Stories for Young Learners

Fish Lesson1) Elicit and drill colours using a variety of methods, e.g. loud/quiet voices, stand up/sit down, pupil in teacher’s role.2) Introduce the little fish. Elicit where he lives. Elicit body parts (don’t drill). 3) Tell story. See handout.4) Children listen and colour. 5) Compare fish.6) Follow up activities include: retelling the story in L1/L2, matching exercises with vocab, story ordering.

To see a video of how a previous course participant used this go to http://tinyurl.com/7vy67b3 Also on www.diigo.com/user/catherineweller tagged under stories.

Greedy Greg1) Play vocab game with the words on the handout. In two teams, the first to shout out the correct answer wins a point. If you say ‘a’ then they have to shout out the name of the food (pizza). If you say ‘chocolate’, they have to shout out the letter (e).2) Reading one. Tell the story as pupils tick which foods they hear.3) Reading two. Tell the story as pupils write how many of each food they hear.4) Reading three. Tell the story making lots of mistakes with days, amounts, food and pupils have to shout ‘stop’ and correct you.5) Ask if they are familiar with this story – it’s basically the Hungry Caterpillar. If they don’t know this book, show them.6) Follow-up activity on handouts.

The Pied Piper1) Tell the story of the pied piper.2) Tell the story again as the pupils draw the route on their maps.3) Follow-up activities. E.g. tell the story without the prepositions and using their maps the participants shout out the missing word. With a new map, pairs tell their own story and their partner draws the new route. 4) Introduce them to Rosie the Hen, another story with a route and lots of prepositions.Online resources where appropriate.

http://tinyurl.com/6eeg24 Michael Rosen performing his

story

http://tinyurl.com/42ow4uj Story with picture book images

http://www.gruffalo.com/index.html Some useful downloadable activities

Note: These books are not written for L2 learners but they have been chosen because they are useful. If they want to they can buy graded story books from publishers (examples in book box), but by being open to using L1 resources they will have a wealth of choice, and frankly better stories.

Good Books

Brown Bear, Brown Bear by Eric Carle

Dinosaurs and all that Rubbish by Michael Foreman

Laura’s Star (series) by Klaus Baumgart

Meg and Mog series by Helen Nicoll & Jan Pieńkowski

Monkey Puzzle by Julia Donaldson

Mr Gumpy’s Outing by John Burningham

Peace at Last by Jill Murphy

Rosie’s Walk by Pat Hutchins

Spot (series) by Eric Hill

Stuck in the Mud by Jane Clarke

Supermoo by Babette Cole

The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson

The Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle

The Lighthouse Keeper’s Lunch by David & Ronda Armitage

The Mixed Up Chameleon by Eric Carle

We’re Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen & Helen Oxenbury

Would you rather… ? by John Burningham

Why use stories with young learners?

Stories provide an insight into different cultural and social settings.

Stories are motivating,enjoyable and fun.

Stories develop concentration skills because they are so involving.

Stories provide a linkbetween fantasy, imagination and the child’s real world.

Stories provide a sharedsocial experience.

Stories allow children toexplore ideas and feelings; to think about issues which are important to them.

Stories can be used to introduce and practise target language.

Stories expose children to rhyme, rhythm, alliteration and other features of pronunciation.

Stories provide a lot ofexposure to language.

Stories develop importantlearning skills e.g. prediction,guessing meaning, hypothesising etc.

Stories provide opportunitiesto link English with other areas of the curriculum.

Stories are a springboardfor a wide range oflanguage related activities.

Stories can be exploited todevelop all four skills(especially listening).

Stories allow for therecycling of vocabulary and structures in memorable contexts.

Stories provide lots ofrepetition and practicein a natural and enjoyable way.

Stories and narrative conventions are already familiar tochildren in their L1.

The Little Fish

Once upon a time there was a little fish, he was very sad because he had no colours. All the other fish had many beautiful colours, red, pink, blue, green and purple.

One day the little fish went to visit the King of the Sea – The Octopus!

“Please King Octopus, could you make my body pink?”

“Yes”, said the Octopus and his body became pink.

But, the little fish was still sad. He wanted more colours.

So, the next day he went to visit the King of the Sea – The Octopus!

“Please King Octopus, could you make my tail blue?”

“Yes”, said the Octopus and his tail became blue.

But, the little fish was still sad. He wanted more colours.

So, the next day he went to visit the King of the Sea – The Octopus!

“Please King Octopus, could you make my lips yellow?”

“Yes”, said the Octopus and his lips became yellow.

But, the little fish was still sad. He wanted more colours.

So, the next day he went to visit the King of the Sea – The Octopus!

“Please King Octopus, could you make my fins red?”

“Yes”, said the Octopus and his fins became red.

But, the little fish was still sad. He wanted more colours.

So, the next day he went to visit the King of the Sea – The Octopus!

“King Octopus, make my face green”

“No”, said the Octopus. “You rude little fish, you didn’t say please.”

So, the little fish had a pink body, a blue tail, yellow lips, red fins and a white face.

Adapted from: Children Learning English by J. Moon. Macmillan.

Greedy Greg

Greg was a very greedy boy. He was always eating.

On Sunday, Greg’s granny gave him some money.

On Monday, he bought 1 bar of chocolate and ate it all up.

On Tuesday, he bought 2 lollipops and ate them both up.

On Wednesday, he bought 3 bananas and ate them all up.

On Thursday, he bought 4 slices of pizza and ate them all up.

On Friday, he bought 5 biscuits and ate them all up.

On Saturday, he bought 1 piece of cake, 1 ice-cream, 1 hotdog, 1

sandwich, 1 packet of crisps, 1 portion of chips, 1 pear, 1 orange

and 1 hamburger. He ate it all up and then he got a stomach

ache!

On Sunday, Greg’s granny gave him some more money. He put it

in his money box.

Greedy Greg