Introduction

While stories are an extraordinary vehicle for delivering quality CI, we can extend this beyond the story itself and guide learners from input to output in L2. Remember, output is evidence that acquisition has taken or is taking place. It is the ultimate goal of a language class. However, we can reasonably expect that learner output will not be perfect. Instead, it is a reflection of the mental representation of language the learner has at the moment of production. Expect this output to change over time as the learner receives more CI, acquires more language, and their mental model becomes more native-like.

Let's imagine a scenario where you take two days to complete a story with your level 1 class. On day one, you present 3-6 phrases of key vocabulary using TPR. You then use a script as a guide while you begin to weave a tory with your class. You go slowly, always assessing learner comprehension along the way. You ask repetitive and intriguing questions about the main character, your students, and yourself. You also model conversation with a student actor. At the end of day one, you manage to flesh out an interesting character with some depth.

You and your students learn that:

Susana is a tall and smart girl from Ecuador. She's 18 years old and works at the mall. She likes her job, but she doesn't like that she has to take the bus to work. She wants a job that's closer to home.

This is a great start to your class story. With the help of your students' suggestions, you outline a relatively interesting character. Not only do you have details, but she has a problem that could be solved in a million different ways.

It helps to have a student write the story down for you so you don't have to remember all the details. Sorting out stories from 5 different classes can be a bit of a juggling act, so it helps to have a written record.

Day one of the storytelling process leaves you no time to decide how the main character will go about trying to solve her problem. Tomorrow you and your students will decide the actions Susana will take and whether or not she gets what she wants.

On day two, you present the TPR vocabulary again, this time without English translations as an aid. Instead, learners rely on the gestures to interpret meaning. If a learner was absent on day one of the story, they ask a friend for the vocabulary and gestures before class.

After a quick review of vocabulary, you do a summary retell of the story up to the point where you left off. This is to activate the learners' schemata and to not leave behind anyone who was absent on day one of the story.

After the summary, you then continue on to find out what will happen to Susana. Again you go slowly, check for comprehension, and ask many repetitive questions about Susana, your students, and yourself. You also model conversation with Susana, played by a student actor. By the end of day two you find out the following:

There is a restaurant close to Susana's house that is hiring. Susana goes to the restaurant and applies for the job. She gets hired as a chef, but it turns out that she is a terrible cook. Her boss yells at her. Susana quits before her boss can fire her, making a scene in the restaurant. Susana isn't sad because, luckily, she didn't quit her job at the mall.

Now you have a complete story. It has a beginning, middle, and end. There is a character with some depth, a problem that needs solving, and an attempt to solve it. In this case it didn't work out. (For some reason, learners love it when it doesn't work out). Not bad for two days' work.

Reading the Story

We want to extend the story to include a written version, so there are two ways we could go. First, we can have a pre-written version of the story that we give students. The other is to take the summary that a student has been writing for you, type it up and give it to students to read. I've done both. While I am opinionated on this, either option extends the story at least one more day allows learners to process the CI in a different way.

The reading, which at first would have been a daunting task for many learners, turns out to be easy for them. They've heard this story before, and the beauty is that now they get to see what the words look like on the page. Reading also tends to be easier than listening. Reading the story based on the one you co-created will give the slower auditory language processors an opportunity to take it in again, this time at their own pace.

There are numerous ways you can implement this reading in your lesson. I'll list a few, and you can experiment with which one works best for you. You can even mix and match to keep things fresh, which is what I like to do:

CI EXTENSION WITH STORY-BASED TASKS

When I first started teaching with storytelling, I was hesitant to use anything that remotely looked like a textbook or worksheet activity. I avoided them like the plague. But it didn’t take long for me to realize that, despite how much they loved it, students started to see the storytelling process as repetitive and predictable. It was too much of a good thing, so I learned that ti’s beast to leave them wanting more.

Additionally, I discovered that it’s quite mentally taxing to be creating stories all the time. Even when I was loving it, I wasn’t at the top of my game after a few weeks of intense storytelling. I needed some time to recharge my storytelling batteries. Story-related input tasks are the cure for burnout and a recipe for sustaining storytelling over the long haul.

Developing tasks based on the story and related vocabulary is another way to extend the story beyond the initial telling. There are many different kinds of tasks, so you can pick and choose which ones will work for you.

Story-based input tasks shake things up and give us another avenue to deliver CI. The following list is non-exhaustive, but it is more than enough to get you started:

We know that CI is the staple food on the language acquisition diet and storytelling is protein of that meal. But the key to any good diet is compliance. Your students won't benefit from storytelling if they (or you) get burnt out on the way. That’s a recipe for going back to explicitly teach grammar rules.

FROM INPUT TO OUTPUT

Since the ultimate goal of a language class is for learners to speak and write in L2, we can use story-based input tasks to get learners talking and writing (albeit imperfectly), guiding them from input to output.

As I mentioned earlier, output is evidence that acquisition has happened or is happening. It's not clear to me what the role of output is in acquisition, but we do know that it's limited. Lots of comprehensible and communicative input in a low-pressure setting is how we acquisition happens in the long run.

Let's see a set of input tasks based on our example story:

Susana is a tall and smart girl from Ecuador. She's 18 years old and works at the mall. She likes her job, but she doesn't like that she has to take the bus to work. She wants a job that's closer to home.

There is a restaurant close to Susana's house that is hiring. Susana goes to the restaurant and applies for the job. She gets hired as a chef, but it turns out that she is a terrible cook. Her boss yells at her. Susana quits before her boss can fire her, making a scene in the restaurant. Susana isn't sad because, luckily, she didn't quit her job at the mall.

Activity 1 - True/False Quiz

Activity 2 - Survey Select all the statements that apply to you.

Activity 3 - Ask a classmate the questions and write down their answer (or 4)

These particular tasks are just an example of something I pulled from the brief text. There were at least two other directions I could have gone with my questions, but I went for the low-hanging fruit. Sometimes the low-hanging fruit tastes the best.

You don't need that many of these activities. Don't overdo it. The point is that we want to guide learners from input to output while staying focused on the relevant themes of the story. We also don’t want to focus too much on output, especially at the beginning.

CLOSING THOUGHTS + WORKSHEET

It bears repeating that this is a lot of information to process. You can always read through this content again. You'll get more out of it on a second or third reading.

When you feel ready to move on, take a few minutes and complete the worksheet that accompanies this lesson. It will help walk you through the creation of three story-based input tasks which will help guide learners from input to output.