Bland, Janice, ed. Teaching English to Young Learners:: Critical Issues in Language Teaching with 3–12 Year Olds.

, 2015.
Bloomsbury Guidebooks for Language Teachers. Bloomsbury Guidebooks for Language Teachers. Bloomsbury Collections.
Web. 19 Mar. 2024. <http://dx.doi.org/10.5040/9781474257145>.

Accessed from: www.bloomsburycollections.com

Accessed on: Tue Mar 19 2024 14:18:48 ########

Copyright © Janice Bland. All rights reserved. Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited without prior permission in
writing from the publishers.
 10
Oral Storytelling in the
Primary English Classroom
Janice Bland

Introduction
This chapter is about oral storytelling in the language classroom. As we shall
see, sharing stories is central to humankind. Stories, or narratives, help us learn
from experience and to Currie ‘it does not seem at all exaggerated to view
humans as narrative animals, as homo fabulans – the tellers and interpreters
of narrative’ (2011: 6). Stories allow us to use our imagination to possibly
engender new options and hopefully act with foresight, ‘to explore our own
mind and the minds of others, as a sort of dress rehearsal for the future’ (Cron
2012: 9). Thus this chapter will touch upon issues that have a wide relevance
for education. Authors, unsurprisingly, have also observed the apparent human
predisposition for storying: ‘stories appear to be there because stories are a
pervasive and perpetual human characteristic, like language, like play’ (Byatt
2004) and Le Guin writes: ‘For the story – from Rumpelstiltskin to War and
Peace – is one of the basic tools invented by the mind of man, for the purpose
of gaining understanding. There have been great societies that did not use the
wheel, but there have been no societies that did not tell stories’ (1985: 31).
Of old, storytellers were our teachers, we learn from stories in complex ways
and we can pass learning on as teacher-storytellers: ‘There are lots of things
that are vital to being human. Things like food, culture, warmth. The things that
are most vital, and most easy to overlook, are stories. [. . .] People that think
stories aren’t important – aren’t as important as breathing, aren’t as important
as warmth, aren’t as important as life – are missing the point’ (Gaiman 2014).
184 TEACHING ENGLISH TO YOUNG LEARNERS

We know that children need rich high-quality language input, which well-told
stories can offer, for second language (L2) teaching to play to their strengths –
particularly their aural perception and their ability to learn implicitly. The other
side of the coin is that minimal exposure in an input-limited, formal instructional
setting, with the few contact hours taken up by explicit language-teaching
activities, will remove any advantages children have as young learners (see
research reported in García Mayo and García Lecumberri 2003). As Kieran Egan
(1986: 22) maintains on teaching in the primary school, ‘focus on what they
most obviously can do, and seem able to do best’ (emphasis in the original).
It is therefore disappointing that the advice of teacher educators deeply
involved in teaching observation and action-researchers with sometimes
decades of highly valuable experience with storytelling in language teaching
(recent publications Wright 2009, Ellis and Brewster 2014, Heathfield 2014) is
largely ignored according to Garton, Copland and Burns: ‘One very noticeable
absentee from the list of frequently used activities is storytelling. [. . .] This
is surprising given their [stories] importance in the young learner literature,
particularly in books which provide practical advice to teachers’ (2011: 12). It
must therefore be concluded that pre-service teacher education does not yet
sufficiently provide teachers with the tools to become teacher-storytellers.

Oral stories versus picturebooks

The main concern of this chapter is oral storytelling. Therefore some distinctions
and definitions, which have often been blurred in the literature on teaching
young learners, should be clarified at the outset. Narrative plays a major role
in our lives, also beyond the age of twelve and into adulthood, in the form of
movies, television, news reportage or stories ‘carefully arranged so that the
most newsworthy piece of information comes first, thus “hooking” the reader
into reading further’ (Crago 2011: 209), biographies, crime novels, historical
fiction, celebrity stories, anecdotes of all kinds – the list is endless. For young
language learners, picturebooks and oral stories are probably the dominant
narrative forms, and as the children get older film, digital media, comics,
graphic novels and finally novels may play an increasingly important role, ideally
also outside the school setting. If children have unlimited access to English-
language out-of-school environments, narrative can play an enormous role in
their L2 acquisition (see Enever 2015: 26), for the efficacy for L2 acquisition of
extensive reading (see Krashen 2004, 2013) and extensive listening (Mason
and Krashen 2004, Mason 2013) has been thoroughly researched (Hoey 2015).
Film, picturebooks, comics and graphic novels are multimodal texts in
that they tell their stories through the modes of pictures and verbal text, and
 ORAL STORYTELLING IN THE PRIMARY ENGLISH CLASSROOM 185

audio in addition in the case of film. As multimodal texts they communicate

as a synthesis of signs. The teacher might choose to show a film without the
pictures or without the sound, and invite the children to predict, but in the end
would want to show and allow the children to enjoy the complete work. Aidan
Chambers (2011: 162) made the point that ‘books that are worth bothering with
at all are worth [. . .] rereading’. Picturebooks that are worth bothering with are
literary texts, and the best are a Gesamtkunstwerk. The young learners need to
have the opportunity to read the pictures and enjoy the carefully orchestrated
layout – their multimodal nature is an excellent introduction to literature (see
Bland 2013, Mourão 2013, 2015b). There are abundant picturebooks that are
‘worth bothering with’, and in the L2 classroom we should choose among
these for the children’s literary apprenticeship.
Oral stories, in contrast, are stories that have traditionally been told by word
of mouth, with, these days, many retellings in written form and remediations
in digital form or film. Short oral tales are, for example, fables, fairy tales,
legends, myths and folk tales from around the world. One of the defining
characteristics of what was once only oral literature is that there is no one
‘correct’ or authoritative version; ‘there is no such thing as a definitive version’
(Zipes 2004: 118). Nonetheless most stories from folk literature now have a
written expression – to name just a few: the versions of Aesop fables, Anansi
and Nasreddin trickster tales, the numerous versions of fairy tales by the
Brothers Grimm, as well as the ubiquitous Disney versions in books and film.
On the one hand, I suggest we impoverish the classroom if we omit traditional
fairy tales altogether and allow the globally popular Disney versions to
eclipse all other versions, a phenomenon known as Disneyfication due to the
‘saccharine, sexist, and illusionary stereotypes of the Disney-culture industry’
(Zipes 2007: 25). On the other hand, in these days of English as a global
language and multicultural classrooms, clearly we should include stories from
around the world in our storytelling.1 Teachers can search for inspiration from
a treasure trove of tales recorded, for example, by the Story Museum: ‘Every
young human who grows up hearing and telling, reading and writing stories
gains access to a lifetime of treasures’ (2014).
Despite the omnipresence of pictures and print or digital media in our
lives, orally transmitted stories have an important role to play, particularly for
children who are not yet fluent readers. According to Ong

sound enters deeply into human beings’ feel for existence, as processed by
the spoken word. For the way in which the word is experienced is always
momentous in psychic life. The centering action of sound (the field of sound
is not spread out before me but is all around me) affects man’s sense of the
cosmos. (2002: 71)
186 TEACHING ENGLISH TO YOUNG LEARNERS

Teachers should be aware of the ‘centering action of sound’ and support the
rapt attention that storytelling can induce. I have seen this many times in
my observations of teaching practice; it can be magical. In the young-learner
classroom, the cinema circle, or semicircle around the teacher, provides
comfortable whole-group togetherness without the paraphernalia of desks,
pencil cases and school bags to distract from a trance-like immersion in a
well-told story. Fifty English language teachers in Slovenia who taught children
aged from eight to nine years took part in a study on their use of storytelling,
and reported that narratives are ‘a good source of language and a springboard
for follow-up activities, as well as generating a relaxed and safe learning
environment. Having pupils seated on the floor, in the form of a semi-circle,
further contributes to the pleasant atmosphere in the classroom’ (Dagarin
Fojkar, Skela and Kovač 2013: 26).
Oral storytelling is flexible and can and should be moulded to the
particular audience. This is a different performance act from the sharing
of a picturebook, for in the case of picturebook storytelling the book itself
and the pictures (which have another kind of magical power) can arrest
and focus the children’s attention through their continuous and repeated
presence. Storytelling is also different from acting, for when acting the
children and teacher-in-role (see Chapter 12) feel the emotions of the
characters. However, when the teacher is storytelling ‘while we may
sometimes become a character and show their emotion, for the most part
we are aiming to pass an emotion out to our audience – to make them
feel it’ (Tisdall 2013: 37). This chapter will also be examining the role of the
teacher as oral storyteller – for it is the teacher who decides the form of
each retelling, shaping the story to the audience, encouraging a response
and perhaps introducing a new element without disturbing the template-like
building blocks of storytelling.
Children do have a pre-existing story template, as do we all, suggesting
once again that humans have evolved as homo fabulans, or indeed as a
‘storytelling animal’ (Gottschall 2012). The template includes ‘a logically linked
series of events, a structure that includes a beginning, a middle and an end,
characters who remain the center of attention throughout, and to whom the
story happens, and a resolution that offers some form of resolution or release’
(Crago 2011: 211, emphasis in the original). Booker Prize winner Antonia Byatt
(2004) writes of a ‘narrative grammar’ of our minds: ‘An all-important part
of our response to the world of the tales is our instinctive sense that they
have rules.’
Therefore Cameron has rightly criticized the texts in English as a Foreign
Language (EFL) coursebooks that are called ‘stories’ when they do not adhere
to the archetypal story template: ‘Most often they lack a plot; instead of
setting up a problem and working towards its resolution, the characters just
 ORAL STORYTELLING IN THE PRIMARY ENGLISH CLASSROOM 187

move through a sequence of activities. Teachers should not assume that such
non-stories will capture children’s imagination in the same way that stories
can do’ (2001: 162). Non-stories do not play to the children’s strengths,
for children have a desire ‘to find and construct coherence and meaning’
(Cameron 2001: 159). In fact this is exactly what stories can offer according to
Gale and Sikes: ‘Narratives provide links, connections, coherence, meaning,
sense’ (2006).

Orality and oracy

The language teacher as storyteller needs an awareness of the mode of orality,
which will be introduced next. Oracy, on the other hand, as the development
of spoken language, is an important aspect of language teaching to young
learners generally:

While oracy, a term coined in recent decades, has been used almost
exclusively in educational settings to describe students’ oral language as
something to be developed or improved – like literacy or numeracy – orality
[. . .] is a much older and broader term referring to the overall use of spoken
language, especially in a culture. Oracy is a word used to name a skill;
orality is a mode. (Bomer 2010: 205–206)

Perhaps the most important aspect of orality has been termed as ‘methods
of remembering’ (Bomer 2010: 207). This is crucial for the storyteller as well
as the audience and is extremely relevant for language teaching. Patterned
language is also to be found in literary texts such as novels, picturebooks and
poems – however, patterning is the essence of oral storytelling. The following
categories can be identified:

Repetitive, patterned language: Repetition is important for the

(teacher-)storyteller and crucial for the listener (especially when the
story is in a foreign language). Patterned language refers to both
phonological and semantic levels: ‘heavily rhythmic, balanced patterns,
in repetitions or antitheses, in alliterations and assonances, in
epithetic and other formulary expressions’ (Ong 2002: 34). Repetition
of sounds and meanings is also a poetic characteristic of written
narrative (Bland 2013: 156–187).

Formulaic language: The best-known formulas of fairy tales are ‘Once

upon a time’ and ‘They lived happily ever after’. However, a great
deal more formulaic language can be discovered in oral tales – see
188 TEACHING ENGLISH TO YOUNG LEARNERS

the analysis of a passage from Little Red Riding Hood in this volume
(S. Kersten 2015: 140–142). A rich use of epithets is also formulaic,
for example wicked witch, little cottage and big bad wolf. Well-known
examples from written texts are the Cheshire Cat, the yellow-brick
road and the Wild Wood.

Additive language and an avoidance of complex sentences: This

is clearly important for language teaching, for complex sentences
(sentences which contain subordinate clauses) are difficult for young
learners. Expert children’s literature authors also make use of the
additive characteristic of oral tales, as the multiple ‘ands’ in this extract
from The Firework-Maker’s Daughter show:

And her throat was parched and her lungs were panting in the hot air, and
she fell to her knees and clung with trembling fingers as the stones began
to roll under her again. [. . .] up and up, until every muscle hurt, until she had
no breath left in her lungs, until she thought she was going to die; and still
she went on. (Pullman 1995: 68–69)

Stock characters, repeated themes and settings: Oral tales

cannot sustain the complexity of written literature with regard to
characterization, setting and theme. Familiar stock characters, iconic
settings with few details and recurrent themes and triples (such
as three brothers or sisters, three wishes, three attempts) are the
conventions of oral tales. This characteristic helps young learners
predict and activates their prior knowledge on the creatures of tales,
like dragons, monsters and trolls. It also compels children to listen
carefully to confirm or disprove their hypotheses and it helps them
notice new ideas.

Participants interact: Because oral storytelling relies on the ‘building

blocks of oral composition’ (Garner 2005: 411), audience participation
is anticipated. Listeners are attuned to the story template and
ready-made structural units, as outlined above. Teachers should
make use of these expectations. Although a storyteller reacts
flexibly to the needs of the audience, the standard story patterns
and formulaic language, including the well-known fairy tale refrains,
remain unchanged. Referring to oral storytelling, Bauman (2005:
420) suggests that the ‘collaborative participation of an audience
is an integral component of performance as an interactional
accomplishment’.
 ORAL STORYTELLING IN THE PRIMARY ENGLISH CLASSROOM 189

The hunt for meaning

According to Lisa Cron, who discusses the importance of stories for humankind
in her book on narrative writing, stories train the imagination to mentally
represent alternative visions for the future. In the past, as in the present, this
may have been crucial for our survival: ‘story is what enabled us to imagine
what might happen in the future, and so prepare for it’ (Cron 2012: 1). Boyd
argues that ‘art in general and storytelling in particular are also adaptations
in our species. Far from being ornaments, they too, often, become a pivot
of human lives’ (2009: 35). With reference to neuroscience, Boyd suggests
that telling stories is adaptive human behaviour that tones neural wiring,
rehearses cumulative creativity and offers advantages for human survival. He
writes: ‘Humans uniquely inhabit the “cognitive niche”: we gain most of our
advantages from intelligence. We therefore have an appetite for information,
and especially for pattern, information that falls into meaningful arrays from
which we can make rich inferences’ (Boyd 2009: 14).
Because ideas become virtually real to us in stories – to discover and
reflect upon as outlined above – storytelling is arguably the most powerful
educational tool. Storytelling not only supports empathy and creativity but
also trains our thinking: ‘Childhood play and storytelling for all ages engage
our attention so compulsively through our interest in event comprehension
and social monitoring that over time their concentrated information patterns
develop our facility for complex situational thought’ (Boyd 2009: 49). As a
species ‘we’re wired to hunt for meaning in everything’ (Cron 2012: 27), and
our storytelling is a way of achieving this. The stories we tell to children in the
EFL classroom are intrinsically motivating; they are often connected to ‘the
warmth of early childhood experiences’ (Cameron 2001: 160).
Michael Morpurgo, award-winning author of children’s literature, locates the
importance of stories in the area of intercultural understanding, ‘without stories,
and without an understanding of stories, we don’t understand ourselves, we
don’t understand the world about us. And we don’t understand the relations
between ourselves and those people around us. Because what stories give
us is an insight into ourselves, a huge insight into other people, other cultures,
other places’ (Morpurgo 2014). Boyd confirms the prosocial nature of sharing
stories, which spread ‘prosocial values, the likeliest to appeal to both tellers
and listeners. It develops our capacity to see from different perspectives, and
this capacity in turn both arises from and aids the evolution of cooperation
and the growth of human mental flexibility’ (Boyd 2009: 176). There are, as
we have seen, many arguments in favour of storytelling, both for second
language acquisition and for wider educational goals, particularly empathy and
190 TEACHING ENGLISH TO YOUNG LEARNERS

intercultural understanding. In the next section the implementation of stories

with young learners is considered in more detail.

Storytelling in the classroom

In foreign-language teaching, stories should be shared over several lessons,
with possibly as many as nine steps to the storytelling (see further below).
In the first few steps, there is no doubt that the teacher plays the central role
in the telling. In fact the teacher’s input is crucial generally for the teaching of
young learners in most countries: ‘In the many countries where little contact
with English outside school is readily available, it is the teacher who is the major
source and catalyst for children’s development in English’ (Rixon 2015, 42).

Teacher-storytellers
For vivid multisensory storytelling, the words are not the only consideration
(Wright 2013); special clothing such as a story jacket, puppets, sound effects,
props or realia can be helpfully involved. However, the art of what I will call
creative teacher talk is undoubtedly the area that needs most attention.
The teacher-storyteller employs a varied paralanguage involving expressive
prosodic features (pitch, tempo, volume, rhythm – including dramatic
pauses), exuberant intonation, gasps and, where suitable, even sighs. Some
storytellers employ exaggerated gesture and facial expressions, while others
have a quieter style. This will also depend on the story and the age of the
young learners; the younger the child, the more the storytelling (and classroom
discourse generally) should resemble repetitive child-directed speech.
Storyteller Heathfield (2014: 14) advises making good use of direct speech,
‘so you can play with the characters’ voices and mannerisms’. As Thornbury
(2002: 20) indicates, ‘The average classroom L2 learner will experience nothing
like the quantity nor the quality of exposure that the L1 infant receives (. . .)
Moreover, the input that infants receive is tailored to their immediate needs –
it is interactive, and it is often highly repetitive and patterned – all qualities that
provide optimal conditions for learning.’
Inexperienced teachers lack a repertoire of ritualized language and have
some difficulty in using patterned language, similar to child-directed speech,
in an impromptu yet cunningly regulated way. Frequent storytelling will supply
this practice and also enrich the classroom discourse; therefore teachers should
avoid the expediency of reading aloud simplified stories. Simplified stories
do not normally offer sufficient language patterning with connectedness and
salience through phonological and semantic repetition (Bland 2013: 8). Good-
 ORAL STORYTELLING IN THE PRIMARY ENGLISH CLASSROOM 191

quality authentic children’s literature is well written: ‘A writer’s use of language

is central to the quality of a book, and so it is no coincidence that good quality
children’s stories also offer language learning opportunities’ (Cameron 2001: 179).
However, as previously mentioned, sharing picturebooks with young learners is
a different method and will be discussed in the next chapter. With regard to the
older children in the target age range of this book (eleven- and twelve-year-olds),
in some contexts the children might have sufficient competence to follow read-
alouds of good-quality chapter books. These are books written for native-speaker
children who can manage to read extended prose. In consideration of the short
attention span of young readers, the books are divided into short chapters – and
this is convenient for reading aloud in the classroom too. Although they usually
have some illustrations, the story is told entirely in prose and not in pictures.
Thus, unlike picturebooks, the illustrations are not an essential component of
the narrative. An example is Philip Pullman’s The Firework-Maker’s Daughter,
which was quoted in the section on orality and oracy on page 188.
However, for most young learners, chapter books are still too challenging.
Moreover oral storytelling, without a script, could provide teachers with the
routine they need to spontaneously produce chant-like, highly repetitive
discourse to support the children’s emerging L2. This could be a move in the
direction of ‘generalized success’, which according to Johnstone (2009: 31)
‘implies achieving success not only with expert teachers working in favourable
circumstances but also with “ordinary” teachers working in “ordinary”
circumstances, which may be far from ideal’ (see also Enever 2015: 22–26).
All storytellers need practice and need to employ repetition as Ong (2002:
40) has identified: ‘it is better to repeat something, artfully if possible, rather
than simply to stop speaking while fishing for the next idea’. A marvellous
expediency, also borrowed from professional storytellers, is to learn certain
rituals by heart. For example, each story in the enchanting television series
The Storyteller begins: ‘When people told themselves their past with stories,
explained their present with stories, foretold the future with stories, the best
place by the fire was kept for the storyteller’ (Jim Henson Company 2005),
which seems to promise magic and mystery, and thus motivates for the
coming story.
One of the most important features of oral storytelling is eye contact. Oral
stories evolve as they pass from storyteller to teacher-storyteller; they are
moulded to each new audience and retelling, and this is only possible if the
teacher is in contact with the audience. Through eye contact the teacher can
check that the children are following where the story takes them, with the
result that the ‘listener’s brain is as active as the storyteller’s and is, in fact,
telling and anticipating the story internally along with [the teacher]’ (Heathfield
2014: 10, emphasis in the original). Creative teacher talk involves an enhanced
dynamic to suit the story, and phonological intensity with vividly orchestrated
192 TEACHING ENGLISH TO YOUNG LEARNERS

stress, pitch, tempo, volume and rhythm. However, the story progress can be
adjusted, as long as the basic template is maintained. Where necessary the
teacher can elaborate, with a slower speech rate, different gestures, additional
contextual cues, comprehension checks, clarification requests, repetition and
paraphrase.
In summary, storytelling gives the teacher authorial power to suit the
story to the audience: ‘telling a story should be used more often in the
young learner classroom, as it offers a shared social experience and creates
a relaxed classroom atmosphere. Furthermore, it is easier to verify pupils’
understanding of a story while telling the story, and it is also easier to adapt
the language or speed of delivery’ (Dagarin Fojkar, Skela and Kovač 2013: 26).
The rewards are more confidence for the teacher and pleasurable extensive
listening for the children. Extensive listening is highlighted by Tomlinson (2015:
283) and Mason (2013), whose studies have produced impressive results: ‘The
finding that story-listening is as effective as or more effective than traditional
methods is encouraging. Stories are far more pleasant and engaging than
traditional instruction, and students can gain other aspects of language from
stories, as well as knowledge’ (2013: 28). Repetition, however, remains key.
Elley (1989: 174) explored the significant vocabulary gains children achieved
incidentally through listening to stories and found the frequency of repetition
to be a feature that predicted which words would be acquired. Therefore the
next section will consider the variety of different steps that are possible in oral
storytelling.

Story steps with Three Billy Goats Gruff

The following introduces nine storytelling steps that might be undertaken
with children who have as yet little English. Listening comprehension and
oracy skills require extensive practice; ‘over a series of lessons, possibly as
many as eight or twelve, the children will come back to the story three or four
times. During this period, their initial receptive understanding of the story
will be scaffolded in order to enable them to act out and re-tell the story, to
explore relevant issues it raises, and to personalise and transfer some of the
language it contains to their own lives’ (Read 2008: 7). This approach (see
Figure 10.1) emphasizes that storytelling is a method that involves recycling
over several lessons, allowing the children to participate while the teacher
supports their contribution by recasting when necessary – remodelling their
language in well-formed language chunks. Thus storytelling practises both
comprehension fluency: engaging with extended stretches of creative teacher
talk, and speaking: ‘Children encounter English through talk and practise
English through talk, and literacy skills can be developed through talk, for
 ORAL STORYTELLING IN THE PRIMARY ENGLISH CLASSROOM 193

example by using rhymes and stories as entry points to written English. [. . .]

children are well-equipped to rely on oral language; after all, this is what they
have been doing since birth. They will hear differences in the spoken language
that older learners will find less noticeable’ (Cameron 2003: 108–109).

FIGURE 10.1 Scaffolding through story and drama (Read 2008: 7).

I have chosen as my exemplar the well-known tale Three Billy Goats Gruff.
Some of the steps described below include drama strategies, and these are
described in detail in Chapter 12 on drama with young learners (Bland 2015c),
also with reference to Three Billy Goats Gruff. There is a recorded storytelling
of Three Billy Goats Gruff made available by the Oxford-based Story Museum,
which can be accessed, together with a written version and a story map, at
http://www.storymuseum.org.uk/1001stories/detail/83/the-three-billy-goats-
gruff.html. A recorded version is very useful for teacher preparation. However,
as explained earlier, the first and second storytelling (Steps 4 and 5 below)
should be live, with eye contact and the ability to react to the audience. Any
version of the tale can be altered to suit the age and competence of the class,
except for the building blocks of oral composition, such as Once upon a time,
and in this story the refrains trip-trap, trip-trap, trip-trap across the bridge as
well as the troll’s question to each goat: Who’s that trip-trapping across my
bridge? Billy goats are male goats (a female is a nanny goat); the fearful troll
can, of course, be a female troll.
194 TEACHING ENGLISH TO YOUNG LEARNERS

Step 1. Arouse interest, attention and curiosity: Where do goats live?

What do they eat? Do you know any stories about goats? What is a
troll? What does a troll look like? (Some children may be aware that
goats, like deer, in fact prefer shrubs to grass.)

Step 2. Make vocabulary memorable: The picture-dictation method

can allow the children to form a network of associations around new
vocabulary while the teacher sets the scene for the story. The teacher
dictates a picture to the young learners, including any new language
important for the story (e.g. mountain or hill, river, grass, bridge,
troll, billy goat, horn), while touring the class and interacting with
groups of children. Alternatively, the teacher can draw a picture on
the blackboard and let the children guess. Wright (1994) includes very
many useful models for the teacher’s own drawings.

Step 3. Engage with the story: The drama strategy Whoosh! is

an excellent way to engage with any as yet unknown story in the
classroom. This is explained and exemplified with Three Billy Goats
Gruff in Chapter 12 on drama (Bland 2015c: 233–234).

Step 4. Facilitate initial comprehension: The first storytelling should

now be easy to follow. With encouragement, the young learners will
spontaneously join in the refrains that are repeated three times trip-trap,
trip-trap, trip-trap and Who’s that trip-trapping across my bridge?

Step 5. Retell the story: The teacher retells the story and the children
all join in the refrains. The children might act the swinging bridge: little
swings for Little Billy Goat Gruff, swinging more with Middle Billy Goat
Gruff and wider swings for Big Billy Goat Gruff.

Step 6. Think from within the story: The drama strategies conscience
alley and collective role play are explained and exemplified with Three
Billy Goats Gruff in Chapter 12 on drama (2015c: 234–235). These allow
the young learners to use their own ideas and language. This valuable
stage takes up time, because the children often need language support
to express their ideas in English.

Step 7. Explore issues: Three billy goats cross the bridge in the
story – three is a magical number in fairy tales. How many stories can
the children name that feature three sisters or brothers, three friends,
three actions . . .? The maxim: If at first you don’t succeed, try, try
again might be taught and discussed.

Step 8. Transfer: The story map provided by the Story Museum,

available at http://www.storymuseum.org.uk/1001stories/
 ORAL STORYTELLING IN THE PRIMARY ENGLISH CLASSROOM 195

upload_files/map_pdf_83.pdf, could be used as an opportunity

for motivated creative writing using one or two speech bubbles.
Motivated creative writing is exemplified with Three Billy Goats Gruff
in Chapter 12 on drama (Bland 2015c: 230–232).

Step 9. Internalize: The children might hot-seat the teacher (Bland

2015c: 236). This gives them much-needed practice in asking
questions. If the teacher plays the troll, for instance, the children might
ask: Is your home under the bridge? What is your everyday food? Have
you got a family? Can you swim? The young learners can prepare the
questions first in pairs (think, pair, share strategy), while the teacher
tours the classroom. When answering in role, the teacher should
optimally provide a useful language model, for in the nine-step lesson
series described here this is the final opportunity to recycle vocabulary
and stretches of language from the story.

Conclusion
This chapter has illustrated the important role of oral storytelling on many
levels, for L2 acquisition, for participation in an activity that is prosocial,
deeply satisfying and probably vital to humans and for education in the
wider sense of developing connected thinking and empathy. Importantly,
stories train the imagination to mentally represent alternative visions for the
future, for the story ‘is not just some casual entertainment; it reflects a basic
and powerful form in which we make sense of the world and experience’
(Egan 1986: 2). Teachers are encouraged to develop their creative teacher
talk skills, by engaging in oral storytelling; for according to Showalter (2003:
79), ‘Teaching is itself a dramatic art and it takes place in a dramatic setting.’
Finally, learners deserve some relaxation and pleasure in the school setting,
which stories for children promise: ‘We fill our heads with improbable happy
endings, and are able to live – in daydreams – in a world in which they are not
only possible but inevitable’ (Byatt 2004).

Notes
1 Stories from around the world, with audio recordings, may be found on the
following websites: http://www.storymuseum.org.uk/stories/audio-stories/
and http://www.worldstories.org.uk.
196 TEACHING ENGLISH TO YOUNG LEARNERS

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