The Power of Story…

Whatever the subject, I believe that stories should play a vital role. We are hardwired to learn through stories and more importantly to “embed” within our subconscious mind, the lessons and learning of life, by way of story. Wisdom is a story.

I have used stories in the EFL classroom and especially funny stories (there are some good ones in my teaching folder, about 25 simple ones. ) I have also had a lot of success using folktales and they are especially effective when teaching EFL because the students already bring the cultural background, the cultural specific knowledge to the table. Heungbu / Nolbu is a korean fav. of mine.

Stories can be used to access comprehension, to teach a moral lesson and allow critical thinking or simply as a means of practicing English and presentation skills by retelling. I love having students retell and I will often send two students out of the class with a story to read. When they return, the class tells them the story I told when they were out of the room. They inturn read/retell their own story. Repetitive stories work wonders in the EFL classroom (like the 3 wishes jokes…)

How have you others used stories in your own classrooms?

I do think we have to get our students reading, motivated to read outside the classroom. This will be crucial in their own development and especially in regards to their ability to write, to communicate through writing when they get older and need to at work. Reading is crucially linked to writing ability/ learning. So I have my leveled readers on my website but will also be adding a reading folder. There you will find many stories like that attached here. (flash is amazing for stories.) from Literactive. Also a full phonics program you can use in class or by sending students to, on site. Take a look and let me know what you think of this one I’ve attached. Or go to my NEW reading folder. Plenty more reading resources to be uploaded soon….We have thousands of books , many with audio on EFL Classroom 2.0. …..

David

Download Heungbu and Nolbu.ppt

Download WHEN I GROW UP.swf

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ddeubel

Teacher trainer, technology specialist, educational thinker...creator of EFL Classroom 2.0, a social networking site for thousands of EFL / ESL teachers and students around the world.

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