This document discusses the use of stories in language teaching. It provides an overview of how stories were used historically in different language teaching methods and why they fell out of favor before regaining prominence. Stories can be used to improve students' language skills while also teaching them about culture. When choosing stories, teachers should consider students' level and the story elements of plot, characters, setting and theme. Teachers can use activities like story maps to help students comprehend stories and develop reading and speaking abilities.

1. USING STORIES IN
LANGUAGE TEACHING
Dr. Öğr. Üyesi Mehmet GÜNEŞ

2. Learning Outcomes
▪ Identify the four major elements of a story:
plot, setting, characters and theme
▪ Understand the importance of reading
▪ Learn what role fiction plays in their lives
▪ Improve their reading, listening, speaking
and writing skills.

3. INTRODUCTION
▪ the Grammar Translation Method (GTM)
predominated ESL/EFL teaching.
▪ During the era, translating literary texts
from the second/foreign language to the
students’ native language was one of the
main learning activities.
▪ Therefore, literary works were a notable
source of material in ESL/EFL teaching

4. INTRODUCTION
▪ GTM was replaced by the Structuralism
Approach in 1960s to the end of 1970s,
literature was no longer used.
▪ Structuralism was concerned with
correctness of grammatical form and not
with content or interpretation of the written
word or style.
▪ In other words, teaching a foreign language
was regarded as a matter of linguistics

5. INTRODUCTION
▪ with the appearance of the
Communicative Approach in the late 70`s
and very early 80`s, literature was also
ignored.
▪ The tendency in the EFL classrooms was
to teach “usable, practical” contents.
▪ Thus, literary works had no place in the
curriculum

6. INTRODUCTION
▪ since the 1980s the situation changed
quite radically when literature has found
its way back into the teaching of EFL.
▪ But, different from the way it was used
with the GTM,
▪ the current use of literary works in
ESL/EFL classes is to improve
communicative competence and create
students’ awareness on the culture and
society of the relevant country.

7. INTRODUCTION
▪ The stories take their roots from the folklore
of the culture in which they come into
existence.
▪ Stories have been told about different
beliefs and things: the creation of the
universe, creatures on the earth, the beliefs
about the World like myth.
▪ A myth is a traditional story which explains
the beliefs of people about the natural and
human World.

8. Why Stories?
▪ They are simple and short, useful for
providing the teacher with the chance of
integrating multiple skills.
▪ Stories reflect all human cultures and
therefore they have a common attraction.
▪ Children have an intrinsic affection of
stories, as they create magic and a
sense of wonder

9. Why Stories?
▪ They deal with human relations.
▪ They can be interpreted subjectively and
the students can gain insights for their own
lives.
▪ They can improve their vocabulary
competence and also develop creative and
critical thinking.
▪ They can gain greater control and
confidence in the language.

10. Why Stories?
▪ Stories are a useful tool in linking fantasy and the
imagination with the child’s real world; they
provide a way of enabling children to make sense
of their everyday life.
▪ Listening to stories allows the teacher to
introduce or revise new vocabulary and sentence
structures by exposing the children to language.
▪ Stories help students of all levels to understand
literature, they carry ideological messages.

11. Why Stories?
▪ Students can remember information
easily as stories involve them in the
actions of the characters.
▪ Language learners can benefit from
storytelling because stories help them to
develop the ability to understand spoken
language and engage in thinking skills.

12. Why Stories?
▪ Besides, with the stories children develop
learning strategies such as listening for
general meaning, predicting, guessing
meaning and hypothesizing.
▪ They become aware of cultural values
different from theirs, sharpen their
memory and develop the ability to predict
and infer.

13. Reasons for Using Stories
▪ Practicality:
▪ They don’t have multiple plots and so it is
easy to understand.
▪ You can find simplified versions of the
well-known stories.
▪ Motivating:
▪ If stories are chosen according to their
interests and levels, this increase their
motivation.

14. Reasons for Using Stories
▪ Fostering Language Skills:
▪ Stories provide with high-quality reading
texts and it is possible to design activities
that can be use for reading and writing.
▪ Improvement of vocabulary and reading
▪ Students can Express their own ideas
and views and this reinforce their
speaking skills, enhance critical thinking.

15. Reasons for Using Stories
▪ Culture Transmitting:
▪ Stories are the product of the culture in
which they were written.
▪ They can learn about the target culture
when they read or study
▪ Stories go beyond time and culture and
reach directly to people in a different
country or time.

16. Reasons for Using Stories
▪ Culture Transmitting:
▪ Students become aware of the fact that
the only culture isn’t theirs and they
understand and respect the differences
among the people.
▪ They compare them with their own
culture.

17. Reasons for Using Stories
▪ Raising Personal Growth:
▪ Stories are special sources for personal
development, since they not only provide
linguistic opportunities, also provide
greater interest of the students through
many exercises.

18. Reasons for Using Stories
▪ Improve linguistic competence
▪ Motivate Source for Writing
▪ Enhance speaking and writing skills
▪ Improve the pronunciation of the
vocabulary encountered in the story.

19. Choosing the Text
▪ The use of short-story in English teaching
should be aimed to encourage the students
to use what they have previously learnt.
▪ By doing this, the learning process will be
student-centered.
▪ the teacher must choose a suitable text to
use in class, and should help her/his
students understand the story with various
activities.

20. Choosing the Text
▪ Since the lengths of short-stories quite
vary, choose a story short enough to
handle within course hours.
▪ The shortness of the text is important for
the students because they will see that
they can read, understand and finish
something in English,
▪ and it will give the students a feeling of
achievement and self-confidence.

21. Choosing the Text
▪ three other basic criteria of choosing the
text:
▪ (1) the needs and abilities of the
students;
▪ (2) the linguistic and stylistic level of the
text;
▪ (3) the amount of background information
required for a true appreciation of the
material.

22. Choosing the Text
▪ A short-story may be about an
experience, an action, a meeting, a
conversation, the events of a day, or the
revelation of a character or characters.
▪ M. H. Abrams (1970) divides short-
stories into two as “story of incident” and
“story of character”

23. Choosing the Text
▪ In “story of incident”, the focus of interest
is on the course and outcome of the
events
▪ “Stories of character” focus on the
revelation of a state of mind and
motivation, or of moral qualities.
▪ nothing more happens than an
encounter and conversation between
two people

24. Choosing the Text
▪ Of the two, story of incident seems to be
more appropriate to use in English
classes
▪ because the students will be curious
about the outcome of the events,
curiosity will make them read and finish
the work.

25. HOW TO USE SHORT-
STORY
▪ After the choice of the text, the teacher should
produce activities to help the students
understand the text.
▪ The short-story to be studied must be assigned
to the students previously. This is because while
reading a text for the first time, students focus on
the structural meaning.
▪ However, each student’s reading and
understanding speed is not the same, and
the course hours are limited

26. HOW TO USE SHORT-
STORY
▪ the teacher should give very brief
information about the writer in order that the
students can see the writer in the context of
her/his time.
▪ After the information about the writer, as pre-
reading activities, the teacher may ask
questions about daily life of the students.
▪ These questions must be related with the
subject matter of the short-story.

27. HOW TO USE SHORT-
STORY
▪ By doing so, the teacher provides a
schema for a better understanding of the
text.
▪ Besides providing a schema, the teacher
achieves two important aims in terms of
language teaching as well:
▪ creating a real context to make the
students speak, and introducing the
culture of the target culture

28. HOW TO USE SHORT-
STORY
▪ After the pre-reading activities, the students
may find some sentences long or difficult to
understand or there may really be a long
and complicated sentence.
▪ In this case, the teacher should help the
students, either paraphrasing or acting out
or drawing.
▪ Otherwise the students will be frustrated by
the language of the literary work

29. HOW TO USE SHORT-
STORY
▪ Following the reading of the text, the
teacher may use a graphic organizer so
that the students can comprehend the
story better.
▪ A story map in particular will help
students understand the components of
the story.

30. HOW TO USE SHORT-
STORY
▪ A story map breaks down the
components of a story- characters,
setting, and dialogue in a series of events
or conflicts leading to a resolution-into
chunks of text that can help students
organize and comprehend the events of
the story.

31. HOW TO USE SHORT-
STORY
▪ Using a story map, teacher may encourage
his/her students to infer meaning from the text,
and is able to develop students’ reading and
speaking skills.
▪ The teacher asking suitable questions helps
students to fill the boxes in the organizer.
▪ So, the students have to infer answers to these
questions from the work. These activities help
students develop their reading and speaking
skills.

32. Important elements of
short stories
▪ Plot: the series of related events in a
story
▪ There are five main parts in the structure
of the plot
▪ exposition
▪ rising action
▪ climax
▪ falling action
▪ resolution/ denouement

33. Important elements of
short stories
▪ Exposition
▪ The beginning of the story which
prepares the base of upcoming events
▪ In this part, the major characters, the
setting and major conflicts in the story
are revealed.

34. Important elements of
short stories
▪ Rising action Conflict
▪ It presents and develops the major and
minor conflict in the text.
▪ (a person against another, society or a
group; a person against nature or one
person against himself/herself)

35. Important elements of
short stories
▪ Climax
▪ the point of highest excitement
▪ The central conflict reaches the highest
point of intensity
▪ Falling action
▪ the point in which the excitement
decreases
▪ It brings the story to its conclusion.

36. Important elements of
short stories
▪ Resolution/denouement
▪ the part in which the conflict is resolved
▪ It is the point where the main problem or
the conflict is resolved.