Why stories?

Everyone loves a good story – when you keep on turning the pages to find out what happens.  That’s why a strong storyline running all the way through a Senior ABC textbook is a powerful teaching tool, because the students really want to get to the next episode.  A story can play an important part in the students’ motivation to learn English, and it can be a source of enjoyable, useful activities for the students.

 Stories and motivation in the classroom

The level of motivation in a class is a key factor in how successful a course will be.  A good story can raise the level of motivation in the class in two key ways.

• It can raise the level of extrinsic motivation or motivation “from outside”: the students enjoy looking at the pictures, hearing the characters’ voices and sound effects and so on.

• It can also raise the level of intrinsic motivation, or motivation “from inside”:  the students want to understand the language in the story because they want to find out what’s happening; they want to use the language because they want to talk about the events in the story.

Using a story with the interactive whiteboard (IWB)

1 For reviewing vocabulary and grammar

Some courses, come with an animated version of the story for the IWB.  This is a great way to review new language that you presented with the story in the previous class. Play the animated version without the sound and help the students to recreate what the characters are saying. It’s quite easy because the characters are moving and there are expressions on their faces. Then play the animated version with the sound, so that the students can check what they said.

2 For choral reading

This is when the whole class reads aloud together, like in a chorus. They can either read the whole story episode aloud together from beginning to end, or you can divide the class into big groups, and assign a character to each group.  You can make sure the students read all together at the same pace by moving your hand along the text on the IWB as they read. If your class is having a slow, sleepy day, this is a great way to wake them up and get them all involved.  

 3 For working on pronunciation, stress and intonation

While you’re doing group reading, spend some time on the students’ pronunciation, stress and intonation. It’s much easier and much more effective to focus on this when they’re all reading aloud together.  It works particularly well with intonation: don’t be afraid to exaggerate the intonation ( I LOVE this! Where ARE you? etc) – the students enjoy copying  the exaggerated intonation, and it helps them to speak English in a more natural way. 

Using a story without the IWB

 Acting out in groups

Getting the students into small groups, with each student in the group reading a different character, really helps them to get a feeling for the language.  However, they can feel a bit self-conscious, so give simple character props to hold, such as paper cut-outs or paper badges with  names for the children in the story and so on.  

If you want to do an end-of-year play, make sure you do lots of acting out in class. The more your students act out in class, the better the play will be!

Writing

A good way to do a bit of integrated skills work is to get the students to write a summary of what happened in the previous episode. However, take care that this doesn’t become a long reported speech activity. Encourage the students to use a range of reported verbs, such agree, disagree, help, persuaded … to ..  and so on to avoid too much simple repetition of what was said.

Role plays

These are another great way of integrating skills, and an opportunity to have a lot of fun in the class. For example, the students can interview characters from the story. Before you start, ask the students to suggest some ideas for what each character can say. Write these ideas on the board for the students to use. As with acting out, give them character props like cut-out paper microphones for the interviewers.

These are just some of the ways we can use stories in class – to motivate your students, to help your students practice the language and to help your students with speaking fluency and writing fluency. And, of course, they’re a great way for you and your students to enjoy yourselves in class!  

About the Author

Nick has worked in English Language Teaching for just over thirty years. Originally on the staff of the Instituto Anglo Mexicano de Cultura in Mexico City, he has been involved in all aspects of teaching English at all levels, as a teacher, teacher trainer, IT specialist and Cambridge examiner.

More recently he has been working as an academic consultant in Europe, the Middle East and Latin America. Currently he is involved with materials production and teacher training in Greece, Poland, Argentina and the Kurdistan region of Iraq. He has worked with all the major ELT publishers in the United Kingdom and he has written a wide range of ELT books for students in primary and secondary schools around the world.

Nick is the author of Pearson’s new course Cosmic Kids 3.  Visit www.cosmickids.gr for more info.