Iπve never been good telling stories. Any suggestions for how I can make the most of Storytellers, considering my handicap?

Well, first of all, I donπt accept that you have a handicap! We all tell stories everyday and we do it in our own way. Some people are very extrovert and others less so and this affects how we teach, tell stories and relate to the world generally.

Of course, Storytellers is designed to give massive support for the teacher who believes in the importance of stories but has not the time or resources to prepare all the things she would like to have. Storytellers and the committed teacher are the perfect team! And in Storytellers you have recordings of many stories.

On the other hand, please never let Storytellers take away from sharing your own personal richness with the children.

You are a real person and can choose to share some or many of your experiences with the children. If you time it reasonably then this is not only listening comprehension but helps to establish a special rapport with the class. And if you give then you are more likely to receive. The children are more likely to really USE English in order to communicate than merely mechanically practice it. They will probably do this because they begin to see you as a person and not just a teacher. And they realise that you think of them as people and not only students of English. Personal stories can help to bring about this shift of perception.

You can read and you can tell stories. Both forms are good and have their strengths. But do TELL stories sometimes. That is the main way in which you can give something personal to the students.

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What is a good story to use in language teaching?

Here are some questions you might ask yourself?

1. Do you think the story is interesting and has some value? And are these the values you believe are appropriate for your students? For example the attitude to the role of women in the story.

2. Do you think the students might like it if they can understand enough of it? They donπt need to understand all the words.

3. Can they understand enough of it, if you help a bit: simplifying, illustrating, contextualising, translating?

4. Does it contain content which might lead to other activities? They might go on to study a topic related to the theme of the story, for example.

5. Does it contextualise language items you want to focus on?

6. Can you do the necessary preparations without too much effort and cost related to what the students might get out of it? Teachers are busy people and cannot spend very long on individual bits of preparation.

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How can I motivate the students to create their own stories in English?

It is enormously satisfying to make a story and to make it in the foreign language. It is also a wonderful way of recycling language and of wanting to acquire more language. Unlike adults children donπt feel they have to be as good as great authorsäthey just enjoy making stories. So here are a few thoughts on tapping in to this reservoir of creative good will.

The teacherπs role is to:

1. create a climate in which story making is important .

2. to make clear that communicating the story comes first and accuracy, not essential for clarity, comes second.

3. encourage the students to use the language they have got rather than to conceive a story and then try to translate it.

4. to look for some personal freshness of ideas rather than produce a hodge podge of bits and pieces of åclip storiesπ.

5. to help the students to think of communicating to the listener/reader and not just of expressing themselves.