Storytelling is likely the oldest form of education. Storytelling is a tool that has been used throughout history as a way to pass on knowledge and share wisdom. One of the reasons this form of education has stood the test of time is because it engages learners. It helps to make complex concepts simpler and makes the lessons or key takeaways memorable. Not only does storytelling help make the content ‘stick’, it fosters critical thinking, creativity, and emotional connection, to create a deeper understanding of the information and simultaneously promotes communication skills and cultural awareness.
Learning languages online can be challenging due to the lack of immersion and face-to-face interaction, making it harder to practice speaking and maintain motivation. Storytelling can help by providing engaging and context-rich content that improves comprehension, vocabulary acquisition, and conversational skills, bridging the gap between online learning and real-life language use.
Storytelling can be an effective tool in a language course for several reasons. Here are some of the advantages of using storytelling in language learning:
- Contextual Learning: Stories provide context for language use, making it easier for learners to understand and remember new vocabulary and grammar. Instead of learning isolated words and rules, students see how language is used in real-life situations.
- Engagement: Stories can captivate learners’ attention and keep them engaged in the learning process. Students who show interest in the narrative are more likely to participate actively in class.
- Cultural Understanding: Stories often reflect the culture and customs of the language being learned. This helps students gain insights into the target language’s culture, traditions, and values, enhancing their cultural competence.
- Natural Language Patterns: Stories expose learners to natural language patterns and conversational expressions, helping them acquire language more authentically. Learners can see how native speakers use language in everyday communication.
- Listening and Comprehension Skills: Listening improves comprehension skills. Learners can practice listening to different accents, intonations, and speech speeds, which helps them in real-life conversations.
- Speaking and Pronunciation: Storytelling encourages students to speak and practice pronunciation as they retell or discuss the story. It provides opportunities for learners to practice speaking in a meaningful context.
- Memory Enhancement: Stories are easier to remember than isolated words or phrases. Students are more likely to retain new vocabulary and grammatical structures when they encounter them in a narrative context.
- Emotional Connection: Stories can evoke emotions in learners, making the language learning experience more enjoyable and memorable. Some studies show emotional connections to the material can enhance retention, pleasant or unpleasant.
- Real-World Applications: Language used in stories often mirrors real-world situations, making it practical for learners. They can apply what they learn from stories to their daily lives, such as ordering food in a restaurant or having a conversation with a friend.
- Vocabulary Expansion: Through exposure to a variety of contexts and themes in stories, learners can expand their vocabulary more comprehensively than through traditional vocabulary lists.
- Progress Tracking: Storytelling can be used as an ongoing assessment tool to gauge students’ language proficiency and progress. Teachers can assess comprehension, speaking skills, and grammar usage through discussions and assignments related to the story.
Incorporating storytelling into a language course can make the learning experience more engaging, enjoyable, and effective for students. It allows them to connect with the language deeper and develop practical language skills for real-life communication. Some examples of ways that you can incorporate storytelling include:
- Incorporate Storytelling into Course Content: You could use a narrative approach where students follow a story about a student from MIT going to China as an exchange student. This narrative thread could run through the entire course, making it engaging and relatable. (Example from Haohsiang Liao at MIT)
- Live Sessions and Engagement: Host live sessions where students can practice speaking and engage with native speakers. Some groups refer to these as ‘conversation cafes’ where learners share stories about their own lives or retell stories that are familiar in the language that they are learning.
- Share stories in multiple ways: Instructors can select stories and share them using video recordings, audio clips and written texts. The repetition of the same story in multiple formats is one way to help learners learn the language while following a narrative or ‘script’ that they can easily remember.
- Story Discussion Circles: Whether in text or in a live discussion, you can engage learners in conversations about key plot points (or predicting the plot!), characters and themes. There can be some ‘right and wrong’ answers, and other questions that require more critical thinking and application of the knowledge. These discussion circles are not at all different from what you might do in a reading comprehension class – they just have the added element of using a new language to understand and discuss the stories.
Do you have any experience using storytelling in language courses? What strategies do you use to teach languages online? Leave a comment below.
