Storytelling to Enhance Speaking and Listening Skills for English Young Learners: A Case Study at Language Centers in Binh Duong Province

Du Thanh Tran

doi:10.52296/vje.2021.64

Abstract

With the availability of English teaching and learning facilities in most schools as well as in English language centers in Vietnam nowadays, storytelling is believed to be one of the most suitable techniques to improve young learners’ communicative competences; therefore, it should be further investigated and promoted. With the aim of fully exploiting storytelling in Vietnamese English language teaching contexts, the research is designed to discuss and evaluate its effectiveness as a teaching technique to enhance young learners’ speaking and listening skills - a well-matched couple of oral competences. Conducted with mixed research methods through the use of questionnaires, interview and observation, the outcomes, conclusions, theories as well as evaluations and recommendations put forward in the study are of great validity and reliability. Based on the rationale of this teaching technique, some models and activities for teaching demonstration are designed and carried out in real language environments in order to evaluate its advantages as well as disadvantages. From what have been discovered, the study can serve as a reference for teachers who wish to enhance their students’ listening and speaking skills by means of storytelling.

Highlights

Communicative competences have been considered as the main goals of most EFL learners recently
This study primarily aims to promote the use of storytelling techniques to improve children’s speaking and listening skills
This study focuses on the following points: (1) the description of storytelling techniques and of what should be done in each stage when these techniques are employed as an educational tool in teaching and improving children’s speaking and listening skills; (2) the relationship between storytelling and the development of oral competences for children; (3) the benefits of storytelling when it is used in teaching communicative skills; (4) the teaching resources including where to find stories, how to choose and design stories for classroom activities; (5) the attitudes and responses of children towards different kinds of stories and different styles of storytelling

Summary

Introduction

Communicative competences have been considered as the main goals of most EFL learners recently. Speaking and listening skills require active participation from English language learners and interactive cooperation between teachers and learners during classroom activities Towards these goals, language teachers are expected to engage language learners and offer them as many opportunities as possible to actively practise the target language. Language teachers are expected to engage language learners and offer them as many opportunities as possible to actively practise the target language Storytelling, just as it has been throughout history, is one of the most widely accepted teaching and learning techniques used in education (Canlibeka, 2019). Hereafter in this research, storytelling is proved to be a technique which can meet these requirements

Objectives

Methods

Conclusion