Learn Natural English Through Storytelling: 8 Stories for Intermediate & Advanced Learners
Contents:
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.
There are various possible approaches to using stories in class.
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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. 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. 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. 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.
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.
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.
As with other listening and reading activities, it can be helpful to plan story-based lessons following the three stages of before, while and after.
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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.
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. 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. 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:.
Web Editor Wed, 29 Apr 9: The book that this is taken from, Carol Read's Activities for the Primary Classroom, was first published in If you need any more information, please email help macmillan. Best wishes, The onestopenglish team. In German, detective stories are called Krimis.
One of the most famous German Krimis is perhaps the TV-series Tatort which means crime scene and has been running since on television channels in Austria, Switzerland and Germany. Watching the weekly Tatort has become an almost iconic activity in everyday German culture. Each Sunday at 8: This book is a detective story especially written for German learners. Not only does it invite readers to help solve a crime but also to pick up important Krimi vocabulary that can serve as a preparation for watching series such as Tatort and many others in the original.
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Each chapter contains a selection of relevant words translated into English, and is followed by questions regarding the content. The correct answers are to be found at the end of the book. While the writing itself primarily aims at an entertaining and interactive experience, the language is specially designed to familiarize the reader with unique forms of spoken German, with an emphasis on dialogue and the daily culture of speech. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about Learning German through Storytelling , please sign up.
Learning English through stories
Be the first to ask a question about Learning German through Storytelling. Lists with This Book. This book is not yet featured on Listopia. Ich finde dieses Buch toll! I've loving these books from Andrea Klein. A great way to help learn German. My only complaints are: The dictionaries after each chapter are great but seem to include some easy words and not the difficult ones.
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