Using stories in foreingn language teaching
What do teachers of foreign languages try to do and what do they need?
- Motivating: language teachers must engage the interest of the students.
- Introducing ‘new’ language in context…not just translation.
- Helping the students to experience the language emotionally not just to study it intellectually.
- Helping the students to develop fluency in listening and reading, speaking and writing.
- Finding topics which provide opportunities for more activities.
Stories are the multi vitamin and multi mineral food for the language teacher!
Stories offer a rich food for all five of the language teacher’s needs!
Old ways of using stories in language teaching
The traditional way of using stories was (and is!) to ask the students to translate the story word by word and then to ask comprehension questions at the end.
For most students this is a disaster; it kills the story. The student is not involved emotionally and is involved in pedantic intellectualism which for most students is unpleasant and ineffective in terms of motivating the student to like the language and to feel that it is an alternative to their mother tongue.