Resource centre - Young Learners - Stories in the classroom
Shelley Vernon argues the case for using stories every day in the pre-school ESL classroom.
Do you want to start using stories in the preschool ESL classroom but don't know
where to start? There are many great pre-k activities for ESL classrooms,
including games, but it's also very important to not discount the power of
stories. Whether you're reading a classic book, making up a story as you go
along or designing a story specifically for a particular lesson, you'll want to
be sure to include stories in the preschool ESL class every day.
One of the reasons why stories work so well in the ESL preschool classroom has
to do with intrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation is the theory that people
are motivated by internal factors. Children of preschool age do not understand
the external factors that might motivate an adult to decide to learn a second
language, so as a teacher it's up to you to create a classroom that internally
motivates them to participate in the activities and, ultimately, learn the
language you are teaching.
Stories are perfect for teaching young ESL students because children already
love stories and are already motivated at the thought of listening to one. In
addition to that, when children listen to the stories, they are able to
internalise the language structure and will eventually begin to recognize words
and phrases they hear in the stories. Besides, there are so many ways to use
them in the classroom that the possibilities with stories are practically
endless. Here are some possibilities on how you can use stories in your
classroom:
Teach Vocabulary
Before you use a story in the ESL preschool classroom, you'll need to teach the
students the key vocabulary words so they are able to follow the story. Thus the
story can serve as a basis for drawing vocabulary words. It goes deeper than
that, however. The students will not just "learn" the words, they will
immediately see how the words are used and hear them in context of the language.
This is so much more beneficial to the students than simply memorizing a list of
words.
Varying Classroom Activities
Telling a story adds variety to your lessons in terms of content and pace.
Preschoolers don't have a terribly long attention span, so you'll want to vary
your activities throughout the class period. Changing your activities every five
to ten minutes is appropriate for this age group - and that's a great length of
time to spend telling a story. Furthermore, preschool students have a ton of
energy, so you'll want to have some activities that allow them to burn this
energy. To keep the class from getting out of control, use a story after a
boisterous activity to allow everyone enough time to settle down before moving
onto something else. Remember also that you can tell the same stories over and
over again.
Be Creative
Whenever you tell a story allow your creativity to show through. Have fun with
it and go with the flow. Make animal sounds, change your voice, sing little
songs and, most of all, use gestures. You might even be able to get some of your
students to go along with you when it comes to animal sounds, songs and
gestures.
Introduce Other Activities
Stories are a great jumping board for other activities. Here is just a sampling
of activities you could do following a story:
* Give each student a picture that depicts the events of the story and have them
line up in order of the events.
* Have the students come up with a title for the story. Allow as many titles as
students who'd like to share one.
* Repeat quotes from the story and ask the students "Who said it?"
* Leave off the ending of the story and have the students predict what they
think will happen. Then, read the ending of the story.
* Encourage the children to look for patterns in the story. Have them guess, for
example, what the character will say if there is a pattern in what the character
says.
* Teach them a song that goes along with the theme of the story.
* Teach them actions to go along with the songs.
* Let them act out parts of the story.
* Set up stations that allow them to dress up like characters in the story and
do things the characters in the story did. So, if the characters in the story
decorated cookies, give them some time to decorate cookies.
* Tell a story to introduce a new unit.
* Give the students three events in the story and ask them what came first.
* Have the students draw a picture about their favorite part of the story and
then explain it to the class.
* Let the students tell about a similar experience they might have had.
There are so many things you can do with stories in the ESL classroom. Just let
your imagination go and soon so will the imaginations of your students! If you
want some ideas to help you get started, just visit the link in the box below
the article for some free materials on using games in the preschool classroom.
Shelley Vernon has helped 1000s of teachers be an inspiration to their pupils Improve the effectiveness of your lessons and enjoy yourself more. Receive free preschool ESL games and stories now on www.teachingenglishgames.com/3-5.htm
What do you think of this article? Add a comment ยป
The suggestions are brilliant!
The article is very
informative and educational. Thank you.
Superb... it's beneficial to
all english language teachers... thank you.
This article is useful for
teachers to make teaching more interesting... brilliant suggestions! Thanks.
This is wonderful stuff. I'm
constantly trying to find new ways to entertain my little ones here in Taiwan.
We've also done our part by building a huge free ESL classroom games database.
It might be worth checking out: http://www.taiwanenglish.com/games.php - Thanks!
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