Telling stories to young learners

ELT Action
Jun 17, 2021
5 min read

When we discuss about young learners it seems we need to refresh our ideas all the time, it is never enough. We always need to think about what an appropriate resource to bring inside or outside our classes. The realia must be interesting to them and catch their attention. Kids love to listen to a good story and when they like it, they ask us to tell more than 5 times.

I am going to keep my focus on storytelling activities, you can use with your students after telling them the stories. We are going to see two activities and one specific activity to be used in your CLIL classes for the two stories. I have created one ‘driving questions chart’ to help you with the questions and help your students to develop thought.

Storytelling - Brown Bear

I am a real Eric Carle fan. Brown Bear is a story that catches student attention, no doubt about it. I have been working with this author for years and I could see my students’ engagement with it, including 10-years-old students. We know how difficult is to catch their attention at this age.

Brown Bear activity1: Who is missing!!!

Invite your students to come to the front of the classroom. All of them should sit in a row, and one should stand behind them and act as a controller. The students in a row will rise the animals’ flashcards, while the controller is facing backward. The controller will turn around, memorize the animals by using his binocular and say the animals’ names together with the student’s name who is rising the animal’s flashcard. The controller will face backward again and a friend will leave the room.

The controller will say by using his binocular: Brown bear brown bear who is missing? I can’t see my friend lion, ‘example’ and so on… the teacher can choose another student to be the controller now or the student can do this again.

Brown Bear activity2: Finding the intruder!!!

Give your students a set of cards, 5 right cards according to the brown bear story and 1 intruder card.

The students need to check which card is the intruder. For example, the intruder is going to be an animal that is not in the brown bear story. With all the intruders the students can create another brown bear story, just with them and the name could be: The intruders in the brown bear story, but you know, if you ask your students for the best title, I am totally sure it will be much more creative than mine.

Using CLIL: Animals around the world

Subject: Geography

You can explore their curiosity by studying the wild animals, pet animals, from the brown bear story and other animals the students would like to know better. They can cut the animals from magazines or create their own animals through puppets or other materials that you prefer.

Show the students on the map where the animals belong, explore more each place. For example: ‘the bear’ teacher can ask: In which places can we find a bear? Show me on the map?

Do polar bears live in Africa? Which animals can we find in Africa? Show me the African continent on the map.

Do panda bears live in Brazil? Which animals can we find in Brazil?

The teacher can play with the students an online memory game using the animals, place, and a piece of information about them. Such us: kangaroo – lives in Australia – like most marsupials, female kangaroos have a pouch.

You can follow this step to help you during the ‘driving questions’ with your students:

Driving Questions Chart 1

Introduction E.g. Did you see the bears on TV yesterday? Investigation E.g. How can we protect the bears? Consolidation E.g. Now that you know the bears around the world, what could we do to keep them safe?CreationE.g. What about creating a fantastic place to let our bears feel protected?

Storytelling Pete the cat

This story from Eric Litwin is terrific, I can say that involves not only the students but also the teacher. I will be forever in love with Pete the Cat. This smart cat really caught me.

Storytelling activity1: A huge footprint board

Make some colorful tennis shoes footprints from construction paper and contact paper, this activity will get everyone grooving! The teacher and the other classmates will sing Pete the cat’s song while one by one student skips the huge footprint board. The student will jump and wait to change the tennis shoes footprint according to the song.

Storytelling activity2:

Teach your students how to tie their shoes. Pete is all about his shoes, and this activity will help your students learn how to tie their own shoes. After you print the shoe paper, glue them to cardboard to make them more durable. You don’t need shoelaces for the activity; you can use yarn of any thickness or color.

Using CLIL: Making fashion sneakers

Subject: Arts

You can choose some painters like Salvador Dalí or Piet Mondrian. I am going to explain to you why I chose these two artists.

Salvador Dalí was a Spanish surrealist artist renowned for his technical skill, precise draftsmanship, and the striking and bizarre images in his work.

Piet Mondrian was a Dutch painter. He is known for being one of the pioneers of 20th-century abstract art. His artistic vocabulary was reduced to simple geometric elements.

As you can see these two painters have a strong style. You can present them to your students and associate some of their work in the Pete sneakers.

The students, after knowing the painters, will decide what kind of sneakers they are going to make by using the painter’s technique and bring some ideas from the artists in their fashion sneakers.

You can follow this step to help you during the ‘driving questions’ with your students:

Driving Questions Chart 2

Introduction E.g. Have you visited an art exhibition? Investigation E.g. How can we use one of the techniques in Pete’s the cat sneakers? Consolidation E.g. Now that you know these two artists, what could we do to make our sneakers more creative?CreationE.g. What about creating stylish sneakers with an artist signature?

Conclusion

Working with storytelling lets our students feeling part of the learning process, in the same way, we are working with critical thinking, allowing our pupils to think about what they are doing.

As says Robert Mckee “Storytelling is the most powerful way to put ideas into the world today”.

Working with CLIL in our storytelling classes, and promoting this interdisciplinarity with other subject areas, will help our students to develop language and content in a natural way.

CLIL principles are built on two key founding messages. First, CLIL requires teaching through —not in— the language. There is a fundamental difference. When we teach through a language, we have to build into our planning all the language functions which learners will need to operationalize their subject or thematic knowledge. This goes beyond teaching specific vocabulary and instead requires teaching the language of science or the language of geography. It also means that the starting point for language teachers is not grammar or vocabulary, but an analysis of the demands of the content to be taught and learned.

I really hope you have enjoyed it! Have fun with these activities and I wish you a good storytelling moment with your kids!!!

Marisa Cleff is graduated in ‘letras’ Portuguese, English and Spanish.

She has been teaching young learners for more than 20 years.

She has around eight specializations in the education area. She is always involved with researches about how the learning process occurs. She has started her master degree this year in ‘Linguagem’

Her last specialization was in Bilingual Education Methodology. She is a language teacher, teacher trainer and nowadays she is helping schools in Brazil to become bi/multilingual schools.

References:

Clil for children (2016). Guide to OERs for CLIL in Primary Schools. C4C - CLIL for Children, Erasmus+ STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIPS (KEY ACTION 2), Project number: 2015-1-IT02- KA201-015017, available at:

http://www.clil4children.eu/?lang=pt-br 9.)