Why should you use storytelling to teach English?

Richard Cleeve
Children sat outdoors reading a book together
Reading time: 5 minutes

Stories can make us laugh, cry or tremble with fear. They can teach us valuable life lessons and transport us to other worlds. They've been around since the beginning of language itself, but can they actually help us learn a language?

Stories are one of the most useful tools?when teaching children?English. Not only do they help with listening and reading skills, but they can also support speaking and writing skills by providing context, language and structure.?

Very young learners may already be familiar with stories ¨C they may hear them in daycare, school or at home with their parents. Therefore, incorporating these into their language classes may help them to feel more comfortable in their surroundings. And if children feel comfortable, they are more likely to be receptive to learning.?

Storytelling usually happens as part of a group in the classroom. This means that it becomes a bonding activity for children where they can communicate and subconsciously pick up the key language. While having fun listening and interacting with the story, they?soak up information without even realizing they¡¯re learning.

So, what storytelling activities can we use with young?learners? Let¡¯s find out.?

Practical activities for storytelling with young learners

Often, we think of storytelling simply as reading a book aloud to children. Yet, there are other activities you can do. These include:

1. Choral repetition

To get young children interacting with the story, first read out a sentence alone. Then, have the children repeat the line with you as a group. Repeat as many times as necessary, until the children feel confident with the language.?

2. Individual repetition

If your learners are happy to, ask them individually to repeat the sentence after you. Make sure each one has a turn and praise them for being brave and trying to use the language.?

3. Play acting

An activity that works well with children is to act out the story¡¯s characters. For example, there may be animals, fairies, monsters or other exciting characters that they can each act.?

Ask them to make the noises of the animals, the wind, or the scenery to create an atmosphere while you read. This gets them interacting with the story and the rest of the group, which will help their communication and listening comprehension skills.?

4. Use puppets or dolls

Young learners react particularly well to visual aids and realia. Why not use puppets or dolls to act out the characters, or even ask students to have a go with them? They will engage more with the story and the language.??

5. Dive into the pictures

Children¡¯s story books are usually quite visual with illustrations and pictures. Make the most of these while telling the story. Try asking students questions about the images to get them using the vocabulary.?

You could ask them, ¡°what can you see?¡±, ¡°what¡¯s he wearing?¡± or ¡°can you find an apple?¡±. This is another great way to reinforce the vocabulary they¡¯re learning in class.?

Use these activities individually or?incorporate a mix into your lessons. Either way, storytelling will help your learners with more than just developing their English language skills.?

Storytelling with adult language learners

While we often think of storytelling as a pastime for children, it can also be a useful language learning activity for adults.?

Stories are part of our daily lives, from news to social media to books and movies. Therefore, they can be extremely beneficial tools for English language learning.?

Yet, the way we approach storytelling as a class activity for adults differs to that of young learners. While we typically read fairy tales to young children, we can bring in a much wider range of content for adults, such as:

  • News stories?¨C There may be a current news story that learners are interested in. Ask them to bring in an article to retell in class.??
  • Traditional folk stories?¨C?Ask learners what traditional folk tales or ghost stories they were told as children growing up in their hometowns. This can be really interesting for both language and cultural awareness.??
  • Personal life stories ¨C Our lives are a series of short stories that can make for very interesting reading. You can either ask students to share stories in class orally or have them write up a ¡°chapter¡± from their lives to tell the class. It could be something funny that happened to them or an anecdote from their childhood, for example.?
  • Movie plots?¨C Ask students what their favorite movies are and have them either tell the group the summary of the plot or write it up to share at the end of the lesson.
  • Advertisements?¨C?There are some fantastic advertisements which tell mini stories in under three minutes. Have students choose one, show it to the class and discuss it as a group.?

Storytelling can be a wonderful language learning tool for both children and adults. If you¡¯re looking for a new way to engage, inspire and motivate your learners, why not try it in your next class??

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    5 of the strangest English phrases explained

    By Steffanie Zazulak

    Here, we look at what some of the strangest English phrases mean ¨C and reveal their origins¡­

    Bite the bullet

    Biting a bullet? What a strange thing to do! This phrase means you¡¯re going to force yourself to do something unpleasant or deal with a difficult situation. Historically, it derives from the 19th century when a patient or soldier would clench a bullet between their teeth to cope with the extreme pain of surgery without anesthetic. A similar phrase with a similar meaning, ¡°chew a bullet¡±, dates to the late 18th century.

    Use it:?¡°I don¡¯t really want to exercise today, but I¡¯ll bite the bullet and go for a run.¡±

    Pigs might fly

    We all know that pigs can¡¯t fly, so people use this expression to describe something that is almost certain never to happen. It is said that this phrase has been in use since the 1600s, but why pigs? An early version of the succinct ¡°pigs might fly¡± was ¡°pigs fly with their tails forward¡±, which is first found in a list of proverbs in the 1616 edition of John Withals¡¯s English-Latin dictionary,?A Shorte Dictionarie for Yonge Begynners: ¡°Pigs fly in the ayre with their tayles forward.¡± Other creatures have been previously cited in similar phrases ¨C ¡°snails may fly¡±, ¡°cows might fly¡±, etc, but it is pigs that have stood the test of time as the favored image of an animal that is particularly unsuited to flight! This phrase is also often used as a sarcastic response to mock someone¡¯s credulity.

    Use it:?¡°I might clean my bedroom tomorrow.¡± ¨C ¡°Yes, and pigs might fly.¡±

    Bob¡¯s your uncle

    Even if you don¡¯t have an uncle called Bob, you might still hear this idiom! Its origin comes from when Arthur Balfour was unexpectedly promoted to Chief Secretary for Ireland by the Prime Minister of Britain, Lord Salisbury, in 1900. Salisbury was Arthur Balfour¡¯s uncle (possibly his reason for getting the job!) ¨C and his first name was Robert. This?phrase is used when something is accomplished or successful ¨C an alternative to ¡°¡­and that¡¯s that¡±.

    Use it:?¡°You¡¯re looking for the station? Take a left, then the first right and Bob¡¯s your uncle ¨C you¡¯re there!¡±

    Dead ringer

    This phrase commonly refers to something that seems to be a copy of something ¨C mainly if someone looks like another person. The often-repeated story about the origin of this phrase is that many years ago, people were sometimes buried alive because they were presumed dead ¨C when actually they were still alive. To prevent deaths by premature burial, a piece of string would supposedly be tied to the finger of someone being buried ¨C and the other end would be attached to a bell above ground. If the person woke up, they would ring the bell ¨C and the ¡°dead¡± ringer would emerge looking exactly like someone buried only a few hours ago! Other stories point to the practice of replacing slower horses with faster horses ¨C ¡°ringers¡±. In this case, ¡°dead¡± means ¡°exact¡±.

    Use it:?¡°That guy over there is a dead ringer for my ex-boyfriend.¡±

    Off the back of a lorry

    This is a way of saying that something was acquired that is probably stolen, or someone is selling something that¡¯s stolen or illegitimate. It can also be used humorously to emphasize that something you bought was so cheap that it must have been stolen! ¡°Lorry¡± is the British version ¨C in the US, things fall off the back of ¡°trucks¡±. An early printed version of this saying came surprisingly late in?The Times in?1968. However, there are many anecdotal reports of the phrase in the UK from much earlier than that, and it is likely to date back to at least World War II. It¡¯s just the sort of language that those who peddled illegal goods during and after WWII would have used.

    Use it:?¡°I can¡¯t believe these shoes were so cheap ¨C they must have fallen off the back of a lorry.¡±

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