USING STORIES IN

LANGUAGE TEACHING
Dr. Öğr. Üyesi Mehmet GÜNEŞ
 Learning Outcomes
▪ Identify the four major elements of a story:
plot, setting, characters and theme
▪ Understand the importance of reading
▪ Learn what role fiction plays in their lives
▪ Improve their reading, listening, speaking
and writing skills.
INTRODUCTION

▪ the Grammar Translation Method (GTM)

predominated ESL/EFL teaching.
▪ During the era, translating literary texts
from the second/foreign language to the
students’ native language was one of the
main learning activities.
▪ Therefore, literary works were a notable
source of material in ESL/EFL teaching
INTRODUCTION
▪ GTM was replaced by the Structuralism
Approach in 1960s to the end of 1970s,
literature was no longer used.
▪ Structuralism was concerned with
correctness of grammatical form and not
with content or interpretation of the written
word or style.
▪ In other words, teaching a foreign language
was regarded as a matter of linguistics
INTRODUCTION

▪ with the appearance of the

Communicative Approach in the late 70`s
and very early 80`s, literature was also
ignored.
▪ The tendency in the EFL classrooms was
to teach “usable, practical” contents.
▪ Thus, literary works had no place in the
curriculum
INTRODUCTION
▪ since the 1980s the situation changed
quite radically when literature has found
its way back into the teaching of EFL.
▪ But, different from the way it was used
with the GTM,
▪ the current use of literary works in
ESL/EFL classes is to improve
communicative competence and create
students’ awareness on the culture and
society of the relevant country.
INTRODUCTION
▪ The stories take their roots from the folklore
of the culture in which they come into
existence.
▪ Stories have been told about different
beliefs and things: the creation of the
universe, creatures on the earth, the beliefs
about the World like myth.
▪ A myth is a traditional story which explains
the beliefs of people about the natural and
human World.
Why Stories?
▪ They are simple and short, useful for
providing the teacher with the chance of
integrating multiple skills.
▪ Stories reflect all human cultures and
therefore they have a common attraction.
▪ Children have an intrinsic affection of
stories, as they create magic and a
sense of wonder
Why Stories?
▪ They deal with human relations.
▪ They can be interpreted subjectively and
the students can gain insights for their own
lives.
▪ They can improve their vocabulary
competence and also develop creative and
critical thinking.
▪ They can gain greater control and
confidence in the language.
Why Stories?
▪ Stories are a useful tool in linking fantasy and the
imagination with the child’s real world; they
provide a way of enabling children to make sense
of their everyday life.
▪ Listening to stories allows the teacher to
introduce or revise new vocabulary and sentence
structures by exposing the children to language.
▪ Stories help students of all levels to understand
literature, they carry ideological messages.
Why Stories?
▪ Students can remember information
easily as stories involve them in the
actions of the characters.
▪ Language learners can benefit from
storytelling because stories help them to
develop the ability to understand spoken
language and engage in thinking skills.
Why Stories?
▪ Besides, with the stories children develop
learning strategies such as listening for
general meaning, predicting, guessing
meaning and hypothesizing.
▪ They become aware of cultural values
different from theirs, sharpen their
memory and develop the ability to predict
and infer.
Reasons for Using Stories
▪ Practicality:
▪ They don’t have multiple plots and so it is
easy to understand.
▪ You can find simplified versions of the
well-known stories.
▪ Motivating:
▪ If stories are chosen according to their
interests and levels, this increase their
motivation.
Reasons for Using Stories

▪ Fostering Language Skills:

▪ Stories provide with high-quality reading
texts and it is possible to design activities
that can be use for reading and writing.
▪ Improvement of vocabulary and reading
▪ Students can Express their own ideas
and views and this reinforce their
speaking skills, enhance critical thinking.
Reasons for Using Stories

▪ Culture Transmitting:
▪ Stories are the product of the culture in
which they were written.
▪ They can learn about the target culture
when they read or study
▪ Stories go beyond time and culture and
reach directly to people in a different
country or time.
Reasons for Using Stories

▪ Culture Transmitting:
▪ Students become aware of the fact that
the only culture isn’t theirs and they
understand and respect the differences
among the people.
▪ They compare them with their own
culture.
Reasons for Using Stories

▪ Raising Personal Growth:

▪ Stories are special sources for personal
development, since they not only provide
linguistic opportunities, also provide
greater interest of the students through
many exercises.
Reasons for Using Stories

▪ Improve linguistic competence

▪ Motivate Source for Writing
▪ Enhance speaking and writing skills
▪ Improve the pronunciation of the
vocabulary encountered in the story.
Choosing the Text
▪ The use of short-story in English teaching
should be aimed to encourage the students
to use what they have previously learnt.
▪ By doing this, the learning process will be
student-centered.
▪ the teacher must choose a suitable text to
use in class, and should help her/his
students understand the story with various
activities.
Choosing the Text

▪ Since the lengths of short-stories quite

vary, choose a story short enough to
handle within course hours.
▪ The shortness of the text is important for
the students because they will see that
they can read, understand and finish
something in English,
▪ and it will give the students a feeling of
achievement and self-confidence.
Choosing the Text
▪ three other basic criteria of choosing the
text:
▪ (1) the needs and abilities of the
students;
▪ (2) the linguistic and stylistic level of the
text;
▪ (3) the amount of background information
required for a true appreciation of the
material.
Choosing the Text

▪ A short-story may be about an

experience, an action, a meeting, a
conversation, the events of a day, or the
revelation of a character or characters.
▪ M. H. Abrams (1970) divides short-
stories into two as “story of incident” and
“story of character”
Choosing the Text

▪ In “story of incident”, the focus of interest

is on the course and outcome of the
events
▪ “Stories of character” focus on the
revelation of a state of mind and
motivation, or of moral qualities.
▪ nothing more happens than an
encounter and conversation between
two people
Choosing the Text

▪ Of the two, story of incident seems to be

more appropriate to use in English
classes
▪ because the students will be curious
about the outcome of the events,
curiosity will make them read and finish
the work.
HOW TO USE SHORT-
STORY
▪ After the choice of the text, the teacher should
produce activities to help the students
understand the text.
▪ The short-story to be studied must be assigned
to the students previously. This is because while
reading a text for the first time, students focus on
the structural meaning.
▪ However, each student’s reading and
understanding speed is not the same, and
the course hours are limited
 HOW TO USE SHORT-
STORY
▪ the teacher should give very brief
information about the writer in order that the
students can see the writer in the context of
her/his time.
▪ After the information about the writer, as pre-
reading activities, the teacher may ask
questions about daily life of the students.
▪ These questions must be related with the
subject matter of the short-story.
HOW TO USE SHORT-
STORY
▪ By doing so, the teacher provides a
schema for a better understanding of the
text.
▪ Besides providing a schema, the teacher
achieves two important aims in terms of
language teaching as well:
▪ creating a real context to make the
students speak, and introducing the
culture of the target culture
HOW TO USE SHORT-
STORY
▪ After the pre-reading activities, the students
may find some sentences long or difficult to
understand or there may really be a long
and complicated sentence.
▪ In this case, the teacher should help the
students, either paraphrasing or acting out
or drawing.
▪ Otherwise the students will be frustrated by
the language of the literary work
HOW TO USE SHORT-
STORY
▪ Following the reading of the text, the
teacher may use a graphic organizer so
that the students can comprehend the
story better.
▪ A story map in particular will help
students understand the components of
the story.
HOW TO USE SHORT-
STORY
▪ A story map breaks down the
components of a story- characters,
setting, and dialogue in a series of events
or conflicts leading to a resolution-into
chunks of text that can help students
organize and comprehend the events of
the story.
HOW TO USE SHORT-
STORY
▪ Using a story map, teacher may encourage
his/her students to infer meaning from the text,
and is able to develop students’ reading and
speaking skills.
▪ The teacher asking suitable questions helps
students to fill the boxes in the organizer.
▪ So, the students have to infer answers to these
questions from the work. These activities help
students develop their reading and speaking
skills.
Important elements of
short stories
▪ Plot: the series of related events in a
story
▪ There are five main parts in the structure
of the plot
▪ exposition
▪ rising action
▪ climax
▪ falling action
▪ resolution/ denouement
Important elements of
short stories
▪ Exposition
▪ The beginning of the story which
prepares the base of upcoming events
▪ In this part, the major characters, the
setting and major conflicts in the story
are revealed.
Important elements of
short stories
▪ Rising action Conflict
▪ It presents and develops the major and
minor conflict in the text.
▪ (a person against another, society or a
group; a person against nature or one
person against himself/herself)
Important elements of
short stories
▪ Climax
▪ the point of highest excitement
▪ The central conflict reaches the highest
point of intensity
▪ Falling action
▪ the point in which the excitement
decreases
▪ It brings the story to its conclusion.
Important elements of
short stories
▪ Resolution/denouement
▪ the part in which the conflict is resolved
▪ It is the point where the main problem or
the conflict is resolved.