How to Improve Students' Writing Skills with Story-telling?

 We learn through stories. We've been wired for it since we were sitting around the fire listening to our elders tell stories about how the world was created and how we came to be. However, despite the many stories, students' poor writing skills are a long-standing problem in the English language classroom. Over recent years, more strategies and methods have been implemented to improve students' writing ability.

One of the most common questions among teachers is how to motivate students to learn to write exceptional pieces. This article focuses on how trained teachers can provide students with a great opportunity for learning & improving their writing skills through story-telling. Part of teacher training courses UAE geared towards teachers, trainers and other educators, but may also be useful for people who wish to become teachers and trainers themselves (not meant as an advice or guide by its author).

Narratives

The term narrative is often used to refer to an actual story, but in the more academic context of a narrative it can be used in a broader sense to refer to any sequence of events. When a story is told the order and relation of events are both important. This is true whether it's someone telling a story or a writer writing it. The writer will try to arrange the events so as to create the most interest and suspense while at the same time maintaining credibility. It's important that the reader see things in their proper order or they won't make sense and the reader will lose interest.

A good way to think about this process of arranging events in order is by thinking about narrative structure. Narrative structure refers to all the parts that make up a story and how they interrelate, including plot, setting, characters, point-of-view and theme. All these elements need to work together in order for the story to hold together properly. If you're interested in learning more about how these elements work together you should enroll in Mind Boosters teacher courses.

Plan a writing curriculum.

When it comes to teaching, the most important thing is that we have a plan. You can’t be working just one day to the next. Effective and efficient writing is not a spontaneous activity. You need a plan for all the things you want your students to learn and practice in order to improve their writing skills.

We suggest planning an entire year of activities and exercises for your students, which will help them achieve your goals. For example, if you want them to learn how to write narratives, create a whole month’s calendar of activities related to this topic: brainstorming, creating plots and characters, writing different types of stories, etc.

You could then assign some homework on a regular basis: exercises that they can do in class or at home with some guidance from their parents. And finally, include a final project where they get together everything they have learned throughout the month. The more practice they get with you as their teacher, the better writers they will become!

Give reading activities

According to early childhood education UAE, a teacher learns that the best way to get students to write is to give them reading activities. Students can relate better and they understand the writing. As a teacher, giving students a storytelling activity so they can make up their own stories is the best way to teach creative writing.

Develop a special assignment program where we give students a story that has a beginning, middle and end, but we leave out parts of the story. So, for example, we leave out the middle of the story or the end of the story. We then ask students to make up their own middle or their own ending. This gives them an opportunity to be creative when they write their own stories.

Encourage students to keep a journal.

A journal is like a story, but it's not fiction. It can be about anything at all, and it doesn't have to be written every day. But there are a few things that make journals special. First of all, usually only the writer can read them — they're private — and they don't have to be neat or perfect or good.

In fact, the point of keeping a journal is to write whatever comes into your mind, which means that the whole thing can be pretty confusing if you look back on it later on! But when writing about your day or about something that happened that made you feel happy or sad or excited, you will find that your thoughts and feelings really start to come together and make more sense than they did before. And you get better at understanding yourself and how other people might feel too!

Another great thing about journals is that writing in them helps your vocabulary grow, because you'll use words in ways you haven't before. Also, since it's just for you, it doesn't matter if some of those words aren't spelled right or if some sentences are longer than others or if there are lots of misspellings and mistakes!

Help students learn from professional story-tellers.

One way of doing this is to get them to listen to stories by professional story-tellers. The oral tradition is still very much alive and well in our society and we can learn a lot from professional story-tellers.

The following activities can help:

Biography Hunt: Have students choose a person to research, such as a famous scientist or athlete. They then create a list of biographical books and websites that they can use to find information.

Questions: Have students come up with a question they want to answer about their subject, such as "Why was he so famous?" or "What made him so good at his sport?"

Autobiography Hunt: Invite students to gather autobiographical material about someone they know well — an older family member, for example.

Meet the Author: Invite a local author to speak to your class. Students should prepare questions for the author about his or her work and life experiences that led to writing the book.

Let students get creative with the 6 elements of storytelling

A graduated teacher from Mind Booster KHDA Approved Teaching Courses UAE understands that students can write better stories with the help of a storyboard. A storyboard is the easiest way to plan out your story. It can be used for planning a short film, writing a novel, or creating a comic. Even if you have never heard of a storyboard before, you have probably seen one.

The six elements of storytelling is an easy technique to learn so that you can begin to structure your stories better.

The 6 elements of storytelling are as follows:

1) The characters - They are people or animals who take part in the action of a story.

2) The setting - It is the time and place that the story takes place.

3) The plot - It is what happens in the story (the sequence of episodes).

4) The theme - It is what the story is about (the main idea).

5) The conflict - It is the struggle between opposing forces that moves the action of the story forward.

6) The resolution - It occurs at the end of a narrative and describes how the conflict was resolved.

Use role plays to teach story-telling skills

One of the most common problems children have when writing is generating ideas. Often, this is due to a lack of exposure. Classrooms are generally a narrow window into life. Even when children are encouraged to write about what they know, their knowledge base is limited. One way I get around this problem is by using role play in the classroom. I've found that role play can help develop character and setting ideas for stories.

In many ways, role-play is the ultimate learning tool. It combines so many different skills, including active listening, verbal communication and presentation skills. This exercise can help your students understand how dialogues are written and how one can create a situation using different characters.

Give students opportunities for peer review and editing

Giving students opportunities for peer review and editing is an important part of the revision process. Peer review helps students think about their writing — what works and what doesn't. It also gives them a chance to give feedback on other student's work.

The key to making peer review work is having it be structured so that each student's work gets reviewed by multiple people. That way, they get a more well-rounded look at their work — and have the opportunity to make changes based on the feedback they receive.

In conclusion, there are some tried-and-true strategies to improve students' writing skills and storytelling. Teachers just need to motivate them to write on their own, and then guide them at the right time. This can be done by providing specific prompts, allowing students to express themselves freely, or even by drawing on the ideas that they have already expressed in class. The important thing is for teachers to understand the process of writing and storytelling, so that the lessons learned during this stage can be applied productively later on. To unlock potential and develop skills in the field of education contact Professional Development Workshop for Teachers UAE today!