In the classroom
Class oral storymaking
What are stories?
Stories are descriptions of events in which
protagonists struggle to achieve something. They
may be factual or fictional descriptions.
Why make stories?
Motivation: we all need stories every day.
how the technique can be done at low and at
higher levels.
Summary
Making stories together as a class, led by your
questions, is a very useful way of demonstrating to
all the students how to create a strong storyline
and how to create characterful people, places,
Re-cycling language: what better way is there?
Experiencing language: creating something new
with what we have and caring about doing a good
job.
objects and situations. I suggest you do this oral
storymaking on a fairly frequent basis.
The technique is driven by your questions. It is
best for you not to have an idea what the answers
Communicating: trying to make the story clear should be. The work of the students is to create
and engaging. their story and not to find out what you have in
Springboard activities: activities naturally arising mind!
from making stories. Essentially, you ask questions, they answer,
you collect and re-tell their story. They re-tell
their story later.
Storymaking skills: given we are all storytellers to
a greater or lesser extent then it follows that
improving our skills in storymaking is a good idea!
Which language and age levels?
The basic questions are:
Who do you want in your story?
We all need stories. Storymaking is very satisfying Where are they (at the beginning of the
story)?
if you have just started learning a language When is it?
and very challenging if you are an advanced What are they doing?
And then?
learner.
The question and answer technique for Elementary language level
making a class story Keep to the simple questions above; only ask
supplementary questions if you think they can
Estimate about 40 minutes to make an oral class answer them.
story in the way described below. Above elementary level
This amazingly simple technique is just one way of Start with the very simple questions but follow on
helping students to make stories. I learned the with questions you think they can answer and
technique from Word in Action and I have used it in which help to enrich the story and to drive it on.
over 40 countries and at all levels of English. Example of developing questions:
In the lesson plan given below I have tried to show Who do you want in your story?
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