Stories in the Infant and Primary Classroom

Do you remember listening to stories as a child? Perhaps your grandmother was the story-teller in your family or maybe bedtime always meant a story with your mother or father. If you were lucky your teachers might have told you stories too. lf you think back to the stories you loved as a child, you can probably remember some of the exact words they used, and the special feeling they gave you.

Today's children love stories too, of course, and even if they don't hear them frorn their parents or grandparents, enjoy a range of televised and cinema 'stories' which capture theír imagination too. lf you look out into the typical Primary School playground, you will see scenes from 'Dragon Ball' or the latest Disney offering being acted out. When a child says 'Let's play Dra-on Ball',s/he probably goes on to say 'I am Goku ...' not 'I would like to be Goku: I wonder what he'd say lf .... ?' Children don't just talk about these storíes: they live them.

So stories are part of our cultural heritage, and part of the culture of childhood. They are    also a rich source of language and activities for children in Educación Infantil and Primaria.The   The theme of stories enables us to look at all kinds of different activities and procedures in the classroom, from oral practice to project work, and from the presetitation stage of the    class  through to evaluation.

Many of the techniques shown could be used in other ways and not, necessarily, in the context of a story.

a narrative sequence with a beginning, a middle and an end, characters, and a moral, a joke or a message....

There are different types of story:

stories in a song or poem, fairy stories, tradicional stories, religious stories, legends, "it happened to me" stories...

-language:

- activities:

• Stories are motivating, enyoyable and fun

• Stories are absorbing and involving ---à develop concentration skills

• Stories develop and draw on the child’s imagination

• Stories provide a link between fantasy, imagination and the child’s real world

• Stories provide a shared social experience

• Stories allow children to play with ideas and feelings; to think about issues which are important and relevant to them

• Stories provide an implicit introduction to the target language culture

• Stories develop important general learning skilla e.g. prediction, guessíng meaning, hypothesising

• Stories provide exposure to language – "comrehensible input"

• The discovery of new meaming is facilitated through visuals or mime

• Stories provide opportunities to link English with other areas of the currículum

• Stories act as a springboard for a whole range of related language activities

• Stories can be used to develop all four skillo (especially listening)

• Stories allow for the introduction or recycling of vocabulary and structures in mermorable contexts