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Stories inspire language development and acquisition in childhood. Telling and listening stories, however, is not just for young learners. Storytelling can improve adults’ language ability and proficiency, too. As a facilitator for the classroom, the teacher can set up activities in which the students create and share their own stories. As a pair or group, short conversations, a role play, drama, or radio shows are profitable activities to plan. In the Business English classroom, students can co-construct a story such as a dialogue with an angry customer after learning about how to satisfy customers. As a group or a pair, students take turns to make the story relaying it verbally or on a piece of paper. Students focus on practicing English not much worrying about whether their words are satisfying the fake customer in the classroom. The teacher can bring a tennis ball to keep the stories go on by tossing the ball to another person randomly. Students can make a scenario of short drama or movie creatively as well. As a group, the students can be a family who has luckily survived after a big tsunami or hurricane. They are in a shelter waiting for the danger from the disaster clearing up. The teacher asks them to create a plan to re-construct their village in two months when they will be able to go back to their hometown. They role-play assigning the characters in the family and discuss the plan on how to restart their village. Soon, they find there are some people left outside of the shelter still in danger, starving and having no food and medicine. Once the family leaves the shelter to save other people, they might die in the middle of returning. The family debate the issue to find a solution and role-play the scenario. Prompted Stories by pictures or photos is one of the popular storytelling activities in the EFL/ESL classroom. The teacher provides a photo/picture or a movie scene to the students who will create a story in pair. The students should incorporate the language points of the lesson into their stories that explains the photo/picture or the scene. Narrations about their own stories linked to the scene or photo can follow. Video or audio recording of the students' performance helps them to reflect and self-correct their speaking later time. Storytelling activities after reading aloud children’s books is an excellent way to enhance all four language skills of English, reading, listening, speaking, and writing, developing critical thinking skills for both young and adult learners. Students can retell the story or rewrite their version of the story using their imaginations. Physical movement or gestures added into the book reading and storytelling can provide some dynamics and fun to the classroom. Without storytelling activities in the EFL/ESL classroom, learning may not complete. By incorporating storytelling in the classroom activities, the teacher can provide the students with a moment of epiphany of how to use the language beautifully and effectively. Storytelling is an art through which the students can keep talking in the classroom.
