Specializarea: Profesor de limba și literatura engleză [306881]

UNIVERSITATEA DIN ORADEA

Departamentul pentru Pregătirea și Perfecționarea Personalului Didactic

Specializarea: [anonimizat] I

– Oradea 2016 –

UNIVERSITATEA DIN ORADEA

Departamentul pentru Pregătirea și Perfecționarea Personalului Didactic

Specializarea: [anonimizat] 2016

Contents

Introduction …………………………………………………………………………………………………………..5

Chapter 1: [anonimizat] ………………………………..8

[anonimizat] ………………..8

Approaches, methods, procedures and techniques to English language teaching and learning …………………………………………………………………………12

The communicative approach and “language will take care of itself” ………12

[anonimizat] (TPR)…………………………14

[anonimizat]…………………………………15

Advantages of early language learning ………………………………………16

[anonimizat] …………………………17

Studies on young learners’ attitude towards learning ………………………..21

[anonimizat] ………………………….22

Stories …………………………………………………………………………23

Sources for stories ……………………………………………………23

Why use stories with young learners? ……………………………….24

Approaches to using stories as teaching resources …………………..26

Drama – learning by doing ……………………………………………………27

What is drama? ……………………………………………………….27

Why use drama with young learners? ………………………………..28

Drama techniques …………………………………………………….29

[anonimizat] ………………………………….30

Chapter 2: Methodology – a story/drama based approach for developing language skills ……………………………………………………………………………………………………..33

Stories and drama to developing language skills …………………………………33

Listening ………………………………………………………………………35

Speaking ……………………………………………………………………..38

Reading ……………………………………………………………………….41

Writing ………………………………………………………………………..44

[anonimizat] …………………………………….47

[anonimizat] ……………………………………..49

The frog family ………………………………………………………………50

Little Red Riding Hood ……………………………………………………….53

We’re going on a lion hunt …………………………………………………..54

Goldilocks and the three bears ……………………………………………….56

The ant and the dove …………………………………………………………58

Santa’s little helper …………………………………………………………..59

The lion and the mouse ………………………………………………………60

When the toys had a secret ……………………………………………………62

Chapter 3: Research design and analysis ………………………………………………………..64

Research design …………………………………………………………………………………………….64

Research questions ……………………………………………………………64

Data collection instruments …………………………………………………..65

Respondents ………………………………………………………………….66

Data collection methodology …………………………………………………67

The questionnaire instrument ……………………………………….67

The observation instrument ………………………………………….70

The analysis of children’s activity instrument ………………………71

Results and analysis ………………………………………………………………………………………71

The children’s questionnaire – findings and analysis ……………………….71

The parents’ questionnaire – findings and analysis ………………………….77

The teachers’ questionnaire – findings and analysis …………………………81

The observation instrument – findings and analysis …………………………86

The analysis of the children’s activity – findings and analysis ……………….88

Conclusions ………………………………………………………………………….89

Conclusions ………………………………………………………………………………90

Reference list ………………………………………………………………………………..94

Index of figures ……………………………………………………………………………..97

Appendices………………………………………………………………………………………………………………99

Introduction

Teaching English to young learners in the age of globalization

Teaching English to young learners is both a difficult and enjoyable experience, in the same time a challenging and rewarding task, as it requires special attention mainly because of all the age features, specific to young learners, but also because of a whole set of expectations. In a globalization era, when English is considered the lingua franca, expectations come from parents, children, teachers and society. There are difficulties encountered by the teachers, difficulties that can become rewards and there are drawbacks that can turn into outcomes, if enough attention is paid to this demanding issue of teaching English as a foreign language to young learners. When teaching young learners, teachers should probably first of all make sure they can speak the language of children all over the world, which is a language of games, songs, stories and drama. All these are actually the most real and enjoyable situations that teachers could get into the English classes.

Defining the terms

Stories and drama as resources in teaching English to Young Learners in the Romanian context is a research work that focuses on teaching English to young learners using stories and drama as teaching resources for language exposure (through listening and reading) and meaningful/real situations for language production (speaking and writing). Moreover stories and drama are consistent with the nature of children serving as a motivating factor, taking into account that motivation is essential for success.

I will define what the main terms used throughout the research mean. Young learners are primary school children, from preparatory to the 4th grade, also the largest group of respondents. The term stories refers to all the possible types of literature we can use for children, like fairy-tales, classical stories, fables, chants, songs, even invented, whereas the term drama refers to activities from simple games involving movement to extended projects culminating in public performance. I referred to language exposure and meaningful situations for language production as being two major problems that English teachers encounter when teaching young learners. These two aspects are essential for children when acquiring their mother tongue and they are not less important when acquiring/learning the foreign language. Another important issue that I focused on is motivation because learning cannot properly take place without a correct motivation, which can be considered the mobile of the teaching/learning process. A distinction is made between extrinsic motivation, coming from outside the subject and intrinsic motivation coming from inside the subject.

Reasons for the topic choice

The topic choice for my thesis was motivated by a need that I noticed in my teaching experience. The society, parents, teachers and students themselves have great expectations for the English classes, expectations of language production as soon as possible. But how could they produce language, be it oral or written, if they are not enough exposed to the language and if they are not given real/meaningful situations for language production? These are the major aspects that motivated and inspired me to choose the theme for my research. I was also motivated by all the positive feed-back I got each time when I used story/drama based activities with my students.

Stories, drama and children seem to be the perfect combination for improving difficult aspects of teaching English to young learners.

Hypothesis and aims

The aims of this research are given by the four research questions that guided me throughout the whole research study.

Do children and parents, as beneficiaries of the teaching process, have an extrinsic motivation about learning English?

Aim: to show that the extrinsic motivation that children and parents have is the foundation teachers should build on and that intrinsic motivation is the result of the teachers’ activities during the teaching process.

Are stories and drama based activities effective in teaching English to young learners?

Aim: to give reasons and examples that illustrate how story/drama based activities can be used to wrap the language in attractive and interesting ways to better fit young learners.

Are language exposure (listening/reading) and meaningful language/real life classroom situations for language production (speaking and writing) problems that primary English teachers encounter?

Aim: to discuss and show that language exposure and meaningful language situations for language production are problems that primary English teachers encounter and that story/drama based activities can be solutions to both of them.

Is an English optional course “Dramatizing stories” desirable for primary level?

Aim: to provide an English optional course “Dramatizing stories”, addressed to young learners as a possibility of using dramatizing stories in the primary classroom.

Summarizing all these goals, I could say that my research aims to show that, in order to learn English, children need three essential things, namely language exposure, motivation and opportunities for use in order to produce language, which can be easily provided using stories and drama as teaching resources.

Chapter 1 Theoretical approaches – Literature review

In this chapter I will focus on aspects related to the theme of my research, which is stories and drama as teaching resources to young learners, from the theoretical point of view, as seen by different researchers in their studies on young learners.

English in the age of globalization – motivation and expectations

There is no official definition of global or world language, but it essentially refers to a language that is learned and spoken internationally. It is characterized not only by the number of its native and second/foreign language speakers, but also by its geographical distribution and its use in international organizations and in diplomatic relations. A global language acts as a lingua franca, a common language that enables people from different backgrounds and parts of the world to communicate. “Although English is not the language with the largest number of native or first language speakers, it has become a lingua franca. A lingua franca can be defined as a language widely adopted for communication between two speakers whose native languages are different from each other’s…” (Harmer, 2001:1). There are a number of reasons for the popularity of English as a lingua franca. Many of these are historical, but they also include economic and cultural factors. As pointed out by Jeremy Harmer, some of these factors are: a colonial history, economics, travel, information exchange, popular culture.

Fig. 1 – English in the World

To better understand the use of English in different countries, Braj Kachru (1985) conceived the idea of three concentric circles of the language.

Fig. 2 – Circles of English

The inner circle represents the traditional bases of English: the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Anglophone Canada, and some of the Caribbean territories. The total number of English speakers in the inner circle is as high as 380 million.

Next comes the outer circle, which includes countries where English is not the native tongue, but is important for historical reasons and plays a part in the nation's institutions, either as an official language or otherwise. This circle includes India, Nigeria, the Philippines, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Malaysia, Tanzania, Kenya, non-Anglophone South Africa and Canada, etc. The total number of English speakers in the outer circle is estimated to range from 150 million to 300 million.

Finally, the expanding circle encompasses those countries where English plays no historical or governmental role, but where it is nevertheless widely used as a foreign language or lingua franca. This includes much of the rest of the world's population: China, Russia, Japan, most of Europe, Korea, Egypt, Indonesia, etc. The total in this expanding circle is the most difficult to estimate, especially because English may be employed for specific, limited purposes, usually business English. The estimates of these users range from 100 million to one billion. The inner circle (UK, US, etc.) is 'norm-providing'. That means that English language norms are developed in these countries – English is the first language there. The outer circle is 'norm-developing'. The expanding circle (much of the rest of the world) is 'norm-dependent', because it relies on the standards set by native speakers in the inner circle.

English is being introduced to even more and even younger children and in many countries around the world English is now compulsory in primary education. This widespread introduction of English in primary schools has been described as “the world biggest policy development in education” (Nikolov, 2009a, Pinter, 2006 quoted in Garton, Copland, Burns, 2011). There is a number of reasons for this trend: the widespread assumption that earlier language learning is better, the response to the ever-increasing demand for English as a result of economic globalization and the pressure from parents who want their children to benefit socially and economically from learning English (Garton et all, 2011).

In this age of globalization teaching English proves to be a more challenging and demanding task than ever. English is not just a school subject that parents and children, even the whole society do not pay too much attention to, but it is a highly desirable issue, it is like a must for children, their parents and the society as a whole. And this is not only because of the fact that children need to take an exam, which is at the end of the 12th grade, or optional Cambridge exams, but the demand is actually for every day English skills, from as early ages as possible.

Motivation

I will discuss some theoretical background specifically on the issue of motivation.

“At its most basic level, motivation is some kind of internal drive which pushes someone to do things in order to achieve something.” (Harmer, 2001:51).

Talking about motivation Jeremy Harmer (2001) says that motivation is essential to success. We have to want to do something in order to succeed at it. Without such motivation we will almost certainly fail to make the necessary effort that will lead to success. I consider that discussing the process of teaching and learning English to young learners, the issue of motivation is to be taken into account. As stated previously, this age of globalization has influenced the attitude of society, parents and children, towards English language learning. Both parents and children have initial motivation to learning English, which could be taken by the English teachers as a foundation and start building on it. I consider that we do not need any longer to make kids and their parents understand the necessity of learning English, they already know it (see the parents and children’s questionnaire), but we have to work for short term motivation, using proper techniques, methods, activities to help learners within the learning process. They need to see progress and feel confidence, in order to get a sense of achievement, which is so important for both kids and their parents.

In discussions of motivation, a distinction is made between extrinsic and intrinsic motivation that is motivation coming from outside and inside the subject. Extrinsic motivation is caused by outside factors, for example the need to pass an exam, the hope of financial reward, the possibility of future travel, while intrinsic motivation, by contrast, comes from within the person. Consequently children, in our case, can be motivated by the enjoyment of the learning process itself or by a desire to make themselves feel better. Here comes the role of the teacher, because learners need both extrinsic and intrinsic motivation in order to succeed. As my research will show it, the motivation that almost all the kids and their parents have when coming to the English classes is probably not enough. Teachers still need to provide that kind of short term motivation, intrinsic motivation for the kids to succeed. Most researchers and methodologists contend that intrinsic motivation is especially important for encouraging success. Even when the starting point for learning English is extrinsic, the chances of success will be greatly enhanced if the students come to love the learning process and the parents the results of the learning process (Harmer, 2001).

According to Jeremy Harmer’s point of view, the motivation that brings students to the task of learning English can be affected and influenced by the attitude of a number of people, gathered in four groups, namely:

The society we live in

People close to them – parents, siblings

The teacher

The method

Discussing the aspect of learning English in our country, where kids often start at the pre-school level, as optional classes, followed by the primary classes when English has became compulsory from the preparatory grade, it is quite obvious what the attitude of the Romanian society is regarding English. As my questionnaires will prove, though parents’ attitude towards learning English is positive, their expectation are often not realistic and they do not match other things that should be taken into account like the number of English classes or the fact that kids are not being exposed to the language excepting for the school.

Approaches, methods, procedures and techniques to English language teaching and learning

I will provide a definition for each term that refers to the large aspect of language teaching, as presented and discussed by Harmer (Harmer, 2001:78, 79).

Approach – an approach describes how language is used, how people acquire their knowledge of the language and makes statements about the conditions which will promote successful language learning

Method – is the practical realization of an approach. It is about types of activities, roles of teachers and learners, material to be used, syllabus organization.

Procedure – is an ordered sequence of techniques, something set like this when explaining the activity to the students: first you…, then you do that…. It is smaller than a method, bigger than a technique.

Technique – it refers to something that the teacher does at a certain point within a method and a procedure to help the students understand better what is being taught. For example ‘finger technique’ is used by some teachers who hold up their hands and give each of their five fingers a word, e.g. He is not playing tennis, and then by bringing the is and the not fingers together, show how the verb is contracted into isn’t.

In the next two sections I will briefly discuss approaches and methods that most match the theme of my research.

The communicative approach and “Language will take care of itself”

CA also known as the Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) is the name given to a set of beliefs that included a shift in emphasis in how to teach, not only on what to teach. It is one of the most largely spread and mostly used EFL theories, developed by Widdowson (Stanișoară, 2003). The ‘what’ to teach aspect of CLT approach stressed the importance of language functions, rather than grammar and vocabulary (Harmer, 2001). The guiding principle was to train students use these language forms appropriately in a variety of contexts and for a variety of purposes. The ‘how’ to teach aspect of the CLT approach is closely related to the idea that “language will take care of itself”. The more exposed students are to the language and more situations for language production they have, the better for the learning process. Activities in CLT typically involve students in real or realistic communication where the accuracy of the language they use is less important than the communicative task itself. It is important here that the students should have a desire or a necessity to communicate, so they have a purpose for communication.

Now I would like to briefly refer to the idea that “language will take care of itself”, as it quite match the theme of my work, which is stories and drama as teaching resources for young learners. As I have pointed in the introduction part of my research, stories and drama are an important part when kids acquire their first language, so they are authentic and enjoyable material when teaching children a foreign language.

“Learning is the human activity which least needs manipulation by others. Most learning is not the result of instruction. It is rather the result of unhampered participation in a meaningful setting.” (Illich, 1972:56 quoted in Harmer, 2001:70) It appears that first language learning provides a perfect example of what he is talking about. What children have when acquiring mother tongue is the exposure to language, which he/she more or less understand at a certain point. And at the end of this process of exposure, there is the language, the motivation to communicate, to use what has been acquired. Going on this idea of exposure, Dick Allwright (1979 quoted in Harmer, 2001) talks about three elements that anybody needs in order to learn a new language: exposure, motivation and opportunities for use.

The American linguist Stephen Krashen (1984) considers that language learning is to be divided into acquisition and learning. Consequently language that we acquire is language that we can easily use in spontaneous conversation, while language that is learnt is not available for spontaneous use. Acquisition is related to several causal factors or hypotheses (Krashen, 1984):

The comprehensible input – input is the term used to mean the language that students hear or read. It had to be comprehensible even if it was slightly above their productive level and students have to be exposed to it in a relaxed atmosphere (compared to the adults talk to children).

The natural order hypothesis – it states that we acquire the rules of a language in a predictable order.

The monitor hypothesis – is about the fact that our ability to produce in the foreign language belongs to our acquired competence, while our ability to correct this language comes from learning, a conscious knowledge which serves as a monitor.

The affective filter hypothesis – it states that not only comprehensible input is necessary for language acquisition, but also the affective factor, which could function in two ways (a block that prevents language to be acquired, when there is no motivation and confidence or as something that will make acquisition possible).

Krashen’s hypotheses could be summarized as follows: learners acquire the foreign language only if they get comprehensible input and if their affective filters are low enough to allow the input in (Stanisoara, 2003).

Fig. 3 – Second language acquisition according to Krashen

Learning by doing – Total Physical response (TPR)

TPR was developed by James Asher and it reflects Krashen’s view of the comprehensible input. This method worked from the premise that adult second language learning could have similar development patterns to that of child language acquisition. TPR asks students to respond physically to the language they hear. (Harmer, 2001:90). This method, similarly to others has been criticized a lot, as it was considered to be more appropriate for beginner learners, especially young kids. With TPR children listen to their teacher telling them what to do, watch him/her doing and after that they do it by themselves. Instruction can range from very simple commands like “Touch your nose” to sentences more complex like “If your favourite colour is yellow, raise a yellow crayon” or “Go and stand next to the girl who is wearing a red jumper, but who isn’t wearing black shoes.” The commands can vary depending on the word sets and structures the teacher wants to work with. Children, especially very young ones, are able to understand much more than they can produce. Consequently, this technique builds on that capacity. Moreover it perfectly works with story based activities. My contention is that beginner young learners, stories, drama and total physical response seem to be a good combination for language exposure and for providing meaningful language situations for language production.

Fig. 4 – TPR

Early foreign language teaching-learning process

The age of our students is a major factor in deciding how and what to teach. People at different ages have different needs, competence and cognitive skills (Harmer, 2001). Some people say that children learn languages faster than adults do and that “acquisition guaranteed for children up to the age of six, is steadily compromised from then until shortly after puberty and it is rare thereafter” (Pinker, 1994 quoted in Harmer, 2001). This applies not only to the acquisition of the first language but also to second or foreign languages.

However, the early language acquisition is not always encouraged as suggested by other authors who contend that “the research on the benefits of an early start in foreign language learning is not particularly encouraging as findings over a long period of time suggest that when the foreign language is restricted to the classroom there are few, if any, long term gains from starting foreign language learning at a very young age.” (Robinson, Mourao, Kang, 2015:5) Moreover, as Murphy suggests, the language knowledge and skills developed during such experiences create a strong foundation for more effective language learning in future (Murphy, 2014 quoted in Robinson, Mourao, Kang, 2014).

In my experience the situation is often complicated by the parents’ expectations and the limited time for the English classes, which is actually limited time for what I would call ‘English in use’. What parents should understand here is the fact that their kids will not be able to communicate in English after two or three years of studying at school, one or two classes per week, but all the English language experience during these early years of studying, when and where they can communicate in given, limited situations, controlled and monitored by the teacher will strongly help them throughout the years to come.

Advantages of early language learning

When speaking about teaching English to young learners, there are two questions that inevitable arise: ‘Taking into account that at this age children are still learning their mother tongue, are there reasons enough for exposing them to another language? And if there are reasons enough can one also speak about advantages that children may have by learning a foreign language at this early stage?’ Reinhold Freudenstein (1991) stands for three main advantages of early foreign language learning. I will put down and analyze each of the three advantages considered by him.

Intellectual improvement

He shows that children who learn a foreign language at an early stage tend to be superior to those who do not, both in verbal and non-verbal behavior. Intellectually, a child’s experience with two language systems seems to give him/her greater mental flexibility and a more diversified set of mental abilities.

Mother-tongue improvement

Freudenstein claims that children who start learning a foreign language early can better understand their native language system, as they become conscious of the existence of language as phenomenon. That is why he considers false the idea that learning a foreign language at primary level interferes with the development of the mother-tongue or even interrupts its acquisition. In this respect he takes the example of so many bilingual and multilingual children all over the world who do not suffer as a result of knowing and using several languages effectively in their everyday communication. I would not take this second advantage as a main reason for teaching and learning a foreign language at primary level, although it may be true that there are benefits regarding the mother-tongue improvement, but I do agree that learning a foreign language at this early stage cannot negatively influence the development of the children’s mother-tongue, in the contrary it might help.

Cultural gains

“Children who speak foreign languages tend to have a wider cultural outlook than monolingual children who often believe that their own culture and customs are the only ones that matter.” (Freudenstein, 1991: 18) Opening children’s mind to other cultures and people, through teaching them a foreign language, could only work for the benefit of the children. The quality of teaching foreign languages is also paramount: “Every effort should be made to arrange for teaching and learning situations in which the foreign language can be discovered in such a way that only positive attitudes can result from and be connected with.” (Freudenstein, 1991: 19)

Speaking about reasons and benefits of teaching English or other foreign language in the primary level Brewster, Ellis and Girard (1992) give three reasons for teaching foreign languages at this early age: first, the idea of increasing the total number of years spent in learning the language. Secondly, it is said that teaching in primary school is, not as structured and rigid as later. But the reason most commonly used is that children at this age have a natural facility for learning a foreign language. It might be a pity not to expose children to a foreign language, at an age when they are naturally endowed for this experience, more than they might be later, an age that facilitates their learning and besides this the teacher’s job is also facilitated. This early teaching should prepare the children for further learning, should give them a positive attitude towards learning languages, but should also provide them the knowledge they are able to deal with. I will later emphasize how vital the teacher’s attitude might be regarding his/her job of getting as close to the children as possible, in order to be able to give them the information they need in the most useful and appropriate way for their age and level of development.

Age features – resources to teaching young learners

Susan Halliwell considers that “Young children do not come to the language classroom empty-handed. They bring with them an already well-established set of instincts, skills and characteristics which will help them to learn another language.” (Halliwell, 1992: 3) It means that each child comes into the language classroom with a set of age features, which can be easily explored in the language learning process. I will briefly discuss some of these natural features that children have, as I consider important how they can be explored by the use of stories and drama based activities in the teaching-learning process of the foreign language.

Children’s curiosity

Rivers advises the foreign-language teacher to capitalize on the children’s “autonomous impulses such as curiosity, the desire to know and understand, the desire to know and explore, and the impulse to manipulate features of the environment.” (Rivers, 1983 quoted in El-Helaly, 1987:110) Her point is that teacher should explore children’s natural desire to discover new things and learn about them. Each new discovery will make them happy and will make their desire of new stronger, but it is teacher’s skill that should explore their world and make it useful for teaching them English.

Children’s ability to grasp meaning

It is well known that young children are able to understand what somebody tells them before they understand individual words. Intonation, gestures, facial expressions help children guess what the unknown words might mean. This is obviously valid for children acquiring their native language, but it will remain forever a part of human communication and it can be successfully used when teaching English to children. This is why a teacher should make full use of gestures, intonation, demonstration, actions and facial expressions to convey meaning parallel to what he/she is saying. Much more, all of these actions will make the lesson more pleasant and attractive for the children.

Children’s creative use of limited language resources.

At the beginning of their mother tongue development, children are very good in “making a little language go a long way” (Halliwall, 1992:4). They are very creative with grammatical forms, with concepts, with vocabulary. As shown in an example of a four years old child, who says, when he wants the light put on: ”Switch off the dark. I don’t like the dark shinning.”(Halliwall, 1992) This feature may be better seen when the children are asked to communicate in English or when playing games. It is true that when the teacher allows children to make use of this feature, they will probably make many mistakes, but these are part of teaching and learning a foreign language, especially to children, but not only. When writing their own stories based on the example provided by the teacher, this problem of error correction might appear.

Children’s capacity for indirect learning.

Considering this issue, Susan Halliwell (1992), gives an example of indirect learning. Her example is about language activities which involve children in guessing what phrase or word someone has thought of. The children are not trying to learn words or phrases but they are concentrated to guess right. In reality they will also learn some new words and phrases, but not in a direct way, because their minds were not focusing on the language. A teacher should not only focus on direct or indirect learning. They both are important: “conscious direct learning seems to encourage worked-out accuracy. Unconscious indirect learning, or acquisition, encourages spontaneous and therefore more fluent use. Ideally we want both accuracy and fluency to develop.” (Halliwell, 1992: 5). So, there should be a balance between direct and indirect learning, but my opinion is that children are more opened to indirect learning, but this does not mean that direct learning should be ignored. It will be emphasized during the presentation of classroom activities how stories and drama are just perfect for what we call indirect learning. Kids will actually learn and practise language, while listening, reading, acting their favourite stories.

Children’s instinct for play and fun.

Children have an enormous capacity to find and make fun. This is part of their age and ignoring it in the English classroom is to lose one of the best ways of making English language attractive and easy to learn. Moreover fighting against this feature means to create a difficult class atmosphere, for both teacher and children, while using it in a proper way can be success in teaching and learning English. Well, what can be funnier than listening to your favourite story or getting into the action of it while taking the role of your favourite character? Most of the stories written for children are funny or at least they have something funny, they have funny characters and kids can have fun listening to them. Moreover when taking different roles they can transfer those funny things as being their own.

Children’s imagination.

Kids all over the world have a real, natural delight for imagination and fantasy. This natural characteristic of their age has a very constructive role in learning a foreign language. Teacher should be concerned with real life when teaching English, but he/she should not forget that “reality for children also includes imagination and fantasy” (Halliwell, 1992:7). There is no child in the world not to imagine a monster with five legs, talk to animals, pretend being an animal or a fairy tale’s character. The sense of absurd is part of a child’s life and the teacher should make use of it when teaching English. My contention is that there is a “universal” language for kids, a language that kids all over the world love and speak. It is the language of stories and drama.

Children’s instinct for interaction and talk.

Susan Halliwell considers this feature as probably being the most important for the language teacher as there is no language learning without talking and without interaction. The English teacher should make full use of this instinct and try to develop it within the students who are not very willing to talk or interact. Children need to talk, but it is teacher’s job to use appropriate knowledge and skills for transforming this need into something constructive for the teaching purpose. “They can learn about language, but the only way to learn to use it is to use it. So our job is to make sure that the desire to talk is working for learning not against learning.” (Halliwell, 1992:8) Sharing the same idea, Sarah Hudelson shows Lev Vygotsky’s opinion about learning and young learners. He worked in the zone of proximal development and considered that children learnt in social context, which means that children need experiences where they are interacting and learning from the others, both children and adults (Vygotsky, 1962 quoted in Hudelson, 1991:2). Taking this into the area of language classes, she concludes that children need to use the new language with each other and with the teacher. Consequently children need opportunities to use and experiment with the new language. This supposes a communicative approach of teaching English which focuses on involving pairs and small groups of learners in authentic communicative situations and activities which imply this. What can be more authentic for kids than their own interests, which are not things like a conversation in an airport or a dialogue in a restaurant, but the world of their favourite characters, their own magic world?

Children’s need of movement

Speaking about the children’s natural characteristics the teacher should be aware of and take into account when teaching English, Scott and Ytreberg (1990:5) consider that “Most activities for the younger learners should include movement and involve the senses. You will need to have plenty of objects and pictures to work with, and to make full use of the school and of surroundings. Demonstrate what you want them to do.” Their contention is that a language teacher could not have real success in teaching young learners while ignoring their age and natural features. Children’s need for movement is the reason for the teacher to use activities that involve movement, action and variety. The use of action songs, poems, stories, drama which involve motions and acting are very welcomed in order to turn this feature, often considered an impediment, into something positive, a tool in teaching young learners.

Children’s need to manipulate objects

Sarah Hudelson, when she talks about working with objects and pictures, shows what the Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget and his colleagues have demonstrated. Children in elementary or primary school are usually in what is called the concrete operational stage of cognitive development. This means that “they learn through hands-on experiences and through manipulation of objects in the environment.” (Hudelson, 1991:2) or “children in primary or elementary school settings generally learn by doing” (Piaget, 1955 quoted in Hudelson, 1991:2) These explanations for what the concrete operational stage of development means emphasize the importance of providing, for children, situations in which they can see, touch, do and consequently as they follow this pattern, the learning will take place according to their age, needs and development.

Children’s need of variety

Another aspect to be taken into account is that children’s concentration and attention spans are short, that is why “variety is a must – variety of activity, variety of pace, variety of voice, variety of organization.” (Scott and Ytreberg, 1990:5) Everybody knows that at this age children cannot be asked to have a great ability to concentrate within the same activity, the same organization, listening to the same voice and so on. Therefore this need of variety in the young learners foreign language classroom becomes a must. However this problem of variation is often misunderstood by the young learners’ teacher. Variation understood as doing lots of activities on different topics, within the same lesson is not a helpful form of variation. Variation does not mean changing the topic. The useful form of variation is to keep the same topic and materials, but change the work or activity, within the same topic (Halliwell, 1992).

Studies on young learners’ attitude towards learning

Attention has been paid to studying different aspects related to young learners, in order to bring improvements to the field of teaching/learning process. Researchers have been interested in their age features, aspects of motivation, attitude and interests. I will refer to one study, on students’ attitude towards learning English, conducted by a group of Chinese researchers (Jin, Jiang, Zhang, Liang and Xie, 2014), because from it I adapted some ideas for my research section of my thesis. According to Lakoff’s studies of metaphors in cognitive linguistics, metaphors can be explored to reveal deeper thoughts of participants on concepts and views (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980; Lakoff, 1993 quoted in Jin and all, 2014:9). Cortazzi and Jin (2001) have been developing the use of metaphor analysis as a research method to investigate perceptions about learning, teaching, language, concepts of dyslexia, curriculum subject learning, intercultural business communication and motivations for learning English. The metaphor analysis method in the above mentioned research aimed to elicit three elements from the informants: a target domain which is abstract (learning English), a source domain, which is a concrete image the informant gives to resemble key features of the concept and an ‘entailment’ clarifying the reasons or underlying meanings of the relationship between the target and the source. For example learning English is like a roller-coaster because learning is always ups and downs with happiness and difficulties.

Stories and drama – the magical universe of childhood

In this section I will present and discuss some theoretical background on the topic of stories and drama as resources to teaching young learners.

Storytelling and drama share a number of features which make it natural to integrate them during lessons. Both build on children’s natural capacity for fantasy and imaginative play, they are classroom activities that engage children’s interest, attention, imagination, and develop their language skills in a holistic way. They also appeal to children with different intelligences and learning styles. Carol Read in her book “500 Activities for the primary classroom” speaks about how to use story based lessons and drama activities in the English language classroom. She states that stories provide a natural, relevant and enjoyable context for exposure to language and a great opportunity for the children to become familiar with the sounds, rhythm and intonation of English. As children gradually develop their ability to understand, retell, read, act out or make their own stories in English, their motivation, confidence and sense of achievement increase.

Besides this, children can easily share with their parents, giving them the opportunity to continue at home what has been started in class. As a result this will get to the fulfilment of their expectations, both parents and children.

Each story can be turned into a drama activity, longer or shorter, the whole story or only a part, but it is very important to adapt both the stories and drama activities according to the learners’ level and to the teaching aims. Taking into account that we are focusing on teaching English as a foreign language to young learners (primary students), the story itself and the script of the drama activity should be carefully adapted to the age and level. The Penguin readers and Express Publishing Readers are of great help when providing material for the story and drama based activities with young learners, as I provided examples in the Story and drama notes section of my thesis.

Stories

I will refer to stories focusing on some important aspects like sources for stories, reasons for using stories as resources with young learners and some approaches to teaching through stories, all of them as presented by different researchers in their studies on the story based approach for young learners.

Sources for stories

As Marie E. Baker shows it, “basically children’s literature encompasses narratives like fables and myths, fairy tales and stories; plays, poetry, and traditional literature such as riddles, rhymes, saying, etc.” (1989:114). Speaking about possible sources for the children’s literature, Sarah Phillips (1993) provides a kind of diagram, made up during a brainstorming session she had with a group of teachers (fairy tales, comics, newspaper and magazines, myths and legends, films, animations, cartoons, songs, poems, invented). Consequently stories can be selected from a range of sources like graded readers, story websites on the internet, picture books written for children whose first language is English. More important than choosing a story (because children usually like and enjoy all the stories) is the way we adapt it to the class and level, but also the activities selected to use with each story.

Fig. 5 – Story sources

Why use stories with young learners?

Stories are an enjoyable and consistent source of language exposure

An advantage of using stories at this level is that children are still in the period of stories, they still ask for stories, chants and poems before going to bed. Moreover they never seem to get bored of listening to the same story over and over again. This can be considered an advantage, as repetition is of great help when learning a foreign language. Therefore, it can be productive for the language classroom to expose children to something they like, something that could only help them better relate to the foreign language. Stories provide a natural, relevant and enjoyable context for exposure to language and an opportunity to familiarize children with the sounds, rhythm and intonation of English. Meaning and understanding of the story is supported through things such as visuals, mime, gesture, voice and characterization. Children also develop learning strategies and thinking skills, such as predicting, hypothesizing, guessing and inferring meaning.

Stories are universal features in primary classrooms

Another reason for discussing about story based activities with young learners is the fact that stories are a universal feature in pre-primary and primary classrooms, but also in primary classrooms throughout the world. This actually means that story listening, telling and reading is a routine activity. Children are used to activities related to stories, in their mother tongue, since early childhood. For most of the children, stories are a means of acquiring mother tongue. Consequently it could be just the same with the foreign language.

There is an abundance of literature for children

There is an abundance of literature for young learners, which teachers and parents can easily get, like graded readers, story sites on the internet, picture books originally written for children whose first language is English, etc. as shown in Chapter 2, section Stories and drama notes.

The educational value of stories is well recognized

“The educational value of stories is well recognized, with research over many decades demonstrating the strong connections between listening to stories and young children’s cognitive, social, emotional, first language and literacy development.” (Robinson, Mourao and Kang, 2015:14). The same idea is shared at some extend by other researchers who consider that the educational value of using storybooks has rarely been disputed.

But “there was some resistance among teachers to using stories in the primary English language teaching classroom.” (Ellis and Brewster, 1991:6) This resistance was due to a variety of reasons: a lack of confidence in their ability to tell stories, a feeling that the language in storybooks was too difficult, a feeling that the content of storybooks was sometimes to childish, a lack of understanding the true value of using storybooks, a lack of understanding of how to use storybooks and of time to prepare a plan of work. These reasons mentioned by the two authors can easily be noticed today, when observing, talking to different teachers, applying different questionnaires on this theme. I would like to refer to another reason that gives resistance to using stories in the foreign language classroom, which is the lack of time, to be more specific time allocated to the English classes in our schools that is not enough, especially compared to the expectations of language learning. This problematic issue of time makes teachers skeptical about using story based activities on the criteria of being time consuming.

Stories are consistent with the nature of children, serving as motivating factor

Because children’s literature is consistent with the nature of children, it is an excellent vehicle for listening skills development, but also for oral-language development (Barker, 1989:115). As I have already mentioned stories and drama activities match almost all of the children’s age features, discussed in the previous section. This type of activities provides plenty of variation for developing all the language skills when working with young learners. Using stories serves as a motivating factor for subsequent eliciting of oral as well as written language. The child’s attention is quickly captured and easily maintained, especially if the initial presentation is accompanied by stimulating visual aids. Stories and drama activities can be of great help to work on the problematic issue of motivation, both intrinsic and extrinsic, because through stories and drama we can both stir and keep children’s motivation and desire to learn, as their main focus will not be on learning but on the activity itself, be it a story or a drama activity. As children increasingly develop their ability to understand, retell, act out and/or create their own stories in English, this also has a positive effect on their motivation, confidence and self-esteem.

Stories fit any type of linguistic phenomena

Any type of linguistic phenomena desired by the teacher can be easily included in the language of the story, and later on worked on through different activities (Martin, 1977:1 quoted in Barker, 1989:115). All the four language skills can be taught and practiced through stories, including pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar. Not only that they fit all the language skills and more, but they also give possibilities of dealing with language in attractive ways that fit early age.

Stories develop social skills

Stories help young children develop concentration skills and also aspects of emotional intelligence, such as empathy and relating to other people. Stories also provide a springboard for a wide range of activities which develop language, thinking skills, positive attitudes and citizenship, as well as appreciation of other cultures, or understanding of content from other areas of the curriculum.

Fig. 6 – Why use stories with young learners?

Approaches to using stories as teaching resources

Stories are mainly used with the two receptive skills, listening and reading, but starting from listening and reading, the productive skills can also be practiced or taught. There are various possible approaches to using stories in class. These range from occasional use of stories to supplement a topic or structure-based course book, to using a story-based course book, and possibly supplementing this with additional stories as well, to basing the whole language program and syllabus on a selection of stories which the children study over a period of time, e.g. two or three stories per term. All the examples that I provided in Chapter 2 and in the Appendices section, can be used in either of the situations presented above.

One of the main ways that children learn to read in a language (mother tongue and foreign) is through pictures. It is a good starting point for reading in the foreign language to follow the mother tongue pattern. Consequently the first reading in the foreign language should be through pictures or illustrations of their favourite stories. There are interesting dialogues and descriptions that they can make, starting from guided activities to more independent ones. Teacher’s questions can help them start their picture reading adventure, using the easiest and the most common language sets and structures, eg. Can you see a lion in the picture?, Is the lion big or little?, What colour is Mrs. Mouse’ bow?. Pictures help children guess the meaning of words they do not know. If they guess and it is not the teacher to give them the meaning, the sense of achievement increases. Consequently they will better remember these words, similarly to miming. Actually the teacher does not translate words but mimes them, which make the difference. Some activities that take the children from the pictures to the words are when they predict some key aspects of the story, before seeing the pictures, focus particularly on the illustrations when they hear or read the story, retell the story using the pictures as prompts, match key phrases and sentences to the right picture.

Drama – learning by doing

I will present the main aspects related to drama, as presented by some researchers in their studies about different approaches to teaching young learners.

What is drama?

According to a study published by Pearson Education Limited about drama techniques, drama is essentially a creative activity involving movement, language, imagination, emotion and social interaction to represent a story, a situation, a moment or an act.

When the word drama is mentioned several words come to mind: role play, acting, pretending, miming, performance, theatre, puppets, characters, scenes…the list is endless. In the classroom, drama activities range from simple games involving movement, to an extended project culminating in public performance.

Why use drama with young learners?

There are multiple reasons for using drama in primary education, not only when talking about foreign language learning, but generally speaking. I will mention and briefly discuss some of them as found in the literature review.

Drama expands children’s knowledge of the world

Through drama children expand their knowledge of the world, they learn social skills and develop their communication skill.

Drama provides learning by doing situations

Drama provides opportunities for multi-sensory, kinaesthetic responses to stories and engages children in ‘learning by doing’ at a number of different levels. At a basic level, through listening and responding to storytelling and doing short, introductory drama activities, children use mime, sounds, gestures and imitation to show their understanding and to make connections between language and corporal expression. This helps children to associate actions, words and meanings and memorize key language in a natural and enjoyable way.

Drama provides opportunities for recycling the language

As children become familiar with the story, more extended drama activities provide opportunities for recycling the language it contains through retelling or acting out, either by the children themselves or by the children using puppets. In these activities, the use of drama provides a focus and support for children to use language from the story in an independent way and also contributes to building up their confidence and self-esteem.

Drama provides children with confidence

The preparation of a class production for an audience of parents and others is different from other simple classroom drama activities. However, preparing and performing a class play can also have enormous benefits for children’s language development, confidence and self-esteem and prove extremely worthwhile and rewarding.

Drama provides situations for language production

Important and relevant here is the fact that using drama activities teachers can quite easily provide what we call real language or meaningful language situations into the English class. When kids take on the role of a character, no matter that it is in a dramatizing song, a simple dialogue, a scene from a story, a chant or something else, they consider the situations presented in the drama activity as their own, they live a real life scene, which make language meaningful to them.

Drama rehearsal can turn into a perfect English strategy, because the children will get involved with putting on a play rather than with a task of learning English. It will be natural in the context of rehearsing to repeat over and over again, without the problem of boredom. Children will make use of English with a specific aim, they will have fun and get great joy out of their activity of performing.

Drama is naturally a part of childhood

One should also consider that drama is naturally a part of childhood. It is part of children’s play all over the world. What can be more common for kids than playing “Let’s pretend”? And they are pretty good when doing this. If we just take time and observe some kids playing alone or in group, one of their favourite games or activities is assuming different roles (animals, toys, other people, characters) from their favourite animations or cartoons). They go like this: I am… and you are…This is…You say and I go here and there…do this and that…. It would be such a pity not to make use of this special feature that kids have, which is of great help when teaching.

Drama techniques

According to Penguin readers studies, broadly speaking there are three main techniques to dramatizing stories:

Using movement without speaking – mime.

Mime involves all the students in pretending that they are a part of the story, imagining themselves as a character, while listening to the story. For example students imagine that they are all Goldilocks and they knock at the door or taste the hot porridge. In order to help them with the miming, the teacher can also mime when first presenting the story.

Using story dialogues and scripts

The most important thing here is the fact that it combines movement with controlled or guided speaking. The scripts and the dialogues should be carefully adapted to the learners’ level and age.

Using story dialogues and scripts actually turns the story into something real and allows children to be part of a magical world.

Role play or improvisation

Pupils use their own language resources and creative movement to act out what the characters of a story say. Role plays can be based on a narrated scene from a story (as a variation, students are given the script and they write the narration). This type of activity better works with 3rd and 4th graders.

Fig. 7 – Drama techniques

Among the activities I provided, there are examples to match each of these techniques and there are variations that teachers can use: pupils can be characters themselves or puppets (hand, finger, stick puppets) can be used. As seen from the activities, the whole story can be dramatized or just a scene. Children could use masks or costumes, real objects can be used to set the scene, or only background pictures. All these aspects may vary depending on several criteria that are to be taken into account: the age, the level, the classroom, the number of students, the material resources, the effective time for the drama activity, etc.

Making the story real – dramatizing stories

One of the best things when using stories and drama as teaching resources is the fact that there is a strong relation between the two of them. Each story as a whole, or only parts of it, can be easily turned into a drama activity, from the most simple to the most complex.

Concrete items, such as puppets, props and costumes, support drama activities based on stories. Actually these are the magic things that bring the story out of the page of a book into real like, creating real life language situations for children and exposing them to real language. Children will find things that they touch, hold, see and wear easier to understand and remember, but also more enjoyable. Young learners still have that imagination that make them believe in puppets and these puppets can be more real that a classmate simply acting as a story character. There are several aspects that can help teachers to bring a story to life and I will briefly present them bellow:

Puppets

Pupils enjoy talking to puppets and making puppets talk so they are good choices for dramatizing stories. Moreover students can make their own simple puppets, which will also give the possibility of further practice at home.

As a craft activity, making puppets gives children exposure and practice in the language of instructions and reinforces language describing the characters of a story. There are several types of puppets that can be used, from easier and very simple to more difficult and complex ones. Some puppets have moving mouths, some do not, some work better for animals, some for people.

Each story may require a different type of puppet, depending on the characters, the students and not last on the resources. Stick puppets are maybe the easiest, they are easy to make, use and keep. It is enough to have some simple pictures of the characters. Finger puppets are maybe a little bit more complex as they involve drawing, colouring, cutting and sticking, but they seem more real and one advantage is that one student can take in different roles, keeping more than one character on the fingers. Hand puppets can be bought or they can be made of different materials: fabric, boxes, paper bags, etc.

Masks

Masks representing different characters in the story are worn over the face. Children enjoy making masks as much as they enjoy making puppets and it is a pleasant, useful craft work activity, which can break the routine of an English class, creating diversity and giving the chance to work on different skills and abilities. Stick masks or elastic masks could be used, depending on the situation.

Props and costumes

Props are objects used by the characters in the drama, whereas costumes are the clothing that the characters wear. Props help students play out a scene, while costumes help them stay in character. Props can be items found at home or they can be made with paper, scissors and glue. Costumes do not need to be extremely complicated, a whole suit of clothes and exactly like the clothing in the illustration. Most of them can be easily adapted on the resources we have. Usually a hat or a jacket is enough to represent a character and they can be easily removed if students need to switch roles.

Scenery

Scenery represents the arrangement of the environment, the buildings, the land the furniture and so on in a story. Different common objects could be used to set the scene, like desks, chairs, the blackboard, etc. It is a good idea to paint some large white sheets for different backgrounds. The details could be added for different stories and situations, for example a jungle, a forest, a house, etc. Water can be made of paper or some blue cloth. What is very important about staging a play is that kids are part of all the preparations, they can work as a team, all the rehearsals and preparation giving them the chance for language exposure and creating real communication situations. What is more, parents can be involved in some of these activities.

Chapter 2: Methodology – a story/drama based approach of developing language skills

My research aims to show that an appropriate way of wrapping English to teaching young learners is using stories and drama as resources. Following this aim, Chapter 2 is focused on practical activities which illustrate the theme and fulfil the major goal of my research. I will discuss and illustrate how stories and drama can be easily used to match all the four language skills, as well as grammar or pronunciation, providing enjoyable activities for young learners. Besides these, stories and drama can provide three essential things, necessary to learn a new language: exposure, motivation and opportunities for use, all of them leading to language production.

Section 2.1 focuses on the four language skills (listening, speaking, reading, writing), having a general analysis of each one. After that, in more details, I will point out aspects related to teaching/developing language skills through drama/story based activities.

Section 2.2 is the presentation of the optional English course Dramatizing stories, for 3rd and 4th grade, adaptable for younger learners, optional that I used during and for my research.

Section 2.3 of my thesis presents some drama/story notes that I used during my research with different groups of respondents within the optional course “Dramatizing stories” or other similar activities. Each subsection of Story and drama notes section is structured on the following pattern: background and summary of the story, topics and themes, grammar and structures, suggestions and possible activities based on the story/script.

All the worksheets, scripts and some other samples for the stories/drama activities included in section 2.3 or in the Dramatizing stories optional course, can be followed in the Appendix section of my theses. I would like to mention that all the worksheets that do not have a source mentioned are my contribution to the research.

Stories and drama to developing language skills

Teaching young learners is rewarding and challenging, as it demands special attention. Whenever we want to teach children something, for best results we must be able to “wrap” our teaching activities in such a way that our pupils hardly notice that they are learning (van Oort, 2005:3). With stories and drama based activities teachers can wrap all the four language skills, pronunciation and grammar in amazing ways that will turn children’s attention from learning to pleasant and enjoyable activities. As illustrated in the examples provided throughout this chapter, stories and drama give multiple possibilities of “wrapping” what we want to teach. They perfectly match this early age and all the features that young learners have, as described in Chapter 1.

Fig. 8– The four language skills for young learners

An important part of being a language teacher is having a wide repertoire of activities to teach and practise different aspects of language at your fingertips (Ellis and Brewster, 2014). Stories and drama based activities, as it will be illustrated, provide multiple possibilities of using each story in various ways for all the possible aspects of language. Moreover, they perfectly match different types of activities specific for the four language skills.

Stories and drama are good resources for both language exposure through listening and reading and language production through speaking and writing. The diagram bellow illustrates the relation between these important aspects of learning a foreign language: language exposure, opportunities for use and language production.

Fig. 9 – Stories and drama to developing language skills

Listening

Listening tasks are essential in the primary language classroom, providing a rich source of language data. This is the foundation from which the children begin their own idea of the language. The knowledge they get through listening forms the base or the resource that they will eventually draw in order to produce language themselves (Philips, 1993). Consequently, for young learners, listening is the main source to provide language, it is the way to language exposure. This language exposure will, at a certain point, get children to language production, on the condition that they will have meaningful situations to use the language acquired.

Reasons for teaching listening

Listening comes first in acquiring mother tongue

Listening is the skill that children acquire first, when speaking about the mother tongue and I think that this is the skill that they should learn and acquire first when speaking about a foreign language.

The necessity for language exposure

Language exposure is the foundation for later language production, just like the way it happens when children acquire their mother tongue. What comes next after language exposure (be it through listening activities or through reading activities later) is to provide situations for language production, appropriate for this age group. The right language exposure and language production situations will provide both kids and their parents with a sense of language achievement, essential in the teaching-learning process.

The age advantage

Children are naturally endowed for listening, being at the age when they just love listening to their favourite stories before going to bed and not only. Moreover, kids seem to never get tired of listening to the same stories over and over again, aspect that could be taken as an advantage on the consideration that through repetition they will be more likely to acquire language.

Listening to stories

Listening to stories is not a passive activity for children, because while listening they can also observe the gestures of the storyteller, the voice which is also very important and they also make connections using the visuals (pictures, realia, puppets, etc.). Listening to stories can lead to all the other language skills: speaking, writing and reading. During these listening activities they try to predict what comes next, they guess meanings of different words. If they are familiar to the stories in their mother tongue, children will be able to match English words and expressions with the mother tongue, making use of whatever could help them to better understand the story (Ellis and Brewster, 2014). In drama and story notes section of my work I provided different examples of how to get students involved during such activities.

Guiding ideas for teaching listening

There are different aspects to bear in mind when planning to develop listening skills with young learners. I will mention and briefly discuss some of them according to Ellis and Brewster (Ellis and Brewster, 2014).

Give children confidence through developing strategies for listening

It is important in order to get confidence and a sense of achievement to involve kids in the listening activity through predicting, inferring opinion or attitude, working out the meaning from context, recognizing discourse patterns and markers. Once they develop basic listening strategies their confidence will increase and the sense of achievement, too. Routine is an important part of having confidence. Consequently when children are familiar with what is going on, they feel secure and this gives them confidence. Confidence will help children to achieve what they are supposed to.

Think of listening as a three-stage model: pre-/while-/post- listening

Fig. 10 – Listening three-stage model

Pre-listening activities are warmers that aim to stir students’ interest and get them into the theme. There are some sub-processes that teachers should take into account at this stage of pre-listening: prepare learners for what is to come (setting the scene, introducing the characters, build on their previous knowledge of the topic), pre-teach the vocabulary that learners might not know, explain different things necessary for a better understanding of the listening activity.

While-listening activities focus on making sure that children have something to do while listening. It will help them focus their attention and avoid boredom.

Post-listening stage allows teacher to check comprehension in more details and make use of the listening activity in order to get to language production or other language skills, as presented in Section 2.3.

Set a specific listening task

Teachers could help kids get confidence letting them know what they are supposed to listen to and why. Children should know it is okay if they do not understand each single word or expression. They still can understand what is essential and enjoy the listening material. For example: ‘Stand up whenever you hear the name of an animal or an activity and so on.’ Achieving the tasks will most probably increase their motivation and confidence.

Listening activities

There are some well known activities to help teachers deal with listening skills. I will illustrate them in the diagram bellow and for most of them I will provide examples in section 2.3.

Fig. 11– Listening activities

Speaking

“Teaching children to speak a foreign language can be very rewarding, as they are less self-conscious than older learners. Children love to have little conversations, sing songs, and learn short phrases.” (Philips, 1993: 38) Both parents and children really have that sense of achievement when speaking occurs. This is the language skill most praised and appreciated when talking about foreign language learning. Most children and their parents equate learning a foreign language with learning to speak it and because learning to speak their mother tongue was a seemingly easy task, they expect it to be the same with the foreign language. That is why they want immediate results (Ellis and Brewster, 2014). As I have already pointed, there are some aspects that neither children nor their parents take into account: the language exposure and the situations for real/meaningful language production, which is actually the reason to communicate. If we take these expectations as positive, if children are to sustain their motivation, they need to be given opportunities to speak English as soon as possible, as much as possible, in order to fulfil their expectations and give them a sense of achievement.

Reasons for teaching speaking

The age advantage

An inevitable question arises when dealing with the problem of teaching speaking to young learners is: At what point should children, during the English classes, start to produce English? The answer might seem quite simple, but deeply analyzed it is more complex. Some consider that from a psychological point of view, it is a good idea not to force things and to let each pupil start to contribute when he feels ready (Ellis and Brewster, 2014).

The motivational reason

The fact that children are taught to speak at this early stage (even if not very elaborated and complicated things) could motivate them and could increase their interest for learning more things in the new language. Consequently there is a tight connection between motivation, confidence and achievement. The more children achieve, the more confidence they will get and the more motivated they will be.

Children’s need for a language foundation

When children start their contact with the English language at this early age of primary education, the number of years spent in learning increases. Consequently, both children and parents will have expectations of speaking as soon as possible. That is why teachers should provide children with situations for language production, suitable for this age. These specific activities, mainly guided speaking, will fulfill children’s necessity for a language foundation.

Guiding ideas for teaching speaking

Teach simple speaking formulas

The type of language children produce in the early stages of language learning is known as formulaic language. It consists of routines or patterns children memorize. This enables them to communicate with a minimum linguistic competence. This language is often repeated, children memorize it quickly and it gives them confidence, as well as a sense of achievement. According to Ellis and Brewster (2014) possible examples of formulaic language are simple greetings, social English, routines, classroom language, asking permission, etc.

Build on children previous knowledge

If teachers do not make use of students’ previous knowledge, they could lose their interest, feeling that their knowledge is not important as soon as they do not use it. When children see that what they are learning is useful and important, their motivation could increase.

Use songs, chants, poems, little conversation

Speaking practice in the early stages of learning consists of controlled activities, mainly initiated by the teacher. What make the difference are the activities that teachers choose and the way they are presented or used within the class. I consider that speaking activities based on drama and stories are both enjoyable and useful when dealing with speaking skills in the English classroom. As seen from the examples that I provided for classroom activities, stories can be the starting point for speaking practice, from more controlled to freer communication, based on pictures, books’ images, realia, characters (puppets, masks, costumes, background).

Speaking activities

I will briefly present a list of speaking activities that most work with stories and drama. They can be used for various aims and kids enjoy them especially when they are based on their beloved stories, cartoons or drama activities.

The look, listen and repeat activity is best used o introduce new vocabulary, or just review some vocabulary necessary for the activity to come (be it reading, listening, speaking or even writing). It can be used with flashcards, realia or miming.

Listen and participate is a great while-listening activity, which combines listening and speaking. When a story is told children can be encouraged to produce some simple language within the listening activity to keep them connected, by repeating key vocabulary and phrases. There is something else that I would like to mention here. With this group age we usually talk about guided speaking activities and most of them are based on pictures, mime, listening or reading. All the activities included in the diagram bellow can have stories and drama as resources.

Role-play and dramatization activities, might be the most real situations that teachers could get to the English class in order to practise and encourage speaking skills. With shorter or longer scripts, depending on the learners, children take in different roles, which help them take the story plot as their own, using the characters’ words as their own.

Retelling a story also provide a good guided speaking practice. It can be picture based or the children can be given a script to turn into narrative.

Some other possible speaking activities are included in the diagram bellow.

Fig. 12 – Speaking activities

Reading

“Just as listening is the main source of language when pupils start to learn a language, print is the second main source. Books open up other worlds to young children, and making reading an enjoyable activity is a very important part of the language learning experience.” (Scott and Ytreberg, 1992: 49) I think that teachers shouldn’t insist too much on reading at this early age, but just open their taste for it, by doing interesting and easy reading activities, on which students and teachers will be able to build later on.

Reasons for teaching reading

The aim of this paragraph is to show that there are reasons enough for teaching reading to young learners, most of these reasons being advantages for both the teacher and the children. However, I will not consider reading skills with preparatory and first grade, except for words, titles, characters’ names, even if they enjoy and expect to be taught how to read.

Children expect to learn how to read

Taking into account that young learners are at the stage of learning to read in their mother tongue, they could expect just the same for the foreign language. This makes children open and willing to start their reading adventure in English.

Reading gives a sense of achievement

As mentioned before, at this early age and stage children should not be taught too much reading, the reading activities should be simple and interesting in order to build a foundation for what children will have to learn at an advanced stage and age. However, taking into account some of the children’s characteristics (such as curiosity, the desire for new), they might feel extremely happy and motivated when being able to read a story, which previously has been told by the teacher, for example.

Reading is a source of language exposure

Reading and listening are the two receptive skills that provide learners with situations of language exposure. On the condition that, after being exposed through one of the receptive skills, children will be given opportunities for use, language production, through speaking or writing will occur.

For this process, which involves language exposure (listening and reading), opportunities for use and language production (speaking and writing), stories and drama are useful resources.

Reading activities

I will summarize and briefly discuss some types of reading activities that can be used with stories and drama, in the diagram bellow. As illustrated in the diagram, the reading activities are divided into four main groups, depending on the main goal of the reading activity, for example, Reading for problem solving. Each of the four groups has different specific activities to be used, for example jumbled words or sentences to reconstruct words, sentences, texts, scripts, etc.

Fig. 13 – Reading activities

When dealing with reading practice, more than words, teachers should always consider the three-stage model: pre-reading, while-reading, post-reading just like in the case of listening. Pre-reading activities are usually used like warmers and they can vary depending on the reading material. Miming and picture based guided conversations are easy to be used and students usually enjoy them. While-reading activities are very important as students need to know exaclty what they are expected to follow or understand while-reading. The two reading sub-skills are to be used as much as possible:

Skimming is the sub-skill of reading to understand a general meaning of the text. In order to do this teachers should ask a series of short, simple questions which help students break down the meaning of the text and make it easier to understand. Fill-in charts/tables type of exercises are useful at this stage.

Scanning is the sub-skill of reading for details or specific information and it should also be accompanied by different worksheets or guided speaking activities. Multiple choice questions, matching exercises, role-play and gap-filling are just some possibilities to accompany scanning (Doff, 1998:63, quoted in Stănișoară, 2003:53).

Post-reading activities usually combine reading with other language skills, like speaking or writing. In the chart bellow I will present different possiblities for the three-stage reading model. They are various and can be easily adapted to all the classs situations, depending on the students’ number, the type of the story/drama, the aimed vocabulary or structure. There are examples to match each of the three stages within the classroom activities I provided in Section 2.3 of my work.

Fig. 14 – Reading as a three-stage model and examples

Writing

Speaking about teaching or not teaching writing to children, Phillips (1993:63) asks several questions leading to some ideas that should be considered: “- How well can the children read and write in their own language? – Do they need to be able to write in English at this stage? – Do they know the Latin script? – Do they show an interest in writing? – Will the English spelling system seriously interfere with what they are learning in their own language? – Are you going to ask them to copy or to be creative, to write words, sentences or stories?”

There are at least two aspects regarding teaching writing to children, which are generally shared. First, writing must not impair oral fluency, but it should be regarded as an extension of oral work. Secondly, teachers should not try to teach aspects of the written language which children at this age cannot be expected to understand and work with. Also teachers should never forget or ignore that at this age children are still learning how to write in their own language (Byrne, 1988).

Reasons for teaching writing

Children usually enjoy writing and writing activities are perfect for diversifying classroom activities.

Children expect to start writing

Children need a break to oral activities

Writing gives children the opportunity to work at their own pace

Children and their parents need a record of the classroom activities

Guiding ideas for teaching writing

I will put down a few guiding ideas for teaching writing, some of them as considered by Byrne (1988:132).

Teacher should give possibilities for copying activities

Give children time to colour and draw

Teach writing as a mean of communication

Work with the pupils whenever possible

Build on students’ previous knowledge

Be realistic about what children can manage

Writing activities

I will refer to writing activities, starting from the four groups given by Donn Byrne (1988), which are copying, practice with words, practice with sentences and creative writing. This way of grouping writing activities is also shared by Brewster, Ellis and Girard (1992). What is usually insisted on at the beginning are controlled writing activities and only later on free writing activities can be introduced. There is the possibility of variations and some overlap between these groups, depending on the class, the aims of the lesson, etc.

In the section of practical classroom activities, there are examples to match each of the four groups. I would like to mention that even if my research is about primary classes, there is a difference, as I have already mentioned, between preparatory, first and second graders on the one hand and third/fourth graders on the other hand. Consequently, only copying activities work with preparatory and first graders and gradually teachers could go to the other writing stages for second, third and fourth graders.

Fig. 15 – Types of writing activities

Copying activities

joining dots

matching words with the pictures

labelling items (in a picture or a scene)

making copies of songs, poems, scripts, dialogues

Word activities

jumbled words

word search

matching pictures and words

fill in

Sentence activities

Recording personal information – children usually enjoy speaking about themselves, about their possessions, likes or dislikes or whatever else related to their persons. The worksheet about favourite breakfast/meal is a good example for this type of activities. The writing activity is accompanied by drawings which kids enjoy a lot.

Completing questionnaires – these activities work really well with stories and drama about animals, each story can have a worksheet or a section “Did you know…” facts about the animals in the story.

Matching activities – matching the characters with the words taken from a scrip

Filling exercises – parts from a story or a script could be used for this type of activity

Creative writing

Through creative writing activities, teacher can make use of children’s imagination in a productive way to develop their writing skills, but not only. Children need plenty of opportunities to use language imaginatively. Byrne (1988) suggests four creative writing activities to allow children work in pairs or groups, whenever possible. I will present and briefly discuss each of them bellow.

Writing notes – could be used as post-reading/listening activities with stories and drama, when children are asked to take different roles. They can work in pairs or groups and the teacher asks them to write notes to other characters using the information that had previously read or listened to. For example: “You are Goldilocks. Write a note to the bear family to apologize for eating all the porridge, breaking the chair, sleeping in their beds without permission.” Or the children could be reporters to ask their favourite characters different questions.

Describing pictures – this type of activity matches stories and drama, as most of them are picture based. Depending on the level, children could describe pictures using different structures: There is an ant in the picture / I can see an ant and a dove in the picture / The dove is sitting on a branch and the ant is walking to the river….

Writing stories and scripts starting from an example provided by the teacher and worked on with the whole class. I have feed-back from such an activity within the stories and drama notes of my work for The ant and the dove, in Appendix J and K.

Dramatizing stories – English optional course for young learners

Dramatizing stories is an English optional course that I designed for young learners. It is written for third and fourth graders, but it is easily adaptable for younger learners. I included the complete presentation of Dramatizing stories optional course in the Appendices section of my thesis. In this section I will only present the Argument of the optional course.

ARGUMENT

Dramatizing stories is intended to be an English optional course addressed to 3rd and 4th grade students, mainly, but it can also be adapted to younger or older learners. The main purpose is that of using stories and drama to develop, improve and make use of communicative skills through a large span of activities based on some classical stories of universal value for kids of different cultures and languages. The selection of stories will be made depending on the kids’ age and level. All the stories will be actually adapted to the learners and to the learning purpose.

I will state and discuss some reasons for my choice:

Getting in touch, within the English classes, with something already familiar and close to their universe, in the mother tongue can highly motivate kids and can be a pleasant way of exposing them to the target language, through listening activities and at a certain point through reading. The listening comprehension skills will be easily improved. Primary learners are still at the age of fairy and magical, that is why they will be excited of not just having another English class, but rather using their knowledge to enter the magical world of an amazing story. They will have the chance to speak English just like their favourite cartoons’ characters and dramatize their most beloved stories.

Each story will be introduced using pictures, so it will not be difficult for kids to understand and guess the meaning of different words and structures they haven’t met before. The new vocabulary necessary for the activities and the drama will be easily assimilated making use of pictures and miming. There will be lots of picture based guided speaking and writing later on, using language that learners have already come in touch with during the compulsory English classes (can, can’t, there is, there are, Present simple, present continuous, vocabulary sets). Therefore this course will actually provide the learners with the opportunity to bring their knowledge to life, but it will also provide the context for a pleasant manner to develop and improve the four language skills: listening, reading, speaking, writing, as well as grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation.

Each story can be used for its educational value, so the kids will be exposed to good practical examples, being able to develop social skills or improve behaviour: love, kindness, friendship, care for the environment, unselfishness, modesty and so on.

It is a stimulus for „language acquisition”. Activities within this course will get them into situations they got through while acquiring their mother tongue. They like listening to, reading and watching stories. Using stories will create a context for a good and real „language exposure”, exposure that will be gradually followed by the four language skills and language production.

Most of these classical stories have been turned into a movie or animation, so the kids will have the advantage of being exposed to native speakers, which is so important for the listening comprehension skill, followed by the speaking skill.

The title was given based on the reason that throughout these optional classes there will be many drama activities and role plays based on the stories. For the drama activities, puppets, masks and real costumes will be used. During the drama activities students will actually need to behave like in real life situations, they might have different parts to learn by heart, so their fluency will be highly improved. A real challenge for the kids is that by the end of each unit they should be able to read the retold adapted story for their level.

Children will be given the opportunity to perform in front of their parents or other kids, so this will enhance their motivation and confidence, giving a sense of achievement to both children and parents.

Story and drama notes – classroom activities

This section of my study will be organized taking into account the main aims and the things I decided to focus on throughout my entire work. Consequently as my focus was not on teaching skills but rather on providing situations for further language practice, what I referred to as language exposure and language production, I decided to present some possible story and drama classroom activities in this section of my thesis. Most of these drama/stories can be easily adapted to each level and grade within the primary education and all the drama/story based activities can be used for the four language skills, for vocabulary, grammar or pronunciation. For each sub-section, I will start from story or drama and explore it according to the main ideas and issues of my work. Each subsection of Story and drama notes section is structured on the following pattern: background and summary of the story, topics and themes, grammar and structures, suggestions and possible activities based on the story/script.

There is another thing that I would like to mention here about the connection between stories and drama, namely that each story can be turned into a drama activity, as a whole, or just smaller parts. That is why for most of the stories I also provided a script suitable for performance. Most of the scripts that I wrote involve the audience in the action, as well. The narrator or the characters interact from time to time with the kids who do not have a role in the play. They are supposed to answer some questions, repeat or make short descriptions.

In order to make children familiar with the stories and drama activities, easier and shorter stories could be used as a start. Gradually more and more complex, depending on the children’s evolution and on their development of the English language, could be chosen. We could also decide on a certain story or drama activity depending on the vocabulary or the grammar that we want use. Each story and drama can have multiple possibilities of being used as I illustrated in the topics and structures plan, in Appendix I. With all the stories and drama it is essential that through each activity the children are exposed to a consistent amount of language (through listening or reading skills, or both listening and reading skills) and they are given interesting and motivating situations for language production (speaking and writing).

The frog family

I will present The frog family as a mime story, therefore mostly based on language exposure through listening, little production through speaking activities being required.

Background and summary of the story

“The Frog Family” story is adapted from Philips’ Young Learners (1993:21). The aims of using this story could be: relating words and actions, teaching or revising family vocabulary, but also in this way children are involved a lot in the storytelling. It is the story of a frog family on a hot summer day, presented in a simple way. It can easily be used for family members, as well as for weather. It mainly focuses on listening skills, but it can also be used for language production, mostly repeating type.

Topics and themes

Family

Weather

Colours

Nature/environment

Grammar and structures

Verb Be

There is/there are

Imperatives

Present simple

Nouns

Suggestions and possible activities based on the story

Suggestions for telling/presenting the story to the kids can be found and followed in the table bellow and most of them can easily be adapted. Even the script of the story can have variations depending on the age/level of the class. This is the most basic variation of The frog family. After telling the story there are different other activities that could be done based on the story, depending on the topics and structures that the teacher wants to focus on.

The teacher could prepare pictures of the Frog family (flashcards, finger puppets), draw a large lily-pad and make an area of floor into a ‘pond’ with chalk or string in order to introduce the story.

First the teacher generally introduces the story to the class so that when the story would be actually told, accompanied by miming, students knew what they were going to deal with.

There are many variations of this story and also the style of presenting might differ. For example the story could be told once by the teacher who should also mime and make full use of everything that means gestures, facial expressions in order to make the story enjoyable, easy to be followed and understood by the children.

The next step could be the retelling of the story, but this time children should be asked to mime together with the teacher.

The third step could be role play: on turn children take in different roles, while the teacher tells the story, with the possibility of using masks or puppets.

Little Red Riding Hood

Background and summary of the story

There are lots of variations on this story, as for all the classical children’s stories. "Little Red Riding Hood", also known as "Little Red Cap" or simply "Red Riding Hood", is a European fairy tale about a young girl and a Big Bad Wolf. The story, first published by Charles Perrault, has been changed considerably in various retellings and subjected to numerous modern adaptations and readings, such as the versions by Brothers Grimm and Italo Calvino. It has been adapted for different levels and ages.

I adapted, for my classroom activities, the materials provided by the British Council, because I found them suitable for my students. I also considered the advantage of having all the materials online so that kids and parents could easily review and practise all the activities and even more at home.

Topics and themes

Family

Food

Environment

Parts of the body

Clothes

Colours

Grammar and structures

Verb have/has got – positive, negative, question form

Wh- questions, Yes/no questions

Verb Be

Adjectives

Personal pronouns

Possessive adjectives

Imperatives

Suggestions and possible activities based on the story/script

For this story I provided the script, as well as some other worksheets and teaching materials that can be used. All of them are presented in Appendix H. The lesson plan that accompanies this story can be found in Appendix E. It gives suggestions and examples of different activities and procedures to use with this story and drama activity.

We’re going on a lion hunt!

With dramatizing chants and songs more language production (speaking) is required and due to the form and repetitive structure of the chants/songs, the speaking activity is facilitated. Because the motions of the chant are interesting, kids get so involved that they do not mind repeating several times, they actually ask to have the chant over and over again, as they feel it like playing a game.

Background and summary of the story

As an example of such a chant/story I will provide some activities based on the story “We’re going on a lion hunt”. The story is set as a chant, the words are not very difficult and the language is repetitive. It is also funny because of the motions, that help kids get involved and makes learning easier, like a game. It is a story about an adventure in the safari. The interactive story is also presented as a short movie, a film that can provide a good and enjoyable listening activity.

Topics and themes

Nature (grass, mud, puddles, cave)

Animals – describing (eyes, whiskers, teeth and some others can be added)

Emotions (scared)

Grammar and structures

we are going – Present continuous

verb Be

verb have/has got (positive and question form plus short answers): Have you got binoculars? Yes, we have.

Adjectives – emotions

Suggestions and possible activities based on the story.

T presents to the kids a safari hat and starts a short conversation, e.g. What’s this? Is it a simple hat? At this point mother tongue can be allowed. Each kid can get a safari hat, or T can provide material for each kid to make one, depending on how much time is allocated to this story.

T tells the kids that they are going to have an adventure, but that they need special equipment. This is the moment when T shows to the class the safari hat, a pair of binoculars and the canteen for water. To save some time students can design only the safari hat. Mime could be used for the binoculars and the canteen. Teacher asks ‘What are we going to do and see in the safari?’ presenting a flashcard of a lion or better a puppet (stick or hand puppet). Here is the moment for the T to say the title of the chant\story. The kids will probably make a scared face when seeing the lion, so the T can introduce the word scared, using the flashcard and saying: “We’re going on a lion hunt and we’re not scared. What have we got? We have got a safari hat, binoculars to see better and a canteen for water.” While going through the story T and the kids mime in order to make the listening comprehension easier and the activity funnier.

T tells that in their safari adventure they will have some obstacles or problems to go through. Once the story has been introduced it is time to pre-teach vocabulary: long grass, puddles, mud, bridge, cave and the sounds for each of them, using flashcards and miming. There are variations to teach/review vocabulary necessary for the activity:

T displays on the board in front of the class one by one all the flashcards, including the lion, the scared face, the hat, the binoculars and the canteen.

After having repeated the words once T can say the words at random and the kids are required to mime, after that T mimes and they are asked to say the words.

Kids are asked to match the words long grass, puddles, mud, bridge and cave with the sounds. First T says the words and students say the sound. After that they switch roles.

The lion puppet or flashcard is used to review or teach (depending on the situation) describing animals (two eyes, whiskers, teeth).

Once the vocabulary has been pre-taught T plays the short film. Kids are invited to join in and also do the miming. Finally they do the drama activity without the film. Gradually they are asked to produce more language from the chant. From time to time T can say: “Are you tired? (using mime to convey meaning). Let’s all sit on the grass and have some rest. Are you thirsty? Water? Let’s drink some water.” (they all mime).

Time permitting there are other activities that could be done:

Teach the whole set of animal’s parts of the body

Kids can be given the script of the chant and they are asked to draw the story

A group work activity could be interesting: each group is given a large sheet of paper (A2), cuts-out and they are asked to design the safari trip and present it in front of the class.

Another activity could be to present the safari trip as real as possible. T can provide large cuts-out of the track and kids are asked to follow the chant walking actually from one point to another in the classroom or another location.

Goldilocks and the three bears

Background and summary of the story

Goldilocks and the three bears is a story based on a traditional tale. Three bears (Daddy Bear, Mummy Bear and Baby Bear) live in a nice little house in the forest. One morning they decide to go for a walk because their breakfast (porridge) is too hot. While they are out, a naughty girl, Goldilocks, walks into their house. There is a table, three chairs and breakfast is ready! She is hungry so she tries the porridge that is in the three bowls. The food in the first two bowls is not nice (it is too hot and too cold) but the porridge in the third bowl which is the Baby Bear’s, is just right, so she eats it all. She tries the three chairs, but the first two are too big, the third is just right, so she sits on it, but it breaks down. Now she is tired, so she tries the three beds, the first two are not good, but the third is just right and she sleeps in it. The three bears come home and they are really upset about the baby bear’s porridge, chair and bed, so they roar at Goldilocks and she runs home.

Starting from this story which has a limited number of characters, an easy plot and not difficult vocabulary we can think of a large number of activities covering different topics and themes, so it is a good example for using stories in teaching young learners. More activities based on this story and also a short drama can be found on British Council.

Penguin young readers also provide ideas and a lot of materials to go with this story. What I will present bellow is adapted from the story, the British Council and Penguin Readers, to work with my classes and my aims. I wrote the script in such a manner to involve all the students not only those who had a specific role. The audience is asked by the narrator or other characters to take part in the play as they need to answer some questions or help the characters solve different problems that they might encounter.

Topics and themes

Animals

Colours

Family

Food – breakfast vocabulary could be introduced or practised here

House – rooms in the house, objects and furniture in the house

Numbers

Size – big, medium, little

Structures and grammar

There is/there are

Present continuous

Adjectives

Countable/uncountable nouns

Suggestions and possible activities based on the story/script

Pre-teaching vocabulary through miming or flashcards.

A background painted on a large piece of white cloth, could be used to start the story in order to make the story more real. Only the forest is illustrated on that material and step by step other details will be added, e.g. the house, objects in the house, Goldilocks, etc. The following words should be introduced before the listening activity: forest, girl, naughty, house, breakfast, porridge, chair, bowl, bed, big, soft, hard, just right.

While the teacher tells the story children mime and they are asked to join in for the vocabulary which has been pre-taught, e.g. What’s this? A house? Where is the house? Who lives in this house?

A variation for telling the story is using masks. On turn students take different roles, and, at first, they only mime as the teacher tells the story. At a certain point T can ask them or other students from the class different questions to keep them focused. This gives the possibility to involve all the students in the drama activity:

e.g. ‘This is Goldilocks. She is walking through the forest. What can Goldilocks see in the forest?’

The script for the drama activity is written especially to allow all the students, not only those playing different roles to take part in the story. The narrator asks them questions and they can also communicate with the characters, making the drama more real.

The ant and the dove – Aesop’s fables

Background and summary of the story

Fables are short stories which illustrate a particular moral and teach a lesson to children and kids. The theme and characters appeal to children and the stories are often humorous and entertaining for kids of all ages. Fables can also be described as tales which have a message in their narrative such as a parable might have. The characters of fables and tales are usually animals acting and talking just like people while retaining their animal traits. This theme is especially appealing to children and kids. Aesop's famous fables and scripts provide great entertainment for young learners. The fables, or stories, are all very short so they keep the attention of children and Aesop's fables feature familiar animals loved by children and kids.

The ant and the dove is such a fable usually used to teach that “a friend in need is a friend indeed or one good did deserves another”. The setting is a forest and a river at the edge of the forest. The characters are an ant, a dove and a hunter. The characters are especially chosen to illustrate that no matter if someone is little or big everybody can help and everybody can be in need sometimes.

Topics and themes

Animals – forest animals

Nature/environment – river, forest, leaves, edge of the forest

Parts of the body

Seasons and weather

Grammar and structures

Present simple and continuous

There is/there are

Can – What can you see?/Can you see?/Yes, I can/No, I can’t

Imperatives

Suggestions and possible activities based on the story

For this story I provided a lesson plan that presents some possible activities and I have also written a script to go with the story. The script and all the other teaching materials for this story can be found in the Appendices section of my work.

As variations for the warmer, instead of using that word search, T could use some jumbled letters and ask the kids to arrange them in order to find out key words from the story (setting, main characters, the idea of friends and friendship).

Another variation for the warmer could be the drawing (using easy steps to draw something) of the two animals from the story. The drawing goes step by step and kids are asked to guess what it is going to be.

As an activity to follow the next class, T displays a drawing in front of the class, representing some other forest animals. Kids are divided in groups of four or five. Each group has to choose characters, the setting and the plot to make another story based on the two sayings: A friend in need is a friend indeed and One good did deserves another. While the kids are working T monitors the activity and helps when necessary, making sure that all the kids are involved in the project. Each group will present the story in front of the class. The works can be published in the class or the school magazine. I set some of the kids’ work for this activity in the appendix of my research.

Santa’s little helper

Background and summary of the story

This story is taken from British Council site and it presents the interesting story of a little girl, Amy, on Christmas Eve. To be Santa’s helper, to have a spectacular travel, a secret one to the North Pole, on Santa’s sleigh, to talk to the famous Rudolph, could be all the kids’ dream. With this story and all the activities that go with it, the children’s imagination is taken far away. Taking on Amy’s role the kids can help Santa, the can have a conversation with Rudolph or they can even interview Santa Clause, as illustrated in Appendix H – interview.

Topics and themes

Toys

Christmas and winter vocabulary

Food

greetings

Grammar and structures

Present simple

Verb be

Imperatives

Present continuous

There is/there are

Suggestions and possible activities based on the story

All the suggestions and possible activities are based on materials provided by British Council for young learners. Some of these resources can be found in the Worksheets section of my work and some of them can be followed online. This type of materials is especially useful for further practice, at home, where parents can also be part of the learning process. The story is accompanied by the listening material, a song, interesting games and worksheets to download or work online and there are possibilities for the kids to follow other stories in the same format. I have provided a worksheet to go with this story, but it is easy adaptable for all the stories, which involves students in taking different roles and asking each other questions based on the information provided by the story.

The lion and the mouse

Background and summary of the story

The story is a fable by Aesop and it goes like this on its most basic variation. A lion was sleeping in a forest. A mouse started playing on it. The lion was disturbed and arose from his sleep. It caught up the mouse angrily and tried to crush it to death. Then the mouse prayed the lion to leave him off and assured that it would help him when it needed. The lion laughed at it and let him off. One day the lion was caught in a net spread by a hunter. It roared and tried to escape but in vain. The mouse heard the lion's roaring and came there. It started cutting the net with its teeth. The lion escaped and thanked the mouse.

In my research I decided to use materials provided by Express Publishing for the Storytime series. Storytime is a series of graded readers which is aimed at learners in their first years of instructions and they help students to develop their knowledge of English language through enjoyable stories, carefully selected from all over the world. The series also provides further practice for the vocabulary and language presented in the story. The series has three levels: stage 1, stage 2, stage 3. The first two stages present the story in rhymes which is easier to be remembered by kids and stage 3 is in prose. The Lion and the Mouse is stage 1, retold by Jenny Dooley and Vanessa Page. It is illustrated and accompanied by picture vocabulary. It also has different materials for further practice and also the script for the play. The stories presented in this series are also accompanied by a song related to the theme/moral of the story but many others useful resources.

Topics and themes

Wild animals

Nature and environment

Weather

Parts of the body

Emotions and relationship

Grammar and structures

Present Simple and Continuous

Future – will

Adjectives – big, little, proud, scared

There is/there are

Imperatives

Wh- and yes/no questions

Suggestions and possible activities based on the story

When first presenting the story, T should start by brainstorming ideas on the subject of the story by asking questions about the title and the cover of the book. During this activity Ss are allowed to use their mother tongue, especially preparatory to 2nd grade. 3rd and 4th graders could be expected to use English during the brainstorming session. General questions based on the cover of the book could be asked and once the T uses this type of questions for all the stories, children will get familiar to them, feeling more confident.

What is the title of the story?

What can you see in the picture?

What are they doing?

What do you think this story is about?

Another type of pre-listening activity is to allow the Ss find out different things about the story they are about to listen and work on. I presented some possibilities for doing this in for the story The ant and the dove. These activities offer situations for group/ pair work and develop social skills.

The warmer should always be followed by another pre-listening activity in order to pre-teach/review vocabulary. The most common ways of doing this are using flashcards, realia and miming. Or they can be combined. There could be situations when vocabulary can be practiced while listening to the story if the teacher accompanies it by miming or pictures, as presented for The frog family. All that the teacher has to do is to stop from time to time, elicit some words and ask Ss to repeat.

The while-listening/reading activities should always be accompanied by specific tasks in order to avoid boredom and give Ss the sense of achievement. Children are not supposed to understand every single word but they still can complete different tasks while listening to the story.

Stand up each time when king lion speaks.

Put on Mrs. Mouse mask each time you hear her name.

In order to work with parts of the script teacher can provide masks/finger/stick puppets in order to have different variations for the activity. First teacher reads aloud the script and Ss are asked to put on/raise the character to match the words. The next is to say the name of the character and students try to say the correct part of the script provided in the worksheet.

For 3rd and 4th graders, in pairs or groups, students can be asked to use the pictures and the script in order to write the story. Another possibility is to have chain story picture based activities or match the pictures with the description.

As a final product of all the activities/lessons based on The Lion and the Mouse the story can be performed.

When the toys had a secret

Background and summary of the story

Enid Mary Blyton was an English children's writer whose books have been among the world's best-sellers since the 1930s. Blyton's books are still enormously popular, and have been translated into almost 90 languages. She wrote on a wide range of topics including education, natural history, fantasy, mystery, and biblical narratives and is best remembered today for her Noddy, Famous Five, Secret Seven, and Adventure series, all of them being adaptable for English foreign language young learners. When the toys had a secret is one of the secret series, presenting some nursery toys. The main character is Little Pink Rabbit. He is very upset because it seems the other toys do not love him any longer. It is a happy end story as actually all the other toys were preparing him a surprise birthday party. The kids really liked this story and the script I wrote based on it, mainly due to the fact that the characters were actually toys brought to life, like in their dreams. As the story was written for young kids, in English, the script and the presentation of the story need to be adapted for English as a foreign language.

Topics and themes

Toys

Colours

Clothes

Birthday vocabulary

Presents

emotions

Grammar and structures

Present simple

Verb be

Adjectives

Future – will

Suggestions and possible activities based on the story

As the theme and the characters of the story are toys and all the children have toys and love toys, the teacher ask kids in advance to bring their favourite toy for the next class. This is a good warmer or activity to introduce the story and it could be used as a pre-listening activity, to review/pre-teach toys vocabulary.

The characters are introduced using the picture story book or simple flashcards.

As a post listening activity children are asked to draw their favourite toy, using also emotions. Their project will answer the following two questions: What’s your favourite toy? Is it happy or sad?

Another post-listening activity or could be a feed-back activity at the end of all the activities based on this story is drawing a chain story. For this activity I provided examples of kids’ work in Appendix K.

Chapter 3: Research design and analysis

In the first part of this chapter I will present the design of my research, starting with the four research questions, data collection instruments and respondents. I will describe in details each instrument that I used for data collection, matching the instruments and the respondents with the research questions. The second part will present the results and analysis of the data collection instruments, whereas the third part will focus on the research conclusions.

Research design

I will present the research design of my thesis according to the main aspects of a research study, in the following order: data collection instruments, respondents and data collection methodology.

Research questions

The main focus of this study is to see if drama and stories as teaching resources to young learners are effective for both teachers and the beneficiaries of the teaching process (parents and children) as drama/story based activities can be a solution for two main problems in foreign language learning/teaching, namely language exposure (through listening and reading) and language production situations (speaking and writing).

The aim of the study is guided by the following research questions:

Do children and parents, as beneficiaries of the teaching process, have an extrinsic motivation for learning English?

Are stories and drama based activities effective in teaching English to young learners?

Are language exposure (listening/reading) and meaningful/real life classroom situations for language production (speaking and writing) problems that primary English teachers encounter?

Is an English optional course Dramatizing stories desirable for primary level?

Data collection instruments

For RQ 1 I will use the questionnaire instrument that allows me to collect students’ metaphors and their entailments as shown in section 3.2.1. The questionnaire instrument also allows me to collect parents’ opinion towards English language learning/teaching in primary education, as shown in section 3.2.2.

For RQ 2 I will use the observation instrument (observation sheets, recordings, direct observation) and the questionnaire instrument. The observation instrument, through observation sheets, illustrated in Appendix D, allows me to collect information about students’ behavior and attitude during different drama and story based activities as shown in section 3.2.4. The observation instrument also allows me to see results and feed-back of some drama and story based lessons with two groups of students, namely a 1st grade class and a 3rd grade class, during one school year, as shown in section 3.4.5. The questionnaire instrument, adapted for 1st graders, as seen in Appendix L, allows me to collect students’ attitude and feeling about English, mainly about drama and story based activities, illustrated in the form of drawings.

For RQ 3 I will use the questionnaire instrument that allows me to collect teachers and parents’ answers/opinions about language exposure (listening and reading) and meaningful language/real life classroom situations for language production (speaking and writing) as shown in sections 3.2.2 and 3.2.3.

For RQ 4 I will use the questionnaire instrument and observation instrument. The questionnaire instrument allows me to collect parents’ opinion about having an English optional course on dramatizing stories for their children. The observation instrument, through observation sheets, recordings, students’ work, allows me to collect information about students’ attitude, work and progress during drama and story based activities, as presented in Appendix J and K.

The discussion about my choice of method is presented in section 3.1.4.

Respondents

I had three groups of respondents for my research: students, English teachers and parents. In this section I will describe each group as a whole and after that I will specifically refer to the respondents used for each research question.

Students

The students’ group of respondents was the largest in my research, a total number of 95 primary school students from the Liceul Vocațional Pedagogic “Nicolae Bolcaș”, Beiuș, preparatory to the 4th grade. Preparatory, 1st and 2nd graders only have one English class per week, while 3rd and 4th graders have two English classes per week. Respondents from the students’ group were selected from different grades, depending on the data collection instrument that I used them with, as it follows: a 1st grade class (30 students) and a 3rd grade class (20 students) to collect data using the observation instrument, as shown in section 3.2.4, 65 children, 3rd and 4th graders, including the 3rd grade mentioned above, to collect data using the questionnaire, as shown in section 3.2.1.

There is something that I consider important for the description of the students respondents and I will refer to it. With the 3rd and 1st graders involved in my research I had an extra class per week where I mainly focused on story and drama activities. During these classes I recorded some drama activities, I designed and I filled in some students’ observation sheets, I analyzed the products of their activities as presented in section 3.2.4 and illustrated in Appendix K.

I had students as respondents for RQ 1, 2 and 4.

Parents

The second group of respondents was represented by parents, namely a group of thirty parents of the 1st and 3rd grade students, also respondents in my research.

I had parents as respondents for RQ 1, 3 and 4.

English teachers

The third group of respondents was represented by teachers, namely a group of twenty English primary school teachers, from different schools situated in Beius area, both urban and rural.

I had English teachers as respondents for RQ 2, 3 and 4.

Data collection methodology

In this section I will present all the instruments that I used to collect data for my research, namely the questionnaire, the observation (through observation sheets, recordings, direct observation) and analyses of the students’ work during some experimental activities focused on drama/story based lessons. For each instrument I will refer to some general aspects, saying when, how and why I used each of them.

The questionnaire instrument

For my research I used three different questionnaires as collection data instruments, depending on the respondents that they addressed to: students, parents and English teachers.

Within the group of student respondents I had two different questionnaires: one for 3rd and 4th graders and another one for 1st graders, in the form of drawing. In this section I will discuss each questionnaire, on the following pattern: RQ and respondents, aim and design of the questionnaire.

The students’ questionnaire

RQ and respondents

For RQ 1, 2 and 4 in order to investigate students about things related to the theme of my research I used the students’ questionnaire as an instrument. . The questionnaire, written in Romanian was given to a number of 65 students, 3rd and 4th graders. The equivalent of this questionnaire for the group of 1st grade respondents was the drawing. Children were asked to draw on a sheet of paper different things to illustrate the English class and their feelings/attitude towards learning English.

Aim

The main goal of the children’s questionnaire was to check their attitude towards learning English. The questionnaire required different information in order to see if they have extrinsic motivation for learning English. Besides this it indirectly checked parent’s opinion about the English teaching/learning process.

Design and description

The questionnaire that I designed for children consisted of four items, all of them with open answer. Actually they had to finish some statements with the required information.

The first three items asked children information about the English classes, checked their motivation, reasons to like English and the last one was to find out their parents’ indirect opinion about the English language learning. It goes like this: “My parents think that English is………………” I decided to have this item because during my teaching experience I noticed how much students are influenced by their parents’ attitude and opinions towards school and learning. It is also generally accepted and proven by different studies that there is a tight relation between parents’ attitude towards school and their children’s school results and achievements. Item number three allows me to collect students’ metaphors and their entailments, in order to indirect see their attitude and motivation. It goes like this: For me learning English is like…because… and it requires Ss to generate two metaphors/similes. There were generated about 75 metaphors by these 65 children, 3rd and 4th graders.

All these items will be analysed and some of them will also be graphically illustrated in Chapter 4.

The English teachers’ questionnaire

RQ and respondents

For RQ 2, 3 and 4 in order to investigate English teachers about using stories and drama as teaching resources to young learners, I used the teachers’ questionnaire as a data collection instrument. It was given to a number of 20 English teachers, primary level, from different schools situated in Beiuș area, both urban and rural.

Aim

The aim of using this questionnaire was to find out teacher’s opinion about stories and drama as teaching resources to young learners. I was also interested to see how they feel about teaching this age group, but also to find out what is their opinion about language exposure and meaningful, real situations for language production.

Design and description

The teachers’ questionnaire consisted of twelve items, different types. Seven of them were multiple choice items (1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 7). Items number 6 and 10 were yes/no type, but it also required the motivation of the choice. Items 9, 11, 12 were items with open answers.

The first two items were general questions in order to find out information about their teaching experience and the age group they are working with at the moment. Item 3 was to check their opinion about how productive teaching English to preparatory to 2nd grade is in our public schools. Item 4 was about the number of students for each class. Item 5 required teachers to express how much they enjoy teaching English to young learners by placing themselves on a scale from 1 to 5. Item 6 was about language exposure, asking teachers if they consider this issue important. They were also required to say if they consider that young learners are enough exposed. Item 7 asked teachers to number a list of possible resources for listening activities, in the order of their preference. Item 8 was about the frequency of using stories with young learners. Item number 9 asked teachers to list some advantages and disadvantages of teaching very young learners (preparatory to 2nd grade) in public schools, one class/week. Item 10 was about creating real language situations in the classroom and for item 11, teachers were asked to give examples of creating real life situations in the classroom and they were also required to mention how often they do this. Item number 12 was to find out some outcomes and drawbacks of using stories and drama activities in their teaching environment.

The parents’ questionnaire

RQ and respondents

For RQ 1, 3 and 4 in order to investigate parents about their opinion related to the English teaching/learning process in primary education, I used the parents’ questionnaire as a data collection instrument. It was given to a number of forty-five parents, all of them parents of children that I also had as respondents for my research (1st and 3rd graders, those who had an extra English class on Drama and stories).

Aim

The aim of using this questionnaire was to find out how they feel about their kids learning English, to see how important learning English is for them and their children and if they have the extrinsic motivation when coming in touch with the issue of learning English in the school context. Moreover I wanted to find out if and how many kids are exposed to English at home or in other locations except for the English classes.

Design and description

The parents’ questionnaire consisted of six items, meant to help me find out what opinions they have regarding the English language teaching/learning process, in the primary education. Three of the items were multiple choice (2, 4, 5), two items were five point Likert scale (1, 3) and item number 6 was yes/no type. . Item 1 was about the parents’ level of English knowledge. Item 2 was to find out how important parents consider that learning English is for their children. Item 3 checked parents’ degree of involvement in the English learning process of their children. Item 4 and 5 were about language exposure, generally and through media. The last item was a Yes/No question to find out if parents consider as desirable an English optional course, Dramatizing stories.

All these items will be analysed and some of them will also be graphically illustrated in Chapter 4.

The observation instrument

In my research I used observation as an instrument of data collection, for all the four research questions. A part of my observations were the result of filling in some observation sheets during the story/drama based activities. Besides observation sheets, I also used some recordings and direct observation, as data collection instruments. I will present them in the section bellow.

Observation sheets

The observation instrument was used during the research and it had also been used before the research within different activities related to teaching English in primary education. I used the observation sheets for RQ 2 and 4 as instruments to collect information and observations about how students feel, act and make progress during this type of activities. The fields I was interested in were: general attitude, degree of participating, understanding of the story/drama material and language production, as shown in the discussion/analysis presented in sections 3.2.4 and 3.2.5. I filled in these observation sheets during the optional classes of Dramatizing stories and other lessons focused on drama/story based activities. A positive attitude towards the English classes, generally speaking and an even more positive attitude during some activities based on stories and drama could be noticed, based on the observation sheet, which allowed me to see the difference between students’ attitude during the normal English classes and the drama/story based lessons.

Recordings and direct observation

Besides the observation sheets mentioned above, for RQ 2 and 4 I also used recordings to support my observations. The recordings allowed me to collect information and to clearly observe students’ attitude during the drama/story based activities. These recordings of the school plays gave me a feed-back for the activities that preceded the play and they also provided a cross-curricular approach of the English classes, as children were asked to sing, draw, make costumes and masks for the plays. In preparing the play, parents were also involved, with the preparation and in the end watching the final product. Consequently this was like a fulfilment of their expectations for the English classes.

During the teaching years, as I have always been interested in drama and stories, I could make different direct observations that I decided to use as an instrument during my research. I will present and analyze those observations in section 3.2.4.

The analysis of children’s activities instrument

The analysis of children’s activity during and for the research was an instrument that I used for RQ 2 and 4. During the research, as I have already mentioned in the previous sections, I used different instruments for data collection and also as feed-back for the story/drama based activities. Most of the feed-back activities are illustrated in the form of recordings and pictures, presented in the Appendix section of my thesis. However there are other types of feed-back, presenting children’s activities during the research, namely worksheets, compositions, drawings, also presented in Appendix J and K.

Results and analysis

In this section of my thesis I will present and analyze the results/findings of all the instruments that I used for data collection, being guided by the four research questions presented in section 3.1. In the sections bellow I will refer to the findings and I will also have an analysis/discussion for each instrument presented and described in section 3.1.4.

The children’s questionnaire – findings and analysis

Findings from the children’s questionnaire (65 respondents – 3rd and 4th graders)

As described in section 3.1.4, the children’s questionnaire (3rd and 4th graders) consisted of four items. All of them were open type items, where actually the respondents had to finish some statements according to what was true for them. The aim was to check their motivation for learning English and also their attitude towards learning English.

The first two items, required students to finish the following statements “I like English because…” and I want to learn English because…”. Students motivated their feelings for English, using the followings expressions: it is funny, it is easy, it is useful and I don’t like because it is difficult. As graphically illustrated, most of the children like English because they consider it useful, a large number consider it funny, some of them find English easy and only two consider it difficult and consequently they do not like it. The respondents motivated their willing to learn English using the following expressions: it is useful and I like it. Some children are motivated by the fact that English is useful to better succeed in life. However, others are motivated by the fact that they enjoy learning English, the percentage being pretty close, as seen in the graphical illustration of the item.

The last item was to indirectly find out what their parents think about learning English. The children expressed their parents’ attitude and opinion about learning English using the following expressions: useful, easy and beautiful, not useful, difficult but still a must and are graphically illustrated bellow.

Item number 3, which asked children to indirectly express their attitude towards learning English, using metaphors and their entailments, will be discussed in a separate section because it is a more complex item and it requires different analysis.

Fig. 16 – the motivation of children’s feeling towards English

Fig. 17 – children’s motivation to learn English

Fig. 18 – Parent’s indirect opinion about the English learning/teaching process in Children’s questionnaire

Analysis of the children’s questionnaire (3rd and 4th graders)

The answers generated for the first three items provide an answer for RQ 1, as they prove the extrinsic motivation that children have for learning English. It is to be noticed that most of the children referred to English as a global language, their motivation being the result of social benefits. However the large number of respondents that motivated their feeling towards English using the expressions funny and easy, prove that besides the extrinsic motivation, they also have the intrinsic motivation, because they like the English classes. Item number two proves the same thing about their motivation.

The answers generated by the students for item 4, regarding their parents’ beliefs match the answers that the parents themselves generated for the same item, namely that English is important and very important for their children. The reason also matches: to better succeed in life. Parent’s beliefs and attitudes can influence children’s attitude/motivation and they also help us see what their expectations are. Most of them relate learning English to social and material benefits: they can study in a better school, find a better job and have the possibility of studying/working abroad. As the respondents put it: “My parents think that I must learn English because it will help me in the future.” The fact that 14% consider English easy, might influence their expectations about the English learning process of their kids and it might not influence it positively.

The elicited metaphors and their entailments – Findings and analysis

I decided to deal with this part of the questionnaire in a different sub-section because I will analyse it in more details in order to see the students’ attitude, indirectly expressed. The types of metaphors were identified in relation to motivations for learning English and reflected the attitude of the children participating in the study. The patterns of children’s reasons for learning English were analyzed through their entailments, following the metaphors they chose to make reference to learning English. These metaphors created by children were classified into positive, negative, neutral/ambivalent, according to their attitudes towards learning English, as seen from both the metaphors and their entailments (Jin and all, 2014). I used this classification in my research in order to check children’s attitude and feeling about English classes and learning English. I will graphically represent them, after that discuss each group in more details, showing the findings. I will also analyse the findings in accordance to the aims of my research.

Fig. 19 – Types of metaphors based on learners’ attitudes towards learning English

Positive metaphors

Positive metaphors clearly constitute the largest group, 44 of 65 (68 per cent) respondents generated positive metaphors, expressing excitement about learning English, they feel that learning English is great fun, easy or at least not difficult, compared to some pleasant and relaxing activities. However some of them specified that even if it is great fun you still need to work a lot. It indicates the extrinsic motivation that most of the children and their parents have at the beginning of English learning process, but also some intrinsic motivation. Children have encouraging attitudes that are useful tools in the teaching/learning process, attitudes that should be kept and turned into what we call intrinsic motivation. Many positive metaphors show that young learners find enjoyment in learning English and I could add that even those who do not have excellent result, they still like it and have a kind of extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. I will present some of the positive metaphors and their entailments in the table below.

Most of the positive metaphors show that the participants consider learning English a pleasant and helpful experience, some of them show that the kids are aware of the process and the progress they make, while other metaphors indicate that some participants find learning English easy and funny.

Neutral metaphors

The group of neutral metaphors is the second largest, as it results from the metaphors generated by the participants. 20 respondents of 65 (31 per cent) generated neutral metaphors. They still have a positive attitude towards learning English, but without being very enthusiastic. They are rather realistic about the subject. Most of these neutral metaphors indicate that some children do not necessarily have some kind of feelings (I like, I do not like), but they are still aware that it is necessary to learn English. They read/do whatever they have to, feeling like it is quite difficult, but they do not dislike it. There are many metaphors that have quite a similar entailment which indicates that there are a lot of kids aware of the fact that learning English is a longer process, you need to keep learning and working in order to see the final product, like making a puzzle, a lego, building something or reading a long book.

They like/enjoy the process, but sometimes it can be difficult. However the conclusion is that it worth the effort.

As it can be noticed from the entailments, most of the participants who used neutral metaphors realize that learning English is a long process that requires work, patience and persistence. We need to keep in mind that this questionnaire was given to 3rd and 4th graders. Another type of task was given to first graders and their responses do not show any signs that they see learning English but like a game, a story, a song. The findings show that young learners, but not very young (3rd and 4th graders) have realistic thoughts being aware that they need to learn slowly, step by step. However it is clearly expressed they find pleasure in the whole process, which is intrinsic motivation, result of the teachers’ activity.

Negative metaphors

There is only one completely negative metaphor (1.5 per cent of 65), where the participant compares learning English to a puzzle but he clearly expresses his dislike, he is not willing to make it, because he finds it not enjoyable at all and extremely difficult.

The 1st graders’ drawings – findings and analysis

Thirty 1st grade children were asked to draw how they feel about learning English and what they most like during the English classes. All of them drew things representing positive feelings and most of them drew things related to the stories and drama activities we had. They most referred to their favourite characters whose roles they could take in during the drama activities. The Little Pink rabbit was especially loved by all of them. 25 respondents illustrated their favourite stories and drama activities, one respondent made reference to the stick puppets we use within the English classes for drama activities (fairyland puppets), and four respondents illustrated general activities during the English classes (children raising their hands, teacher in front of the class, their books, colours, etc.). I will graphically represent children’s drawings in accordance to the activities they illustrated in order to express their attitude and feelings about the English classes.

Fig. 20 – 1st graders attitude towards learning English as illustrated by their drawings

The parents’ questionnaire – findings and analysis

The questionnaire for parents, consisting of 6 items was given to a number of 44 parents of 1st and 3rd grade children also participating in the research. The parents’ questionnaire provided me with the following data, I will present and analyse in the sections bellow.

Findings of the parents’ questionnaire

I will graphically represent each of the six items, but first I will generally discuss the findings.

Most of the parents estimated their English knowledge, on a scale from 1 to 5, corresponding to a medium level (3, 4). Quite a large number of parents chose number 1 (21%) and number 2 (20%) on the scale corresponding to a low level of knowledge. However, 14% chose 5 on the Likert scale, corresponding to a high level, whereas 18% placed themselves at 4, corresponding to a relative high level of knowledge.

Item number two, proves what I supposed from the beginning, namely that most of the parents consider learning English as being important (9%) or very important (91%) for their children. There are no answers generated for little important and not important at all.

As I supposed at the start of my research, for item number three about parents’ involvement in the English learning process of their kids, most of them (32%) generated type 5 answer which shows quite a low level of involvement. 25% for number two on the Likert scale proves that a lot of parents have a medium level of involvement. Most of the answers show that even if they find learning English very important they do not get enough involved, but 16% for number 1 proves that there is a number of parents getting involved in a way or another.

Talking about item four and five, which both checked children’s language exposure outside the English classes, it is just as I estimated: most of them generated answers that prove little language exposure or at all. However there are enough answers showing some language exposure through the Student’s DVD of the book and most of them through watching different TV programs/channels in English or through computer. 71% of 44 respondents said that their children only rarely listen to/ watch stories/ films/ cartoons in English, 16% sometimes, 11% never and only 2% generated the answer often.

The answers generated for item four, which checked language exposure, except for the English classes or other contexts supervised by an English teacher, were the following: 57% a little, 25% quite a lot, 16% at all and only 2 % generated the answer very much.

The last item, which requires parents’ opinion about an English optional class on dramatizing stories, as a solution to language exposure and opportunities to use the language, all the parents generated the answer yes, expressing their agreement for such an optional. There are no answers to express disagreement.

Fig. 21 – Parents’ level of English knowledge Fig. 22 – the importance of learning English

Fig. 23 – parents’ involvement Fig. 24 – language exposure

Fig. 25 – language exposure through media Fig. 26 – desirability of an English optional course

Analysis of the parents’ questionnaire

Most of the answers generated by the parents match the hypothesis that I had at the beginning of my research. Just like the kids, parents have the extrinsic motivation for learning English, motivation that could be used by teachers, as a foundation for further intrinsic motivation, in the teaching process. The two items that required information about language exposure show that most of the children are not exposed to the language, excepting for the English classes. The answers generated by the parents match my hypothesis about language exposure as being one of the major problems, interfering with the results of the teaching/learning process. What is more, parents need to be aware that without language exposure there is difficult to have language production. Children usually like watching films and cartoons, but the answers generated for item 5, show that most of them never watch in English. Exposing children to drama/story based activities in the classroom could motivate children to watch different films, dramatizing songs, cartoons in English, as a further practice of the class activities. All the parents are aware that the limited number of English classes is a major problem in our educational systems, on the considerations that expectations are growing faster. Consequently they all agree that an English optional course on dramatizing stories is desirable. It is interesting to see that even those parents with a high level of English knowledge, do not get enough involved and do not provide their children with situations for language exposure and opportunities for use. As shown throughout my thesis, stories and drama are a good possibility to involve parents in the learning process.

The teachers’ questionnaire – findings and analysis

The questionnaire that I designed for English teachers, primary education, consisted of twelve items and it was given to a number of twenty English teachers. The teachers’ questionnaire instrument provided me with the following data that I will present and analyse in the sections bellow.

Findings from the teachers’ questionnaire

Data collected by the means of the teachers’ questionnaire mostly matched the hypothesis that I had at the beginning of my research.

Most of the teachers (45%) have an experience of more than ten years in teaching young learners. There are answers generated for 0-2 years of teaching experience. All of them are teaching young learners or at least they used to teach this age group.

Most of them (45%) consider teaching English to young learners (preparatory to 2nd grade) productive, only 10% think that it not productive or it is little productive (10%). 35% chose number 4 on the scale, corresponding to quite productive, but not very.

The number of students/class can vary, but most of the teachers teach about 20-25 children each class. 20% for 25-30 students/class shows that the number of students/class can be a real problem, as indicated by the other items of the teachers’ questionnaire.

55% of the teachers enjoy very much teaching young learners and there are no teachers to choose 1 or 2 on the scale, corresponding to a low enjoyment. However 10% placed themselves at number 3, which proves they do not like very much teaching young learners.

Discussing the frequency of using story based activities with young learners, 50% of the teachers seldom use stories, 45% often, 5 % very often and there are no answers for never.

For the importance of creating real life situations for language production in the classroom, all the teachers generated the answer yes.

The same answer was generated for the item about the importance of language exposure. The second part of this item asked teachers if they considered that young learners are enough exposed to the language. 85% generated the answer no and 15% generated the answer yes.

I will graphically represent the yes/no and multiple choice items, whereas I will only discuss the items with open answer.

Fig. 27 – teaching experience Fig. 28 – English for preparatory to 2nd graders

Fig. 29 – number of students per class Fig. 30 – feeling towards teaching YL

Fig. 31 – frequency of using story/drama activities Fig. 32 – classroom real language situations

Fig. 33 – language exposure Fig. 34 – meaningful language situations in class

For item number 7, I decided to use another type of representation, as it required more complex information about the frequency of using four different resources for listening activities. Teachers were given a number of four possible resources for listening activities, namely stories/fairy tales, poems/rhymes, dialogues and songs. They were asked to number these resources from 1 to 4, in order of their preferences (corresponding to 4 adverbs of frequency – usually, often, sometimes, rarely).

As graphically represented in the chart bellow, the order of preferences for listening activities, among the 20 teachers respondents, is songs, stories, dialogues and poems. It is to be noticed that within the songs resource there are no answers generated for rarely.

Fig. 35 – activities used for listening practice with young learners and their frequency – illustration of the teachers’ preferences for these activities)

Analysis of the teachers’ questionnaire

The findings of this questionnaire matched quite a lot the premises I started from, which were that language exposure is a problem and it may interfere with the English teaching/learning process. Even if story and drama activities are a real and generally accepted resource for language exposure and they also provide meaningful language situations for language production, at least with young learners, most of the teachers prefer songs and simple dialogues. The reason seems to be the fact they are easier to provide and they are not so time consuming as stories and drama. However, most of the teachers agree that stories and drama are great teaching resources for young learners.

The answers generated by the English teachers for item number 8 about the frequency of using story and drama based activities with young learners prove what I have already supposed: 50% seldom use this type of activities, 45% often, 5% very often or frequently and there is no answer for never. Item 6 also illustrates what I supposed, that all the teachers consider language exposure very important, but they all agree that young learners are not enough exposed to meaningful language situations, neither at home, at school or in other locations and this aspect can interfere with the teaching/learning process, minimizing the benefits.

I will discuss the items with open answer in the teachers’ questionnaire (9, 11 and 12). Item 11 requires teachers to provide two examples of real life situations they use during the English classes. Most of them referred to dialogues on different topics and quite a lot said they used realia or role play to create real class situations for language production. However, the answers generated for this item proves that there is a problem when talking about language in use, just as I estimated from the beginning. This allows me to conclude that stories and drama are probably the best real situations that the English teachers could take to the English classes, in order to cover the area of both language exposure and language production.

Items 9 and 12 are about advantages/outcomes and disadvantages/drawbacks of teaching English to preparatory to 2nd grade and using story/drama activities as teaching resources to young learners.

Advantages/ disadvantages of teaching English to preparatory to 2nd grade

Most of the advantages generated by the respondents are related to the idea “sooner better” and to the fact that at this age children are naturally equipped for learning a foreign language. Their age features can be used for the benefit of the language teaching/learning process, they are curious, enthusiastic, spontaneous, they can easily take different roles, which give them confidence and they feel happy about their achievements. Other advantages mentioned are about the benefits of English as a compulsory school subject, which gives access to all the kids to start their learning process. Another advantage mentioned that I like a lot and it matches the ideas used in my study was presented like this: “it helps getting their ear adjusted to the language”. Children at this age and level will not instantly become fluent and accurate speakers, but studying English at this early age will equip them for the stages to come. It will keep and stimulate their motivation.

Among the disadvantages mentioned the most frequent are related to the fact that not all the schools have appropriate classroom and equipment to allow teachers adjust the teaching environment to this group age for the best results. The large number of students is a disadvantage when talking about group work and other types of activities which best fit young learners. Another disadvantage is their parents’ expectation. They do not take into account the number of classes (1 per week), the large number of students, the curricula that needs to be followed, language exposure which as seen from the parents’ questionnaire is mostly limited to the English classes.

Outcomes/drawbacks of using story/drama activities as teaching resources to young learners.

For item number twelve (“Please briefly present some of the outcomes and drawbacks of using stories and drama activities in your teaching environment”), the most frequent outcomes were related to the fact that children enjoy stories and drama, they are useful tools for language exposure and they provide meaningful situations for language production. Another advantage was that stories/drama activities could easily be adapted to whatever age group and they can cover all the four language skills, but also grammar, pronunciation, vocabulary.

Among the drawbacks of using drama/story based activities with young learners, teachers most mentioned the fact that they are time consuming, it is quite difficult to provide costumes for the dramatizing activities, the stories need to be adapted and the activities based on them need to be well prepared. Moreover, they require extra time for the teacher to get ready and kids can get disappointed if they do not have the chance to take the role they would have liked to.

The observation instrument – findings and analysis

Observation sheets and recordings during story/drama based activities

I used the observation sheets for RQ 2 and 4 as instruments to collect information and observations about how students feel, act and make progress during this type of activities. The fields I was interested in were: general attitude, degree of participating, understanding of the story/drama material and language production. I filled in these observation sheets during the optional classes of Dramatizing stories and other lessons focused on drama and story based activities. A positive attitude towards the English classes, generally speaking and an even more positive attitude during some activities based on stories and drama could be noticed, based on the observation sheet, which allowed me to see the difference between students’ attitude during the normal English classes and the drama/story based lessons. I could notice that even if language production is difficult for some students, all of them make progress with the listening comprehension skills. They can prove, through miming and other activities, the comprehension of the presented material, be it drama or story. This gives them confidence, a sense of achievement and further motivation for progress and learn.

The pictures taken during the recording activities also illustrate a positive attitude. These pictures also show the product of the children and teacher’s work as a team in setting the scene, decorating, drawing, etc. The preparation for setting a scene gives the kids great joy. They all get involved and have a positive attitude for working as a team. The rehearsals, which can be very demanding, do not make them tired or bored. They are ready to work until they make it right. And their parents tell me how much they practise at home and how much they enjoy it.

Direct observation

Within the English classes, which are compulsory in primary education (1 class per week for preparatory to 2nd grade and 2 classes per week for 3rd and 4th grade), it seems not to be time enough for such activities like drama and stories and quite often it is considered like a waste of time, too much time consuming. But during my activity I could easily observe that each time when I made some room for drama and story based activities it was rewarding and deeply enjoyed by both the children and me.

There was something else that I paid attention to and it helped me during my research: the ministry approved English textbooks. As far as two years ago most of the student’s books haven’t offered good/suitable possibilities for meaningful drama activities and enough or proper contexts for the kids to make use of the so many vocabulary sets or grammar structures. By meaningful drama activities I refer to stories and dialogues with nice characters to present stories that kids can take like their own real life situations, when asked to take in different roles. Consequently if teachers had wanted to have some drama activities they should have provided them from different other sources. On the other hand they had to follow the national curriculum and it could be less time consuming to use the given textbooks and mainly traditional methods and teaching approaches. What is good for the new ministry approved English textbooks is that they provide much more meaningful language for children using meaningful drama activities with some nice characters within the whole book. Consequently it is easier for the teachers to have such activities during the English classes and I could see how much the kids enjoy them. Children can have puppets for each character, they just love taking roles and pretending the characters’ real situations as their own. Considering that some of the English books still do not offer such drama and story based activities, I have noticed within my teaching years in primary education that bringing puppets to class and using them in different dialogues can change kids’ attitude and the results of teaching English a lot. We could take a puppet (finger puppet or another type) and create our own stories. I could see that kids really enjoy it. I used to have a monkey, I called her Cindy and I still have it. All the kids just love her. My 7th grade students still ask me about Cindy and they are happy to see her.

The analysis of children’s activities – findings and analysis

During the research, as I have already mentioned in the previous sections, I used different instruments for data collection and also as feed-back for the story/drama based activities. Most of the feed-back activities are illustrated in the form of recordings and pictures, presented in the Appendix section of my thesis. However there are other types of feed-back, consisting of children’s activities during the research, namely worksheets, compositions, drawings, also presented in Appendix K. There is a writing activity with 4th graders within the story The ant and the dove. In groups children were asked to write another story on the same pattern, only changing the characters, the setting and a part of the plot. They were asked to keep the main idea that a friend in need is a friend indeed. During this activity I could notice kids working as a team in order to fulfill the task. Even children who usually did not use to be excited, got involved in the activity, being ready to help the group. Within the story When the toys had a secret, 1st graders had to draw a chain story based on the action presented. The same excitement could be noticed and without too much effort they could remember parts of the script, because of frequent repetition. The drawings on the theme my favourite meal, within the story Goldilocks and the three bears, provided 3rd graders with the possibility of drawing, designing and describing their favourite meal. They could easily practise food vocabulary, being actually focused on their favourite meal and in making the best drawings ever.

Conclusions

The research questions and the instruments that I used for data collection allow me to draw the following conclusions for the research part of my thesis.

Students and parents have an extrinsic motivation for learning English, because of the social context of globalization, where English is the ‘lingua franca’. The instruments used for RQ 1 allow me to see that students also have an intrinsic motivation as the result of the teacher’s activity within the English classes. The questionnaire instrument allowed me to see that learning English is a desirable issue, especially based on social reasons. The attitude, which influences motivation, is mainly a positive one as proven by the metaphors generated by the students and also by the 1st graders’ drawings.

The observation sheets and recordings allow me to conclude that story/drama based activities are effective as teaching resources to young learners. They are also a possibility of wrapping the language to better fit this age group. The story/drama based approach match all the natural features that young learners have, turning them, even those apparently negative, into useful teaching resources. The observation sheets and the recordings prove that, when being involved in story/drama based activities, students’ attitude is positive and the sense of achievement is also improved. Moreover, using story/drama based activities proves to be a solution for language exposure and meaningful situations for language production.

The teachers’ questionnaire shows that indeed language exposure and meaningful situations for language production are two major problems that English teachers in primary education encounter. Most of them agree that story/drama based activities could be useful resources to teaching young learners. However, many of them are skeptical about using story/drama based activities, mainly on the consideration that these activities are time consuming, requiring extra preparation and they are difficult to be used with large classes.

The parents’ questionnaire and the other instruments proved that an optional English course “Dramatizing stories” is desirable and it can be a solution to the problematic issue of language exposure and meaningful situations for language production. It can also improve two other important aspects: the parents’ expectation (language production as soon as possible) that does not always match the reality and motivation, which is essential for success.

Conclusions

The main goal of the present thesis was to show that stories and drama are useful teaching resources to young learners. The other aims, all connected to this one, were to discuss motivation, language exposure and meaningful situations for language production in the context of teaching English to young learners, having stories and drama as main teaching resources.

The theoretical background, presented in Chapter 1 of my thesis, shows that teaching English to young learners is an issue that requires special attention, mainly because of the so many age features specific to children. It could be easily noticed that all these characteristics can be explored and turned into advantages using stories and drama as teaching resources. Many researchers focused their attention and directed their work to find the best approaches, methods and techniques for teaching young learners. As presented in this chapter, story and drama based activities use principles of the communicative language learning approach, ideas of language acquisition and of total physical response, which all fit young learners.

The main goal in Chapter 2, the methodological chapter, was to show that an appropriate way of presenting English to young learners is using stories and drama based activities as teaching resources. In this chapter I discussed the four teaching skills, mainly from the point of view of the story/drama based approach. The four language skills were linked to the aspects of language exposure, language production and motivation, considered to be the three essential things in any learning process, as illustrated in Appendix M: stories and drama used as teaching resources provide motivation, situations for language exposure (listening and reading – the two receptive skills) and situations for language production (speaking and writing – the two productive skills).

I also presented the English optional course ‘Dramatizing stories’ as a possibility of using dramatizing stories with young learners. This optional course combines stories and drama in different activities that match the national curricula for young learners. All the dramatizing stories can be used, if necessary, separately, during the English classes, or only some activities could be adapted depending on the time and other aspects.

The story and drama notes section shows that stories and drama can easily fit different vocabulary sets and structures, depending on the teacher’s objectives. They also bring together the four language skills, the receptive skills (listening and reading) to expose children to the language and the productive skills (speaking and writing) to produce language. However for preparatory and 1st graders we can only speak of listening and speaking, as reading and writing come later. The scripts provided for some of the stories illustrate the close relation between stories and drama, namely that each story can be turned into a shorter or longer drama activity, depending on the teacher’s objectives and the students’ knowledge. Moreover, motivation, which is essential in the learning process, can be easily provided and maintained with stories and drama, which are so close to the young learners’ interest.

In the research section, guided by the four research questions and using different instruments for data collection, I studied some aspects related to the theme and aim of my thesis. These were motivation, language exposure, meaningful situations for language production, desirability of an English optional course on dramatizing stories and attitude towards learning English. The instruments that I used for data collection allowed me to answer the four research questions, drawing some conclusions about the main aspects of my thesis.

Most of the parents and children have the extrinsic motivation about learning English, but children also have the intrinsic motivation, showing that they enjoy the English learning process, mainly because of the interesting activities provided within the English classes. The children’s questionnaire allowed me to see that most of the students have a positive attitude and positive feelings towards learning English. All of them consider English useful, necessary for a better education, but besides this social aspect, most of the children enjoy learning English, as a result of the teacher’s activity. Quite a large number of students have a realistic view and attitude towards learning English, being aware of the long process and sometimes difficult work necessary to succeed.

The teachers and the parents’ questionnaires proved that language exposure and opportunities for language production are two major problems in the English teaching/learning process, just as I supposed from the beginning. Most of the parents’ answers show that their children are not exposed to the language, except for the English classes, which are definitely not enough, taking into account the expectations of language production as soon as possible. It is important to notice that for most of the children, the exposure outside the English classes is though the DVD of their English textbook. Consequently, it seems to be the English teacher’s task to make sure that both children and parents are given possible materials for language exposure. Stories and drama could be a solution for this problem, as there are plenty of internet sources, books, readers, magazines, available that could be used at home as a further practice. The English teachers’ questionnaire allowed me to conclude that indeed stories and drama are useful resources in teaching English to young learners, mainly because they are a source for language exposure and opportunities to use the language, but also because children enjoy stories and drama, which perfectly match their age features. However, not as many teachers as I expected use stories and drama with young learners. They prefer songs, dialogues or poems instead, which are not as time consuming, they are easier to be used and provided. The main reasons for the teachers’ scepticism about using stories and drama are related to the difficulties encountered to provide this type of resources, the large number of students/class and the time which is limited to one or two classes/week. It is important to notice that even if many teachers prefer other resources, most of them agree that stories and drama are a good choice for young learners, which worth to be taken into account. An optional English class to focus only on stories and drama could be a solution to these limitations and drawbacks presented by the teachers.

The literature review, the methodological chapter and the research part of my thesis, allow me to draw the following conclusions, which show that among other possible approaches used with young learners, stories and drama are extremely useful resources, on the following considerations:

Stories and drama help teachers present the language in such an attractive way, that children hardly notice they are actually learning.

Stories and drama are probably the best choice for language exposure and meaningful situations for language production, two of the most problematic issues in teaching foreign languages. All the four language skills, as well as grammar and vocabulary, can be taught or improved using stories and drama as teaching resources. With stores and drama, teachers can both expose children (through listening and reading) to a considerable amount of meaningful, enjoyable language, and provide them with opportunities to use language (through speaking and writing).

Stories and drama, as they are consistent with the nature of children, make use of all the age features specific to young learners, turning the teaching/learning process into a natural and enjoyable experience.

Stories and drama can motivate and keep children motivated, increasing their confidence and sense of achievement.

As a final conclusion I could say that stories, drama and young learners are a perfect match, both stories and drama being useful and enjoyable teaching resources that allow teachers to wrap English in various attractive ways for young learners. Moreover stories and drama as teaching resources provide children with the three essential things necessary in order to succeed in their experience of learning English: language exposure, motivation and opportunities for language production.

Reference list

Allwright, R (1979) Language learning through communication practice in Brumfit, C and Johnson, K (eds) The Communicative Approach to Language Teaching: Oxford University Press

Barker, E.M (1989) Using Children’s literature to teach ESL to young learners in A Forum Anthology – selected articles from The English Teaching Forum: Washinton

Brewster, J, Ellis G and Girard, D (1992) The Primary English Teacher’s Guide: Penguin English

Byrne, D (1988) Teaching Writing Skills: Longman

Cortazzi, M and Jin, L (2001) Large classes in China: good teachers and interaction in Watkins, D and Biggs, J (eds) Teaching the Chinese learner: psychological and pedagogical perspectives: Hong Kong CERC/ACER

Doff, A (1999) Teach English, A Training course for teachers: Cambridge University Press

Dooley, J and Evans V (2014) Fairyland 1: 2014

El-Helaly, Z (1987) Teaching English to children in English Teaching Forum (April)

Ellis, G and Brewster, J (2014) Tell it Again! The Storytelling Handbook for Primary English Teachers: British Council

Garton, S, Copland, F and Burns, A (2011) Investigating Global Practices in Teaching English to Young Learners: British Council

Halliwell, S (1992) Teaching English in the Primary Classroom: Longman Group UK Limited

Harmer, J (2001) The Practice of English Language Teaching: Pearson Education Limited

Hudelson, S (1991) EFL Teaching and Children: A Topic-Based Approach in The English Teaching Forum

Illich, I (1972) De-schooling society: Harrow Books

Jin, L, Jiang, C, Zhang, J, Liang, Y and Xie, Q (2014) Motivations and expectations of English language learning among primary school children and parents in China: British Council

Kennedy, C and Jarvis, J (1991) Ideas and Issues in Primary ELT: Nelson in Association with the Centre for British Teachers

Krashen, S (1981) Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition: Pergamon Press

Lakoff, G and Johnson, M (1980) Metaphors we live by: University of Chicago

Lakoff, G (1983) The contemporary theory of metaphor in Ortony, A (ed) Metaphor and Thought (2nd edition): Cambridge University Press

Martin R.F (1977) Model lesson plan for oral language development: The University of Texas

Nikolov, M (2009 a) Early Learning of Modern Foreign Languages: Processes and Outcomes: Multilingual Matters

Phillips, S (1993) Young Learners: Oxford University Press

Piaget, J (1955) The Language and Thought of the Child: World Publishing Company

Pinker, S (1994) The Language Instinct: Penguin

Pinter, A (2006) Teaching Young Language Learners: Oxford University Press

Rivers, W.M. (1983) Speaking in many tongues: Cambridge University Press

Robinson, P, Mourao, S and Kang J (2015) English learning areas in pre-primary classrooms: an investigation of their effectiveness: British Council

Murphy, V (2014) Second Language Learning in early school years: trends and contexts: Oxford University Press

Scott, W and Ytreberg, L (1990) Teaching English to Children: Longman

Stanisoara, C M (2003) Interactive English Language Training for Students and not only: Aramis Print

Van Oort, H (2005) Challenging Children: Delta Publishing

Vygotsky, L (1962) Thought and Language: Cambridge University Press

Widdowson, H (1978) Teaching Languages as Communication: OUP

Internet sources

www.learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org

www.penguireaders.com

http://englishagenda.britishcouncil.org/sites/ec/files/E202%20MEEL%20%20ELTRA%20FINAL%20v2.pdf

http://www.thehistoryofenglish.com/issues_global.html

http://www.englishffl.org/EnglishInTheWorld-Filled-Complete.png

Leaving the NEST

http://jlt-polinema.org/?m=201105

What is TPR?

www.onestopenglish.com

https://iconline.ipleiria.pt/bitstream/10400.8/250/1/n7_art3.pdf

w w w . c h i l d r e n l o v e t o s i n g. c o m, Linda Adamson.

https://youtu.be/2m_Ow4yk1Rw

http://www.taleswithmorals.com/

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/10657.Enid_Blyton

Index of figures

Fig. 1 – English in the world

Fig. 2 – Circles of English

Fig. 3 – Second language acquisition according to Krashen

Fig. 4 – Total Physical Response – illustration

Fig. 5 – Story sources

Fig. 6 – Why use stories to young learners?

Fig. 7 – Drama techniques

Fig. 8 – Wrapping the four language skills for young learners

Fig. 9 – Stories and drama to teaching language skills – diagram

Fig. 10 – Listening three-stage model

Fig. 11 – Listening activities

Fig. 12 – Speaking activities

Fig. 13 – Reading activities

Fig. 14 – Reading three-stage model and examples

Fig. 15 – Types of writing activities

Fig. 16 – The motivation of children’s feelings towards learning English

Fig. 17 – children’s motivation to learn English

Fig. 18 – Parents’ indirect opinion about the teaching/learning English process (Children’s questionnaire)

Fig. 19 – Types of metaphors based on learners’ attitudes towards learning English

Fig. 20 – 1st graders attitude towards learning English as illustrated by their drawings

Fig. 21 – Parents’ level of English knowledge

Fig. 22 – opinion about the importance of learning English

Fig. 23 – parents’ involvement

Fig. 24 – language exposure

Fig. 25 – language exposure through media

Fig. 26 – desirability of an English optional course

Fig. 27 – teaching experience

Fig. 28 – English for preparatory to 2nd graders (degree of usefulness)

Fig. 29 – number of students /class

Fig. 30 – feelings towards teaching young learners

Fig. 31 – frequency of using story/drama activities

Fig. 32 – classroom real language situations

Fig. 33 – language exposure (Teachers’ questionnaire)

Fig. 34 – meaningful language situations in the class (importance)

Fig. 35 – activities used for listening practice with young learners and their frequency – illustration of teachers’ preferences

Appendices

Appendix A – Questionnaire for parents

I would like to find out what are your opinions regarding the English language learning by your child for a research about learning English in the primary education.

On a scale from 1 to 5, where 5 is the most and 1 is the least, what is your level of English knowledge?

1

2

3

4

5

I consider that, for my child, learning English is:

Very important

Important

Little important

Not important at all

On a scale from 1 to 5 mark how involved are you in the English learning process of your child?

1

2

3

4

5

How much is your child exposed to the English language, except for the school classes or other classes supervised by an English teacher?

Very much, through …………………………………………………………………………………….

A lot, through……………………………………………………………………….

A little, through……………………………………………………………………..

At all

How often does your child listen to/watch stories/films/cartoons in English?

Often

Sometimes

Rarely

Never

Do you think that an optional English course to provide your child with real situations to use English, through stories and drama would be desirable?

Da

Nu

Thank you and good luck to your child in learning English!

Appendix B

A questionnaire for children

I like English because…………………………………………………………………………………

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

I want to learn English because…………………………………………………………………….

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

For me learning English is like…………………………………………………………………

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

My parents think that English is…………………………………………………………………..

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Appendix C – QUESTIONNAIRE for English teachers

I am interested in your opinion about stories and drama as teaching resources to Young Learners.

What is your experience in teaching young learners?

0-2

2-4

4-10

More than 10 years

What age group do you currently teach?

1-3

3-6

6-9

9-12

On a scale from 1 to 5 how productive do think that teaching English to preparatory, 1st and 2nd grade is in our public schools now?

1

2

3

4

5

How many students do you teach for each class?

10 -15

15 – 20

20 – 25

25 – 30

How much do you enjoy teaching young learners? On a scale from 1 to 5, where 1 is the least and five is the most, where would you place yourself?

1

2

3

4

5

Do you consider language exposure (Listening activities) important? If yes, do you think that young learners are enough exposed to real language situations?

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

What would you choose for listening activities with young learners? Number them from one to four depending on your preferences.

Stories/fairy tales

Poems / rhymes

Dialogues

Songs

How often do you use stories and story based activities with young learners?

Very often

Often

Seldom

Never

Could you please list some advantages and disadvantages of teaching English to preparatory to 2nd grade in public schools?

Advantages_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Disadvantages___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Is it important to create real language situations in the classroom?

Yes.

Why? __________________________________________________________________________________

No

Why? __________________________________________________________________________________

How do you create real life situations? Please provide two examples.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Please briefly present some of the outcomes and drawbacks of using stories and drama activities in your teaching environment.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Thank you.

Appendix D

Students’ observation sheet during drama/story based activities

1st grade “We’re going on a lion hunt”

*excited, positive, neutral, etc.

**what I mean here is the comprehension of the listening materials, which are linked to visuals or miming activities to increase the degree of understanding, but for 3rd and 4th graders, comprehension of the reading materials, too

***for 3rd and 4th graders I was also interested in the reading/writing skills

Appendix E – Lesson plan on Little Red Riding Hood

LESSON PLAN

Lesson aims:

To review and practise clothes related vocabulary

To review and practise structures: What are you wearing? I am wearing…, What have you got? Have you got? I have got…., , What is he/she wearing?; What is she/he doing?, I like/I don’t like; Do you like? Yes, I do/No, I don’t.

To practise Present simple and present continuous

To review and practise parts of the body

To teach/practise food related vocabulary

___________________________________________________________

Teaching materials:

Flashcards (food, clothes, parts of the body)/Pictures

Worksheets, Drawings

Magnetic board, Audio-visuals aids

Anticipated problems:

Not all the kids might remember the previous vocabulary

Some noise could occur during the games

The games could take longer than the T estimated

___________________________________________________________________________

ACTIVITY 1 –Introduce the story and warm up the children

Aim: By the end of this activity kids will be ready for the English class.

Procedure:

T introduces the special guest (one of the girls is dressed like Little Red Riding Hood)

LRRH enters the classroom and greets the children.

T introduces LRRH and guide a short conversation between the children and LRRH

LRRH takes a seat among the children and the lesson goes on.

Interraction: T-S, S-T, S-S

Timing : 5 minutes.

___________________________________________________________________________

ACTIVITY 2 – Pre-storytelling activities: Label LRRH

Aim : By the end of this activity children will be able to label parts of the body and clothes

Procedure:

T sets a picture of LRRH on the magnetic board

On turn kids come in front of the class, pick up a note and stick it near the right part of the body or item of clothing

Each time teacher shows the flashcard representing the word, says it aloud and the kids repeat

The flashcard is displayed on the magnetic board

The whole class repeats all the words aloud, using the drawing

The class is devided in groups, T gives each group a worksheet and they have to label LRRH

Each group take turn is presenting their worksheet

Interraction: T-Ss, Ss-T.

Timing : 15 minutes.

ACTIVITY 3 – A song to practise parts of the body

Aim: By the end of the activity kids will be able to sing the song presented doing also the motions

Procedure:

T plays the video with the song Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes

The kids listen first

They join in singing and doing the motions

At the end they perform by themselves

Interraction: T-S, S-T, S-S

Timing: 5 minutes.

___________________________________________________________________________

ACTIVITY 4 – What have you got in your basket?

Aim: By the end of this activity kids will be ready to remember and practice food related vocabulary, the verb have/has got and like, don’t like/doesn’t like

Procedure:

LRRH comes again in front of the class with her basket

T asks her: What have you got in your basket?

Each group get a paper picnic basket and food flashcards

They must fill it

T says: Now let’s fill the baskets. T takes on turn food flashcards, kids name them and they all put them in the basket.

T asks: What have you got in your basket? And the kids answer back. Have you got? Yes, I have. / No, I haven’t.

Interraction: T-Ss, Ss-T, Ss-Ss

Timing: 15 minutes

_________________________________________________________________________

ACTIVITY 5 – Pre-storytelling activity – I like /I don’t like ; Do you like ? Yes, I do./No, I don’t.

Aim : By the end of the activity kids will be able to use I like /I don’t like ; Do you like ? Yes, I do./No, I don’t in short dialogues

Procedure :

T takes something from the basket, showing the flashcard to the class and says : Yummy ! Apple pie ! I like apple pie.

Then the T asks the kids “ Do you like apple pie?” and the kids answer “Yes, I do”

T takes another flashcard from the basket and says: Yuk! Bananas! I don’t like bananas!

The structures used are displayed on the magnetic board and kids repeat after the teacher

Each kid gets a happy face and a sad face, which they have to show when T asks questions like: Do you like …….? When taking flashcards from the basket.

Kids take turn in taking flashcards and asking questions for the other kids.

Interaction : T-Ss, Ss-T

Timing : 10 min.

___________________________________________________________________________

Kids say good-bye to their guest and it is decided that they would meet again next class to hear the story and have new adventures.

Appendix F – lesson plan for The ant and the dove

LESSON PLAN

Lesson aims:

To review and practise Present simple and Present Continuous forms

To review and practise some vocabulary sets: forest animals, nature

To introduce two famous sayings with equivalent in Romanian, which kids are surely familiar with

To develop listening comprehension, speaking, reading and writing skills

To encourage pair work activities

___________________________________________________________________________

Teaching materials:

Flashcards (the sequences of the story)

Worksheets (the script and the warm-up activity)

Drawings

The board

Pictures

Anticipated problems:

Not all the kids might remember the previous taught vocabulary

Some noise could occur during the pair work activity

The role-playing could take more than estimated

___________________________________________________________________________

ACTIVITY 1 – Introduce the story and warm up the children, stir their interest about the English class

Aim: By the end of this activity kids will be ready and eager for the English class

Procedure:

T greets the Ss and caries on a typical conversation for the beginning of an English class

T tells the Ss that for the first activity they are going to work in pairs, each of them with their desk mate to find out where the story they are to talk about takes place

T displays a large drawing with the warm up activity in front of the class (a word search) and explains what they are supposed to do. In the word search they will find the name of six animals, they need to form a new word out of the starting letter of each animal. If they do it right they will find out the setting for the story.

Each student gets a worksheet of the same activity and they are given 5 minutes to solve the word search

Interraction: T-S, S-T, S-S

Timing : 10 minutes.

___________________________________________________________________________

ACTIVITY 2 – picture based listening activity, preceded by a pre-teaching vocabulary activity

Aim : By the end of this activity Ss will be able to understand the story while listening and watching the pictures

Procedure:

T uses some vocabulary flashcards to help the Ss better understand the story (ant, dove, hunter, climb, river, trap, edge) – pre teach/review vocabulary

T displays the picture flashcards (the sequences of the story) one by one in front of the class while telling the story. The storytelling is helped with a proper miming to help Ss better understand. As a variant the picture flashcards could not be displayed on the board, but each could be given to a student who is asked to hold it till the end of the story.

Once the storytelling is over, T starts a picture based conversation to check the comprehension:

Where does the action of the story take place?

Who are the characters?

Is there a river by the edge of the forest?

Interraction: T-Ss, Ss-T.

Timing : 10 minutes.

___________________________________________________________________________

ACTIVITY 3 – Reading activity to match the picture flashcards with the correct description

Aim: By the end of the activity Ss will be able to read short descriptions and match each to the right picture

Procedure:

T has previously prepared some text stripes with a short description of each picture flashcard.

The stripes are placed face down on a desk. Kids take turn coming to the front to match the description with the picture. They are asked to read aloud.

The kids who are already in the front holding the pictures need to say the word “Bingo” when the description is about his/her picture. Once the match is correctly done, the two students set the picture and the description on the board.

Interraction: T-S, S-T, S-S

Timing: 10 minutes.

___________________________________________________________________________

ACTIVITY 4 – Drama activity – first only miming, speaking after

Aim: By the end of this activity kids will be able to role-play the script of the story

Procedure:

Each student is given the script of the story for the drama activity

T presents the characters and does a short review of the action.

As a pre-drama activity T starts saying aloud different parts from the script and kids are asked to name the character to match that part.

T assigns the roles, kids come to the front and they are explained that first they only need to follow the script as read by the teacher in order to set the action in the stage.

The next step is that some students only read the script and other students are the actors.

Interraction: T-Ss, Ss-T, Ss-Ss

Timing: 15 minutes

________________________________________________________________________

Homework : using the script of the drama activity students are asked to design a chain story (drawing and writing). Four sequences will be enough.

Appendix G

Titlu: DRAMATIZING STORIES

Arie curriculară: Limbă și comunicare

Tipul: Interdisciplinar (Limba engleză, Educație muzicală, Teatru, Educație Plastică, educație civică)

Nivel: Elementary, pre-intermediate

Clasa: a III-a/a IV-a

Durata: 1 an (36 de săptămâni)

Nr. de ore: 1 oră/săptămână

Profesor: Tanasov Mirela

ARGUMENT

Este general recunoscut faptul că metoda ideală și cea mai eficientă pentru însușirea și dezvoltarea competențelor de comunicare într-o limbă străină, este expunerea la contexte în care limba engleză este folosită în situații reale de viață. Cursul opțional de Dramatizing stories își propune să aducă în sala de clasă, prin intermediul poveștilor preferate ale copilăriei, limba engleză într-o multitudine de situații reale, îndrăgite și cunoscute deja de copii în limba română. Și nu doar atât, la finalul fiecărui capitol, copiii vor putea ei înșiși să dea viață personajelor preferate.

Dramatizing stories, este un curs opțional de limba engleză adresat și accesibil elevilor din clasele a III-a si a IV-a, al cărui scop este acela de a folosi literatura și teatrul pentru a dezvolta și valoriza competențele de comunicare în limba engleză pri n studiul și dramatizarea unor povești clasice, cu valoare universală pentru copii. Poveștile vor fi alese în funcție de dificultate pe fiecare nivel de clasă. Totusi este usor adaptabil pentru toti elevii din ciclul primar.

Motivele alegerii acestui curs sunt următoarele:

studiul unor povestiri interesante, cunoscute deja în limba română poate să motiveze foarte mult elevii. La fiecare oră elevilor li se prezintă un material autentic și interesant, familiar pentru ei în limba română și astfel mult mai ușor de asimilat în limba engleză;

fiecare poveste va începe prin prezentarea ei pe bază de imagini, astfel copiilor le va fi foarte ușor să înțeleagă, cu toate că limba folosită va fi limba engleză. Vocabularul necesar pentru citirea poveștii și dramatizarea ei va fi asimilat într-un mod cât se poate de simplu și atractiv prin imagini și mimă. Ca și elemente de construcție a comunicării se vor folosi cele dobândite deja în timpul orelor de limba engleză, astfel acest curs va ajuta la aprofundarea conținuturilor, funcțiilor comunicative și elementelor de construcție a comunicării prevăzute de programa de limba engleză.

fiecare poveste poate fi folosită pentru valoarea ei educațională în viața elevilor, astfel copii își vor dezvolta și alte competențe di lista celor opt competențe cheie și anume competențe sociale și civice: dragoste, bunătate, prietenie, grija față de natură, altruism, hărnicie, etc.

este un stimul pentru „language acquisition” – elevilor le place să asculte, să citească, să vizioneze povești. În timpul acestor ore va fi foarte ușor de realizat ceea ce numim „language exposure” implicit urmată de producerea unor mesaje în limba țintă, „language production”. Deoarece se vor afla în lumea lor, cursul va fi amuzant, dar în aceleși timp, aproape pe nesimțite, își vor însuși într-un mod plăcut și eficient deprinderi de limbă engleză, la fel cum li se întâplă copiilor când își însușesc limba maternă, într-o mare măsură și prin intermediul poveștilor, filmulețelor, desenelor animate;

dezvoltă conștiența elevilor în ce privește importanța pentru viață a cunoașterii limbii engleze; încurajează elevii să vorbească despre opiniile lor, dezvoltându-le în mod deosebit deprinderile de listening, speaking, reading, dar și writing.

Prin faptul că multe dintre poveștile studiate au fost ecranizate, elevii vor avea avantajul de a fi expuși în mod direct limbii engleze (native speakers) prin vizionarea acestor ecranizări.

Motivul pentru care a fost ales numele de „Dramatizing stories” este că pe parcursul acestui opțional se vor realiza dramatizări și role-plays pe baza poveștilor studiate. Prin modul în care se vor realiza activitățile de învățare și evaluarea, elevii vor fi puși în situația de a se exprima în limba engleză pentru a rezolva anumite cerințe, vor trebui să-și exprime în mod deschis opiniile în legătură cu evenimentele petrecute în povestire. Prin dramatizări și role-plays elevii își vor dezvolta capacitatea de interpretare, dar în același timp își vor îmbunătăți fluența în limba engleză. De asemenea, va fi foarte provocator pentru ei ca la această vârstă la care povestile sunt o parte însemnată din universul lor să fie capabili să citească povești în limba engleză. Faptul că la finalul fiecărei povești vor avea ocazia să urce pe scenă, fiind mici actori, va spori încrederea lor de a comunica într-o limbă străină, în diferite contexte și situații reale de viață.

COMPETENȚE GENERALE

Receptarea mesajelor orale

Producerea mesajelor orale

Receptarea mesajelor scrise

Producerea mesajelor scrise

VALORI ȘI ATITUDINI

Manifestarea flexibilității în cazul schimbului de idei și mai ales în cadrul muncii în echipă

Disponibilitate pentru acceptarea diferențelor și manifestarea toleranței

Formarea unor atitudini și concepții care să dezvolte respectul de sine și respectul față de alții

Formarea unor atitudini constructive care să rezolve conflictele dintre indivizi

Dezvoltarea unor responsabilități civice și sociale față de bunul comun, față de proprietate

Promovarea lecturii de calitate

COMPETENȚE SPECIFICE ȘI FORME DE PREZENTARE A CONȚINUTURILOR

CONȚINUTURILE ÎNVĂȚĂRII

Organizare tematică

Copilul despre sine: însușiri fizice și morale, părțile corpului, îmbrăcăminte

Familia: membrii familiei, ocupații, hrană, casa și activități corespunzătoare

Copilul și lumea înconjurătoare: animale, natura, anotimpuri, activități specifice

Lumea fantasică: personaje de basm, desen animat, film

Funcții comunicative

A localiza în spațiu

A compara

A descrie persoane, animale, locuri

A iniția și a susține un schimb verbal

A situa în timp: prezent simplu, prezent continuu, trecut simplu

Elemente de construcție a comunicării

Adjectivul – grade de comparație

Numeralul

Verbul – prezent simplu, prezent continuu, trecut simplu, viitor

Adverbul – de timp (adverbe specifice timpurilor verbale)

Prepoziția – de loc, de timp

Evaluare

Dialoguri

Dramatizare

Joc de rol

Materiale didactice

Imaginile poveștilor studiate

Fișe de lucru

Décor scenă – realizat împreună cu elevii

Filmulețe, cântece

Video proiector

CD – player

Bibliografie:

www.britishcouncil.ro

www.englishmethodology.ro

www.didactic.ro

www.uniscan.ro

Philips, S. (1993) Young learners: Oxford University Press

Halliwell, S. (1992) Teaching English in the Primary Classroom: Longman

Appendix H – Worksheets – hand-outs, printables, scripts, flashcards and other samples for the stories included in section 2.2. and 2.3.

Worksheet 11

Worksheet 2 …- Little Red Riding Hood – script

Scene 1

At Little Red Riding Hood’s home

Mum: Good morning, Little Red Riding Hood.

LRRH: Hello, Mum!

Mum: Look, here’s a cake for Grandma.

LRRH: Mmm! Yummy!

Mum: Put it in the basket, please, and go to Grandma’s house.

LRRH: Yes, Mum. Bye, bye!

Mum: wai a minute and listen to me carefully!

LRRH: Yes, Mummy!

Mummy: Don’t stop on the way and don’t speak to the Big Bad Wolf.

LRRH: OK, Mummy! Bye!

Scene 2 In the wood

LRRH: It’s a fantastic day. Look at the flowers! Flowers for Grandma!

Wolf: Hello!

LRRH: Hello!

Wolf: What’s your name, little girl?

LRRH: My name’s Little Red Riding Hood. What’s your name?

Wolf: I’m Wolfy, the good wolf! What’s in your basket, Little Red Riding Hood?

LRRH: (thinking) Wolfy? I think he is the Big Bad Wolf.

LRRH: A cake for Grandma!

Wolf: Mmm! Yummy!

LRRH: Bye, bye, Wolfy!

Wolf: Bye, bye, Little Red Riding Hood!

Scene 3 At Grandma’s

Wolf: Hello, Grandma!

Grandma: Aargh! A wolf! Help!

Scene 4 The wolf jumps into Grandma’s bed

LRRH: Hello, Grandma!

Wolf: Hello, Little Red Riding Hood!

LRRH: How are you?

Wolf: Oh… very bad!

LRRH: Grandma, what big eyes!

Wolf: Yes! To see you better!

LRRH: Grandma, what big ears!

Wolf: Yes! To hear you better!

LRRH: Grandma, what a big nose!

Wolf: Yes! To smell you better!

LRRH: Grandma, what big teeth!

Wolf: Yes! To eat you better!

LRRH: Aaargh!!

Scene 5 LRRH: Help! Help! A wolf!

Woodcutter: A wolf?! You big bad wolf!

LRRH: Thank you, woodcutter!

Woodcutter: Where’s Grandma?

Grandma: I’m here! Thank you, woodcutter!

LRRH: Grandma, you’re OK!

Grandma: Yes, let’s have a party! LRRH: HURRAY!

Worksheet 3 ….

Worksheet 4 …

Worksheet 5…

Goldilocks and the three bears – play script

Scene 1 (a poster with a forest scene and the house is set in front of the children)

Narrator: Look! This is a very nice house in the forest! Do you know who lives there?

The kids: No! Who lives there?

Narrator: I tell you. This is the house of the Bear family: Daddy bear, mummy bear and Baby bear. They live in this nice little house in the forest.

(each character says hello to the kids and they answer back)

Narrator: It’s early in the morning. Mummy bear and daddy bear are in the kitchen. What else can you see in the kitchen? (time for the kids to answer)

Kids: A table! Three chairs!

Narrator: There is a table and there are three chairs: two big chairs and a small chair. What’s on the table?

Kids: Food! Yummy food!

Mummy and Daddy bear: Time for breakfast!

Baby bear: Yummy! Porridge! My favourite breakfast.

(tasting the porridge)

It’s too hot!

Mummy bear: Yes! Let’s go for a walk in the forest.

Daddy bear: Let’s go!

Baby bear: Yuppy!

Scene 2 (displaying a picture of Goldilocks)

Narrator: A naughty girl, called Goldilocks is walking in the forest. She sees the house and….

Goldilocks: What a beautiful house!

(knocking at the door)

Narrator: Kids, is anybody home?

Kids: No!

Goldilocks: Nobody home. I’ll get in.

(getting into the house, she sees the breakfast on the table)

Yummy! Breakfast! I’m so hungry!

Narrator: Is Goldilocks a good girl? Is she naughty?

Kids: She is naughty! Naughty Goldilocks!

Goldilocks:(tasting Daddy’s porridge) This porridge is too hot! I don’t like.

(tasting Mummy’s porridge)This porridge is too cold! I don’t like.

(Tasting Baby Bear’s porridge)This porridge is just right! Yummy!

Goldilocks: I’m so tired now. (she yawns)

Narrator: There are three chairs around the table. She sits in one of the chairs.

Goldilocks: This chair is too big!

(She sits in the second chair.)

Goldilocks: This chair is too big!

(She sits in the third chair.)

Goldilocks: This chair is just right! (the chair breaks)

Narrator: She is so tired and she goes to the bedroom. There are three beds.

Goldilocks: (Trying Daddy’s bed and Mummy’s bed) This bed is too hard! This bed is too soft!

Goldilocks: (Trying Baby Bear’s bed) This bed is just right! I will have a nap.

Scene 3

(The three bears come in the house. They see the bowls.)

Daddy Bear: Look at my porridge!

Mummy Bear: Look at my porridge!

Baby Bear: Look at my porridge. It’s all gone!

(The three bears see the chairs.)

Daddy Bear: Look at my chair!

Mummy Bear: Look at in my chair!

Baby Bear: Look at my chair! It’s broken!

(The three bears go into the bedroom and see the beds.)

Daddy Bear: Look at my bed!

Mummy Bear: Look at my bed!

Baby Bear: Look at my bed! Who’s there?

(Goldilocks wakes up, looks at the bears and screams.)

Goldilocks: Help!

(Goldilocks runs out of the house.)

Daddy Bear, Mummy Bear and Baby Bear: What a horrible girl!

Narrator: She’ll never come there again!

Worksheet 6 ….

Goldilocks and the three bears – activities

What’s your favorite breakfast?

When do you eat breakfast? In the morning, at noon, in the afternoon or in the evening?

Draw your favorite food and drink for breakfast!

Do you like? Yes! Yummy! / No! Yuk!

Worksheet 7 …

Worksheet 8

Worksheet 9 …

Warmer – the ant and the dove – word search (pair work activity, followed by whole class activity)

Find the name of six animals in the word search. Use the first letter of each animal to form a new word. That’s the place where our story takes place. Good luck!

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

The place where our story takes place is ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___.

Worksheet 10

The Ant and the Dove – script

NARRATOR

It is a hot summer day. There is a forest and a river nearby. A thirsty ant comes out of the forest and goes to the river to drink some fresh water.

ANT

Oh, it’s very hot and I’m so thirsty! The river is at the edge of the forest. I must go down there to drink.

NARRATOR

Half way down, the ant slips and falls into the running river. The ant is scared and cries for help. She is in danger. Is anybody around to hear and help the poor little ant?

ANT

Help! Help!

NARRATOR

There is a dove up in a tree. The dove sees the ant in danger.

DOVE

Oh no! The ant is in trouble!

NARRATOR

She drops some leaves into the river near the ant.

DOVE

Climb on a leaf!

NARRATOR

The ant climbs on a leaf and floats to the shore close to the tree and the dove.

ANT

Thank you!

DOVE

You are welcome! A friend in need is a friend indeed.

Some days later…..

NARRATOR

A hunter enters the forest. The ant is having some rest and sees the hunter. The dove is up in the tree

again. The hunter sees the dove and….

HUNTER

Aha! A dove! I can trap!

NARRATOR

The ant sees the hunter hiding behind a tree with a trap in his hand.

ANT

The dove is in danger!

NARRATOR

The ant walks over to the hunter and pricks his heel.

HUNTER!

Ouch! My foot!

NARRATOR

The dove hears the cries and flies away.

DOVE

Many thanks, my little friend!

ANT

You are welcome! One good deed deserves another!

NARRATOR

One good deed deserves another!

A friend in need is a friend indeed!

Don’t forget: Be good friends!

Worksheet 11 ..- The ant and the dove – flashcards

Worksheet 12 …

Easy to draw ants

Write a slanted U and a turned around C.

Write two turned around C.

Make legs with 7 and 1.

Make antennae with turned around J and eye with O.

Worksheet 13 …

Worksheet 14 …

Worksheet 15 …

Worksheet 16 …

When the toys had a secret (PLAY SCRIPT)

Narrator: This is a nursery/kindergarten. There are lots of toys at the kindergarten.

Do you like toys? These are special toys. They can play and speak.

Now I want you to meet Little pink rabbit. Say hello to little pink rabbit. Oh! Little pink rabbit isn’t very happy! What’s wrong Little pink rabbit?

LPR: (showing a sad face) I’m sad. Very, very sad! My friends don’t like me anymore.(pointing to the dolls and the teddy bear)

Hey, Dolls! Can I play with you?

The Dolls: No! Shoo, shoo! Go away pink rabbit!

LPR: See? They don’t love me anymore! (Starting to cry)

Hey, Teddy bear! Can I play with you?

Teddy bear: No! Go away! Don’t peep!

LPR: Nobody loves me! I will pack and run away (packing in his room.)

Narrator: Little pink rabbit stops at the door and peeps inside.

LPR: A party? Happy birthday?

Narrator: He opens the door and….

The toys: Surprise! Happy birthday, Little pink rabbit!

Presents for you!

Doll 1: A new hat

Doll 2: A nice red bow

Doll 3: And a new jacket

LPR: Hooray! Presents for me! Thank you, dear friends!

Teddy bear: And …

LPR: A birthday cake! So nice!

The toys: Happy birthday! (They all sing)

The toys: Blow the candles, Little pink rabbit!

LPR: (Blowing the candles)Hooray! I’m happy again!

Worksheet 17 … – post-listening activity – When the toys had a secret

What’s your favourite toy? Is it happy or sad?

Worksheet 18… Interview

Title of the story:

Character:

Worksheet 19 – Stick puppets

Worksheet 20 …- Exploring a story

Worksheet 21 – Role-cards (Present Simple, Wh- and yes/no questions) – pair work activity for Santa’s little helper (can be easily adapted to other stories)

Appendix I

Stories and drama – topics and structures plan

Appendix J – Photos of the children during different story/drama based activities

Appendix L – some of the 1st graders drawings illustrating their attitude towards English classes/learning

Appendix M – Illustration of the research theme