Reading and telling stories

In this chapter we are going to see again the skill "reading" but we are going to introduce another aspect or activity: to tell stories. It is the best way to develop not only reading, we can work and improve writing if our students have to create their own story, listening wheb they are listening to a story and speaking, when they are telling theis stories to their classmates.
Children love stories. They are always eager to listen to stories, they know how stories work, they want to understand what is happening and can enjoy hearing stories in English when they start English lessons, they enjoy looking at story books by themselves and they can reread the stories they like when they can read in English themselves.

>> The value of stories

• Help children relate new things to what they know already

• Help children to look at real life from different viewpoints and imagine what it feels like to be someone else

• Can introduce the child to other cultures and attitudes

• Let children share their experiences with the group - everyone listens and feels sad or happy

• Can link to other subjects the child is learning about in school

• Help children develop their thinking skills

• Are interesting and enjoyable, and can be fun.

 

 Stories for language teaching
- Can be told with pictures and gestures to help children understand
- Help children enjoy learning English
- Introduce new language in context
- Help children revise language they are familiar with
- Help children become aware of the structures of the language
- Help children acquire intonation and pronunciation by listening
- Can help bring English into other subjects
- Can lead on to lots of activities using listening. speaking. reading, and writing.

>>  Telling and performing a story with very young learners
Using body language, gestures, and actions is very important to all learners, but especially to very young learners. When children act and perform a story they quickly become familiar with the language you use. This is how one teacher told a story with her class. The children stand in a circle and copy the teacher while she is telling the story.

>> Reading a story to very young learners

• Using a book with pictures

• Showing them real things that are talked about in the story

• Miming what happens in the story to help children understand meaning

• Make the sounds for things in the story, for example, animals, trains

• Repeating key words and phrases

• Asking and answering questions about the story.

 

 >> Ways to retell a story
When children have heard a story once, you can tell it again. Each time
you retell a story, children
- Will become more familiar with the language of the story
- Will be able to participate more
- Will be able to participate in different ways.
When the children are listening, you can
- Stop telling the story and see if the children can remember what happens next
- Put up some pictures of scenes from the story. Ask children to point to the picture of what or who you are telling them about.
- Ask the class to stand up and mime all the actions as they happen
- Divide the class up so that each group can pretend to be one of the
main characters. Each group becomes that character and only mimes the actions he/she does.
- Act out the story as you tell it, and later get some children to take parts, come out to the front, and act with you
-Let the children sit in groups. Give a set of pictures from the story to each group. As you tell the story ask the groups to put the pictures into the right sequence.
- Ask the children to listen carefully, then make some deliberate
mistakes/changes.

 >> Story Time

1. Plan how you would introduce the class to each story, and how you would prepare for it.
2. Plan what pictures or other visual aids you would use, and how and when you would use them. What might you say about each picture to the children? Suggest two things for each picture.
3. Write a list of questions you might ask for each page or part of the story (some easy ones and some more open-ended ones.) For each question, think of two possible answers that children may give.
4. Plan two ways of retelling each story, asking children to do something different each time, to make it fun for them. Work out what instructions you would need to give.