Summary of research into the way teachers use stories

Andrew Wright

My comment

23 teachers is far too few on which to base any general assertions about the way teachers use stories. However, I found the feedback was most interesting in two ways:
1 the number of teachers using personal anecdotes instead of or as well as traditional stories.
2 the rich variety of comments about individual perceptions of usefulness or individual ways of using stories.
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Summary
Total responses: 23
Different countries: 13
Ages and levels: all ages and levels
Frequency: only one said occasionally or never and this is not surprising
Tell or read: both…some do not tell and some do not read
Types of story: whole range of types and sources but most striking is the number of teachers who tell their own personal anecdotes.
Benefits: Striking the number of teachers who do not stress grammar as the benefit…or go further and do not use stories related grammar at all.
Here are four quotations reduced by me to note form:
Sandie: jumping, whooping, nodding, laughing, sitting in emphatic silence, repeating because they like the sound, by relating to experience in their own lives, by relating it to another story they have heard…
Listening…vocab…interest and goodwill
Alison: goodwill, good for self esteem re reading and understanding an English book,
Michele: I like her compromise…’I try not to focus on grammar. They get enough of that in theirr general English lessons but it is important to highlight things that they may have learned.
Other comments
These proved to be the most interesting part of the survey…in the notes below I have summarised and in note form much longer entries.
Stefka: Provoke thinking..develop vocab…devel expression…improve understanding…promotes writing stories on science subjects
Dindy: imaginations fired…safe in stories…a need for language…teachers may not be good tellers but must have a go…sts must interact…just reading aloud is boring..
Ellen: love them…personal anecdotes lead to the sts telling their own…very similar to use of stories in everyday life…like to find out about their teachers…helps rapport…for adults use Brit Council Brit Lit…adults enjoy being read to…stopping every so often to ask what the listeners see or imagine or predict what will happen next..
Sandie: enrich our LT…quality reasons for using the language…only use stories with visual support…normally pic story book…stories are not just words…stories can be taken out of class and shared…
Jasna: writing stories is equally important
Barbara: like them…but difficult to understand at first…keep the stories short and simple…introd some vocab before the story…use pictures…tell the story more than once… check understanding by re telling using key words…discuss underlying meanings…worksheet to check understanding but also to promote creative response eg alternative ending..
Jan: Personal anecdotes make a lesson more relevant…my anecdotes offer a model for the sts to tell their stories…sts find they don’t need so much grammar to tell stories effectively…when I tell trad stories eg stone cutter I keep stopping so they can make a drawing…these drawings become a storyboard…can add thinks and speech bubbles…and alternative ending
Elbie: sts can be affected by the theme in the story…they can gain and learn by this…instigate thinking… Elbie emphasises what a non language teacher would emphasise…
Roisin: Stories are useful at any age and any level…age and level affect the type of story and what the story is used for…eg First Cert sts personal anecdotes listening practice and rapport…5year olds short repetitive stories…play out themselves…role plays..
Rita: Collecting narratives…personal stories from students about their learning histories..read aloud…discuss similarities and differences…gives them insights into their beliefs, values and formative experiences…
Pedro: Stories are a natural part of being a child.
Alison Watson: The value of stories is that they are memorable. Personal anecdotes for adults because like real life and can retell to others…fairy stories for children…repeating them…language and understanding grows..retain, recycle, reproduce the lang as well as the content.
Mercedes Viola Deambrosis: People…interested..involved..pay attention to topics…enriches exposure to language…
Johanthan…anecdotes break down student teacher and student student barriers…opens up discussions regarding culture and story telling
Kate: Personal stories…rapport…sense of belonging…trusting them with personal experience.. one example based on a necklace bought in Mexico…told story and it involved…health, safety..jobs…professions…and much more.
Belle Leung: captures fidgeting childrens attention, arouses interest in learning difficult language…good lead in to tedious grammar lesson.
Natercia: chdn like them and are used to listening to stories in the MT….introducing and recycling vocabulary…
Alison: as I read my stories from books I have difficulty in finding books with suitable sophistication level related to the limited language level of my children.
Elka: Stories help me teach tings without explicitly focussing on them and my students like that….introduce past tense forms before studying them..and stories for provoking speaking and writing…makes us want to share something…helps the students to find me ‘cool’.
Michele: must be simple and interesting stories or otherwise too much translation and pre teaching of vocabulary which slows things down too much.
One of the most successful for my 8 year olds …made up a power point talk about a holiday together with lots of photos…the kids were very engaged.
Its very difficult to get the level/type of the story right.
Si Lewis: Storytelling can bring many aspects to the class. It can be the focus of language development or the base from which communicative activities can be launched.

I’m editing this post , which referred to difficulties, because although there have been technical problems, the blog has had a face-lift and they are mostly solved now.

The main thing is we are both dedicated to trying to share stories and ideas related to teaching English as a foreign language and we are not looking for any payment for this… And we want to keep on adding things…I have got at least another 30 or 40 stories I want to write and many more articles. So keep coming and please tell your friends.It is our small offering to the world to help to balance out all the misery and horror brought by some people on other people.

A clear blue sky and sunny day in my little town just to the East of Budapest!

In recent days Dennis and I have added quite a few more stories.

Click on Stories and then have a look under Teaching Stories.

Also have a look under Fiction…we have put in my first fiction story on the site, Harold and Huwi. Harold and Huwi was first broadcast on West German Televison (WDR). However, the text given here is a transciption of the way I tell the story to children…this is not literary written text!

I feel very proud of the teaching stories! I hope you don’t mind my saying so! They are a significant re-write of Aesops fables and are very, very much written down versions of oral telling to childen with little English…everyday phrases, a lot of repetition and a huge invitation to act them out and to mime meaning.

I do hope you like them. Tell me if you do. Dennis and I need a pat on the back.

Andrew

PS I send my stories to Dennis in WORD and he puts them into NOTEPAD and then puts them on the site and then I edit them. Dennis is better at these things than me…in another league!