Storytelling in the ESL class

Fostering a love for reading is an important part of kindergarten teaching. Reading books aloud to your class makes the story accessible to every level of reader and encourages well-written, fluent writing. However, not all story times are created equal. In their 2007 article Repeated Interactive Read-Alouds in Preschool and Kindergarten, published in the journal "The Reading Teacher," Doctors Lea McGee and Judith Schickedanz explained that the type of story, and how you read it, determines the level of enrichment. Several techniques will transform standard kindergarten story time into a stimulating educational experience.

Read more: Tips on Reading to a Kindergarten Class | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/info_12206386_tips-reading-kindergarten-class.html#ixzz1vkdhrpVl

Years ago I prepared this workshop for a school, I named it Storytelling. Here are the pictures:

1. Three little pigs: The series Sprinkles from richmond Publishing come with this great BIG BOOK, I love it. For this story I made a flannel board with felt and glued velcro to the cut outs. The title is a download from www.sparklebox.com and the cutouts I don´t remember right now. As I used the Cd which read the story I placed the cutouts and followed along. Then I made some stations around the class as House 1, 2, 3. I designated some students to be pig 1,2,3 and made some tags. All this I found at www.makinglearningfun.com.

Teachers should read aloud to young children. Time spent reading aloud is valuable to students. Reading aloud to children helps them develop and improve literacy skills -- reading, writing, speaking, and listening.


2. I tried different things to make each story a special experience for the students, allowing  them to live the story and to become  involved and be a part of it. For this one I made some tags using the cutouts that come with the book. I also made some medals that they won for reacting the story and took home to show their parents.The illustrations that come in the big book often help to explain the new vocabulary.



3.The other story was the Gingerbread Man. I have a blog entry here, if you want to check out more activities. I used once again the cutouts from the book and made some more, but this time I created stick puppets by placing a stick puppet wuth masking tape to each cut out. 

I also gave a gingerbread man as name tags to each student.



Among the many benefits of read aloud, Rog (2001) lists the following:

• building vocabulary
• developing understandings of story structures
• supporting developing connections between print elements
• encouraging high levels of understanding
• teaching the reading process in a meaningful context
• modeling fluency
• motivating students to read

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4. As EFL teachers we always worry about  the speaking vocabulary of the class. The stories that we use should engage students at the edge of their speaking vocabulary, usually a grade or two above their grade-level. The Big Book that comes along is based on this. The other story  was Goldilocks and the 3 bears. This time I used more stick puppets but with 3 sizes of the objects and played some games like getting into groups by objects and by size.

 5.  For the rhyme Humpty Dumpty, I introduced preliminary vocabulary, such All the king´s horses, but  I didn’t spend too much time on this, I used the pictures on the book, so they could follow. I made some finger puppets so they could react the story. I also made some puzzles that could put together. Got the printables at www.makinglearningfun.com. I also made a crown for me to wear while reading the story!!
Try  not allow too much time to lapse between days when you read, maybe after each unit plan a reading session.

6. Read aloud to students is no easy task. I use the CD most of the time because it has special effects and voices, but if you don´t Cds to go along with the book,work on reading expressively and ask for feedback or listen to yourself on tape. This other story came with this prop as a printable to make to go along with the story ,as the CD read the story the students moved the strip of paper.

Teachers, Please join me at my Facebook Group: ESL/EFL Preschool Teachers, place your pictures there. You are all invited to be guest bloggers here, just let me know. If you need any resources related to this, please write, this is my email: ei98srl@gmail.com