QUESTION: I’ve been interested in storytelling recently and I would like to know as to whether we can use storytelling with young learners only. Is it a teaching technique we can use with older learners as well, for instance, teenagers and adults?

ANSWER: Storytelling is an art and a technique which has come down to us from ancient times. and his “stories”, the Iliad and the  Odyssey are two of the most important epics of world literature.

Storytelling is a technique used not only in the classroom but also in the world of cinema as well as in the business and marketing world, as we see in Wendy Parish’s blog, “4 B2B brands that have mastered the art of storytelling”

in Marketing Dive, April 20, 2015

As Parish says, “Storytelling—a practice as old as human existence—is something that the marketing world is constantly chasing. When executed in the proper way, storytelling can be a compelling advertising tactic. “

One of her examples of successful advertising is how Boeing, one of the largest aerospace manufacturers, is using storytelling to reach its public and to “channel one of the original forms of storytelling: news.”

In this way, as she continues with another major film, Deloitte, an international accounting consultancy firm, “{Manufacturers have} found a way to bring a human element to [their] work through storytelling, ensuring the brand continues to stay fresh.”

Let’s look at Boeing’s short DVD to see how this manufacturer uses storytelling in order to advertise the first ever American space taxi. We can then see how it could be used in the EFL classroom, although, the few suggestions we make are the ones all EFL teachers use when they incorporate the visual element in teaching.

 

PROCEDURE BEFORE AND IN CLASS

LEVELS: B1 – B2+

  1. First, watch the DVD yourself to become familiar with the story and to note down the major key words you are sure your learners need. For example, lexis like “vicariously”, “Leviathan”, “shuttle”, “payload”, “scale wise”, “console” and “bucket list”.
  2. In actuality, there will be a few more, but the aim here is to let the learners get the gist of the story, not the meaning of each and every word they do not recognize but do understand within context.
  3. Then, bring the DVD to class, tell the learners they will watch Chris Ferguson, a former US astronaut, talk about America’s first space taxi, manufactured by Boeing, through his experiences as an astronaut.
  4. Make sure that the learners already recognize words like “space”, “shuttle”, “launch”, etc., and then, pre-teach the key words above.
  5. Watch the DVD twice. The second time, stop at specific points where you have felt the learners might need to ask a question OR you would like to ask them one, just to reinforce comprehension.
  6. Invite learners to ask questions and encourage them to answer each other,  wherever possible.
  7. If they wish, let them watch the DVD one more time, just for the pleasure of listening to the flow of the story Chris Ferguson is recounting.

Enjoy viewing,

Suzanne and Lilika

P.S. The Marketing Dive blog has two more short DVDs. If you click  above, you get the whole blog.  As a matter of fact, if you have any trouble with the DVD above, click "The Marketing Dive blog" to access it through the blog.   

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