Teach English in Dongtang Zhen - Yueyang Shi

The importance of stories for English learning in early childhood. Why is the incorporation of storytelling and singing vital when teaching English to young learners? When a teacher is faced with the – sometimes daunting – task of teaching English to young learners, he or she must pause and consider a few things. First of all, if it is the first time a teacher is confronted with young learners, he or she must adapt his or her teaching approach. As with any new course, the teacher must evaluate his or her teaching approach. Who are the learners? What level are they at? How do I, as the teacher, reach the student, gain their attention and trust? When teaching young learners, the implementation of storytelling will be the key to success. Young learners may not have learned to read or write in their native language, therefore introducing reading and writing in English should not be the first step. It has been my experience in teaching young children (pre-school and kindergarten), that the teacher must possess certain requirements in order to meet the needs of the children. First of all, frontal teaching will not work. The teacher must gain the children’s attention through songs, stories and also an engaging personality. I believe that storytelling and singing can and should be used together, within the same lesson. For example, if the teacher reads the book “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see?” to the children, they can begin by introducing colors – what colors do the children know? Do they know the names of the colors? Then the teacher should read the book to the children – preferably a large book so that all of the children can see the pictures. It is not necessary at this stage for the children to read the words. The teacher can slowly read through the book as an introduction to the class. Then, the teacher can sing the words to the class, encouraging the children to sing along. The children here are learning listening comprehension as well as the first attempts at pronouncing words in English. Short storybooks like “Brown Bear” can be read and sung repeatedly, as the young learners enjoy and learn from the repetition. What is important here is that the children have a frame of reference. They see the pictures in the book and hear the corresponding words. Then they sing the words along with the teacher. Singing alone is fun – but it will not have the same learning effect as the combination of reading and singing. Another important aspect of storytelling in young learners is that they can unknowingly learn proper grammar – or how to know if something is said correctly or incorrectly. Early childhood is far too young to learn about grammar in any language, especially a foreign language. When listening to stories that the teacher is reading out loud, the young learners hear English spoken properly and are then more prepared as they progress in their English learning. They are able to decipher what is correct and incorrect in the spoken language and can more easily apply this to the rules of the language as they get older. Storytelling further allows for an earlier fluency in regards to pronunciation. When the young learner hears stories read aloud to them by a native English speaker, they enjoy more ease when speaking out loud because they have heard how the words are supposed to sound. I highly encourage teachers to read simple stories more than one time or tell stories with a recurring character. The children will benefit from the repetition and are more likely to retain what they have learned if they hear it repeatedly. This is not to say that the teacher should stand in front of the classroom and make the children repeat words over and over again. Using songs, for example, is an excellent way to teach certain topics. In one small class I taught, I introduced the word “snow” to the learners – “it's snowing”, “snowflakes”, “snowman”, etc. Then we watched a video of the song “Snowflakes” which showed snowflakes falling to the ground. We sang “snowflakes, snowflakes, snowflakes are falling, falling, falling…” and motioned the word “falling”. The children left class that day with several new vocabulary words and visual enhancement. We sang the song repeatedly throughout the winter on snowy days at the beginning or end of our class. This repetition enabled more long-term learning. When teaching English, or any other 2nd language, to young learners, the teacher must be prepared to engage their pupils at their level. This does mean reading, singing and often being silly. The engaged pupil will have much greater success than the unengaged pupil. The implementation of storytelling and singing will greatly aid both the teacher and the pupil.