Using Narratives to Prepare an Integrated Skills Lesson in English Language Teaching

Carol Griffiths and Jiydegul Alymidin Kyzy, Turkey

Carol Griffiths has been a teacher, manager and teacher trainer of ELT for many years. She completed a PhD on the subject of learning strategies at the University of Auckland. She has taught in New Zealand, Indonesia, Japan, China, North Korea, UK, and is currently Associate Professor at Faith University in Istanbul, Turkey. She has published widely, including her books ‘Lessons from Good Language Learners’, and ‘The Strategy Factor in Successful Language Learning’ and presented at many conferences around the world. E-mail: carol.griffiths@gmail.com

Jiydegul Alymidin Kyzy has been working as a teacher at the ELT department at Fatih University, Istanbul, Turkey. She completed an MA program at Gazi University in Ankara. Currently she is working on a PhD looking at the relationship among attribution, self-efficacy and achievement of EFL learners. She has recently completed an internship at Pilgrims Language School in Canterbury, UK. E-mail: jiydegul@fatih.edu.tr

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Teacher’s guidelines: Black June
Student’s worksheet: Black June
Appendix: Black June

Teacher’s guidelines: Black June

As we mentioned in the previous lesson outline published in HLTmag in August, 2014 (old.hltmag.co.uk/aug14/less02.htm) narrative is invaluable in the language classroom because of its intrinsic motivational potential and its power to engage attention across a range of learning styles. With careful planning, narrative can be used to develop receptive skills (listening and reading) to utilize the input, and productive skills (speaking and writing), thereby providing output opportunities. Therefore, we suggest by using narratives we can include all the above mentioned areas in language teaching, not to mention the large amount of time saved that is normally spent on lesson preparation. This lesson plan will illustrate how this can be achieved by using a story called “Black June”, adapted from a story written by a sophomore student in a Chinese university and published by HLTmag (2007, 9/6). A suggested sequence for using this story with an upper-intermediate level class includes

1. Speaking: Before handing out the text, divide the students into groups and ask them to exchange stories about a time they failed to achieve something they really wanted. If appropriate, selected students can be asked to tell their stories to the whole class as the activity winds down, although sensitivity may be required here, as not all students may feel comfortable broadcasting such information to the whole class. If students are reluctant, they should not be pressured
2. Listening: Before handing out the text, get the students to listen to the first two paragraphs and answer true/false questions. These paragraphs can be read by the teacher, or recorded if someone else is available to read them. (If the text is handed out before this activity, it becomes a reading activity rather than a listening activity)
3. Reading: Hand out the text and get the students to read it either silently or aloud and answer questions to check comprehension
4. Vocabulary: Focus on the meaning of key vocabulary in the text
5. Pronunciation: Deal with how this vocabulary is pronounced
6. Grammar: Complete the grammar exercises which use items in the text that students must manipulate to suit the grammatical construction required. If the class has been working on particular grammar, the teacher can easily construct exercises which practice this grammar using the exercises here as a model
7. Writing: Get students to write a story on a related topic, correct the best ones and submit them to HLTmag or some other publication – students love to see their work in print

Using narrative in this way provides an integrated approach to the development of skills and knowledge in a target language

Student’s worksheet: Black June

• Speaking- warm-up questions:
  1. How do you treat terrible, dark moments in life?
  2. Do you think you learn from past experiences?
  3. Do you value efforts or the results of the efforts more?
• Listening: listen to the story and say if the following statements are true (T) or false (F):
  1. It is about gladiators.
  2. The author has barely passed the exam.
  3. Author’s plans and dreams about the future were broken.
  4. The author was happy with the results and laughed all the time.
• Reading: read the rest of the story and answer the following questions:
  1. What is the main idea of the text?
  2. What was the age of the writer when what is described occurred?
  3. In line three of the first paragraph what is meant by "die or survive"?
  4. Give an alternative title
• Vocabulary:
  • Derivatives: find the roots of the following words and write the types of the following words next to each word into the brackets. Are they Nouns (n.), verbs (v.), adjectives (adj), or adverbs (adv.). entrance - par. 1 line 2 ( ) grief – par. 3 line 11 ( )
    habitual – par. 1 line 4 ( ) flawless – 5 line 19 ( )
    failure – par. 2 line 6 ( ) embrace – par. 6 line 23 ( )
  • Write the definitions/ synonyms for the words/phrases/expressions in bold given in the text.
  • Find synonyms for the following words in the text
    1. chase over (v. par. 1)
    2. pain, suffering (n. par. 2)
    3. deliberation, consideration (n. par. 3)
    4. give up, succumb (v. par. 4)
    5. take pleasure (v. par. 6 )
    6. protest, reject (v. par 6)
• Pronunciation: check how the words in the following vocabulary list are pronounced. Pay special attention to where the stress comes in each word, and the pronunciation of the vowel in the unstressed syllables:
  1. Gladiator
  2. Anguish
  3. Fiasco
  4. Antidote
• Grammar:
  1. Underline the verbs you can find in the past tense.
  2. Try to transform them into negative and interrogative.
  3. Change the verbs of the fourth paragraph into the past tense.
• Writing: Describe a negative experience in your life and what positive things you can make out of it.

Appendix: Black June

For high school students in China, a decade's academic pursuit ultimately revolves upon the college entrance examination, just like the final showdown of gladiators - die or survive, no exaggeration here. Unfortunately, in this battle, I seemed to have a dark appointment with destiny. Despite habitual good academic performance and ample self-confidence, I failed, by a narrow margin, to reach the standard of the university that I applied for.

Anguish was brimming during those days and I virtually considered that the failure of this exam declared the end of a bright future. The abrupt fiasco overthrew the arrogant me from the fantasy. Indulging in solitary gloom, I isolated myself, yet always felt a growing roar of laughter and rejection from others.

However, life keeps going and the passing of time is the best antidote that weakens the poison of grief. It was that period when I first thought of my life seriously; it was by the contemplation of that time I grew to be mature.

Life obviously will not always be smooth and sweet and then the issue is how we deal with the knocks: Shall we accept defeat and bow and say: "Thank you, I'm a loser. I'll go away now"? Obviously, sadness is easier because it's surrender. Or shall we have the courage to fail big and stick around and let people wonder why we are still smiling? The latter is true greatness to me.

A motto of the British Special Service Air Force is "Those who risk, win." Life is full of adventures and the flawless and perfect situation is beyond expectation. Therefore, we should make full preparation and enjoy the adventure and never feel let down by temporary defeat or embarrassment.

From then on, that Black June, whenever a frustration arises, I will take a few minutes to wallow in the delicious misery - enjoy it, embrace it, discard it and then proceed. We should never idle away our time in sad memories of the past, nor lay our dreams on the future. We should make life dance with hopes flying free!

Simon

Please check the Teaching Advanced Students course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the English Language Improvement for Teachers course at Pilgrims website.