Sold on Stories

How much easier do you imagine it must be to “remember” something when you also understand it?

Even more so, understanding it within the context of the story and the sentence.

Reading comprehension underpins the ability to Re-tell the story, and what is retelling else than explaining?

In Step THREE, the students are compelled to further interact with their new phrases to help solidify the language-learning lesson.

In the practice of TPRS, the story need not be complex, in actual fact the more straightforward and to the point the better!

The reason for this is of course that it aids in comprehension, however it is also done to improve and reinforce student engagement.

The story, as we know, is merely the medium here and the true stars of the show are the words and phrases.

Personalization of the story by the students offer them the opportunity to make the story relevant to them and relatable to their lives.

TPRS has at its core the starting and ending with the correct words that you want to teach your students. From an language-teaching-angle, target words are the stars of the story.

It is absolutely crucial to create an early foundation for meaning in TPRS teaching.

The last thing we want is for the learners to guess meaning and misinterpret context.

Once the focus moves from only teaching grammar and correction to understanding word-context and appreciating word-understanding, true language learning is the result!

The two aspects at the heart of TPRS is reading and storytelling.

TPRS keeps the learner engaged and entertained, through careful repetition in a varied and interesting manner.

All areas of learning and understanding are maximized in this way.

When you learn with stories, you don’t just learn a language, you learn to use the language from a practical perspective.

The biggest pull when reading a story is to discover what happens next.

So, learning with stories means you to focusing on the events of the story, instead of the grammar of the language.

This focus on meaning, helps you communicate in the language from the start.

Idioms, expressions and metaphors form an integral part of the English language.

It is vital that language learners understand and appreciate the abstract nature of these figures of speech.

Storytelling helps not only by forming a mental picture, but a concrete sense of understanding as well.

The sequence of the story affords the students chronological order and assists with crucial association.

Some of the benefits of storytelling in teaching and studying second languages include:

• Increased development of language skills,

Your accent as a non-native English Speaker will not hold you back when you speak.

See how Arnold Schwarzenegger, Penelope Cruz and Shakira got over accent bias and used their accents to their advantage

Your accent is unique and part of your heritage and culture.

Be proud of how you speak, but know how to fix pronunciation!

Take the opportunity to experience beautifully executed dialogue and masterfully delivered lines.

Good Will Hunting is a brilliant drama starring veteran Hollywood actors, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck & Robin Williams.

These actors speak with an easy rhythm and provide the perfect opportunity to learn and imitate speech and phrases.

See how different accents combine to form great scenes and enjoy non-natives in riveting conversations with mother-tongue  speakers.

The Shawshank Redemption is an amazing movie for English language learners to watch. It has all the characteristics to help with improving vocabulary, pronunciation, articulation and building better conversation-skills. The dialogue, plot and cast all combine to create the ideal scenario for movie-based English learning.