Teaching Stories

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Stories are universal. They have existed in every culture and every period is known to modern man. From Neolithic cave art to Homer and from Virgil to Dostoevsky, humanity has been enthralled with stories. The most successful speakers constantly engage in bard-like tale-bearing, and, oftentimes, the songs that most resonate with listeners follow a story arch—albeit loosely. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Ryan S. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Total enthrallment with television and movies proves this theory to be true beyond a shadow of a doubt. People like stories; mankind loves them. It is for these reasons that...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas For centuries, stories have been effective tools to express human being’s thoughts and experiences. Stories also have been built through generations to generations to share and connect people. Storytelling helps children’s development in a lot of ways. They help children boost their imagination and brain development, teach student language, and how to express their emotions, and improve the relationship between children and parents. Those are the reasons why teaching stories in English in early childhood is so important. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate An N. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Normally, the children’s...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Stories are an important part of any culture, English speaking or not. They can be oral or written and can showcase how culture works and their history. Whether old traditional stories or new popular current stories, the tales we share with young children can shape their developing ideas and values. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Rochelle L. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. When working with young children in Early Childhood settings, stories help children to make sense of their world, safely express their emotions, and explore new ideas and values. For example, a story that focuses on friendships might help a child who...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences "Our lives gain meaning only when we tell our story". -David Steindl-Rast. In our case, stories not only add meaning to our lives in general but are very important in rendering language learning interesting and creative as our specific subject essay will demonstrate. Stories are an effective model for learning the English language through which we can develop the four language skills writing, speaking, listening, and reading. So why and how stories can enable us to effectively learn the English language? First of all, the fact that we have nowadays a vast ocean of stories that tackle a variety of subjects and issues, makes it quite impossible for someone not to find a story that would captivate their passion...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Storytelling in the classroom can seemingly be one of the most diverse and engaging ways to help students learn English as a second language. Storytelling for the purposes of this essay is a broad term that I am using to refer not only to students telling stories about what they did on the weekend for example but also using existing stories that are well known and loved, for example, Harry Potter or the Lion King. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Jamie S. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Firstly, classroom activities using storytelling when centered around the students are a great way for students to get to know one another....  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas When we were little children, most of us loved reading or listening to our parents or friends to tell us some stories. Usually, adults pay attention to the world about themselves, but children will pay attention to the stories about our nature and all other themes. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Jessica W. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. First, there are many excellent vocabularies in the stories. It will be better to teach the words in the stories than teach the world directly. Also, we need to choose the right level for the children. The story should have cultural significance and match our teaching aims. Also Read: The...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas As a teacher, we often find ourselves daunted with the task of capturing our students’ interests and also equipping them for the future. Not only do we seek to train better students, but we also want to produce better citizens, workers, and future teachers. Teaching is still held the same purpose throughout all these years: bettering our future through the lives of our students. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Madison R. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Although our methods need to continually be more thought-provoking, entertaining and motivating, our objective has not changed. We need to incorporate storytelling into...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Early childhood is the period from 0-8 years old, it is a time of remarkable growth with brain development at its peak. During this stage, children are highly influenced by the environment and the people that surround them. We can say further that Early childhood education is a branch of education that relates to the teaching of children from birth to the age of eight, therefore covering infancy, kindergarten and the early school years up to grades 3. So how does storytelling come in? Well, storytelling does a lot here because this stage is very crucial to a child’s early physical, socio-emotional, cognitive and linguistic development. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Chinenye M. Please...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Narrativity is ubiquitous in our lives. We encounter narratives in stories, both oral and written, in films, books, television shows, and comic books. Children become acquainted with narrative from a young age, and it is closely tied with the way they learn the language. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Javier A. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Among other things, we learn a language to tell stories. We even often tend to think of our lives as long and complex narratives. Because of the pervasiveness and universality of stories, across geographical and cultural boundaries, they are a perfect vehicle for the transmission of...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Children are not born with a set vocabulary, yet it is something that they can acquire and build within themselves. Montessori stated, “The baby absorbs speech it hears spoken around it and with it says a word it says it because it has learned it by hearing it, and holds it present in the memory. It uses it according to its need of the moment”. Young children behave similarly. When children absorb language, they become better equipped to articulate thoughts and experiences. Children can express themselves more clearly. Precise language can render children independent in their ability to express their needs and emotions. In the early years of a child's development, the child must be exposed to rich language,...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas When I started writing this essay I found loads of interesting material on this topic and I think later on I will look for many more articles and books to learn more about this fascinating world of storytelling. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Olha K. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. If you think about storytelling, you notice that the passing down of stories from generation to generation from century to century taught us history, culture, skills, and knowledge. “Thinking of teaching as storytelling encourages us to think of the curriculum as a collection of the great stories of our culture,” says Kieran Egan “If we...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Stories... we live in a world of stories. Every single day we have a story to tell. A funny story, a serious story, a scary story or even an upsetting story. These are the pictures we keep in our minds, like our own little movie playing in our heads. Attached to every story, is language. Language completes our story, it gives our story meaning. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Lindie N. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Teaching language is giving someone the power to add another voice to their pictures, thus enabling the person to share their story with someone in that specific language. in this case - English. For me, stories...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina TEFL Information Alumni Experiences Teaching Ideas Storytelling is part of life itself. The world we are and most of the things we know about creating the world all came through stories. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Onikoyi F. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Storytelling has been one of the ancient and still relevant teaching methodologies to pass information and knowledge from generation to generation. History of the past, fabulous kingdoms, people, and cultures are all learned through stories. History as a subject at the elementary and tertiary levels is mainly made through storytelling. The story,...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Stories provide a natural and relevant context for the exposure to English language and storytelling built on the children’s innate capacity for fantasy and imaginative play, making it an essential aspect to be integrated into language lessons. Beyond just language skills, students are also able to acquire critical thinking skills such as predicting, hypothesizing, categorizing, sequencing, and inferring meaning through various storytelling activities. Stories are also used to enhance children’s concentration skills and develop moral and emotional intelligence by teaching students to empathize with the characters in the story. Storytelling can be extended to include activities for children to retell, act out,...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Young learners, especially of kindergarten age, are the most challenging group that a teacher can ever teach during his/her career. They are curious, open-minded, enthusiastic to absorb, explore the world, yet forget as easily as taking in so it takes them much time to master a word/phrase actively. They have a vivid imagination but short attention span so they so easily get sidetracked or busy thinking that they forget to communicate and interact with others. That’s a challenge to help them develop their English speaking abilities at such a young age: How to help them gain as much useful language in a shorter time so that they can use it later in their daily life? How to encourage them (in a natural way) to...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas We all remember our favorite stories and tales as children; Goodnight Moon, Where the Wild Things. Are, Stella Luna, and others more advanced like The Hardy Boys and The Magic Tree House. Simply mentioning those titles elicits some of my earliest memories. It's rooted in the foundation of my learning. Oftentimes, stories are read or told to children from infancy throughout their most formative and impressionable years. Children, from a very early age, are exposed to wide ranges of concepts and dialogue. At such a young age, a child typically does not have a grasp on the lexicon of the language being spoken to them, but ideas begin to form. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Stephanie T....  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences Is it useful to read stories to my 3-years-old students? This is a question that many teachers ask themselves when considering reading in English in early childhood. Through careful self-assessment during my years of teaching experience, I have found out that reading stories in the classroom is a powerful resource when learning a new language. For starters, stories grab visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learners’ attention when seeing the images and connecting words and feelings. It is also worth considering that books enrich readers’ vocabulary and strengthen their language skills. Last but not least, readers are motivated, influenced, and inspired when the stories can relate to what they experience in...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Stories are sometimes excellent resources in the ESL classroom. They can get the students talking and thinking in English about favorite fairytales or other stories they know or create themselves. With this, they can be creative while developing their own stories in class. This can lead to excitement and motivation. There is an endless supply of stories suitable for all ages and levels that could be used to develop English Language skills. And, hopefully, no shortage of imagination in the students to create unique stories. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Leigh K. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. The website Storyarts,...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences Readers are for sure leaders, not just merely for the fact of reading, but for the thinking process that comes with reading. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Gentiana H. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. As an individual, I love reading. I love the smell of the book paper, the tiny letters and turning another page is something that I enjoy deeply. However, I didn't become an avid reader by chance. I become a reader because I was born in a family where reading was a natural thing. My father was a university professor and was reading all the time. My mother, an accounting expert, used to read laws and regulations to ensure...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Stories expose the students to more language, they engage and motivate the learner, they can be used to teach the structure of a language and the concepts about print which may be different between cultures. Stories with images can also help the students anchor their knowledge about the text. Listening to stories also helps the students hear accents and how words are pronounced. However, it is important to choose the correct book or story for the students you are working with. If familiar storylines are chosen the student is more likely to understand the story. It is also important to take into consideration the interests of the students and to find text on those topics. This post was written by our TEFL...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina TEFL Information Alumni Experiences Teaching Ideas Readers are for sure leaders, not just merely for the fact of reading, but for the thinking process that comes with reading. As an individual, I love reading. I love the smell of the book paper. The tiny letters and turning another page is something that I enjoy deeply. However, I didn't become an avid reader by chance. I become a reader because I was born in a family where reading was a natural thing. My father was a university professor and was reading all the time. My mother, an accounting expert, used to read laws and regulations to ensure that her work is respecting the law. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Storytelling in the classroom can seemingly be one of the most diverse and engaging ways to help students learn English as a second language. Storytelling for the purposes of this essay is a broad term that I am using to refer not only to students telling stories about what they did on the weekend for example but also using existing stories that are well known and loved, for example, Harry Potter or the Lion King. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Jamie S. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. With appropriate facilitation, a student can turn a basic conversation about how many people they have in their family, into a story...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas In this blog post, our TEFL graduate expresses their opinion on the language acquisition process through stories. Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas In this blog post, you will find the information on the classroom setting. Our graduate shares their experience. Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas This article was written by our recent TEFL graduate who explains their point of view on English as a global language. Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences This article is written by our student from the Philippines. They explain the ways people in that...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas This blog post was written by our TEFL graduate. It explains several points important for classroom management. Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas This article is devoted to the problem of teaching phonetics. Our TEFL student shares their point of view. Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas In this article, our TEFL student tells about their experience of working with Chinese learners. They explain some common challenges Chinese people have when learning English. Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas In this blog post, our TEFL graduate expresses their...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas I adore books, and reading aloud to our young students is one of the highlights of my job as a Teaching Assistant. Most of our students are Turkish, whose ages range from four to eleven years old, who have had little or no exposure to the English language. The students come to our school to receive an English education and therefore use daily a language of which their parents have little knowledge. It can be overwhelming to suddenly be thrust into an environment where everything is taught or spoken to them in a foreign language. Consequently, reading aloud to this age group is an invaluable method of language delivery, especially as many may be reluctant learners, and may actively resist learning as it was not...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Storytelling can be useful to enhance students’ imaginations as well as improve a wide variety of skills such as listening, comprehension, order, memory, and vocabulary. It is targeted for all ages, but best to start earliest possible to allow students to develop a liking towards reading. Storytelling can come with different forms of follow-up activities to further increase teaching efficiency as well as to check understanding of the students through elicitation. This essay will be focused on mainly storytelling activities for young learners in schools. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Jin K. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT....  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Teaching multiple tenses is challenging because many students view grammar as boring and therefore, they are not enthusiastic about studying. This puts teachers in a position of having to creatively find ways to make lessons interesting and stimulating. Teaching multiple tenses can be accomplished by using a communicative approach. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Carla K. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Considering that everyone learns L1 without having to endure boring grammar lessons, it only makes sense that a communicative approach would be worth pursuing. One of the greatest challenges I have encountered is, for example,...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences Not only in an imaginative sense and for pleasure but also in the development of important literacy skills. Reading provides growth of knowledge, a pleasurable hobby to escape from our busy lives and the development of critical thinking. Developing a love for books in the early years will set your child up for reading readiness and help lay the basis for your child’s success inside, outside and beyond school. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Wang P. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Choose books that are kid-friendly and have topics or stories that are relevant to them. Select books that are age-appropriate, such as fabric...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina TEFL Information Alumni Experiences Teaching Ideas Why is the incorporation of storytelling and singing vital when teaching English to young learners? When a teacher is faced with the – sometimes daunting – task of teaching English to young learners, he or she must pause and consider a few things. First of all, if it is the first time a teacher is confronted with young learners, they must adapt their teaching approach. As with any new course, the teacher must evaluate his or her teaching approach. Who are the learners? What level are they at? How do I, as the teacher, reach the student, gain their attention and trust? This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Therese B....  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences For two years I have been teaching Italian children in a nursery, a group of 5,2-3 years old. They are still not able to speak well their mother tongue and have a short vocabulary. They have no experience yet in being taught traditionally, may still use pacifier and diaper, so how can you teach so small children English and is it even worth it? Shouldn’t they first learn their native tongue? Many parents think so. I am sure they benefit from being exposed to English vocabulary and getting used to the sound of English as young as possible. But of course, it must be done in the right way, they are not going to study English but going to “play English” It must be a funny experience for them. This post was...  [Read more]