Teaching English through stories and songs.

Resources for English teachers

By Elena Enache, Buturugeni School, Giurgiu

Keywords: stories; songs; online resources; increasing students’ motivation to learn; videos,
music; websites;

Abstract

All English teachers, whether teaching English to children or adults, face a big problem and that
is maintaining learners’ interest throughout the lessons. Teachers should always be creative in the
techniques they use. One interesting and funny way of maintaining learners’ motivation and
interest is the use of stories and songs in English. Stories are very popular and largely visual and
have a great impact on the young learners. Stories and songs have a great impact on the learner
firstly because they present themes which are interesting for them, and secondly because they
have a major input, and they are able to express what they want using what they were exposed to.

The advantages of using songs and stories in class are so many. Songs can be used for
vocabulary topics, for example for parts of the body, the alphabet, etc, and also songs help
learners to concentrate and develop their memory and vocabulary from early ages. They also
help them to develop their listening and speaking skills.

Stories and songs represent an important part in learning English, though it can be seen as a less
important asset, working with songs and stories can massively improve and extend the students’
vocabulary, imagination, fluency and way of talking and speaking about different things.

How to work with a story

First of all, all the stories nowadays have a video version which can be played in front of the
class, then the teacher can hand the students worksheets with the transcript of the story. It is
important for the students to read again the story in order for the teacher to check the
pronunciation of the new words and the whole other words and phrases in the story. The new
vocabulary can be presented in a Power point presentation together with a picture which
represents the new word. The types of exercises for a story are so many and they vary depending
on the story. After reading the story, the first type of exercise that can be used is “Answer the
questions.”, and here the teacher checks the comprehension of the text/story. Another type of
exercise is “Multiple choice”, again this type of exercise checks the comprehension of the text.
A more interesting exercise is a Crossword with a column A-B (vertically). The answers of the
crossword must be found in the story and while the students complete the crossword
horizontally, on the column A-B can result a certain word regarding the theme of the story.

True or False is another interesting exercise based on the story. And the teacher can also give the
students a Wordsearch based on the new vocabulary, students love this type of exercise. One
interesting way to check the Students’ knowledge about Past simple and regular and irregular
verbs is to hand the students the transcript of the story with the verbs in the brackets and they can
fill in with the right form of the verb in the Past simple, this can be done after they have seen the
video version of the story, at the beginning of the class.

Of course there are many more types of exercises as: finding the positive/negative adjectives of a
certain character, matching some new idioms or words with their meaning, writing compositions
about different subjects based on the stories, drawing certain things and then the students can
explain what the drawing is about, crafting a different scene of the story, for example if the
action of a story takes place in a garden the students can make a real small garden on a board and
explain what the characters did there, etc. Another interesting exercise is Role play, the teacher
can even put a play on stage, and children adore being actors. Working with stories leaves the
teacher the opportunity to be creative and to make things fun, easy and enjoyable.

What about songs?

The same story is with songs. Working with songs in an English class can instantly fill the
students with joy and make them more productive and receptive. Again the variety of the
exercises can be very rich. The most popular exercise is to fill in the blanks by listening to the
song. The teacher hands the students the lyrics of the song with some gaps, and the students must
fill in while listening to the song. Another exercise is to put the lyrics in the right order, while
listening to the song. Grammar can also be taught to students trough songs and moreover
vocabulary. Teaching songs related to different vocabulary lessons as family members, parts of
the body, animals, food, etc., can be very productive and funny for students, and they can very
easy acknowledge the new words.

The main advantage of using songs in the English class is that from early age children are more
likely to develop their pronunciation and their speaking. It is known the fact that if students don’t
have input, i.e. they are not exposed to listening to other people talking in English, it is very hard
for them to talk and express their ideas in English. Listening skills are developed in this way and
the students can be effective learners.

Resources for teachers in teaching English through stories and songs

There are many websites that are based on stories and songs and teacher can find them very easy,
some of them require a membership, that means someone has to pay in order to have access at
the content of the website, but fortunately there are websites that do not require any money.
Youtube it is a very famous website and I could say a tool in English classes. Youtube is already
known by everyone and it offers a multitude of songs and stories, and it can be easily used at the
English class.

British council has a very interesting website with some of the most interesting materials and
documents regarding teaching English. The website: http://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org
has many to offer, from songs and stories and some very interesting exercises based on them.
Each story and song have a video and also other interactive exercises internet based, that students
can access by their own.

Conclusion

Certainly songs and stories require much more time for the activities to follow up, but they are
more interesting and effective on the students’ motivation. The advantages are very clear, songs
and stories: develop students’ speaking, imagination, interest, attention, and make them feel
confident about what they know and how express what they want. Songs and stories represent an
important input for the students in a nice and enjoyable way.

Online resources that I recommend:

 http://www.youtube.com/
 http://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/

 http://www.english-for-students.com/

Biodata

Elena Enache is a postgraduate of the University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages

and Literatures. She has attended to different workshops, one of them in Strasbourg at the
European Parliament. Her passion is to teach English through funny and interesting ways. She
currently teaches English at Buturugeni School in Giurgiu.