Activities to help students to tell stories

Being able to use the language students are learning is one of the most important and satisfactory aspects of learning a foreign language. Pupils need to notice that what they are learning has sense and a purpose.

For this reason, teachers have to provide activities in class in which students can use the language they are learning in a meaningful way. At the beginning and especially with not so proficient students we will use appealing and guided activities that will help students to become confident using the language they are learning and telling stories can be a great way to do this.

The following activities are just an example of the activities that we can use in class. They are very engaging for our students and could be used in different ways.

• Through these activities we can get our students involved in the creation of the material that we use in class. This could be a good way of motivating our students and involving them in the activities from the beginning. 
• Students can carry out oral or written activities to practice both oral or writing skills.
• These activities allow our students to work in groups, in pairs or even individually. In this way, we can adapt the activity to the necessities of the moment: evaluating our students oral or written competence, promoting oral or written skills, playing just for fun...

Activity 1. Telling stories using pictures drawn on stones.

source: http://www.baballa.com/

Students draw pictures on stones, pieces of cardboard or even shells they find on the beach and use them to invent stories.

Activity 2. Telling stories using objects that students find in a mystery box.

source: http://simplekids.net/

The teacher can choose different objects on purpose and students create stories with them. This can be very useful to review vocabulary they have already learnt.

Activity 3. Telling stories using items that pupils take out from bags.

Source: http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/

This activity is very similar to the previous one, but here we have different bags with different objects inside. In this way, students can rotate in different groups and in each one they can invent a different story about a different topic.

Activity 4. Creating stories pulling words from a jar. 

Source: http://imaginationsoup.net/

Challenge your students to create a story using all the words they can!

Activity 5. Using Spinners.

http://activities.tpet.co.uk

Using spinners can be a funny and a different way to choose the characters, the setting... when telling stories.

You can create your own spinners using the following templates: http://cte.sfasu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Templates-for-Spinners.pdf

Activity 6. Throwing dice. 

http://www.storycubes.com/

*You can watch this video on Youtube about how to tell a story using these "Story Cubes".

As you will see in the video above, you can throw some dice with different items on it and connect all the items in order to create a story. You can find this great cubes at http://www.storycubes.com/, but you can create your own cubes to adapt the vocabulary to the topics your students are learning.

Here you will find some templates to create your own dice: http://www.korthalsaltes.com/

Which activities do you use in your lessons to help your students to tell stories? 

Do you find these kind of activities useful? 

or Do you have problems with them and you prefer typical and traditional activities?