Notes from Justin Bailey’s lecture“Story Listening-Simple, Effective, Calm”.
What is story listening?
A teacher tells a story in target language,using various types of visual support like drawings, diagrams, etc. to make the story more comprehensible and accessible.
It’s not a one-time thing; it should be regular, lasting for at least a semester or even a school year.
In story listening, folk tales, fairy tales and legends are recommended, because:
1. They contain 85% of high-frequency words and 15% literary/academic words;
2. They have a clear structure to increase comprehension and a moral lesson to educate younger learners;
3. They have rich cultural elements that are different from students’ culture;
4. They are easily accessible in libraries or on the internet.
Story listening can work together with free reading to increase students’ input.
Demonstration
Tell students all you need to do is to try to understand the story and enjoy it.
Justin Bailey was telling the story while drawing the pictures on the whiteboard, using visual support to explain the plot as well as difficult words.
Comments on Demonstration
If it’s not online teaching, it’s better to use a larger whiteboard, so pictures will be bigger and clearer.
Why does Justin choose this story? The story is a famous Greek mythology and has a moral element in it. There is also an English phrase from the story “Don’t fly too close to the sun”.
Meanwhile, Justin also likes to tell stories with maps and geography.
It’s OK that students don’t understand every single thing in the story, but the misunderstanding shouldn’t be so great that they lose track of the story.
Teacher can also check students’understanding while telling the story.
Label the words with target language, especially for words that may impede their understanding. Teacher may also quickly say the translation and write it down on whiteboard and then erase it.
Real-time drawing is better than drawing in advance or finding pictures or prompts. There are lots of videos in YouTube, teaching you how to draw something quickly.
Demonstration with Screen Sharing
This demonstration is for teachers who don’t have a physical classroom or physical students, or whiteboard or chalkboard.Although story listening is more suitable for real interactions, students can still benefit from online story listening.
Justin used a software to explain with pictures and texts while telling a story.
Closing Comments
After story listening, teacher can ask students to write down a short summary in a language that they know well, to evaluate your skills of telling a story.
For example, if many students neglect a detail,which is important, you may reflect on whether you are telling this part clearly or not.
If many students include a detail which you think is insignificant, maybe it’s not as insignificant as you think.
Dr. Mason recommends story listening should not be longer than 15 mins due to attention span. Teachers can adjust according to students’ age, etc.
Even it’s story listening, students can still be involved and active in listening.
WEBSITE for Reference
storiesfirst.org
beniko-mason.net
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