Stories can be an effective tool for teaching English to young learners. They provide an imaginary world created through language that brings content into the classroom in an engaging way. Effective stories introduce characters and a problem, include a series of events that lead to resolving the problem, and have a satisfying closure. Stories promote language learning through tasks before, during, and after reading like listening to stories, telling stories using objects or pictures, focused reading practice, and writing stories or scenes.

1. Learning Through Stories
By: Bishara Adam
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2. Learning Through Stories
 Stories offer a whole imaginary world which is created by
language.
You need knowledge about stories to be able to bring this
world into the classroom.
Use of stories and contexts in home country or culture can
help YLs connect English with their background knowledge,
which is limited because of their young age and
inexperience.
Take a favourite story in the L1 and translate it into English
Allow students a chance to personalize content every lesson.
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3. Stories & Themes as a Holistic
Approaches to Teaching & Learning
Stories facilitate teacher to bring children to
their imaginary world, language that is
created based on the level of difficulties.
Meanwhile theme can be started from an
main topic that then branched out in many
different directions so that children can
pursue their personal interest through foreign
language.
Stories can make the world be brought into
the classroom.
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4. Stories & Themes as a Holistic
Approaches to Teaching & Learning
Teacher decides the content that accessible
to learners and to construct activities that
offer language learning opportunities.
Skills and language knowledge of a text
book writers are needed.
 Stories are frequently claimed to bring
many benefits to young learners classrooms,
including language development.
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5. The Discourse Organization of
Stories
Events happen in different points in time.
Their thematic structure changes over the timescale.
Prototypical Features of Stories
An opening
Introduction of Characters
Description of the Setting
Introduction of a problem
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A series of events that leads to:
The resolution of the problem
The closing
A moral

6. Language Use in Stories
Parallelism (pattern of predictability + surprise, or repetition +
change)
Rich vocabulary
Alliteration (words that have same initial consonant)
Contrast (in character, action, setting)
Metaphor
Intertextuality (making reference within one text to aspects of
other texts that have become part of shares cultural knowledge)
Narrative / dialogue (text concern the series of events/dialog=use
of language as it would be spoken by the characters)
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7. Quality in Stories
A good story:
Have characters and a plot that engage
Have artwork that helps telling the story
Have a satisfying closure
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8. Choosing Stories to Promote
Language Learning
 ‘Real’ books or specially written ones?
Will the content engage the learners?
Are the values and the attitudes embodied in the story acceptable?
How is the discourse organized?
What is the balance of dialogue and narrative?
How is language used?
What new language is used?
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9. Ways of Using a Story
Evaluating the language learning opportunities of the story
Language learning tasks using the story
Preparation activity
Core Activity
Follow-up Activity
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10. Developing Tasks Around a Story
Listening Skills
Discourse Skills
Focused Reading Skills Practice
Writing Skills
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11. Listening Skills
Read or tell simple stories to the students. You can use
pictures or small objects.
After initial storytelling, ask the learners tell the story. This
technique is the most effective if it involve several students.
Choose one person to re-tell the story, then ask others to
continue the story.
Let all the students tell the story unless it is finished. In
short, let each student tell two or three sentences of the story.
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12. Discourse Skills
Storytelling with objects.
Use objects such as toys, forks, cups to start the stories.
For example, divide the students in the groups of three to
five and distribute four to five objects to each group.
Ask each of the group to make a story that includes all of
their objects.
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13. Discourse Skills
Storytelling with pictures.
Use pictures in the same way as objects were used in the
previous activity.
Distribute four to five pictures to each group.
Make sure each student has one picture.
Ask each group to make up a story that includes all the
pictures.
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14. Focused Reading Skills Practice
Read or tell simple stories to the students. You can use
pictures or small objects.
After initial storytelling, ask the learners tell the story. This
technique is the most effective if it involve several students.
Choose one person to re-tell the story, then ask others to
continue the story.
Let all the students tell the story unless it is finished. In
short, let each student tell two or three sentences of the story.
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15. Writing Skills
Have the learners draw or paint a scene from a story and
then write at least one line from the story under the picture.
Use the variation of the speaking activities above
(storytelling with objects or storytelling with pictures).
After the learners create the story, have the group dictate it
as one person writes it down.
Have the students write individual stories, using objects or
pictures. Then they can compare their stories within small
groups.
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