Why should you use storytelling to teach English?

Richard Cleeve
Children sat outdoors reading a book together
Reading time: 5 minutes

Stories can make us laugh, cry or tremble with fear. They can teach us valuable life lessons and transport us to other worlds. They've been around since the beginning of language itself, but can they actually help us learn a language?

Stories are one of the most useful tools when teaching children English. Not only do they help with listening and reading skills, but they can also support speaking and writing skills by providing context, language and structure. 

Very young learners may already be familiar with stories – they may hear them in daycare, school or at home with their parents. Therefore, incorporating these into their language classes may help them to feel more comfortable in their surroundings. And if children feel comfortable, they are more likely to be receptive to learning. 

Storytelling usually happens as part of a group in the classroom. This means that it becomes a bonding activity for children where they can communicate and subconsciously pick up the key language. While having fun listening and interacting with the story, they soak up information without even realizing they’re learning.

So, what storytelling activities can we use with young learners? Let’s find out. 

Practical activities for storytelling with young learners

Often, we think of storytelling simply as reading a book aloud to children. Yet, there are other activities you can do. These include:

1. Choral repetition

To get young children interacting with the story, first read out a sentence alone. Then, have the children repeat the line with you as a group. Repeat as many times as necessary, until the children feel confident with the language. 

2. Individual repetition

If your learners are happy to, ask them individually to repeat the sentence after you. Make sure each one has a turn and praise them for being brave and trying to use the language. 

3. Play acting

An activity that works well with children is to act out the story’s characters. For example, there may be animals, fairies, monsters or other exciting characters that they can each act. 

Ask them to make the noises of the animals, the wind, or the scenery to create an atmosphere while you read. This gets them interacting with the story and the rest of the group, which will help their communication and listening comprehension skills. 

4. Use puppets or dolls

Young learners react particularly well to visual aids and realia. Why not use puppets or dolls to act out the characters, or even ask students to have a go with them? They will engage more with the story and the language.  

5. Dive into the pictures

Children’s story books are usually quite visual with illustrations and pictures. Make the most of these while telling the story. Try asking students questions about the images to get them using the vocabulary. 

You could ask them, “what can you see?”, “what’s he wearing?” or “can you find an apple?”. This is another great way to reinforce the vocabulary they’re learning in class. 

Use these activities individually or incorporate a mix into your lessons. Either way, storytelling will help your learners with more than just developing their English language skills. 

Storytelling with adult language learners

While we often think of storytelling as a pastime for children, it can also be a useful language learning activity for adults. 

Stories are part of our daily lives, from news to social media to books and movies. Therefore, they can be extremely beneficial tools for English language learning. 

Yet, the way we approach storytelling as a class activity for adults differs to that of young learners. While we typically read fairy tales to young children, we can bring in a much wider range of content for adults, such as:

  • News stories – There may be a current news story that learners are interested in. Ask them to bring in an article to retell in class.  
  • Traditional folk stories – Ask learners what traditional folk tales or ghost stories they were told as children growing up in their hometowns. This can be really interesting for both language and cultural awareness.  
  • Personal life stories – Our lives are a series of short stories that can make for very interesting reading. You can either ask students to share stories in class orally or have them write up a “chapter” from their lives to tell the class. It could be something funny that happened to them or an anecdote from their childhood, for example. 
  • Movie plots – Ask students what their favorite movies are and have them either tell the group the summary of the plot or write it up to share at the end of the lesson.
  • Advertisements – There are some fantastic advertisements which tell mini stories in under three minutes. Have students choose one, show it to the class and discuss it as a group. 

Storytelling can be a wonderful language learning tool for both children and adults. If you’re looking for a new way to engage, inspire and motivate your learners, why not try it in your next class? 

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    1. Cinderella (Level 1)

    Poor Cinderella lives with her stepmother and two horrible stepsisters. They treat her badly, making her cook and clean, while they relax and wear beautiful clothes. However, one night, Cinderella gets the chance to sneak away and attend a fabulous ball. She meets a handsome prince…but must run away before he discovers her true identity. With only a glass shoe to help him, will the prince ever find Cinderella?

    How to use this Reader in class:

    It’s no surprise that the story has a happy ending. After reading the story, have the learners draw a picture and write about Cinderella’s new life in the castle, with her loving new family.

    2. Lady and the Tramp (Level 3)

    This classic Disney story tells the tale of two young dogs who come from different backgrounds. Lady lives in a house while Tramp lives on the street. However, one day, Lady is forced to leave the house and the life she knows. Tramp teaches her about life on the streets and the two dogs fall in love… but with the dog-catcher always chasing them, will the story have a happy ending?

    How to use this reader in class:

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    How to use this Reader in class:

    After reading the story, why not ask your students to write a review of it? It’s a great way for them to summarize the plot and share their opinion.

    4. Pride and Prejudice (Level 5)

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    How to use this Reader in class:

    While reading the story, learners can keep a diary, writing entries in the voice of Elizabeth Bennett. This helps them to demonstrate their understanding of the novel and encourages them to have a more empathetic reaction to the story’s heroine. They can either write the diary entries using typical language from Jane Austen’s day, or updating it to more modern language.

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    Reading time: 4 minutes

    There's no denying that tailoring your teaching to individual students is an effective strategy. However, many teachers struggle with finding the time to include teaching moments which address an individual learner's specific needs. So, what's the best way to create an individualized classroom? Andrew Walkley, co-author of Roadmap, explains the benefits of this approach and shares some techniques to ensure that every student gets the most out of your lessons. 

    The best of both worlds?

    First of all, what does individualized teaching mean? It's the concept that students will learn most effectively when the activity is specific to their needs and the language they are using is appropriate for their level. This concept is sometimes seen in opposition to coursebooks and class-based learning, where students are all expected to follow the same syllabus. However, class syllabuses and coursebooks have the following benefits:

    • Providing students with common goals 
    • Encouraging learners to follow an unfamiliar topic that then opens new doors of learning
    • The learning opportunities in peer-to-peer explanation 

    When we talk about individualized teaching in the classroom, we want to exploit the benefits of learning together while also providing opportunities for more individualized development. So, how can you, as a teacher, combine the two approaches?

    1. Involve students in choosing your route

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    1. There is a fast and slow track. The fast track focuses on language input and speaking. The slow track has additional skills lessons at the back of the book that are thematically linked to the corresponding fast track lesson. 
    2. Each lesson has a clear goal and final task. For shorter courses, get each student to choose three tasks they would definitely like to do. Based on the results, you can prioritize those lessons.

    At the start of the course, make a point of asking about students' learning priorities and then plan accordingly. Once you've completed an input and speaking lesson, you can ask the students if they want to further explore the topic through the skills lesson.

    2. Make use of tasks

    Open tasks, where students exchange their own ideas in a meaningful way, are a key part of individualized lessons. In essence, they are self-differentiating because each student will attempt to complete the task using whatever language they are able to use. In Roadmap, each of the main lessons ends with a clear task connected to a Global Scale of English (GSE) can-do statement. However, there are also lots of other speaking opportunities without a 'speaking' label (under vocabulary or reading, etc.), as well as the conversation that typically occurs in any lesson, all of which can be treated as open tasks.

    3. Give individualized feedback and then share it

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    4. Check what vocabulary students know

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    5. Get students to create their own word lists and cards

    This knowledge will enable you to encourage students to focus on their individual vocabulary needs. They can reinforce learning by developing a word list or making flashcards using a web tool such as Quizlet. For new words they may have a word/collocation with an L1 translation.

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    6. Ask more open questions about usage, not just meaning

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    • What (other) things might you spill?
    • Why might a character in a series be killed off?
    • What (else) can you describe as reliable?
    • What can someone do to stay calm? 

    You could also ask questions such as, "What's the opposite of staying calm?" or "What might you say if you spilled something?"

    When you ask these questions, you are checking meaning, but more importantly, you are also pushing students to reveal how well they know a word. Do they know the collocations of spill and reliable? Do they have the other language they might need to talk about the aspects of a TV series or help someone who is in a panic? You can then encourage students to choose how much of this potentially new language they want to add to their word lists.

    7. Provide open homework tasks and make time to share the results

    Homework is another opportunity to individualize learning. Give students a wide choice of tasks based on the material of the course or beyond, for example:

    • Choose any number of exercises they want to do from workbook material 
    • Find and read one article they are interested in (in L1 or L2)
    • Write five things they want to learn how to say in English (perhaps using Google Translate)
    • Write up an interesting conversation they had in English (the conversation could be originally in L1 or L2)

    Whatever task they choose, the key is to dedicate some classroom time to discussing which homework task they did and why. Encourage them to explain their answers and what they learned through the task, and whether or not they would choose to do a similar task again.  

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