In episode 24 of the Growing with Proficiency – The Podcast, I’m thrilled to have Karen Rowan, an expert in language acquisition, sharing with us the fascinating science behind the power of storytelling in our classrooms. In episode 17 of the podcast, I shared with you how I use storytelling and how I know that it works in my classes.
This week, Karen walks us through great findings about how our brain reacts to stories and insights into how stories can engage our students’ brains and make language acquisition more effective.
But we won’t stop there! Karen also gives us practical tips and strategies on how we can take advantage of this science and make storytelling even more compelling in our classes.
In this post, I’m going to highlight our conversation about storytelling. To hear all the information Karen shares with me about storytelling, go listen to episode 24 HERE.
Stories Help with Vocabulary
Students acquire the language from the stories that we tell. Karen reminds us that we’re teaching so much more than words. She told me in this week’s episode that vocabulary comes from fiction. For example, you can get science vocabulary, academic vocabulary, from science fiction. Fictional stories stay with us and the vocabulary is acquired more quickly.
Start Stories with a Skeleton
It’s good to start with a person, a character, and you and your students can decide together. Then, you need a location, because their character needs to move to another location or you have no motion in your story. Next, you need a problem. Karen suggests that the person needs a problem and goes somewhere to solve it. If you want a longer story and you want to make it a hero’s journey, then it has to be a really big problem that’s worth solving. Also, there has to be an anti-hero, something to push against.
Total Physical Response (TPR)
TPR was created by Dr. James Asher. Karen goes into detail about how she uses TPR storytelling in her classes since 1996. One important thing mentioned is that the stories need to be compelling. If students aren’t interested, they are not paying attention. When we add movement to stories, then we really kind of trigger other parts of the brain which are going to help students visualize the story better and engage with the story better. Acting out stories can be done in different ways. We discuss a couple of them in the episode.
Karen’s expertise and enthusiasm for storytelling will leave you inspired and equipped to create engaging and memorable language lessons for your students. So, grab your headphones and join us for this exciting episode on the science of storytelling! Listen HERE.
Resources & Links Mentioned in Episode 24
GWP Spanish Teacher Academy Waiting List
IG & Twitter: @claudiamelliott
Register here for CI Rebook 2023
Readers for World Language Classes
Learning Another Language Through Actions Dr. James Asher
TPR is More then Commands at All Levels Contee Seely and Elizabeth Romjain
