Stories How I did it

Below are 2 activities that I felt were successful activities. One was used with my 1 st year students (story)
and the other was used with my 2nd year students.
Stories:
1 ano (done this year):
Little Red Ridinghood: After calling the register, I told the Ss that I was going to tell them a story. I chose
this story (which was actually supposed to be a play) because I had some vocabulary on family and
colours, topics which they had already done. I told them to put their heads on the table and listen and that
nobody was allowed to talk or else I would write their names down under the sad face.
I started reading the title when somebody said they didnt understand the story because it was in English. I
said I knew that but they were only supposed to listen to the story and not necessarily understand it. I read
the story to the class, scene by scene trying my best to mimic the characters. After each scene, I showed
them pictures.
The first picture was of Little Red Ridinghood. I asked them if they knew who that was and they did and
said it in Portuguese. (After this stage, they didnt keep their heads on the desk, but started participating in
the lesson and were more motivated to listen to a story they were familiar with.) I also asked them some
words I knew they knew: Daddy and Grandma. And they told me what it meant.
This probably made them feel more confident to understand the story because soon after that they started
interacting with me. While reading the 2nd scene, a girl picked up on a word she knew in English. When I
said the word flowers, one girl said: I know what flowers means in Portuguese. I made a sign to be quiet
and continued reading. They behaved quiet well and then when I finished reading, I asked the girl: What
does flower mean? and she said flor. Then another student who had heard the colours said, yellow
means amarelo and then the others started telling me the meanings of other colours, some of which
werent even mentioned in the story. This had led to a revision of colours that they had learnt before.
I was pleasantly surprised by this reaction as I didnt expect them to have paid so much attention. I guess
this was because in Scene 1, I was surprised that they didnt pick up on chocolates. But I guess at that
stage, they thought that they didnt understand the story because it was in English. I should have perhaps
asked them what chocolates meant at the end of Scene 1.
Also, I guess that in Scene 2 the sentence A red flower for Grandma was repeated 4 times, each time with
a new colour. This repetition might have made the children concentrate on the word that changed.
Then I showed them a picture of Little Red Ridinghood with the flowers.
Then I started on Scene 3, dramatizing the part of Knock, knock at the door, by knocking on the door.
Some students didnt realize that I had knocked but heard the knock and asked Who was knocking? Then
I showed them the picture of the Wolf, asking them who it was. Then I taught them the vocabulary for it.
I started reading Scene 4 and started pointing to my eyes when talking about big eyes. Then I stopped to
ask them what big eyes meant but they thought it was spectacles. I told them what eyes were and then
continued the story. I didnt finish the story in that class.
In the next class, I asked them if they remembered the story I told them. They remembered Little Red
Ridinghood. I then reminded them of the part of the story I had read out and the other characters in it:
Daddy, Grandma and the Wolf. While summarizing the story, I took the opportunity to elicit and/teach
vocabulary: (chocolates, forest). Then I also revised vocabulary: (flower, Come in, knock, knock and the
colours).
I then told them I was going to continue the story and I didnt want them to speak. I just wanted them to
listen. I read out Scene 4, pointing to my eyes, ears and teeth when talking about big eyes, big ears and
big teeth.

After I finished the story, I showed them the picture of the birds and taught them birds. Then I elicited the
word Help! by saying Help! Help! and showing them the picture of Grandad running after the Wolf.
The third class took place this Friday. An interesting thing that happened was that I said Good afternoon
children instead of Hello children and the students responded with Hello teacher, except for one student
who said Good afternoon. It was interesting to note that they knew I was greeting them but replied with
the words they knew and perhaps were used to rather than the new vocabulary I used. Another interesting
thing happened when I was calling the register. One of my students told me he had two story books in
English. I looked at them. One was too hard for the 1st year: it was Tom Sawyer. I told him this and told
him that maybe we could read the other one another day. It was about a day in London. (I cannot
remember the exact title). Then after asking the date and the students had settled down, I asked the
students if they remembered what we did last time.
They told me that we read the story of Little Red Ridinghood. I then showed them some coloured printed
finger puppets, which I had cut out as images (rather than finger puppets), of Little Red Riding Hood,
Grandma and the Wolf. These were fantastic finger puppets printed out from the following site:
http://www.britishcouncil.org/kids-stories-red-riding-hood.htm I found this site through one of the links from
a fantastic Internet resource: http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/try/britlit/little-red-riding-hood .
After the students told me the story was about Little Red Ridinghood, I showed them the image of Little Red
Riding Hood, saying the words little, red and Ridinghood and making gestures so that they understood the
meanings. For little, I made a gesture suggesting small and eliciting the meaning from them. For red, I
showed the colour red on the image. For Ridinghood, I pointed out the character of Little Red Ridinghood.
They repeated the vocabulary as I was teaching them.
Then I asked them who else was in the story and they told me about the bad wolf in Portuguese. So I
showed them the image of the wolf saying the words big, bad Wolf and then made gestures to teach them
big and bad. For big, I made a gesture of big, using height. For bad, I made a gesture of bad and
eliciting the word from them. For the word wolf I pointed out the character of the Wolf. Then I asked them
for another character. They remembered Grandma and I showed them the picture of Grandma.
I put these images on the board and asked the students to draw the character they liked. Before giving
them the papers to draw, I also asked them if they liked the story. Most of them loved the story, others
didnt. Some said they wanted to hear another story.
I then gave them instructions to write their name on the paper, draw the character they liked and draw stars
depending on whether they liked the story or not: 1 star was if they didnt like the story. 2 stars if the story
was OK. 3 stars if they liked the story a lot. Some students drew 5 or more stars.
I got this idea of a post-story activity from the site my tutor had pointed out to
(http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/try/britlit/little-red-riding-hood). I didnt use the activity sheet from the
website but gave students an A5 paper to draw on. However, I used the activity sheet to show them the
format that I wanted them to do this activity, ie. their name, the picture and the stars. They enjoyed the
activity.
Songs:
2 ano (done last year):
I told my students to stand up and sing the song Head and shoulders, doing the actions that go with the
song of touching the parts of the body in the song. I only taught part of the song. I didnt include the parts
on eyes, ears. .etc. We sang the song 3 times. Then I changed the activity and showed students the
word Hello to colour in. We also did the names of animals and coloured them in too.
In the next lesson, we revised the song Head and shoulders again. Then I showed them the pictures on

pages 15 and 16 in the activity book they had (produced by CLA, Centro de Lnguas de Alvide). These
were like mini-flashcards. I asked them to show me a picture of the shoulder. Then I ensured the others
all knew which picture it was and I asked them to colour it in. I then asked them to identify the other words
of the body from the song: knee and toe. They coloured the images. Then I taught them the vocabulary:
Can you touch .? We then played a game where I asked a few students to come to the front of the
class and show the others the right parts of the body when I said Can you touch.? using the vocabulary
learnt in the song.
We then sang the song again, this time incorporating the part on eyes, ears, mouth and nose. I then
asked the students to identify eyes, ears and mouth in the activity book and colour them in. Once again, I
made sure they all knew which picture was supposed to be coloured.
In the next lesson, we sang the whole song again. I then asked the students to identify and colour in nose
in the activity book; once again assuring that they knew which picture it was. I then changed the activity to
a Halloween activity as it was the week that I was doing a Halloween activity.
In the next lesson, we sang the whole song again: Head, shoulders,. toes. Then we played the Can
you touch? game, where I asked some students to come to the front of the class and touch a part of the
body using the vocabulary from the song. Then I asked students to repeat the words of the song after me
and colour the parts of the body from the song on page 17. Again, they had to identify the image after I
said the word before colouring it in. Then I called some students in front of the class to sing the song. The
students liked the song and there was one student who at first had difficulties in learning the song but then
learnt it and used to repeat it for me during the break because she loved it. This was on her own incentive.