Филологические науки/7. Язык, речь, речевая коммуникация

Магистр педагогики и психологии, Байбосынова А.С.

Таразский государственный педагогический институт

г.Тараз, Казахстан

Using stories in language teaching

The present economic hardships facing most developing nations and especially our country have resulted in the lack of basic teaching and learning materials. Thus, there is a need for teachers to be more innovative in their teaching and embrace techniques that will help them make the most of their teaching circumstances. By using stories teachers can build up a considerable number of simple reading books for their classes. There is no doubt that by using various types of stories at the lessons teachers can develop learner’s speaking, listening, writing and reading skills. Stories are also excellent for reinforcing new vocabulary and grammar. Many stories have natural rhythmic qualities that are useful for working on stress, rhythm and intonation. The cultural elements of stories help both bridge common ground between cultures and finding out cultural differences, develop cultural awareness that is essential if we are to learn, or to think in another language and understand the people who speak it. Stories used at the English lesson can develop communicative approach that focuses on teaching language while communicating meaning. Learning English through stories provide a nonthreatning atmosphere for all students.

We can see a clear link between stories and success in language teaching from investigation of Bettelheim Bruno, who stated, “stories and fairy tales are inherently interesting to children. They speak to the “I” of the child” /1, 57 / Morgan and Rinvolucri present the view that storytelling can be a major component in an acquisition based language teaching approach. She goes further and suggests the ways of selecting stories, “unpacking” their language potential, adapting the stories to syllabus needs, and finding ways to tell them to foster comprehension, involvement and participation. /2 , 65/

In dealing with stories, learners have a various feeling for the past and an oneness with various cultures of the present as they gain insight in the motives and patterns of human behaviour. Stories have numerous affective benefits for social and emotional development. A story session is a time to share feelings. A relaxed, happy relationship between storyteller and learner is established, drawing them together and building mutual confidence. Stories help learners to know themselves and to know others so they can cope with the psychological problems of growing up. As Augusta Baker and Ellin Greene assert” while listening to stories learners have an experience with the powerful real language of personal communication, not the usual “teachers” of the foreign language classroom”. /3, 77 /

We are sure that oral stories develop listening skills in a unique way. The listeners benefit from observing non- polished speech created on the spot, while

using oral stories there will be a direct communication between teacher and learner. The learner easily understands the message of the story and becomes communicatively competent. E.Garvie writes “communication succeeds if both the learner and the storyteller are good language users” /4,119 / In her terms a good language user possesses an awareness of linguistic, psycholinguistic, discoursal, communicative, sociallinguistic strategic, cognitive and semantic features of the language.

Since the student is unlikely to be a good language user, teachers should provide a classroom environment that will stimulate thought and feeling while cultivating listening and speaking skills. Stories contribute to establishing that kind of environment. We can theorize that storytelling is experience. The story mirrors the surrounding world and constructs a reality of it’s own, meeting the cognitive, psychological and emotional needs of the learner.

The Russian psychologist Zaporozhets pointed out that,”using stories is very important, it gives a child a play-like experience” /5,45 / He called child’s mental participation “active participation”, believing that it enabled the child to enter the story, identify with it’s character and actively participate in all of it’s events. The experience that storytelling offers is not only personal experience, it is a universal experience encompassing world cultures. Any story offers a cultural experience. Fairy tales are part of the ordinary folk; modern stories mirror personal and national experiences. A fresh book in the 1980’ s at the interconnection between culture and language has opened up a new dimension for foreign- language teaching methodology. “Language has come to be viewed as a major means to acquire ‘cultural literacy” this term was popularized by E.D.Hirsh /6, 13 /. In early language teaching storytelling can be one of the main tools for children to become culturally literate.

Like learning a foreign language, stories create a new image of the world. The methodologists K. Malan points out “ If we accept the premise that narrative is a child’s main mode of making meaning about the world, storytelling can be a powerful force in language teaching / 7, 112 /

We see that using stories in language learning is very important, as it improves learner’s attitude towards language learning, which appears to help them learn more effectively. An effective learning is done well if the learners are able to make meaning from verbal and non- verbal information. Non -verbal information may include background knowledge based on past experience or visual information. To understand how students comprehend oral text, we must discover what “clues “they pick up in the flow of speech to form a mental representation of the story. As Rixon asserts, “if there is a construction or rather reconstruction of meaning on the part of the learner, that story will make nonsense” / 8, 73, /

The point is to teach children “how to mean” in a foreign language. They cannot construct or reconstruct meaning without prior experience with life and

language and they need language to cope with new experience. With storytelling we should teach strategies for text comprehension.

According to the investigations of O.Kopylenko, he sees storytelling as a coding - decoding process. He says “Comprehension occurs if the text is organized to enable the listener to decode it in the same way that the speaker - storyteller encoded the story. 9,15 I

There is variety of opinions regarding coding and decoding information. Garvie suggests “the idea of identifying main points” which she calls “staging posts» to facilitate comprehension. We agree with the idea, but the teacher needs some assistance to know what these “staging posts” are, since they depend on child’ s personal experience with language and life. Garvie sees the following stages of development in a learner’s ability to comprehend:

* The learner picks up “clues”

* Th learner develops coping skills

* The learner gets the gist of the messages and much of the supporting details.

As we see during the first stage when the student’s linguistic field is limited,

she/he should be led to understanding by “guided comprehension” wherein words and pictures help the child reconstruct meaning. In this process, each learner should construct his/her own story.

There are many other reasons why we want to use stories in our classes. Stories provide students with opportunities to listen to language in context rather than in bits and peaces. Stories also introduce new vocabulary and language forms within rich networks of associations. Equally important, stories can have a deep impact on a person’s construction of knowledge and self.

Stories, a form of narrative, help us to make sense of our world. Even in academic research, they have lately been given a higher status. Aki says that stories have the power to reach deep within us into areas that regular teaching may not visit, thereby validating the language learning” / 10, 11 / In his work Murphy proved the importance of storytelling. He described some ways to help teachers deepen the impact of storytelling through language and thinking activities that include shadowing, summarizing, student retelling activities. The activities described here require that learners do more than just write. Learners should interact and cooperate as they work toward completing the task. This is important in language learning because the learners are involved in “comprehending, manipulating, producing, and interacting in the target language, while their attention is principally focused on meaning rather than form” /22, 55 /

Apart from interacting in target language the learners also draw upon their resources from such areas of language as grammar, vocabulary, speaking, and reading, and nonlinguistic resources such as drawing and designing. Norman, Levihin, and Hedenquist stress the importance of engaging as many senses as possible in learning activities because such activities stimulate both hemispheres of the brain, thus resulting in better learning. /9,18/

Another important factor in the teaching procedure described is the functional value of the reader. The fact that the learners know that something tangible is being produced from a learning task serves a very strong motivating factor. This supports Princas’s who believes” that for all levels of learners, motivation is increased if writing is placed in a realistic context” /10,21/. Teaching that quotation marks in direct speech are started on a new line and that the sentence is intended would be boring and very technical when presented in a grammar lesson. However, within the context of folktales, where the hare speaks and the lion responds, learning becomes enjoyable. Brumfit asserts that,” having learners work in small groups, rather than having each learner write his/her own folktale, involves students in communication, thereby enhancing the quality of language being used” /11,37/

So, we consider that storytelling should be viewed as an essential part of language teaching. It gives a student rich and versatile experience with language and culture. While telling stories students are mostly encouraged and involved into classroom activities.

Literature:

1.Morgan.J. Rinvolucri. Once upon a Time. Using Stories in Language Classroom. Cambridge. 1983-p.65,66 (3^rd ed.) 1988-p.l25

2. Baker.A. and Green.E.Storytelling: Art and Technique. New York. R.R.Bowker 1997-p.77,91

3. Garvie.E.Teaching English to young Children. Cleven.Multicultural Matters.

1990-p. 119,120

Zaporozhets. A. V. “Perception of fairy tales by a pre-school child. Doshkolnoye Vospitanie,5 p.45,48

5.Hirsh.E.D. Teaching English as Communication. Oxford University Press.1978-p. 13

6.Aky.T.The deep impact of storytelling”Forum: (№3 October) 2001 -p.l 1

7. Norman.D.U.Levihn and Hedenquist. Communicative Ideas: An approachWith Classroom Activities. 1986-p. 18,19.64

8. Princas.D. Sorytelling Process and Practice. Littelton. 1986-p.21

9. Rixon.D. English and other languages for

children: Practice and Theory in a Rapidly

10. Kopylenko.O. The role of Text Structure in Text Comprehension. Leningrad.

1975-p.75

11. Battelheim. B.The uses of Enchantment.

New York. A.A.Knopf. 1996-p.l 12

12. Brumfit.C.J. Theoretical Implications of Language Teaching. 1984-p.37,41

13. Krashen.S. Burt,Dulay. “Principles and practice in second language acqusition” Oxford: Pergamon. 1983-p.81

14. Malan.K.Children as Storytellers.

PETA. 1991 -p. 112

15. Magure.J.Creative Storytelling.Highstown. N.Y.1985-p.46

16. Murphy.T.Activating metacognition with actin logs.’The language teacher”,23,5,p.55

17. Forum (№ /January) 1995-p.38, 39 (№2/April) 1996-p.lO, 11

18. Г.В.Рогова, Т.Е.Сахарова” Методика обучения иностранным языкам в средней школе”, Москва “Просвещение” 1991