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How to Teach Language Via Stories

Everyone loves a story! Teaching language through stories makes it interesting all around. For the educator as well as the learner.

Creating a story book has become easier now with so many companies looking for content to publish. If you are an educator, writing lessons and activities comes naturally. Combine the two and you have a book.

So how do you teach language via stories?

Here are a few strategies.

  1. Pick a story that is relevant to your audience. Whether it is a class of ESL learners or foreign language learners. Whether you are teaching social studies or science. 
  2. Pick a story that is relevant to the subject. English teachers can draw from novels. Social studies teachers can draw from historical figures that influenced change.
  3. If you have to rewrite the short story to match the level of language learner then do it. Use rubrics and guides for developing the story. A beginner level of the story will have much simpler vocabulary than and intermediate or advanced level.
  4. Develop activities just like you would in a classroom – from a warming up activity to a summarizing activity.
  5. Illustrate your story with videos, visuals and maybe even a field trip to a museum to view artifacts related to the story.
  6. Test complete comprehension by asking the student to provide a self reflection on the story. How was it relevant to them? What are their takeaways from the story.
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