WHY STORIES MAKE STUDENTS BETTER LEARNERS AND US BETTER TEACHERS

 

The ultimate aim of story telling in education is to get students to “tell” or “act out” a story. The story telling activity is introduced with the teacher telling stories not only to provide a listening activity but also to entice students into forming story reading and telling habits. Story  reading at one’s leisure certainly boosts one’s language level. The suggestion here is that we build up a collection of short but memorable stories which we give out to our students as reading material. Parallel to that, the teacher, once in a while, “tells” a story and serves as a model for the story telling activity. By doing so teachers encourage students, even reluctant learners, to engage with stories and persuade them to rehearse “telling” or “acting out” a story alone or with friends. After students have chosen the story, assigned roles to themselves, decided on props, music and any digital support to accompany their telling (a power point for instance), they give a presentation to the rest of the class. The whole practice provides enjoyable language practice and is well worth the effort on many levels since it addresses multiple intelligences and individual learning styles.