Stories and poetry are effective resources for teaching language skills in a primary ESL classroom. They allow students to practice listening, speaking, reading and writing while picking up language patterns. Teachers should focus lessons on engaging students with the content or style of poems by relating them to personal experiences to develop language skills and assign meaning.

1. Week 8 Exploring and exploiting
stories/poetry in the primary ESL
classroom

2. Why?
• teaching the skills
– listening, speaking, reading and writing.
• skills students use to assign meaning
• a catalyst in developing language skills.
• effective language teaching resource
• pick up language patterns
• the use of words as poems often convey their
messages through unusual and interesting ways.

3. How
• allow the student to 'engage' with the poem
personally.
• focus on the content or style of the poem
• encourage the students' explorations of their
own experiences in relation to the poem
taught