Abstract:

Teaching English as a foreign language to young learners has been a topic of great interest to many researchers. Using stories for educational purposes is considered an effective teaching strategy and can act as a tremendous source for language growth. Most young learners enjoy listening to stories in their mother tongue, so using stories seems to be an ideal tool to teach a foreign language (Ellis and Brewster, 1991). Furthermore, learning through stories is believed to have positive and long-term outcomes on young learners and their teachers. This paper discusses some crucial issues related to the use of stories and their influence in designing a series of story-based lessons. It also assesses how effective teaching and learning can be achieved through the use of stories. To this end, some reasons and vital criteria for choosing stories are provided. Additionally, a story-based lesson from a Saudi syllabus is critically evaluated according to Cameron’s (2001) prototypical features for good stories, in addition to a consideration of the teacher’s role in the story-based classroom. Also, a series of story-based lessons, derived from Ali and the Magic Carpet story, are designed and presented according to these prototypical features. The paper concludes with a rationale for choosing this story in particular.

Keywords:

Young Learners, Story-based lessons, syllabus design, English as a foreign language (EFL).