Week 5 Criteria for selection of stories

for young learners-Exploitability-

-Suitability-

Readability ( Comprehensibility of written text )

Combination of 1. lexical (i.e. vocabulary) and 2. structural difficulty

The stories chosen should appropriate to students’ level of proficiency in terms of -sentence length, -word length within sentences, -complexity of vocabulary and -sentence structure.

The following are some questions you might want to ponder on when selecting:

(Source: http://www.usingenglish.com/articles/using-songs-with-young-learners.html)

1. What is my students’ language level?

2. How much new vocabulary (lexical) is acceptable?

3. Are there structural difficulties in the story?

4. Can your students understand the story and can it be made clear in a quick and easy way?

Suitability of Content

1. Authenticity – related to readers real life or current life experience.

Eg : (The Bully by Roderick & Alex)

2. Meaningful – intrinsically motivating eg: (The Hare and the Tortoise)

3. Suit students’ Interests

4. Language or content

5. Cognitively challenging – think critically and draw inferences (use texts which does not tell everything so that students can make guesses and draw their own conclusions)eg : (A happy home/The beautiful house) in year 3 text book

6. Moral values – use text that has moral values and does not contain negative moral values.

eg : (The Boy who Cried Wolf)

When selecting stories for their content suitability, you need to make sure of the following:

• What type and genre of stories appeal to your students?

• Is the content of the story (issue raised) appropriate for your students (social cultural background, maturity level)?

• does the story contain offensive words and overly crude, foul or otherwise objectionable language which is inappropriate especially for young learners?

• Does the book help meet curriculum objectives?

• Is the story consist of the vocabulary/grammatical item/sentence structure you wish to teach?

• Does the book present an authentic use of language?

When selecting stories for their content suitability, you need to make sure of the following:

Exploitability

• Facilitation of learning of students.• Make use of the story to develop students’

competence in achieving their learning outcomes.

• Carry out various activities or exercises in classroom using the story.

Always remember , when you exploit a text, make use of it to develop

your students’ competence in achieving their learning outcomes.

Number of ways to exploit story:1. Listen and complete story2. Retell the story in your own words3. Rewrite the story into dialogue 4. Write a poem based on the story

Always remember , when you exploit a text, make use of it to develop

your students’ competence in achieving their learning outcomes.

Choose a text/story and explain how you can explore and exploit the story in the languageclassroom.

• Story: Little Red Riding Hood• Activity: Using finger puppets in storytelling– Give the students the script of the story– Students practice the dialogue– Have different students to use the puppet to

perform different parts/ scenes of the story– Students can use the dialogues given or make

their own dialogues.

• Learning Outcome:– Language: motivate students to speak in English– Interpersonal: more interaction with classmates– Intrapersonal: increase confidence to converse in

public

• Story: The Ant and the Dove• Activity: Discussion about favourite characters– Give pupils 5 minutes to think about their

favourite characters from the story.– Choose a few pupils randomly and have them

talking about the characters they have chosen.– Ask pupils if they are given chance, which

characters they would like to be.– Have pupils to talk about the good and bad

characters in the story.

Choose a text/story and explain how you can explore and exploit the story in the languageclassroom.

• Learning Outcome:– Language: increase pupils English proficiency– Interpersonal: increase pupils’ confidence in

speaking– Intrapersonal: encourage pupils to do self-

reflection

Create a checklist that you could use to help you choose books/ stories for your pupils.Readability Lexical Vocabulary

Structural Sentence structureSentence length

Suitability Authenticity Authentic use of languageRelate to current experience

Meaningful Motivation

Interest Genre

Cognitive Challenging Critical thinking

Moral Values Positive values

Content Social Cultural backgroundMaturity Level Issue

Language Level of complexity