The earliest reference to storytelling dates to 4000 B.C. and the Egyptian tales
entitled "The Tales of the Magicians" (Sawyer, 1942). Stories were also utilized by
the Romans, as well as the Gypsies, whose nomadic existence carried the tales
far and wide. During the Medieval period, stories were related by troubadours
who were welcomed in the courts and were in great demand at inns, where
storytelling was used as a means of bringing together the lives of people, thus
creating a sense of community and shared understanding. After the invention of
the printing press in 1450, stories became more available in print. In the 19th
century, Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm collected folk stories, researching ancient
manuscripts and gathering stories from peasant storytellers. Followers of this
tradition included Peter Christian Asbjornsen, Jorgen Moe, Joseph Jacobs, Andrew
Lang, and Hans Christian Andersen (Baker, 1979).
In his article entitled "Memory, Imagination, and Learning: Connected by the
Story", Kieran Egan (1989) points to the power of storytelling as the link to more
meaningful learning, placing it within the historical context of oral cultures who
couldn't write, but who could remember and repeat their stories. Egan writes: "If
one could code the knowledge to be passed on and embed it in a story form,
then it could be made more faithfully memorable than by any other means (p.
456). In addition, Lucien Levi-Bruhl (1985) believes that memory in oral cultures
is extremely accurate and emotional, thus the permeation of events with
emotion makes them more memorable. The technique developed in oral cultures
for orienting emotions with events was the story. There is little doubt that the
Story is a technical tool that has provided a measure of order and stability to
human societies for countless millennia. It appears through a review of the

literature that the story is one of the most important inventions of humankind
(Egan, 1989).
Cognitive Processing in Storytelling
Oliver Wendell Holmes once said, "No generalization is worth a damn, including
this one." Nothing could be more to the point when it comes to storytelling than
the impact of specificity based on experience and the relating of those
experiences to others in the form of storytelling. Understanding and explaining
the world are critical aspects of intelligence which are deeply rooted in the
comprehension of past events as they contribute to, and make understandable,
the comprehension of new events. This is basically the essence of learning from
the beginning of time to the present, whether in a formal or informal setting.
Storytelling is an important technique in the process of learning and
understanding. Individuals gain a better understanding of one another through
the use of concrete examples rather than through vague abstractions and
generalizations which have no relationship to life's experiences, since the sharing
of experiences through the device of storytelling enables individuals to build the
bridge of understanding between one another. This facilitates commonality and
the shared resonance of experiences. The story provides the framework and
context for individuals to better understand others by providing the key to their
own vast index of experiences. Thus, the listener is able to relate in a meaningful
way to the teller's point of context by working through personal experiences that
result in a more profound and lasting understanding than would have been
possible with a generalization. The teller and the listener come together on a
cognitive and emotional level that allows the listener to relate to the teller from
his or her own personal framework and thus grasp the teller's perception of the
content at the same time.
Digital Storytelling: A Powerful Technology Tool for the 21st Century
Classroom
The Importance of Oral Storytelling in Literacy Development.
Aina, Olaiya
Ohio Reading Teacher, v33 n1 p15-18 Fall-Win 1999
Discusses the history and importance of storytelling. Provides specific
suggestions as to how caregivers, teachers, and parents can help children
become life-long learners and readers through the use of storytelling. (NH)
ERIC Number: EJ601049
Record Type: CIJE
Publication Date: 1999
Pages: N/A

Abstractor: N/A
Reference Count: 0
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0030-1035
INTRODUCTION
Everyone loves a good story especially the young people we teach. In fact,
being able to tell a story in an interesting and compelling way is an important
teaching skill. This is because a good story is not only entertaining but is capable
of holding student attention while they learn important concepts, attitudes and
skills.
In her book, Earthtales: Storytelling in Times of Change, Alida Gersie (1992)
notes that storytelling relates to current concerns about our future because most
stories focus on the Earth, how it was created, and the problems that can arise
when we forget the importance of living in harmony with it and each other.
Storytelling is currently experiencing a considerable revival of interest. This has
led many educators to think about ways in which storytelling can be used to
explore important shared themes and visions. The current concern about
environmental issues is connected with this revival, since folktales about the
relationship between the Earth and its human inhabitants have been at the heart
of storytelling since earliest times. Not only do such stories offer a source of
inspiration, they also contain a potential for understanding the many ways in
which we value and devalue our beautiful green and blue planet. Stories provide
us with practical insight into approaches to our most persistent environmental
difficulties.
Source: Adapted from Gersie, A. (1992) Earthtales: Storytelling in Times of
Change, Green Print, London, p. 1.
This module focuses on storytelling as a key teaching strategy for achieving the
objectives of education for sustainable futures.
OBJECTIVES

To develop an appreciation of stories as educational resources, especially

as sources of teaching themes that support Education for Sustainable
Developments;

To develop skills in locating and telling stories as part of a teaching

programme; and

To develop strategies for integrating storytelling approaches into teaching

units to achieve the objectives of Education for Sustainable Development.

ACTIVITIES

1. Telling a story
2. The value of stories
3. Finding and telling good stories
4. Using indigenous stories
5. Using success stories
6. Reflection
REFERENCES
Atherton J.S. (2009) Learning and Teaching Stories, tales and myths in
teaching [On-line], UK.
Beddes, R. and Johnson C. (eds) (1988) Only One Earth: A Multimedia Education
Pack, WWF-UK, Godalming, Surrey.
Campbell, J. (1988) The Power of Myth, Doubleday, London.
De Young, R. and Monroe, M. (1996) Some fundamentals of engaging
stories, Environmental Education Research, 2(2), pp. 171-187.
Gersie, A. (1992) Earthtales: Storytelling in Times of Change, Green Print,
London.
Gersie, A. and King. N. (1990) Storymaking in Education and Therapy, Jessica
Kingsley Publishers, London.
Greenaway, R. (2009) Story making and telling for all [Online].
Kane, S. (1994) Wisdom of the Mythtellers, Broodwin Press, New York.
Knudston, P. and Suzuki, D. (1992) Wisdom of the Elders, Unwin and Allen,
Sydney.
Livo, N. and Rietz, S. (1986) Storytelling: Process and Practice, Libraries
Unlimited, Colorado.
Mallan, K. (1996) Storytelling Sourcebook, Project SARA, Brisbane.
McDrury, J. and Alterio, M. (2003) Learning through Storytelling in Higher
Education: Using Reflection & Experience to Improve Learning, Routledge.
Tobias, B. (2008) Storytelling: storytelling for children aged 2 to 5, User Friendly
Resources.
Wright, A. (1995) Storytelling with children, Oxford University Press.
CREDITS

This module was written for UNESCO by John Fien, Bernard Cox and Margaret
Calder using ideas, activities and material suggested by Annette Gough, Premila
Kumar and John Fien in Learning for a Sustainable Environment (UNESCO
ACEID).
The Importance of Storytelling by Jessica McColly
Miss McColly, will you tell us a fairytale again? Carl asked. His question buoyed
my heart. I had just recently dipped my toe in the ancient waters of storytelling,
and, so far, the water was very inviting. I had always enjoyed listening to others
tell stories, whether the storytellers were professionals or just old friends around
the campfire. I was always a little jealous of those who could spin a good yarn
because I always felt so miserably bad at it. My attempts to retell funny or
amazing events always seemed to fall flat, with the audience losing interest
halfway through. Now, however, Carls plea gratified me more than I would have
imagined. Perhaps with a bit more coaching and lots of practice I can become the
storyteller I have often longed to be. The first tale I told my kindergarteners
came on the day of our maple sugaring field trip. That morning, I found myself
struggling to keep the childrens attention. I remembered the only story I had
ever learned to tell, the story of the Native Americans discovery of maple sugar,
or Sinzibuckwud.
The attitude of the class changed almost immediately. Every eye was on me. I
realized as long as I enjoyed the story I told, so did they. The power of
storytelling hit home in a new way.
As I learn more about storytelling, I find that many teachers and other
professionals have long known the importance of storytelling with young
children. Childrens reactions to stories intuit their importance, and research
endorses their value for any skeptics.
In a climate where children spend more and more time in front of televisions,
computers, and video games, storytellings educational impact is augmented as
never before. Rather than passively receiving images, children must actively
engage in making images themselves. When they listen to stories, childrens
imaginations are enriched and stimulated (de Wit, 5). Furthermore, the ability to
make mental images is an important skill for reading because it links the reader
to the text in more personal and memorable ways. As Debbie Miller puts it,
images come from the emotions and all five senses, enhancing understanding
and immersing the reader in rich detail (77).
Young children are developmentally wired to love language, and using
storytelling in the classroom cashes in on that expansive love of words and the
desire to try out such language (Wood, 35). According to the National Council
of Teachers of English, listeners encounter both familiar and new language
patterns through story (as cited in Geisler, 33). Hearing stories regularly allows
pre-readers become familiar with narrative patterns (NCTE as cited in Geisler,
33), speech rhythms, and the flow of language (de Wit, 5). Telling stories to
young children also increases their vocabulary. For example, Monadnock Waldorf

teacher Betsi McGuigan fondly recalls when an upset five-year-old, recalling a

line from a previously heard fairy tale, cried to her, Get away from me, you
odious frog! (McGuigan, 3).
The language and literary elements of storytelling are not its only merits,
however. Through stories, children learn about the cultural values of their society.
Young ones begin to appreciate the goodness, humor, bravery, and beauty of
the characters in the stories before they really know these qualities themselves
(de Wit, 5). As Jean de La Fontaine said, We yawn at sermons, but we gladly
turn/ To moral tales, and so amused we learn (Geisler, 32).
Not only do children learn about their own culture through stories, but they gain
an appreciation of other cultures as well. Storytelling emphasizes the ties that
bind and helps children see the commonalities of people and communities
around the world (California Reading Association as cited in Geisler, 32). As our
world grows smaller, telling stories from around the globe fosters understanding
of other people and places. The folk stories and fairy tales of other cultures teach
children to embrace the uniqueness of different societies. At the same time, the
commonalities among the different stories highlight the deep connections all
cultures share.
Many of the types of stories we choose to tell can help young children deal with
their own fears, challenges, and difficulties. Fairy tales especially reach children
on a very deep level and help them bridge the confusing dimensions of the
world. Good and evil, fear and courage, wisdom and folly, fortune and
misfortune, cruelty and kindness (California State Dept. of Education as quoted
in Geisler, 32) are personified. Through fairy tales, children can integrate these
elements of our world into their own, and may be better able to deal with such
trials and tribulations themselves. Bruno Bettelheim, the noted child
psychologist, believed intensely that the telling of fairy tales held great
importance to young children. He wrote,
The more I tried to understand why these stories (fairy tales) are so successful
in enriching the inner life of the child, the clearer it became to me that, in a
much deeper sense than any other reading material, they start where the child
really is in his psychological and emotional being. (Bettelheim as quoted in
class notes, 3/31/07).
Additionally, stories can be told in times of crisis to help children deal with big
issues such as death, violence, or abuse. As much as we want to protect young
ones from such terrible situations, the unfortunate reality of our world does not
always make this possible. Not only can we tell stories that deal with such events
and make the endings hopeful and happy, but we can encourage children
themselves to tell stories. I personally of seen this kind of storytelling be
therapeutic. A five-year-old who was exposed to hours and hours of scary, gory,
and frightening images and movies for two of his formative years found great
relief in being able to share his stories. Having adults listen to his stories and
help him make the endings happy continues to be great therapy for him.

Regardless of the content, giving young children the opportunity to do their own
storytelling is a rich experience itself. Vivian Gussin Paley, a well-known educator
of young children, has done much amazing work incorporating storytelling into
every aspect of her classroom. By paying attention and analyzing childrens
stories, Paley has glimpsed the universal themes that bind together the
universal urgencies of her charges (Paley, 4). Viewing her students as
storytellers has drawn her into deeper concerns and more vivid visions of their
world (Paley, 19). Aside from the wealth of information a teacher can gain from
her students stories are the numerous educational benefits to the children.
Storytelling makes children comfortable with oral communication and speaking in
front of an audience. Students who practice storytelling also gain experience
watching their audience for cues and altering their story accordingly. This sets
the groundwork for later skills needed in writing.
All this research is important and relevant, of course. Storytelling is beneficial to
young children in so many ways. Knowing that so much research substantiates
the storyteller should be encouragement enough to continue storytelling in my
future classrooms. I am glad to know I will be doing something enriching for my
students. However, it is not the research that sustains me. It is the students
unwavering attention and their abiding love for stories that urges on my
attempts to become a storyteller.
http://aplaceofourown.org/question_detail.php?id=275

Debi's Tips

Debi Gutierrez

Storytelling develops language & literacy skills

Host

Have your child make up stories

Share family stories

Storytelling is great no matter your literacy level

Expert Advice
Storytelling is different than story reading with books because
you have to create a whole story through your imagination. It
gives adults who are learning English themselves a way to
enhance their own literacy skills through dialogue, speech,
and activities. Parents can talk about their heritage by

Marilyn
McConnie

showing pictures, having their child draw what they think is

going to happen next in the story, and it encourages kids to
ask questions.

UCLA instructor, For parents and providers who are having a difficult time with
Childrens literacy reading, storytelling without a book is a great learning tool to
help them boost their vocabulary skills and make story time
specialist
interactive. The whole concept about family literacy is getting
the whole family involved and learning together.
Everyone has traditional oral stories that should be handed
down. When you tell a child an oral story, its a great way of
carrying on traditions and bonding. It can also be a good way
of opening up conversation.
Remember, the same story can exist in different languages
and can have different interpretations. For example, if a child
says her teacher told her the story of Cinderella, you can have
a child tell you the story they heard and then you can tell
them about the version you grew up with. This not only
encourages bonding, but also enhances kids comprehension
of stories and their language development.
Structure is important when telling a good story, in addition to
details about the setting where the story takes place. Other
important elements to telling a good story are the characters
which are propelling the story as well as what is the problem
or challenge the characters must overcome in the story. At the
end, of course, a story must have a resolution to the problem.
For young children age 3 and under, remember to tell stories
that teach phonemic awareness differentiating between
different sounds. The stories should have many different
sounds. At that age, there doesnt need to be a complicated
plot.

Child Care provider Comments

Rob Morhaim

As much as we love books, we love telling stories without

books because it gives my children a chance to let their
imaginations fly. Ill show them pictures of me as a little boy
and the things I liked to do. Ill create stories about my first
time getting on a bike and scraping my knee, then my kids
will point to my knee. Story time is a great way to involve all
your kids and let them learn about your own heritage.

Father of two

When I tell stories to my grandchild, Derrick, I become very

animated and act things out. I change my tone of voice or do
a crazy walk. It keeps children interested because it keeps
them entertained and also helps them remember elements of
the story, thus helping their memories.
Carol Woods
Grandmother of
eleven

Sonnia Corzo
Child care provider
for 6 years,
mother of four

I use storytelling to promote kids language and vocabulary. It

also helps them to understand concepts like before and
after. One thing I like to do is have the kids pick a favorite
toy and tell us a story about it. That sparks their imaginations
and encourages them to take the lead. On Monday mornings,
Ill start by telling them what happened to me over the
weekend and then Ill have each child tell me the story of
what happened to them over the weekend.