ONCE UPON A TIME

Stories can provide a highly motivating, engaging and realistic source of genuine language interaction in the classroom. They are 'livinglanguage' in which the teacher (or student storyteller) becomes thesource of language, and the listeners are actively involved inunderstanding. The authors argue from experience that almost everyonecan tell stories convincingly, especially given an outline to workfrom. A very wide range of these outlines, from many cultures andsources, are provided. These can be used by the teacher as a resourcefor a variety of activities for students from beginner to advancedlevels, including listening comprehension, grammar practice, oralproduction and fluency practice, but above all for exposure to realspoken language.