Revista simpozionului Eficiență și calitate în educație - 19 mai 2017 Eficiență și calitate în educație | Page 39

TEACHING ENGLISH THROUGH STORIES
USING USBORNE READING PROGRAM
Georgiana Adriana Ursuț, Școala Gimnazială „Radu Selejan” Sibiu
Abstract:
The modern society in which we live in is increasingly a technological one and each step we make is in a
hurry. Education demands efficient strategies and methods in order to help students stay humans and
develop their social aspects of their lives. I think stories perfectly fit in these efficient strategies, being a
practical tool in developing students’ learning skills and motivating them throughout the lesson. Students
should get the message that the purpose of school is to prepare them for life. Identifying and managing one’s
emotions lay at the basis of a healthy young mind. This is why stories have the capacity of getting to know us
better. We list the activities which a teacher can use before, while and after storytelling applied to three
books of different levels from the Reading Program of the British Usborne Publishing House, which help
students reach higher English knowledge, better communicational skills and the feeling that learning English
means fun, activity, creativity and enjoyment.
Key words: stories, Usborne Reading Program, motivation, fun, skills, emotional intelligence, activities
Stories join us through our whole life, from the moment we were born until we grow old
and grey. Children learn their mother tongue through stories, from their early age. Why
shouldn’t they learn a second language through stories, too? A good story brings the best
in us, it encourages us to turn the next page and read more, stirring our imagination. We
want to find out what happens next, what the main ch aracters do and what they say to
each other. We may pass easily from one feeling to another, from excitement to sadness,
from happiness to anger. This is because the experience of reading or listening to a story
is likely to make us feel that we are part of the story, too. We might love or hate different
characters in the story. Maybe we recognize ourselves in some of them or maybe we live
the same things as the characters.
Nowadays teachers face a difficult situation when trying to teach a new lesson:
catching the attention and the interest of those involved. In a world marked by technology
and speed, there is a great need of bringing topics of interest for students and presenting
them in an attractive way. Ken Robinson, one of the world's most influential voices in
education, referring to school’s goal, says that "The core purpose of education is to
prepare young people for life after school; helping them to build up the mental, emotional,
social, and strategic resources to enjoy challenge and cope well with uncertainty and
complexity." 1
During decades, education focused on developing students' academic intelligence
but not their emotional intelligence. Nowadays more and more teachers have begun to
realize that developing students' emotional intelligence plays an important role in students'
academic success from early childhood. Specialists 2 state that emotions rule our life and
that there is a strong correlation between students' emotional intelligence and their
classroom behavior. They argue that there are four basic emotional skills which, if they
were developed at school, would lead to healthy mentally balanced students. These
aspects, or skills, include self-expression of emotions, conflict resolution, and
empathy. Self-expression is a person's ability to communicate how they feel in any given
situation. Conflict resolution refers to our ability to discuss our issues with another person
1
Ken Robinson, “Creative Schools: The Grassroots Revolution That's Transforming Education”, New York:
Penguin, 2016
2
Karen Stone McCown, “Self Science: The Subject is Me”, Santa Monica: Good Year Publishing Company,
1978
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