Content

INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................................................................4
1

THEORETICAL PART....................................................................................................................5
1.1

BENEFITS FROM USING STORIES IN YOUNG LEARNERS CLASSES................................................5

1.1.1 Motivation...............................................................................................................................7
1.1.2 Imagination.............................................................................................................................9
1.1.3 Attitude towards reading and books as such..........................................................................9
1.1.4 Social and emotional effects.................................................................................................10
1.1.5 Language learning................................................................................................................11
1.1.6 Learning strategies...............................................................................................................12
1.1.7 Cross curricular links...........................................................................................................12
1.1.8 Grammar...............................................................................................................................13
1.1.9 Fluency.................................................................................................................................14
1.1.10 Language awareness.............................................................................................................15
1.2
SELECTION CRITERIA OF STORYBOOKS.....................................................................................15
1.3
DRAMA AND STORIES................................................................................................................18
1.3.1 Drama activities with storyreading......................................................................................21
2

PRACTICAL PART........................................................................................................................26
2.1

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE SCHOOL AND CLASS.......................................................................26

Language level......................................................................................................................26
Teaching style.......................................................................................................................27
Class atmosphere..................................................................................................................27
2.2
ABOUT THE CHOICE OF THE BOOK............................................................................................27
2.3
HOW DID I CHECK THE CHILDRENS PROGRESS?.......................................................................28
2.4
LESSON PLANS..........................................................................................................................31
2.4.1 Lesson one............................................................................................................................31
2.4.2 Lesson two............................................................................................................................38
2.4.3 Lesson three..........................................................................................................................45
2.4.4 Lesson four............................................................................................................................49
2.4.5 Lesson five............................................................................................................................53
2.5
DRAMA......................................................................................................................................57
2.1.1
2.1.2
2.1.3

CONCLUSION..........................................................................................................................................65
LITERATURE...........................................................................................................................................67
APPENDICES............................................................................................................................................69
APPENDIX A............................................................................................................................................69
APPENDIX B.............................................................................................................................................70
APPENDIX C.............................................................................................................................................72
APPENDIX D............................................................................................................................................73
APPENDIX E.............................................................................................................................................74
APPENDIX F.............................................................................................................................................75
APPENDIX G............................................................................................................................................76
APPENDIX H............................................................................................................................................78
APPENDIX I..............................................................................................................................................79
APPENDIX J..............................................................................................................................................80
APPENDIX K............................................................................................................................................82
APPENDIX L.............................................................................................................................................84
RSUM....................................................................................................................................................87

Introduction
Listening to stories should be part of growing up for every child. (Scott 1990: 28)
Time and time again educationalists and psychologists share this belief that stories
have a vital role to play in the childrens development. Listening to stories, read or
narrated, has strong influence on formation of the language skills and also the whole
personality of the child, especially its social and emotional development. Drama
techniques also involve the whole personality of the learner and provide real reasons for
expressing the feelings and opinions. Lets ask a question: How can the beneficial
potential of stories be used for EFL teaching purposes in primary classes? And one more
question: How can storyreading interact with drama techniques and what are the effects
of such connection?
Theoretical part of my diploma thesis outlines the theoretical background for
answering the questions above. In the first chapter I will summarise number of the
concrete benefits of using stories in primary classes. Next part deals with particular
criteria of storybook selection because not every authentic childs book is efficient for
storyreading in class.
The following chapter is devoted to the question of drama activities integrated in
the story-based lessons. Here I try to argue for using these two methods together as it
can bring a lot of advantages not only for language learning. Finally, in the last
theoretical chapter I will show possible drama activities that seem to support positive
effectiveness of the stories.
Practical part of this work is built on five detailed story-based lesson plans that
are crowned with an all-day drama project and a final performance at the end. Short
characteristics of the class and the book with a brief reasoning of my choice go before
concrete teaching suggestions. In particular lesson plans I tried to suggest the activities
that could make the best of the story in terms of language and also social and emotional
learning. I include short comments in my lesson plans that reflect what the practice had
shown. To make the reflection complete I enclose the teacher trainers feedback from
the fifth lesson. At the end of the practical part there is a short evaluation of written test
based on the story and activities done in previous lessons. The following conclusion

brings a summary of ideas and questions stated in the theoretical part and then verified
in practice.

1 Theoretical part
1.1 Benefits from using stories in young learners classes
Once upon a time...: magic words which open the door into new worlds where
anything is possible because the normal rules of logic do not apply; worlds where
children (of all ages) can let their imaginations loose in a frame work of safe
familiarity. And, once of those words have been spoken, there must be few people who
can resist the fascination as they are drawn deeper into the web of the story. (Wright
2003: 2)
One of the oldest resources of human cognition is telling and listening to stories
and this chapter will deal with many advantages of using stories in young learners
classes.
Before the mass spread of printed word, there was a great tradition of oral storytelling
passing large experiences and knowledge down the generations. We have a number of
great examples of using stories by significant personalities in the past.
Storytelling as a pedagogical technique has been used by the worlds greatest
teachers. Jesus used it, as did Plato, Confucius, and other great philosophers and
teachers... The modern teacher who employs this technique as a teaching tool is using a
technique of teaching that has stood the test of time (Russell 2004: 3).
The following words also highlight the importance of stories:
The story form is a cultural universal; everyone everywhere enjoys stories. The
story, then, is not just some casual entertainment, it reflects a basic and powerful form
in which we make sense of the world and experience (Russell 2004: 3).
Indeed, some cultures still exist where it is the only form of teaching. The
question is if there is any pedagogical value of stories in young learners classes. Plato
argued long ago that a childs education should start with stories.
Our first business will be to supervise the making of fables and legends,
rejecting all which are unsatisfactory, and we will ask nurses and mothers to tell their
children only those which we have approved, and to think more of molding childrens
5

souls with these stories than they now do of rubbing their limbs to make them strong
and shapely (Russell 2004: 8).
Hundreds years later Ellis and Brewster share this attitude:
The educational value of using stories and the technique of storytelling has
always been undisputed throughout the world. Now more and more English as a foreign
language (EFL) teachers of young learners are using carefully selected stories from the
world of children's literature because ... stories comply to the major objectives in most
countries for foreign language teaching to young learners: linguistic, psychological,
cognitive, social and cultural. ... story provides the starting point and rich context for
developing a wide variety of related language and learning activities involving children
personally, creatively and actively in an all round whole curriculum approach (Ellis
2002: 3).
As the quotes above show storytelling (and storyreading as well) is the original
method of teaching. Russell even states that simple narrative will always be the
cornerstone of the art of teaching (Russell 2004: 3).
I can utterly identify with this statement because my own student and
pedagogical experience confirms its validity. Whenever whatever was presented as a
story, even though very simply, instead of: now we will learn, practise, show or read
this and this, there was a visible response from pupils, especially from young children.
A story evocates interest and participation from listeners. If it was the only benefit from
using the story, it would be enough at least to think about it, because there are a few
problems in teachers profession such as to acquire and keep the childrens attention and
concern. But it is my belief that educational gains from using authentic children's
literature are very rich and great deal of current pedagogical terms could be covered by
using it.
Nevertheless, according to Ellis and Brewster (Ellis 2002: 1) there are still many
teachers resistant to using stories in the ELT classes for variety of reasons:

A lack of confidence in their ability to tell stories or read storybooks aloud.

A feeling that the language in storybooks was too difficult.

A feeling that the content of storybooks was too childish.

A lack of understanding about the true value of using storybooks.

A lack of understanding how to use story-books and of time to prepare a plan

of work.
6

According to my experience there is quite strong scepticism to employing telling

or reading stories as a useful pedagogical method in EFL lessons in the Czech
education. Despite the fact that whole educational system is going through a large
transformation, teachers still have to face the pressure from the school authorities,
parents or other teachers to teach in more conventional ways and are expected to present
concrete and tangible results. No wonder that they feel responsible if some new words
are not learned and produced every lesson. In other words, we can observe a strong
tradition among Czech EFL teachers of practicing so-called language-based approach,
because they are used to teaching ...the same language content to all the children at
the same time, from the same page of in the same book (Vale 1995: 17). There is also
an obvious tendency to make children speak as soon as possible at the expense of
ignoring specific childrens needs. It is not possible to disagree with Vale:
It is insensible to expect that all the children will be motivated in the same way,
have the same abilities, learn the same language, for the same purpose, at the same
time (Vale 1995: 17).
In the same place he disputes the validity of such an approach saying that there
really is a wide range of ability, interest and motivation in an average class.
As the language-based approach has the language as a final product of lessons,
storytelling against it focuses on the story and thereby caters for individual interests and
diversity by allowing children to respond at their own linguistic or cognitive level (Ellis
2002: 2). This approach would seem to favour the needs of children and appeal to them.
In the following chapters I will look at the most important reasons for using stories.

1.1.1 Motivation
Children have a constant need for stories and they will always be willing to listen or to
read, if the right moment is chosen. (Ellis 2002: 4)
It is common knowledge that children always try to find a meaning of things. It
is probably given by nature to them, because the more they understand the world around
the more they will be able to survive and participate in it.
It should be the school, where children can satiate their hunger for the sense, but
unfortunately it is often just the school which persuades children the world is not an
7

interesting and meaningful place and a number of them lose their enthusiasm over the
first years at school. In my opinion it is a pity teachers separate things as far as they
seem completely unimpressive for young children. To be concrete, what is the use of
analysing the language as a theoretical system and describing its complicated rules
while the universal ability of using a language as dynamic instrument of communication
is neglected? In my opinion children should be more encouraged to be users of the
language rather than to be experts in it. Because this is the way we use the language in
our real life and only a few of people are interested in linguistic aspects. Of course,
learners should know attributes of grammar, categorize elements, recognize relations,
rules and patterns in the language system, because it is challenging for their minds, but
what should be done much more with primary learners (and as I believe is not) is
reading, listening and speaking the language to feel it as a specific complex. Stories are
great motivation for these activities and it applies for mother tongue as well as for
foreign languages. As Ellis and Brewster state:
If they find meaning they are rewarded through their ability to understand, and are
motivated to try to improve their ability to understand even more. This is in contrast to so
many activities in foreign language learning, which have little or no intrinsic interest or
value for children. (Ellis 2002: 4)
The motivation potential of stories is urged also in these words:
Stories are particularly important in the lives of our children: stories help children to
understand their world and to share it with others. Childrens hunger for stories is
constant. Every time they enter your classroom they enter with a need for stories.
(Wright 2003: 3)
Wrights opinion is followed and supported by other authors as well:
Every chapter of a good story has a hook to make the reader or listener want to know
more. The salt that keeps them thirsty which ensures that learning is constant. Children
are always asking about what is going to happen next... Children will carry out
research and practice life skills because the story requires them to. They want to know
what, how or why. (Russell 2004: 12, 13)
On the other hand, it would be really naive to expect that every storybook will
captivate childrens interest. As Cameron (Russell 2004: 9) suggests, the story needs to
be of good quality. She contends that children need to be able to identify with the plot
and the characters, to be able to empathize with them. Such empathy is important to aid

learning, for the story has to capture interest, engage and appeal to the child to stimulate
motivation to learn.
Wright (Wright 2004: 8) also mentions this problem saying that it not easy to
know what is going to appeal to different ages of children. Sometimes fourteen-yearsolds will happily accept a story written for much younger children. Sometimes a class of
very young children will accept a most serious story meant for adults.

1.1.2 Imagination
Stories exercise the imagination. Children can become personally involved in a story
as they identify with the characters and try to interpret the narrative and illustrations.
This imaginative experience helps develop their own creative powers. (Ellis 2002: 1)
This is the unique magic effect of spoken or written word it is calling up our
imagination and always provoking our minds to participate. That is why viewers are
necessarily more passive than readers and listeners and, as I think, it is also the reason
why the books should not be replaced by moving pictures in media.

1.1.3 Attitude towards reading and books as such

If we share reading and listening to storybooks with children at school we
simultaneously encourage them to develop a positive attitude to books as such. This
seems to be more and more important because of a raising number of children whose
first encounter with the book is only at school. I absolutely agree with Vale (Vale 1995:
82) saying this:
Children need to be exposed to many kinds of writing, however an active
involvement with literature is essential. Literature has a social and emotional value that
is vital part of its role in the development of childrens language and literacy.
From the age of three or four years, children develop their identity as readers,
and it is vitally important that we as a teachers support this development.

1.1.4 Social and emotional effects

Listening to stories in class is a shared social experience. Storytelling provokes a hared
response of laughter, sadness, excitement and anticipation which is not only enjoyable
but can help build up the child's confidence and encourage social and emotional
development. (Ellis 2002: 1)
In other words, knowledge is not enough to be given to pupils at school because
there is a variety of feelings and enjoyments forming their world conception as well. In
addition, children in the first class spend about 700 hours of the year at school with their
teacher and school-mates. This is a huge number and that is why the teachers should
think about how the children get this time in term of social and emotional development.
I would like to quote one notable statement of the well-known pedagogue J. A.
Comenius:
A cokoli by sic k zachutnn jim koly a uen vymysliti se mohlo, to msto sv
tu m.
And whatever makes them enjoy the school and learning should be used.
(Komensk1992: 125)
Stories confidently bring comfortable atmosphere and speak to the whole
personality of children. They allow children to play with ideas and feelings and to think
about issues which are important and relevant to them. As Ellis (Ellis 2002: 2)
mentions, storybooks develop the different types of intelligences including emotional
intelligence.
Moreover, storybooks seem to be profitable also for personal and professional
development of the teachers:
Using storybooks has been an enjoyable experience and has given me another
approach to teaching English to children that is authentic and interactive where both
teacher and students learn something new!
(Ellis: http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/children_lit.shtml)
Finally, storybooks could be an accessible way of presenting cultural
information and encourage cross-cultural comparison. Stories from other cultures show
both how cultures are different and have similar characteristics and some of them
develop cultural awareness, tolerance and acceptance of others. (Ellis 2002: 3)

10

1.1.5 Language learning

Stories are an excellent way to introduce language that learners are not yet familiar
with, be it a point of grammar, a function, an area of vocabulary, or pronunciation.
Stories present language in a context that is easy to understand. They can be told again
and again, and thus the language point can be repeated again and again, each time in a
meaningful context. The language items new to the child are experienced as part of the
fabric of meaning, and this invites the child to hypothesize on the meaning offered by the
new item within that fabric. (Wright 2003: 160)
Some stories contain a lot of repetitive language which is ideal for language
learning. But there are also other literary means of expression that make stories,
carefully selected of course, easy to understand and which also support language
learning in a spontaneous way. We should name frequent dialogues, linear action,
illustrations, similitude and figural expressions, anthropomorphism and personification,
direct and narrators speech as well as close and familiar scene. Last but not least is
lexical aspect of stories that reflects the richness and authenticity of childrens literature.
Stories include everyday vocabulary related to the parts of the body, food and
adjectives of size, colours, animals, numbers, daily routines words, as well as specific
words related to the topic of the story. The following quotation supports advantages of
using stories in term of language learning:
Listening to stories allows the teacher to introduce or revise new vocabulary
and sentence structures by exposing the children to language in varied, memorable and
familiar contexts, which will enrich their thinking and gradually enter their own speech.
(Ellis 2002: 2)
Language educational potential of storybooks has been established by further
authors cited in Russells (Russell 2004: 9) work. These are some of their findings:
There is also some evidence that incidental lexis is learned. Ellery noted that
when children listened to stories with explanations by the teacher and pictures to
reinforce the lexis, they were more able to retain lexis. He then found that when the
story reading was accompanied by mime and actions, word learning increased further.
He suggests that learner involvement with the story aids learning.
As Russell (Russell 2004: 10) finally points out the task for the teacher is to use
story books that can capture the childs imagination and so aid learning.
11

1.1.6 Learning strategies

Stories are a means of developing children's potential as autonomous learners. (Ellis
2002: 3)
It is without doubts teachers should develop learning strategies of pupils and it
should be done on purpose and systematically. Because they are likely to forget a lot of
knowledge during the time (naturally, they will need to assume quantity of new
information), but general strategies how to learn something could go with them along
further years at school and of course along their whole life. These are some positive
effects of using stories in terms of learning how to learn as they are presented by Ellis
(Ellis 2002: 3):

developing

an

awareness of learning and reinforcing strategies such as planning, hypothesizing,

self-assessment, reviewing

developing
strategies

for

learning

English,

for

example,

guessing

the

specific
meaning

of new words, training the memory, self-testing, predicting

developing

study

skills, for example, making, understanding and interpreting charts and graphs,
learning to use and making dictionaries, organizing work

1.1.7 Cross curricular links

Stories provide opportunities for developing continuity in children's learning since they
can be chosen to link English with other subject areas across the curriculum. (Ellis
2002: 2)
Against to transmitting model constructive pedagogic approach is based on the
theory that knowledge is complex and multilayered. That is why more holistic approach
seems to be much more convenient for young children. The question is if and to what

12

degree can stories and activities connected with them really cover all the areas across
primary curriculum. For example, Wright states this:
Surely, stories should be a central part of the work of all primary teachers
whether they are teaching the mother tongue or a foreign language. (Wright 2003: 3, 4)
I can also see the connection between using stories in a foreign and native
language lessons, because stories, no matter which language they use, are based on
words and offer a plentiful source of language experience. As the following quotation
shows, there are even more cross curricular links related to stories:
Most stories can be used to develop the children's powers of awareness, analysis,
and expression, as well as relating to other aspects of the curriculum, such as cultural and
social studies, geography, history, mathematics, and science. (Wright 2003: 5)
These words show the value of stories as the starting point, central point or
spring-board for a range of cross curricular activities that may also include a language
teaching focus.

1.1.8 Grammar
Stories introduce pupils to the grammatical structures of English in a natural and
authentic way and the rich context and visual support help them understand the
meanings these structures convey. Furthermore, as children enjoy listening to stories
over and over again, certain structures can be acquired without being formally or
explicitly introduced. (Ellis 2002: 5)
Teaching the grammar to young learners is disputable. Young children acquire
the language by noticing and using it in a meaningful way, they do not analyze it yet.
That is why stories are ideal for acquiring particular grammar structures.
As an example Wright (Wright 2003: 160) names past tenses. He says that story
is a natural vehicle for exposure to the past tenses, which can later be turned into active use.
He also points to that stories are ideal for introducing new language elements in a
meaningful context when the children are ready for them.
Russell also mentions past tenses paraphrasing other authors:

13

Stories containing dialogue are normally in the present tense with narrative in
the past. She (Cameron) suggests that such contrasts, when read in the context of the
story the child can identify with, aid grammar acquisition (Russell 2004: 9)
Rather than using one tense at a time, several may be used in any one story
which is what happens in real life. Many course books for young learners in the initial
stages of their learning, however, limit exposure to the present tense. (Ellis 2002: 5)
Finally, we should mention Wrights (Wright 2003: 5) warning against one-sided
using of stories. When focusing on the features of the language teachers should be
careful not to lose the magic of the story and thereby lose the children interest as well.

1.1.9 Fluency
In conversations with native speakers the most important ability is to be able to
understand a sustained flow of the foreign language in which there are words which are
new to the listener. The ability to do this can only be built on by practice.
(Wright 2003: 4)
Traditional teaching did not develop fluency. My own experience as a student
completely corresponds with this argument. There were minimum opportunities in our
English lessons to hear fluent language and that, as I am convinced, caused our
problems with understanding despite of sufficient vocabulary. That is why we should
give our pupils lot of chances to become familiar with fluent language and, as I believe,
storytelling is an ideal way to achieve it. It is because stories directly support those
abilities which are essential for developing fluency.
Wright (Wright 2003: 4) makes a difference between two kinds of fluency. These
are conditions of listening and reading fluency according to him:
-

a positive attitude to not understanding everything

and the skills of searching for meaning, predicting, and guessing

In the same place he says that children are experts at doing this in their own

language but it takes time and encouragement for them to build up these skills and
attitudes in the foreign language.
As he (Wright 2003: 4) presents further the speaking and writing fluency is also
based on a positive attitude to 'having a go' with the language one knows and not being
14

afraid of making mistakes. It is also based on the skill of constructing meaning with limited
language. I find especially these words very interesting to think about:
Some people learn best by 'having a go' when they have nothing to fear or be
anxious about; all their intelligence and creativity is employed to the full. I am sure that
for many children this is the natural way to learn. This means that the teacher must give
more importance to what the child achieves than to the mistakes he or she might make. It
also means that the teacher must encourage situations in which the child can be fluent and
can 'have a go'. Stories offer a perfect diet for the build up of fluency in all four skills.
(Wright 2003: 4, 5)

1.1.10

Language awareness

Stories help children become aware of the general 'feel' and sound of the foreign
language. Stories also introduce children to language items and sentence constructions
without their necessarily having to use them productivity. They can build up a reservoir
of language in this way. When the time comes to move the language items into their
productive control, it is no great problem because the language is not new to them.
(Wright 2003: 5)
Apparently, at this point we can see some similarity with the development of the
mother tongue in early childhood. As some research reflects, children perceive and
understand the language much earlier than they actually begin to speak. It seems to be
sensible to offer children this time as well as authentic personal experience also with the
second language to become aware of it.
I have chosen following quotation to summarize arguments and findings of this chapter:
The balance of the evidence available reinforces the notion that stories are
beneficial to a young learner of English classroom. The use of stories is consistent with
the theoretical views of how children learn... Stories are a powerful emotional tool
which if used appropriately can be utilized to great effect in the classroom. (Russell
2004: 15, 16)

1.2 Selection criteria of storybooks

15

Selecting is one of the key general competences of young learners teachers. They
always need to select some materials, resources, methods and other things to make the
process of learning as effective as they can. Storybooks also should be carefully
selected, because not all authentic books are applicable and relevant for use in EFL
teaching.
It may be useful here to clarify the term authentic books. These so-called 'real'
books have not been written specifically for teaching EFL, they are primarily aimed to native
English speaking children. The language is not selected or graded, thereby authentic
storybooks constitute source of authentic input to the language in contrast to books which
are published specifically for classroom use. These books, often referred to as 'readers',
contain adapted language and do not employ or develop some essential language ability:
to grasp meaning even if we don't understand all the words or structures.
Authentic storybooks, then, can be very motivating for children just because of
its authenticity. Children definitely make a difference between real things and things
which are beneficial only at school.
Many authors define some guidelines for effective choosing real books. These criteria of
selection are based on Ellis and Brewster (Ellis, Brewster 2002:11):

Level of difficulty of vocabulary and structures of the language. Teacher

should go over these questions: Is the level accessible? Does it provide an
appropriate level of challenge?

Literary devices dialogues, predictability, repetition, cumulative content,

rhythm, humour, suspense, surprise, contrast. These questions should be
solved: What literary devices does the story contain? How will these help
pupils understand and participate in the storytelling, encourage anticipation
and remembering, enrich their language and add to their enjoyment?

Content amusing, relevant, interesting, memorable, length. Teacher should

answer these questions: Will the story engage my pupils? Is it relevant to
their interests? Is it amusing and memorable? Is it possible to read the story
in one go or can it be broken down into parts?

Illustrations, layout size, attraction. Teacher should ask questions like

these: Are the illustrations attractive and colourful? Are they big enough for

16

all the class to see? Does the layout support children's understanding and
maximise their interaction with the story?

Educational potential cross-curricular links, learning to learn,

world/cultural knowledge, learning styles/intelligences. These questions
should be thought over: How does the story enable children to become aware
of and develop their learning strategies? What can children learn about the
world and other cultures? Can the story link in with other subjects across the
curriculum?

Motivation enjoyment, positive attitudes, curiosity, successful learning,

experiences, confidence building. These are important questions: Will the
story motivate my pupils by drawing on their personal experience? Will it
develop their imagination and appeal to their sense of humour? Will my
pupils respond positively to the story and develop positive attitudes towards
the target language, culture and language learning?

Values emotional development, cooperation, collaboration, self-esteem.

Relevant questions: Will the story help children become aware of and
question important values? Does the story help children explore and share
emotions? Does the story help children come to a better understanding of
them and develop their self-esteem?

Global issues multicultural education, intercultural awareness. Here are

questions to deal with: Does the story offer children a broader view of the
world? Does it develop an awareness and understanding of environmental
and ecological issues, gender issues, racism, sexism, human rights, health
and safety, tolerance, etc?

Language, content authentic, appropriate. What to concentrate on: Is the

language representative of the variety spoken in the target culture? Does the
story provide any information about life in the target culture?

Potential for follow-up work Does the story provide a starting point for
related language activities and lead on to follow-up work in the form of
concrete outcomes, such as making something, organizing some event or
other activities based on a topic of the story?

17

Storybooks need to be analysed carefully so they can be used to their full

potential. It is unlikely that every real book will contain all the above criteria, but all
good story books will have some of them.

1.3 Drama and stories

There are many activities connected with storyreading and storytelling (see Wright
2003). They promote the childrens understanding and enable them to participate more
actively in the story.
As I believe, drama or dramatizing has much in common with stories and it is
one of the most powerful ways of achieving the aims mentioned above. In this chapter I
will try to give a number of arguments that support this statement. Before that I will
specify the meaning of drama and dramatizing as I will use these terms further.
Although we can feel certain difference of meaning between drama and
dramatizing (see Phillips 1999: 5) I do not consider as important to distinguish between
them for this text. Both the terms will express a complex of various dramatical
techniques that make the children become actively involved in a text through their
bodies, minds, emotions, language and social interaction. In words of Alan Maley:
These activities draw on the natural ability of every person to imitate, mimic
and express himself or herself through gesture. They draw, too, on the students
imagination and memory, and natural capacity to bring to life parts of his or her past
experience that might never otherwise emerge.(Maley 1991: 6)
So why to regard drama as useful and effective aid to intensify the effect of the
story?
Firstly, both reading the stories and dramatizing is about being in a different
imaginary world. See what Stephen Cockett and Geoff Fox say about that:
A drama is rather like a story: it sets up another world what J. R. R. Tolkien called
a secondary worldLike a story, a good drama will entice the players into its world.
While the story appeals just to our mind and emotions; drama asks slightly more our
body, voice and a great deal of our personality. Thereby it deepens the adventure of
being somewhere else; outside the every day reality. From this point of view drama is
simply the next stage of personal participation in the story. And it is typical for young
learners that they learn best when they can put themselves entirely into the learning
situation. In addition, for example changes of intonation and voice (quietly, lazily,
18

busily, angrily) as well as using puppets and various roles could involve those children
who are shy about speaking English and they would otherwise hold back. According to
Sarah Phillips, an experienced teacher, by taking a role children can escape from their
everyday identity and lose their inhibitions. If we give them a special role it encourages
them to be that character and abandon their shyness or embarrassment.
(Phillips 1999: 7)
Stephen Cockett and Geoff

Fox also mention this magic effect of drama:

Students discover that the fictional world is safe. Acting as another character,
attention is deflected ofrom ourselves; paradoxically, we may feel more able to speak
freely in role than to speak as ourselves. (Cockett, Fox 1999: 11) I think that also
nonverbal drama activities (pantomime, gestures, facial expressions) when using
regularly and joyfully could encourage the childrens confidence in foreign language
communication. But the teachers enthusiasm is very important here. If he is authentic
in his dramatizing, then the children will follow him more easily. There is one more
essential condition of putting the childrens personality into drama activities to feel
free to talk without being penalized for each single mistake. In other words if we want
to focus on meanings and feelings even with childrens limited language, we should
show considerable tolerance of their mistakes which we can deal with in more formal
parts of lesson.
Secondly, drama does not revive only the content of the story. It also makes
more familiar the channel of the story transmission the language. Sarah Phillips states
this about advantages of drama for the language learning:
It encourages children to speak and gives them the chance to communicate
even with limited language, using non-verbal communication, such as body movements
and facial expressions. (Phillips 1999: 6)
In another places she specifies once more how children can profit from using various
drama techniques:
Dramatizing allows children to add an emotion or personality to a text that
they have read or listened to. By interpreting the words, the children make them their
own. This also makes language memorable. (Phillips 1999: 7)
The importance of balance between intellectual and emotional components of language
is also underlined in Alan Maleys words: Drama attempts to put back some of the
forgotten emotional content into language and put the body back too.
(Maley 1991: 7)
19

There is also another aspect of connection between drama and stories. Both of
them are part of childrens life from an early age. As Sarah Phillips says, children act
out scenes and stories from the age of about three or four. They try out various roles in
make-believe play. They prove the language of the situation and taste the emotions
involved (Phillips 1999: 6). In the same place Phillips clarifies why children do that:
Through pretend play children prepare themselves for the real life situation they will
meet later on, it is a rehearsal of the real things. Make-believe develops their creativity
and imagination, and at the same time gives them the opportunity to use the language
they would hardly use in their daily needs. I like these words by Alan Maley too:
Children, perhaps more than any other category of learners, delight in makebelieve. They are immediately at home in imaginary worlds, where they can act out a
role, engage in pretend activities, dress up, and for a short while become another
person. (Phillips 1999: 4)
We can say that both listening to stories and dramatizing are familiar and natural
learning strategies for the children in their real life. The teachers can take advantage of
this fact and use these strategies also at school.
Sarah Phillips mentions some more reasons why to use drama activities with
children in EFL classes. Some of them could be directly related to stories, such as
motivation. As mentioned above, reading or telling the stories could be very motivating
and fun. I think of drama techniques as a great way how to amplify this impression of
stories. If the children know, for example, about the final product of the storyreading
the performance it could be highly motivating for them. They have a clear goal to
work towards. On the other hand, storyreading provides a meaningful and familiar
context for dramatizing.
Alan Maley substantiates motivating effect of drama saying among others that it
draws on the entire human resources of the class. He also points out that it is not
possible to predict what exactly will be thrown up during drama activities, which,
according to him, makes them so enjoyable (Maley 1991: 13).
Modern psychological findings point out that there are different types of
intelligence and thereby various learning styles in humans. (Russell 2004: 6) Since we
want the children to acquire the content and especially the language of the story, we
should offer them such activities that appeal to their dominant learning style. See what
Phillips says about that:

20

Dramatizing appeals to all kinds of learners. We receive and process

information in different ways, the main ones are through sight, hearing, and our
physical bodies. One of these channels tends to be dominant in each of us. When
children dramatize they use all the channels, and each child will draw on the one that
suits them best. This means they will all be actively involved in the activity and the
language will enter through the channel most appropriate for them.
(Phillips 1999: 7)
Present pedagogic approaches underline changing conception of the teachers
role in the class (RVP 2005: 12,13). The teacher is no longer the one and only person to
learn from. This concerns especially those approaches such as storyreading or
dramatizing. Alan Maley also emphasizes slightly different view of the teachers
position: Your (the teachers) main function now is to set things in motion; you are to
use the French word, the animateur. (Maley 1991: 22). Just like in the real life
children can learn a lot from each other if they have enough opportunities to share their
knowledge, ideas and emotions. When we use stories in terms of learning we provide
great opportunity for such sharing. By using drama activities, as I believe, we can
multiply this sharing potential of stories. It is because drama is the same way as
stories primarily based on meanings. Alan Maley even says that drama reverses the
traditional language learning process, in means that it is beginning with meaning and
moving to language from there (Maley 1991: 12).
Last but not least argument for using drama activities with stories is developing
supportive relations among the children - group dynamics is another area, mentioned by
Sarah Phillips, that profits from drama activities (Phillips 1999: 7). It is always more
effective to bring whatever story in good working and cooperative group of children
while it is basically impossible to employ storyreading or storytelling in an ill-behaved
and hostile one.

1.3.1 Drama activities with storyreading

The following list brings several dramatic activities that could be successfully used to
intensify the childrens active participation in the story. These activities also support the
language learning as it is specified with individual characteristic of the activities. I have

21

gathered them mainly from Andrew Wrights suggestions for activities in Creating
Stories with Children. I have used most of the following in my lesson plans.

Miming
Miming enables us to express various meanings without words to speak to eyes
which is ideal with young children when we want them to understand unknown words
of the story. Of course, we can encourage also the children to mime for their classmates.
We can also use miming to evoke some context, atmosphere or concrete picture or
character from the story. (see Wright 1997: 22, 2.73)
Voice expression
Voice is essential instrument for drama activities. Stories offer authentic language
material and meaningful context to experiment with our voice (intonation, stress,
volume, speed) such as speaking in different way or context (lazily, actively, like some
characters from the story). In short we can play with our voice using the language of the
story and thus develop the childrens awareness about pronunciation features. (see for
example Wright 1997: 23)
Dramatics dialogues
Dramatics dialogues ask for concrete and motivating context which could go from the
story. Children can develop their own simple dialogues when being introduced to
concrete situation for example, Little Red Riding Hood meets her mum after being
saved from the wolfs stomach (see another suggestion for dramatic dialogues by
Andrew Wright 1997: 20).
Sculptures
When working with sculptures we freeze and emphasize specific features of characters
(moods, feelings, personality or postures) or other information (what they do, want,
think). Thereby we can encourage development of nonverbal expressions and intensify
understanding of the story. (Wright 1997: 16)
Role-play
22

Ellis names role-play as an opportunity for language that has been presented in a story
to be used in a different context. It can provide a memorable occasion to practise
English (Ellis 2002: 20).

Puppets
Puppets are traditionally used to evoke communicative situation in EFL class. Teacher
or children speak like someone else. We can use puppets for eliciting new words from
the story, revising previous information, creating dialogues, training pronunciation or
for a puppet show (see below).
Live pictures
Live pictures can be used for illustrating interesting moments from the story. Children
have to involve their imagination to demonstrate the situation with their bodies and to
guess what the others are doing. The picture can be static similarly to sculptures but
with wider context illustrating the relations and events or dynamic like a sort of
group pantomime. The language of comments, questions and explanations can be
developed here. (see Dramatic story moments by Andrew Wright 1997: 20)
Performance
It is important that after several lessons working on a storybook pupils see that all
their hard work has been leading somewhere. (Ellis 2002: 17)
When we give the children an attractive and meaningful outcome we can thereby make
their work more meaningful, motivating and purposeful. At the same place Ellis
suggests turning a story into a play as one of the possibilities how to crown the storybased work.
These words were written by J. A. Comenius about 350 years ago: Tak jsem
radil hned od zatku, aby byly zavedeny njak divadeln hry, maje jistou zkuenost, e
nen innjho prostedku k vypuzen duevn maltnosti a k vzbuzen ilosti I have
always recommended to use some theatre plays, having an experience that there is no
more efficient tool to avoid mental slackness and encourage activity. (Machkova 1970:
4)
There are three types of performance possible based on a storybook depending on our
sources, time, the childrens experience and space conditions:
23

 Recitation this form employs just few children reciting the speech of the main
characters of the story. It is possible to divide the children into groups and thus
involve them all in recitation. Voice is the basic instrument of expression here.
Because of minimal visual support (movement, properties, costumes etc.) and lot of
language needed I would use this form with older children to save the time when
necessary.
A puppet show there are many possibilities how to create simple and nice puppets
with children (see Sarah Phillips Drama with children). Making these materials
provides great occasions of natural language input (instructions, describing,
comments). When making puppets the children can show how much they understand
the story. With puppets a lot could be expressed without being directly said so it is an
ideal form for young children with a limited language. Through puppets they can
involve all their senses to absorb the story.
A stage performance This involves pupils in learning lines for their role and can
provide them with a memorable occasion to practise English.(Ellis 2002:30) This
dramatic form is based on playing roles and needs scenery and props. It is quite easy
to use school desks, chairs and other things to make the props. It is also very useful
and motivating to draw, cut out, stick and decorate some of them by children. They
can engage their creativity and demonstrate their inner pictures based on the story that
could be markedly different from the authors and teachers expectations. When I
collected materials for our performance I had always my own idea how to use it. The
children than used these things in a completely different way and thus imprinted their
own conception on the props. Thereby the final appearance of the performance was
slightly different from the one in my head and from what other children would create
out of the same book.
Except the props it is necessary to adapt the text of the story into more dramatic
form there should be enough simple and short dialogues, very little of descriptive
language and clear narrative talk. But these are the features of suitable storybooks for
storyreading anyhow so it would not be a problem to put the text into drama. Andrew
Wright mentions this step in his guidelines for dramatizing stories (Wright 2003: 62)
24

as well as dividing the stories into suitable sections and distribution of the roles to
engage as much children as possible (narrator, chorus and inanimate roles).
Eva Machkova suggests simple criteria of selecting storybooks that could be
easily dramatized. Text should include:
Simple incident to be developed without extensive descriptions, lyric motives and
excursions.
Clearly defined characters they should be distinctive and contractive to each other.
They also should be active.
Lot of active verbs to evoke dramatic course of events, for example to go, to
chase, to take, to climb, to drop and so on.
Fewer stative verbs to wish, to rejoice, to sleep etc.
Eventual adjustments concern the length of the text, descriptions of scenery and
appearance of characters, not essential passages and events. (Machkova 1980: 109)
Some authors do not consider this type of performance to be useful and really
dramatic form of learning with children. For example Cockett and Fox state that drama
in the classroom works mainly through improvised role play and avoid acting a part on
stage. (Cockett 1999: 12). Alan Maley would agree with them at this point as he also
stresses that putting on plays in front of a passive audience is not what he means by
dramatic activity. He criticizes the mechanical memorizing of other peoples words that
take the words their savour off. (Maley 1991: 6). Some authors are not so definite
Sarah Phillips clarifies her conception of drama saying that it is not only about the
product (the performance) but part of the process of language learning (Phillips 1999:
5). She therefore does not exclude an end-of term play to be useful and motivating for
language learning and she gives lot of valuable advices how to realize it just like
Andrew Wright does in his Storytelling with children (Wright 2003: 62). Finally Ellis
and Brewster also suggest giving a performance as possible and attractive outcome of
story-based lessons with children (Ellis 2002: 17, 51).
From my point of view it is a question of the teachers approach; I mean if
he/she is able to give the children a space for their creativity and evoke a pleasurable
atmosphere to prepare and realize the performance it does not need to turn into
mechanical memorizing and doing exactly what the teacher said. I believe that

25

especially young children would definitely welcome organizing such an event and can
profit from this process not only in terms of language learning.

2 Practical part

2.1 Characteristics of the school and class

Integrated nursery and primary school in Chrlice is one of the first basic schools in Brno
where the new educational conception of RVP (the Educational Framework) has been
formulated and developed into SVP (the School Educational Framework). Especially
multicultural education and tolerance as such are emphasized here. There are many
foreign and some handicapped pupils integrated into the classwork. The school
management as well as teachers take an extra care of communication with parents and
public.
There were quite a small number of pupils in the 5th class where the practical
part of this diploma work was verified 9 girls and 8 boys. There was one older
Ukrainian boy speaking fluent Czech. Several children have been diagnosed as
dyslexics and one boy has suffered from behavioural disorders and hyperactivity
syndrome as well. Simultaneously he showed high intelligence. I did not observe any
problems with this boy in our lessons except one: during the story reading he
spontaneously took the role of translator and always tried to translate whatever I said in
English. In some moments it might seem to other children as there were two storytellers
me in English and him in Czech. I was quite satisfied with his involvement but on the
other hand there might be less space for the others to guess and presume things.

2.1.1 Language level

26

The children had quite different experience with a foreign language. Some of them had
attended English hobby course before the obligatory English lessons started in the 4 th
grade. Every year they had a different teacher. I would specify the language level in this
class as beginners to elementary from children who recognize the English names of
colours, numbers up to twenty, and basic vocabulary such as the colours, animals, some
food, I am/you are, there is/ there are and classroom commands such as stand up, sit
down, open your book to those who are able to use English language more actively and
make simple sentences and questions and have wider range of vocabulary. They had
never had any experience with story telling or story reading in English before.

2.1.2 Teaching style

There was one teacher for all subjects except for arts and craft. According to my
observations during the three-week continuous practice the teaching style was slightly
traditional. In English lessons mechanical work with textbooks and exercise books
dominated. Most common exercises were filling gaps, reading new vocabulary and
articles. This routine was rarely broken with a game. Most frequent language utterances
were separated words or phrases. It should be mentioned that these were in fact the first
weeks of teaching after the summer vacation and the teacher needed some time to find
out what these children actually know and consolidate the class language because they
had their first English lessons together.

2.1.3 Class atmosphere

Generally there were just a few pupils in the class that were motivated to work and
cooperate with the teacher but large number of the children acted as if they were
completely bored with school. They often did not care what they were supposed to do.
It was difficult for the teacher and also for me to get the childrens attention and start
any other activity because of the noise. There was constant dissatisfaction in the air on
the teachers and also on the childrens side.

27

2.2 About the choice of the book

In this section I would like to give a short explanation of why I chose Lazy Jack by
Tony Ross (see appendix A) for my story-based lessons:
It has simple, easy to understand storyline with many humorous moments. The
fairytale subject-matter offers predictable rules and situations that are familiar for the
children.
Lazy Jacks adventures are popular material of traditional folk tales. Tony Ross offers
an updated funny version that, as I believe, could involve todays children.
There are just a few clear and contrastive characters whose speech and characteristics
can be easily recognized from the text.
The illustrations are excellent and very funny and they support the understanding of
the text very well.
It is based on authentic, accessible and repetitive language that contains many
instruments to demonstrate the meanings intonation in direct speech, lot of nouns
for real subjects that could be pictured or demonstrated, words understandable
because of the meaningful fairytale context.
It contains relatively closed sections and thus could be broken down into several parts
without losing the continuity.
Although it is an easy and clear narration with a view to amuse the readers there are
some ideas to think about in this text relationships between children and parents or
question of independency and adulthood.
As there are several different scenes, simple storyline and clear characters in the
story it is possible to dramatize it in school class setting.
The story can link with other subjects across the curriculum - history (country life
and trades), social and cultural studies (jobs, making money, currency), literature
(comparison with other Lazy Jacks tales), art and crafts (making properties for
drama, making circular storybooks).

2.3 How did I check the childrens progress?

28

No matter what technique has been used it is always important for the teacher to check
the results; to answer the question what has been achieved? To take some evidence
about the childrens progress I have created a short test (see appendix B). In this section
I would like to clarify what aspects it should monitor and what the final findings are.
I tried to suggest tasks based on activities that have been done in previous
lessons. I used also the same pictures the children had already known. The test was
realized fourteen days after the drama performance and there were fourteen from
seventeen children in the class.
The first task of the test investigated remembering and understanding the key
positional phrases from the book on his head, on his back, on his shoulder, in his
pocket, on a string, in his arms, on his nose. These phrases had been trained several
times with chanting, TPR activities and worksheet focused on matching the phrases
with the words. These phrases had also been read repeatedly and demonstrated in our
dramatization. In the test the children were supposed to choose and write the right
phrase to the picture. I gave one point for each correct answer.
Table of the first task results:

Number of points 6 5 4 3 2 1 0
Number of children 9 - 4 1 - - -

Total
6
14

I believe that children were quite successful with this task because they had had enough
opportunities to acquire the phrases through hearing, doing and visual sense.
In the second task the children were asked to choose and write suitable
adjectives according to the pictures sad, happy, lazy or angry. These words had also
been trained repeatedly and the children had known the faces from previous lessons.
Total number of points was four one for each right word.
Table of the second task results:
Total
Number of points
4 3 2 1 0 4
Number of children 5 3 1 - 5 14

29

I considered this task to be very easy for the children but surprisingly quite a lot
of them did not manage it. As several children did not fill any gap there could be some
mistake in my setting. Maybe it was not well-arranged enough to make the task
noticeable. Next time I would not arrange two tasks so close to each other.
The third task was aimed at recognizing individual key words from the story. I
made a vocabulary picture chart that had not been new for the children. They had to
write correct coordinates to answer the questions.

Table of the third task results:

Total
Number of points
8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 8
Number of children 1 3 - 1 2 - 5 1 1 14
As these data show children could not identify the separated words easily. But
what was interesting for me that even in case that all of the other words had been wrong
or missing, the word coin had been correct in 11 cases. As I have mentioned before;
this is from my point of view effect of creating paper coins and actions with them.
The last task was focused on comprehension and remembering of the story
children had to number the pictures according to the right order. There was one picture
missing; the task was both to identify it and describe it in Czech.
Table of the fifth task results:
Total
Number of points
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 9
Number of children 8 - 2 2 - 1 - - 1 - 14
Apparently children did not have bigger problems with sequencing the pictures.
They had the story still in their minds and mostly were able to recognize the missing
moment. I think that repetitive reading and also dramatizing of the story helped them to
be so successful.

30

Summary of results:
Total
Number of points
27 26 24 23 20-15 14-10 Less than 10 27
Number of children 0 2 2 1 5
3
1
14
I am aware of various factors that can influence the results of the test my lack
of experience with creating tests, absence of revision activities before testing and other.
Nevertheless it gave me at least global idea of what had stuck in the childrens minds.
Firstly it was the storyline and those phrases that had been frequently trained in various
ways. Individual key words were not fixed so strongly.

2.4 Lesson plans

2.4.1 Lesson one

TIME

45 minutes

AIMS

Language:

to present and practise adjectives connected with feelings: sad,

happy, angry, lazy

to revise and consolidate elementary is/are structures: Jack is

sad. Jack is angry.

to present clothes vocabulary: jacket, hat, trousers, socks

following spoken instructions

to develop guessing and predicting skills

to work on the stress and rhythm of spoken English by choral

chanting

Other:
31

to call childrens interest in the book and make them enjoy reading
it together

attaching children to present our work by making a little drama

based on the book

to practise showing emotions with bodies and faces only

MATERIALS
Blanket and enough space in the classroom to make a reading cubby
The book Lazy Jack by Tony Ross
Lazy Jack pictures to cut Lazy Jack figures
Picture flashcards with animals
Tape recorder, song (interpreted by Miro Zbirka)
Scissors
Blackboard
PREPARATION
Before the lesson I should:

practise the story reading with lot of gestures and voice

modulations

think over the comments and questions which I want to give the
children during the reading

write the words I want the children to copy into their vocabulary
books down on the blackboard

think up and practise some steps that go together with the song

test the tape recorder and prepare the beginning of the song

practise drawing of the pictures that help eliciting the new words

IN CLASS
1

What is going on?

After the greetings I will ask the children to make so called reading cubby (see
appendix C) with a blanket for girls on the floor and chairs for boys around. It should be
near the blackboard for possibility of drawing or writing something on it if necessary.
32

After this we will talk in Czech about what we are going to do in the next English
lessons approximately in this way: I know you can already say quite a lot of things in
English and you used to work with nice textbooks and workbooks. During these few
lessons we will not need them because we are going to read a real English book
together. I will help you as much as I can to make you understand the story and after
that we could make a little performance based on the book for your school-mates.
Would you like to do this?
5 min
Comments
As I mentioned before it was quite difficult for me to get and keep attention in this class.
Apart from the fact that story reading activities always ask for special arrangement of
the space, I felt the need of much closer contact with these children to support their
concentration and minimalize an out of teachers eyes area. That is why we ordered
the reading place in this way: one group of children (girls or boys) sitting on the blanket
on the floor and the other group sitting on the chairs around the blanket. I was sitting on
the desk with my legs on a chair so that everybody could see me and the pictures safely.
Anyhow, we needed some time to make our reading cubby comfortable for all of us,
thus in the first session there were few children not in such effective contact as I wished.
Children really enjoyed this change in their common sitting and during our few
sessions it became a pleasure routine connected with the story reading. They were also
very excited and happy with the idea of giving some performance, especially for
concrete audiences.
2

Lets know more about the book

These comments will accompany the childrens first contact with the book:
Look at the book, it has been written for English speaking children and published in
English speaking country. Can you name me some? USA, Canada, Great Britain,
Australia. Well the book has been published on the large island, what is its name? Great
Britain. Have you been there? Do you know the name of English money? Pounds. One
pound is fifty crowns and look, this book cost about five pounds, how much crowns
would we pay for it? 250 crowns. That is quite a lot, isnt it? Maybe because there are
many large and coloured pictures in this book.
In this moment I will let the children look at some pictures briefly and guess
what the story could be about.
33

3 min
Comments
At first children looked quite nervous because they could feel their limited English and
did not know what exactly I will want them to do. We used Czech language again so
that children could answer my questions, put on their knowledge and look over the book
in peace. I wanted them to be aware something more than aha, a sort of a book. They
should have some idea of where it is from, who it is for, how much it costs after this
conversation. Children asked about more details like: If the book is from Great Britain
where did you get it? Did you buy it? Such particular information fills the childrens
curiosity and, as I believe, helps them to familiarize the book.
3

The first touch of the story

In terms of the first contact with the book children will just taste its storyline by
reading the cover and the opening picture before the real beginning of the story. I will
ask the children to look at the cover and name anything they can in English. From now
in English, in Czech would be the signals to switch the language.
I will describe things and actions in the picture encouraging children to help me
as much as they can. After that we will talk in Czech about why the boy is sitting in
water and we will elicit the word lazy. This brings us to the title of the story Lazy
Jack and its authors name.
After that we will enter the book and read over the first opening picture with a
sad princess. I will use the picture and also miming to explain the new words (castle,
laughing, smile). Children should have enough time to see over the picture and think
about these questions: Why is she so sad? What will probably happen with her and how
would it be related to Lazy Jack?
8 min
Comments
According to my expectations childrens English experiences enable them to give me
just a few particular words like cat, boy, water but at the same time they could
understand much more when I was describing things and eliciting the meanings. I used
some more pictures (e.g. Peter and Jack) on the blackboard to play mini roles like this:
This is Peter, he is a good student and really likes to do his homework. He likes
to do a lot of sports too. He is coming to Jack. Hi, Jack, I am going to play football,
34

come with me! Oh no, I do not want to play football, I want to sit here and sleep
Jack is very lazy.
Children could understand the word because of the context and because of using
lazy intonation for Jacks speech. Actually I was fairly surprised at strong impression
of intonation. I presented the authors name with live dramatic intonation. It was just
unknown name for children. They knew nothing about the man. Nevertheless it was the
first thing I could hear before the next day English lesson Tony Ross, saying with a
visible pleasure at the sound and intonation.
Czech language allows the children to participate in predicting and presuming
things. These are some of their suggestions: Jack is sitting in water because he likes
water, maybe he is a dust dampener. He is sitting in water because when he changes the
place, the cloud follows him. The princess is so sad because she is locked in the tower.
The sad princess will throw her hair to Jack, and he will carry her away. Jack is
superman or spider man and he will save the princess from a dragon. Jack will stand
below the princess window and something will fall down oh his head. Then it will dawn
on in his mind.
4

Feeling adjectives

We will use the picture of Jack on the blackboard again to elicit or recall these words:
happy, sad, angry and lazy. I will draw a smile or other corresponding features into
Jacks face for each of these words using a swab whenever I need new face. Following
activity will have these steps:
1) The children listen and repeat after me Jack is sad. Jack is angry etc.
2) I will ask the children to say what I have drawn several times.
3) I will ask one child to draw something according to what I am saying several
times.
5 min
Comments
I tried to use choral chanting in point 1) to encourage the shy children to say the whole
sentence. All the children were tapping the measure with their foot to keep the rhythm
and stress in speaking. Children enjoyed this activity because it was new and quite easy
for them. But it tends to become quite tiring and boring after more than a minute so we
came back to it in next lessons always for a while increasing the difficulty.

35

Sculptures

Children will work in pairs or small groups and create sad, happy, lazy or angry Jack
sculptures arranging one of them. They should involve their imagination of how such a
sad or angry person looks like, about his/her posture and expression, gestures. Then the
exhibition of sculptures will be given and the visitors will guess the feelings of exhibits.
I will warn the children to be gentle and nice during their artistic work because they will
work with live sculptures. (I adapted this activity from Andrew Wright 1997: 16
Puppet children)
8 min
Variation
All the children will get some message: Jack is sad, happy, angry or lazy. The task will
be to find somebody, who has been given the same message without the words. This
activity also develops showing emotions with faces and bodies.
Follow up
Speaking about feelings adjectives is a good opportunity to find out something more
about each other. There could be one of the adjectives in each corner of the classroom
drawn by children or just written. I would ask the children to stand in some corner
according to their instantaneous feelings and then we could talk about the reasons or just
observe the situation.
After that we could pass through the all four stations together and talk about
what makes us happy, angry, sad or lazy. Children would need concrete suggestions of
how to express themselves when supposed to speak English.
Comments
This activity was completely new for children and some of the pairs or groups did not
know how to get on with it. They probably needed to see some models at first to be
aware of usable possibilities. On the other hand there were some children that had
demonstrated their high creativity and also their values. One of the happy Jacks
sculptures had million crowns made from paper in his hand. One lazy Jack was laying
and sleeping with open eyes because he was too lazy to close them.

36

Globally there was quite a lot of noise especially when the children had
commented on their creations and there were minimum English words at the end
because children needed to express their impressions. Maybe some more similar
experiences would help us to reduce the excessive noise and integrate more English into
this activity by proposing some evaluation vocabulary.
6

Making Lazy Jack figures

Instead of live statues we will make Lazy Jacks with a paper now. I will distribute
sheets of paper with Lazy Jacks pictures on it. Children will follow spoken instructions
and cut the figure with a scissors. Then I will ask them to mark particular parts of the
clothes with some colour according to my instructions: Colour his jacket blue. Colour
his socks yellow and red and so onPossible unknown words will be clarified with the
help of the picture figure.
After that I will ask the children to look at the blackboard and copy the
vocabulary from the session on the back side of the figure (see appendix D). They can
write trousers, jacket, hat and socks in the appropriate part on the foreside. They can
continue in colouring when they finish before the others.
These words should be recorded: sad, happy, lazy, angry, trousers, hat, jacket, socks
8 min.
Comments
Because of special content of our lessons I decided to copy the words from the story in
the special vocabulary books. Children really liked to decorate it by themselves and we
could still use these figures to consolidate the vocabulary and also as puppets in the next
lessons.
7

The song

I will ask the children to look at their Lazy Jacks and tell me what time he probably
lived in. Is he from our days or from the past? Does he look like townsman or
countryman? How do you think the village looked like in the past? There certainly were
some farms. We will close the lesson by singing a song Old Mc Donald:
1) I will use the picture cards (see appendix E) to recall names of animals
ducks, chicks, cows, sheep and dogs.

37

2) I will distribute the cards to some children and ask them to put them down on
the floor by the time they will hear the word. Other children will clap the
rhythm slightly with a song.
3) With second replaying I will ask the children to make circle around the
pictures and try to follow my steps. As the song has got several repetitive
verses, they would gradually gain more confidence with the words and
movement.
8 min
Comments
Surprisingly there was nobody who had known this song so I decided to use it because
of the topic connection and easy to follow tune. Children really enjoyed the song and
happily joined the dancing, more or less successfully. As I had noticed in their music
lessons, most of them liked to sing and all of them took gratefully any movement in
their lessons. Now they were officially allowed to move and they obviously had fun.
The first session as a whole told me this about these children:

they willingly accept new ways of work if there is a workable motivation

as for the story reading they need some time, friendly atmosphere and lot of
encouraging to lay down their fears of wrong answers and limited language
skills

they really enjoy exciting dynamics activities, but need also contrastive ones to
become more quiet and concentrated

2.4.2 Lesson two

TIME

45 minutes

AIMS

Language:

to consolidate clothes and feelings vocabulary: jacket, hat,

trousers, socks, sad, happy, angry, lazy

38

to present and practise positional phrases by means of TPR

activities: on the head, on the shoulder, in the arms, on the back, in the
pocket, on a string

to present other key words that children need to understand: farm,

bakery, dairy, sausage factory, stable

following spoken instructions

to develop guessing and predicting skills

to work on the stress and rhythm of spoken English by choral

chanting

Other:

to establish multicultural awareness by working with specific

cultural information: different kinds of currency

developing arts and crafts skills

to encourage children to use their imagination

developing nonverbal expressions and understanding

MATERIALS
Items of clothes: hat, socks, trousers, jacket
Paper coin 1 pound
Picture copies from the book, magnets
Blanket and enough space in the classroom to make a reading cubby
The book Lazy Jack by Tony Ross
Tape recorder, the song
Picture flashcards with animals
Scissors, pieces of solid paper to make coins, crayons
Lazy Jack figures
Blackboard
PREPARATION
Before the lesson I should:

39

practise the story reading with lot of gestures and voice

modulations

think over the comments and questions which I want to give the
children during the reading

write the words I want the children to copy into their vocabulary
books down on the blackboard

draw the pictures that help to elicit or revise particular words

IN CLASS
1 What is Jack missing?
We will link this lesson to the previous one by the picture of Jack on the blackboard.
There will be some things missing in the picture a hat, jacket, trousers and socks. I
will ask the children what is missing in comparison with their Lazy Jack figures. In this
way we will recall the names of clothes. Some children will draw missing clothes into
the picture.
4 min
Comments
This lesson actually started even before the ringing. Some children wanted me to assure
them that we are going to read Lazy Jack again, another ones tried to demonstrate what
they could remember from the previous reading most frequently it was the author and
then the title of the book. Thereby the Lazy Jack atmosphere was evoked spontaneously.
8

Are there any moody clothes?

For this activity there should be written these words on the blackboard: sad, happy,
angry, lazy. I will choose for example angry and I will try to pantomime how particular
item of clothes, for example socks, would look like when feeling angry. Children should
identify the appropriate word.
We will do the same with hat, jacket and trousers and invite some volunteers to
do the pantomime.
7 min
Comments
40

I really enjoyed the surprise in childrens faces when I was pulling the socks on my
hands and made them feel angry. We took out even more fun from this activity
commenting why the socks are probably so angry. Children gave me original
suggestions in Czech: The socks have not been laundered for six months. The socks are
angry because one of them is more popular than the other one. The socks are angry
because Jacks feet smell bad.
At first it took quite a long time to find some volunteers to pantomime but at the
end I had to stop the childrens initiative. In some cases, especially concerning a few
boys, I was under the impression that they took any occasion to be in the centre of
attention and to ventilate their accumulated energy, no matter what the task was. I
consider these expressions to be a notable diagnostic material.
Variation
In terms of recalling the words of clothes I would ask small groups of children to draw
one item of clothes (for example a jacket) and cut it with scissors. Then I would pick
the paper clothes from the children and show these products to the whole class
commenting on it in this way: Oh look! This is a really lovely jacket. I like its big
buttons. It is blue and warm and I really like to wear it when it is cold. Then I would
send the clothes around the circle and ask the children to send its pronunciation as well.
(I took this activity from Nada Vojtkova)
After that I would fix the papers on blackboard and draw the symbols of feelings
(happy, sad, angry, lazy) to them and say: The socks are angry. Why? And so on.
Follow up
We could play true and false then. I would say some statement (The hat is sad) and
ask the children to repeat after me when I am right and be quiet when I am wrong. Then
I would mix the pictures and we will play again.
After that I would wear the paper clothes and let the children say what I am
wearing at the moment: Now I am wearing..trousers and hat. It is so hot now, I am
wearing justsocks.
Next I would ask each child to draw just one of these: trousers, hat, socks or jacket with
sad, happy, angry or lazy face. Then I would practise these structures asking everybody:
Are you happy? Are you jacket? And they will show their pictures to answer yes.

41

Children would walk asking these questions and try to find somebody to make
complete sets of clothes angry hat, jacket, trousers and socks. Then we would check
the groups and ask the incomplete ones what they are missing. (I adapted this activity
from Sarah Phillips 1993: 91 Happy families)
At the end of these activities I would divide the children into small groups
randomly and ask them to make a poster with Lazy Jack picture. They would draw and
describe what he is dressed in, for example Jack is wearing: a happy hat, one lazy
and one angry jacket and sad socks. They would need to see the words written on the
blackboard.
3

Where is the coin?

I will say to the children with surprise that there is something in the pocket of the
trousers. It is a coin. There is 1 pound written on it. So this is a Great Britain coin. What
another kinds of currency do we know? After that I will ask the children to draw a coin
and cut it with scissors (see appendix D).
We will practise these phrases with our coins: on my head, on my shoulder, on my back,
in my arms, in my pocket, on a string. That will be in these steps:
1) We will use our bodies to present new words (shoulders, arms, pocket). I will
ask some children to choose from my offer on the board and write the words
in the Lazy Jack picture.
2) Once the children will understand individual words I will ask them to follow
me with pointing at the body parts with the coins. I will use the whole phrases
here: on my head.
3) Then I will ask the children to chant after me with the same physical
response.
After this activity I will pick the coins to count them later.
12 min
Comments
After the beginning uncertainty what to do children really enjoyed making their own
coins. They were genuinely interested in the smallest details like what shortcuts for
particular money are, which currency is harder and so on. It was great occasion to
present some cultural information - for example the Russian boy made their Russian
kopeck. He was very proud of his product because he could share his personal
experience in this way.
42

Most of the children identified the word coin correctly in Lazy Jack test more
than two weeks after. As I believe, this practical activity greatly supported the
remembering of the word.
As for the choral chanting, it was quite surprising for me that the children were
able to achieve much better fluency and linking when hearing an appropriate example to
copy. I mean that one-sided focusing on course books exercises, filling separated words
or creating short sentences by children do not facilitate the fluency and such a
fragmented speech could become a sort of routine. I think that children tend to imitate
the language they can hear mostly in their lessons. As I believe that this is a good reason
to give the children enough possibilities to hear (stories, instructions etc.) and to speak
(songs, rhymes, chants etc.) the authentic language although it is far beyond their active
language skills.
4

Memory game

Children should understand other few words before next story reading. I will tag some
picture copies from the book to the blackboard and present these key words farm, cow
keeper, dairy, bakery, sausage-factory and stable. By the time the children are able to
repeat the words after me I will take out one picture.
The children will have to name all the pictures including the missing one. We
will continue like this until all the words will be given by heart. (I took this activity
from Nada Vojtkova)
4 min
Comments
There was no problem with childrens short time memory. What was quite difficult for
them was the pronunciation of particular words (dairy, [speibl] instead of [steibl]). They
probably needed more steps before I wanted them to pronounce these words. On the
other hand I wanted to support their understanding of the key words for story reading
and I did not expect them to use the words actively. And I was pleased with the
childrens participation whenever we came to some of these pictures.
Follow up
I would pantomime some job, for example baking bread. Children would guess the
place and then continue with miming.

43

Story reading

There will be the same arrangement for the story reading as the last time. I will just ask
the groups girls and boys to change their places. After that we will go through the
cover and the first picture briefly, I will encourage the children to use their English as
much as possible. Then we will read the next part of the story using pictures, a lot of
gestures and miming to clarify the meanings. In particular moments I will ask the
children to assume, predict and speculate about the story.
10 min

Here is an example of clarifying new words the laziest: There are three
pictures of different boys on the board, one of them is Jack. I will say something like
this: Look, this is Tom. He does not like running. He is lazy. And this is Paul. He does
not like running and walking. Tom is lazy but Paul is lazier then Tom. And you know
Jack. He does not like running and walking and sitting. He really likes to lay and sleep.
Tom is lazy, Paul is lazier and Jack is the laziest boy.
I would use other adjectives that children surely know in a similar way if
necessary big, bigger, the biggest, small, smaller, the smallest and suitable pictures.
Comments
This time children displayed much more courage in guessing and predicting. They
seemed to enjoy the story in a more relaxed way and had special fun with Tony Ross
pictures. There was a better contact with boys sitting on the blanket.
9

Copying the vocabulary

Children will copy new vocabulary into their Lazy Jacks figures. They can put the
words into the picture according to the meanings head, shoulder, back, pocket, arm,
string.
4 min
10 Old McDonald
At first I will ask the children to sequence the pictures by heart. Then we will check the
order with listening to the song and dancing simultaneously.
4 min
Comments
44

Children sequenced the pictures without hesitation and enjoyed the movement.
This lesson really convinced me of the childrens interest in the story. There
were also enough activities involving different senses and enabling the children to
develop their creativity. On the other hand some of the children missed the pressure of
being assessed at every turn. If nobody threatened them with bad marks they probably
were under the impression that it was not serious school work but just a game. It
would take some time to reinforce their inner motivation and show that there are
different ways how to learn.

2.4.3 Lesson three

TIME

45 minutes

AIMS

Language:

to consolidate spoken forms of positional phrases from the book:

on his head, on his shoulders, in his arms, in his pocket, on a string

to practise written forms of positional phrases with the worksheet

tasks

to practise different kinds of intonation when expressing feelings

to revise key words about places: farm, bakery, dairy, sausage

factory, stable

to develop listening skills

Other:

facilitating of nonverbal expressions and understanding eye

contact

to support group cohesion

MATERIALS
Paper coins made by children
Picture copies from the book, magnets
45

Lazy Jack worksheets

Blanket and enough space in the classroom to make a reading cubby
The book Lazy Jack by Tony Ross
Lazy Jack figures
Tape recorder, the song
Blackboard
PREPARATION
Before the lesson I should:

switch different currency to Czech crowns and count the money

practise the story reading and keep some parts in mind

think over the comments and questions which I want to give the
children during the reading

write the words I want the children to copy into their vocabulary
books down on the blackboard

IN CLASS
1

ZIP ZAP game

We will pass the word ZIP with some gesture around the circle. Then we will add the
word ZAP across the circle. At the end we will join the word BOING to put the signal
back. The task will be not to get confused. (I took this activity from Miroslava Zabkova)
4 min
Comments
This warm-up activity supports concentration and eye contact. Children needed to focus
on where the signal was and what to do next.
2

Revision activity

I will distribute the coins to the children and ask them to guess how much they are
altogether in Czech money. It is about 3260 crowns. I will ask them what Lazy Jack
would probably buy for this money. Then we will revise the positional phrases from the
previous lesson. This time we will point to the Lazy Jacks figures with the coins. We

46

should say on his head instead of on my head. We will do the chanting briefly and
change the voice for fun loudly, quietly, machinely, with lazy or angry intonation etc.
6 min
Comments
Children really liked to guess how much money they drew. They willingly joined me
with various voices and were more confident with the phrases.
Variation
If there was more time I would let the children do the class survey and count the money
on their own.

Follow up
Small groups of children would work with a map and locate the coins in particular
countries. We would put the accent on adjoining countries and take this occasion to
recall what we already know about them. In connection with money we would compare
their and our economic situation.
3

Ill do so next time

Still being in the circle we will practise the key sentence of Lazy Jack: OK. Ill do so
next time. We will practise the sentence in parts and as a whole together and then the
children will say it individually around the circle. We will use paper Lazy Jack figures
as puppets for this activity. Once we will use lazy intonation and then very active
intonation.
4 min
Comments
This was the most frequent sentence in the book. As I had noticed before children liked
it and tried to repeat it spontaneously. But it was quite demanding for some of them to
pronounce it individually as I had supposed them in this activity. Nevertheless there
were the puppets and funny intonation to keep playful atmosphere. Next time I would
probably ask little groups or pairs to speak instead of individual children.

47

Anyway, this sentence finally became our slogan children chanted it

spontaneously when they were lining up in their physical training and whenever I had to
say goodbye, children answered in that way: OK, Ill do so next time!
4

Worksheet

I will ask the children to go back in their seats and work out the worksheet based on
matching phrases (see appendix F) with pictures and practising feeling adjectives (sad,
happy, angry, lazy)
8 min
Comments
Most of the children did not have problems with filling the tasks. They appreciated the
pictures in the worksheet.

Story reading

We will make our reading cubby and revise vocabulary about places there will be the
picture copies on the movable part of the blackboard, one will be missing and the
children should guess which one. Then I will mix the pictures and take out another one
and so on. After that we will summarize the previous storyline and read the next part of
the story. Children will have enough time to look over the pictures because it intensely
supports their understanding of the story. Moreover, the illustrations by Tony Ross are at
least as impressive and enjoyable as his narration.
10 min
Comments
As I mentioned above, children liked the pictures very much. As we were getting near to
the point of the story and Jacks foolishment became more and more humorous, we
often had to do breaks for laughing at the pictures. On the other hand there was a slight
problem with turning the attention back to the text as there was a lot of noise and
comments.

48

Copying vocabulary

I will ask the children to copy these words from this session: farm, diary, bakery, stable,
sausage factory. We will listen to the song playing quietly as a background music.
5 min
7

Old McDonald

We will close the lesson with singing the song.

8 min
Comments
There was not enough time to sing the song so I invited just volunteers to join me
during the break. There were mostly girls dancing with me. But I noticed several boys
doing the movements in their seats.
During this session I have found out how difficult it is to read larger sections
with frequent interruptions and a lot of eye contact. That is why I tried to learn
particular parts of the story by heart.

2.4.4 Lesson four

TIME

45 minutes

AIMS

Language:

to recall and consolidate vocabulary from the book

to work on stress and rhythm of spoken English by means of choral

chanting

to check childrens comprehension and remembering of the story

by pictures sequencing

to practise structures of descriptions: There is/arein the

picture.

to practise understanding with the help of key words

49

following spoken instructions

Other:

to encourage children to work and co-operate in pairs

developing arts and crafts skills

to encourage children to share their impressions of the story

MATERIALS
Pictures and sentences for making story books
Blanket and enough space in the classroom to make a reading cubby
The book Lazy Jack by Tony Ross
Scissors, glues
Blackboard
PREPARATION
Before the lesson I should:

draw the vocabulary chart down on the blackboard

think over and write simple instructions on the blackboard

practise the story reading and keep some parts in mind

think over the questions I want to give the children after the
reading

IN CLASS
1

Picture chart

In order to recall and consolidate vocabulary from the story I will draw large picture
chart on the blackboard. It will contain pictures of key words that children have copied
into their Lazy Jack figures as well as other key words from the story for example sad
princess, bakery, dairy, jug of milk and so on (I adapted this activity from va Beno a
kol. Islands Themepack). I will ask the children to name all the pictures they can in
English. At the same time they should remind us of what the story background of
particular word is.
When all the words are recalled we will do a choral chanting for the purpose of
rhythm, linking and stress practice. That is why I will graduate the lenght of chanted
50

segments from individual words to the whole sentence the princess, the sad princess,
this is the sad princess.
5 min
2

Questions and answers

I will ask one of the children to ask me this question: Where is the sad princess? I will
answer saying the coordinates of the picture C,1. I will illustrate my thinking process
by pointing to the corresponding lines. We will repeat this around twice and then we
will change the roles children will answer my questions about the coordinates. At the
end I will vary the question and ask about concrete words What is in B,2?
Once the children are familiar with the activity we will play a short competition
with two teams. I will ask the questions and record the points - each line of Lazy Jacks
hat for each correct answer. Those who will have the whole hat first will be the winners.
10 min
Comments
Picture chart constitutes another possibility how to revise vocabulary without direct
translation. However, it works only for words that could be pictured and it is also more
time-consuming to draw the pictures. The last disadvantage could be solved by asking
the children to draw the pictures themselves.
Children followed the above chart activities easily and had fun with the competition.
Variation
We can play Bingo with the chart. I will ask the children to write or draw five words or
pictures from the chart that they like the best. Then I will call the words randomly. Who
will hear his/her five words first will be the winner. This competition enables any child
to win because it is a question of good luck (taken from Andrew Wright 2003: Bingo).
3

Story reading

As many things about the storyline will be mentioned with the chart we will summarise
the story very briefly. Then we will read the story to the end. After the reading I will ask
the children to share their impressions: Which part of the story did you like the best and
why? Which illustration? Which character? Do you know anybody in your real live who
prefers to be dependent rather than work? Are you looking forward to your adult age
and your job? How do you want to make money in the future?
10 min
51

Comments
The children really liked the pictures and the story as well. The most popular character
was Jacks mother because of her funny bed temper.
Then we discussed the questions about the childrens wishes and future. I got a
lot of information from them here. Especially the extraordinary intelligent boy wanted
to share his experience at great length so I had to interrupt him to make it possible for
other children to say something. Mostly they were happy with being children and not
having to earn their living. But in the future they wanted to have a lot of things and
make lot of money. Most of the boys wanted to become a footballer. There were just
two boys in this class that were not strongly interested in football. The girls were not so
definite. Just one of them surely wanted to work in a kindergarten.
Variation
Instead of the discussion we can pick this information with class survey again. We
should practise vocabulary about jobs and these phrases before: What would you like to
be? I want to be a ...
4

Let us rebuild the story

In this activity children will work in pairs and the task will be to sequence little pictures
by heart according to the story. We will check the right order by describing the pictures
to the others. I will write the sentence for describing (There is/arein the picture)
down on the board and start with simple description: There is a sad princess in the
picture. I will accompany the sentence with miming and make sure that children can
identify the picture. Then I will ask a child to continue and help him/her with the
description. We will continue in this way until all the pictures are checked.
After that I will distribute small pieces of paper with short sentences. Now I will
ask the children to match the pictures with appropriate sentences. The key words from
the story and also the short descriptions they have practised before will help the
comprehension. I will read the sentences to check the order and children will correct
their matching if necessary.
10 min
Comments
In accordance with my monitoring in the class children were able to sequence the
pictures quite easily by heart. But when I wanted them to follow me with describing the
52

pictures it took them a long time to produce the description and they needed a lot of
help.
Then they tried to match the short sentences to the pictures. Some children could
manage it easily again but some of them found it too difficult. Because of the lack of
time I gave the children the right model to correct their settings.
5

Circular storybooks

We will use the same little pictures and sentences to make sort of circular books (see
appendix G). Children will work in pairs again. They will set the pictures into the circle
and put matching sentences against the pictures. In order to make them sure I will offer
them a correct example to compare. Once they verify the correctness of the setting they
will stick it on the paper and cut the circle with scissors. As they will not work
simultaneously I will write the instructions on the board combining words and pictures:
1) Cut the circle with scissors.
2) Stick the pictures and sentences with glue.
Those children who will finish earlier could colour their favourite pictures.
(I took inspiration for this idea from Sarah Phillips 1993: 132 A circular book)
10 min

Comments
We hardly had enough time to go through the instructions and do the sticking and
cutting. The time pressure pushed me to use more Czech than I wanted to use.
Generally I had to adapt my presumptions about the time some activities in
this lesson were much more time consuming than I had expected. Children needed more
time to understand and realize my instructions. I would stagger the sequencing and
describing activities into a few more steps and lessons to avoid the hurry.
Anyway, children liked to make something practical and they really wanted to
make it correctly.

2.4.5 Lesson five

OBSERVER Nada Vojtkova
53

TIME

45 minutes

AIMS

Language:

to revise language from the previous lessons by chanting and

vocabulary charts

to practise describing pictures: There is/arein the picture.

to encourage childrens participation in story reading

following written instructions

Other:

cooperation in pairs

finalizing of circular story books

developing arts and crafts skills

to elicit some advice from the story for our real lives

to praise childrens progress in guessing and story participating

MATERIALS
The hat
Model of circular story book to show
Circular storybooks for children
Vocabulary chart worksheets
Blanket and enough space to make a reading cubby in the classroom
The book Lazy Jack by Tony Ross
Lazy Jack figures
Tape recorder, the song
Animal picture cards
Blackboard
PREPARATION
54

Before the lesson I should:

think over and write simple instructions down on the blackboard

practise the story reading and keep some parts in mind

prepare a circular story book to present the children some model

think about what questions I would like to ask to close the story
reading

write the words I want the children to copy into their vocabulary
books on the blackboard

IN CLASS
1 Lazy Jack atmosphere
After the greetings I will let the children guess what thing is hidden in my hands behind
my back. Then I will put the hat on my head and ask the children who I am Lazy Jack.
I will ask the children what they already know about Jack and we will recall some
information about him He is lazy. Has he got a father? No he has got a mother.
3 min
6

Chanting

I will use the hat to gesture and ask the children to chant according to where it is: on my
head, on my shoulder, in my pocket, on my back, in my arms, on a string. After the
choral chanting I will ask individual children to say the right phrase.
3 min
Comments
Children chanted the phrases with confidence when being in choir. But I took them by
surprise asking individual children to speak. I should probably let them speak in small
groups instead.
7

Circular storybooks

Children will complete their circular storybooks following instructions on the board. We
will go through them at first to make it clear, I will demonstrate the action:
1) Cut the circle with the scissors.
2) Make a little hole with the scissors here and here like this.
3) Fix the circles with this little thing (a staple) like this.
55

I will monitor their activity and help if necessary.

10 min
Comments
This time we had enough time to make the instructions clear in English. Children
enjoyed the final product the circular storybook. As they finished differently I asked
them to colour the pictures.
8

Find the picture!

We will use our circular books to practise the short descriptions. I will describe some
picture and ask the children to identify it saying the number of the picture. We will
repeat it several times. After that individual children will give the descriptions to the
others.
5 min
Comments
There were just a few children that took part in this activity. They probably needed a
clear signal to stop colouring the pictures. As mentioned in the observers feedback, I
should have changed the place for this activity, for example make a circle with the
children to make them concentrate on something else.
Follow up
The children can continue in this way in groups of four pupils. One will describe the
picture and the others will seek the picture. They will take turns in descriptions.
Follow up
Each group will prepare live picture with their bodies to express one of the pictures.
The other children will guess which picture it is and try to say what was before and after
this action in the story. To make it more interesting there could be some different details
in live pictures in comparison with the story, for example the sad princess will have a
glasses when setting eyes on Lazy Jack.
9

Story reading

We will make the reading cubby for the last time and read the whole story together. I
will encourage the children to involve their English as much as possible. After the
reading we will discuss some more questions: What will happen with Jack and happy
56

princess five years after? What do you mean? What message can we take from this story
for our lives? We should come to the fact that the laziness and foolishness is quite
lovely in stories and fairytales. In our real lives we need to work and think a lot to get
some respect and feel satisfied.
10 min
Comments
Children already knew the story. Despite of that they apparently enjoyed the reading and
participated in it. I liked the following discussion too, especially these comments and
suggestions: After a few years the princess will have to get a job to make some money.
They will have lazy children. I would never marry such an ugly and lazy man.
10 Vocabulary chart
I will ask the children to work with vocabulary chart (see appendix H). In this time they
will answer written questions and work individually. It will be a similar variation of the
chart that children have seen previously.
5 min
Comments
Most of the children solved the chart successfully.
11 Copying vocabulary
The children will copy a few remaining words from the blackboard: castle, coin, cake,
cheese, to remember. They can colour and decorate their Lacy Jack vocabulary books or
circular storybooks.

5 min

12 Old McDonald
At the end of this lesson we will sing the song with dancing.
4 min
Follow up
Once the children know the song well we can play the radio. We will sing aloud until
an agreed signal that will switch the radio off. At this moment children had to continue
with the singing just in their minds. After a while I would give the signal to switch the
radio on again. All of us should continue with the same words and in the same tune. It is
better to interrupt the song in its periodic parts. This activity supports the inner language
and melody thinking. (I took this activity from PhDr. Blanka Knopova)

57

Comments
As some of the children were copying words and coloring their pictures I invited just
volunteers to sing and dance. All the girls joined me at the end. That is why the boys
might feel embarrassed about being the first one that will join the girls. Next I would
stop the song and give clear instruction to engage all the children: OK! And the last two
verses of the song we will dance all together there at the back. Come on everybody!
It was a very pleasurable lesson for me. I enjoyed especially the story reading
because of the children giving me very positive response. I felt also much more
confident with the reading because I knew the problematic sections by heart. But still
there were one or two children that did not have sufficient contact with the book
because of their seats.

2.5 Drama
TIME

250 minutes

AIMS

Language:

to revise the language from the story

to use the language in a meaningful context

to add emotions and personality to the text that children have

listened to and make the words and phrases more familiar by interpreting
them

Other:

developing cooperative skills by working in groups

to support children in taking responsibility for their own work

to satisfy childrens different learning styles

stimulating childrens imagination and creativity

to convey enjoyable language experience

58

MATERIALS
Clothes and strips of dress material for costumes
Roles of wrapping paper, coloured and crepe paper, carton
Crayons, pastels, markers, sticky tapes, strings, glues and scissors
The book Lazy Jack
Copies of the script
The Triangle
Camera
PREPARATION
Before the lesson I should:

make a list of the aids and ask the children to bring what they can
from the list about three days before

make appropriate arrangement of the room with working stations

and enough free space

ask two volunteers to invite the next door class

IN CLASS
1

Welcome!

We will open this special day sitting in the circle. At first I will greet the children and
say out that I am looking forward to the following work. Because of many preparations
and activities the higher level of noise could be expected. In order to make our
communication clear and prompt I will establish a signal. It will be the sound of a
triangle that should make all the children look at me and listen carefully. I will ask the
children to simulate working noise and accept the signal as quickly as possible. We will
train this twice. After that I will appreciate them to be a good theatre team.
5 min
Comments
There was very excited atmosphere in the class at the beginning of the day. Children
brought a lot of things from their homes and they were full of suggestions and ideas. I
tried to explain them that we really need to cooperate and listen to each other. I was
satisfied with their response to the triangle signal.
59

Mind map

I will call the children to think about what should be done before we could give the
performance. We will note the ideas and then we will try to order them into the map
with the performance in the centre. We should come to these categories:

the cast

the script

properties

costumes

rehearsals

I will offer these words in English.

10 min
Comments
I wanted the children to think about the process that happens from the book to the play.
They gave me many suggestions and we came to the main categories in a short time.
3

The cast

We will discuss various ways of casting and decide which one we want to use. After that
we will assign particular roles including the storyteller.
Comments
As I believe children should participate in making such decisions to be able to accept
the results. After the discussion we decided to do the cast very democratically. All the
characters were written down on a large piece of paper and we reminded us of their
personalities. After that I distributed the pieces of paper to everybody. Children copied
the characters on it and wrote their own suggestions for the cast. I asked for two
storytellers to share quite long and more difficult narrative part. Then we picked the
papers and counted the names for each role (see appendix I).
Children were very interested in the results. Fortunately all of the winners
willingly agreed with the choice. The only problem with this activity was time. We
spent too long time by reading the lists of 17 pupils. Next I would display all the
characters on the notice board two or three days before and ask the children to write
their suggestions there. Two volunteers could count the results.
60

Actors and props men

As there are many characters in the story we will divide us into two groups actors and
props men. I will ask one volunteer to be a leader of props men. They will prepare the
list of things that should be prepared to make the story understandable. Then they
should settle on their tasks and start with creating these things. In this moment I will
devote myself to the other group actors.
Comments
According to my occasional observations, the props men were working very seriously
and creatively. There was no problem with cooperation and sharing the work. I only had
to control their activity slightly in terms of what is important to do and what is not. I
also needed to hurry them up sometimes to catch the time.
5

The Script

I will distribute the script (see appendix K) to the actors. We will go through it all
together and I will ask them to mark their speech. We will clarify the meaning if
necessary. After that I will ask the children to rewrite just their speech apart. I will help
particular actors with pronunciation then. By the time they will understand what to say
and how to pronounce it I will let them train. Once they feel more confident they can
come to me individually to take control of correctness and remembering. They can tell
their parts to each other too.
I will monitor the preparations of properties occasionally. Those actors who will finish
their practice can help the props men with making things.

110 min

Comments
I tried to simplify the story as much as possible in the script. There were just two or
three short sentences for each character except the storyteller. In spite of that, it was too
difficult for some children to read or even repeat the words. Especially the phrases with
lot of linking were quite demanding for them: Can you help me please? Here you are.
Go away!
Those who could pronounce their sentences easily needed more time to gain
more confidence with saying it by heart. Finally they had their sentences fixed on their
properties and read it from there. Some children repeated the speech after me during the
performance.
61

When creating the script I needed to transfer the action from the narrative more
into the dialogues. That is why there were some sentences that children had not heard in
the storyreading. (Such as those mentioned above: Can you help me please? Here you
are. Go away!)
So something was completely new for the children, they were supposed to speak in
foreign language aloud, in public, by heart and I expected them to make it within the
morning it was too much. As I believe it would not be problem for the children to
manage it but not in such a short time. Next time I would lay out these preparations into
several days and give the children more time to get familiarized with their speech.
Anyway, I had to admire how hard the children tried to deal with the text and I
pointed to this when appreciating them.
6

Supplementary tasks

It might not be possible to distribute the activities equally among all the children for all
the time. That is why I will display a list of a few supplementary tasks to engage the
ones that will have nothing to do at the moment.

Decorate the class door with Lazy Jack vocabulary books and story books.

Make a poster or invitation cards.

Think out and write short welcome speech for the audience.

Make titles with the name of the author and the performance.

Comments
As I mentioned above there were not any problems with sharing the work. All the
children found something to help with or to do. From time to time I noticed an
individual child that was just watching the others working. I let them relax until they
started to disturb. When they asked for some work I let them choose from the list. The
supplementary tasks filled their purpose.

62

First rehearsal

We will deal with the arrangement of the scenes and harmonize their changing with the
actors and props mens actions. The props men should sequence all the properties
according to the book.
We will clarify the movements and comings. Of course, the children do not need
to be real actors to play the story. But they should at least notify that the theatre
speaking and moving differ from our common life. We will discuss their experiences
and suggestions here.
30 min
Comments
It was fascinating for me to watch the children working so intensively. They really tried
to do their best. They often cooperated with the book and suggested a lot of details to
improve the play. I was pleased with the things they had made.
8

Rest and tea break

10 min

Dress rehearsal

We will prepare the class for the performance and for the audience as well. The actors
will choose their costumes. Then we will put on the performance and solve possible
details.
20 min
Comments
Children chose their costumes spontaneously. As they were all dirty in their faces with
colour pastels they really looked very dramatically. In this moment the tiredness became
more and more evident and children started to be quite noisy. Therefore we did not
extend the last rehearsal and called the schoolmates to watch the performance.
10 The Performance
We will welcome the next door pupils and play Lazy Jack story for them. I will ask
somebody to record the performance with a camera.
15 min
Comments
I could see the childrens excitement and powerful motivation when showing something
to their schoolmates. But I am not sure whether the audience caught the storyline. They
63

looked slightly confused and maybe needed some more explanation to be able to
understand.
At the end we demonstrated Old McDonald song with dancing.
11 Cleaning
We should save enough time for cleaning the room.
30 min
Comments
It really took quite a lot of time to restore the class room. Especially the colour pastels
were everywhere and it was hard to clean it. Next time I would use some alternative
aids instead of this.
12 Reflection
We will need to evaluate the course of the day and the final result too. I will ask the
children to discuss these questions in small groups: What did you like best this day?
What would you do in a different way next time? Then we will share our impressions
and try to appreciate each piece of work of particular children or teams.
15 min
Comments
Children expressed their satisfaction with their work. They really enjoyed creating
things and playing roles. We agreed on the fact that it was quite demanding to deal with
all the work in such short time.
I thanked the children for their enthusiasm and good-will (see appendix J for
drama photos)
Generally I had convinced myself that drama could be very effective way of
learning, whether we mean language, social or factual learning. It is an ideal output of
certain stories which provides great possibility to consolidate the language and enjoy the
story in a more active way. Children can put their personalities intensively into their
work and gain live experience with the language and themselves as such. The task for
the teacher is to raise the effectivity of drama learning with well-considered preparation,
good class management and convenient reflection as well.

64

Conclusion
It is easy to forget how mysterious and mighty stories are. They do their work in
silence, invisibly. They work with all the internal materials of the mind and self.
They become part of you while changing you. Beware the stories you read or tell:
subtly, at night, beneath the waters of consciousness, they are altering your world .
(Russell 2004: 16)
These poetic words express what I tried to verify practically in my diploma thesis the
power of stories. To be more accurate how can the EFL teacher in a primary class
make use of this power for teaching purposes and how can he or she intensify it by
means of drama activities.
In particular chapters of theoretic part I attempted to outline the theoretical
background of the topic. In the first place the concrete benefits of using stories in EFL
lessons. My teaching practice confirmed especially that shared reading in joyful
atmosphere can be strongly motivating and can involve the children in the way that
obviously support not only the language learning. In terms of learning strategies it was
very encouraging for me to learn that children were day by day more ready to take risks
with hypothesizing and guessing meanings of an unknown language. Finally there were
many moments in our lessons confirming the childrens sensibility and great ability to
pick up the intonation patterns and other features of fluent speech especially when
speaking collectively.
The criteria of selecting books presented in the second chapter guided my choice
of the storybook. In practice I especially verified the importance of the subject matter
attraction, fun element and good visual support of the book (illustrations etc.).
In the following chapter I tried to highlight what the connections between stories
and drama are and how these can interact in teaching/learning process. In the first place
I mentioned the personal participation that was supposed to be intensified with the use
of dramatic techniques based on the story. According to my observations during our
65

lessons the children were evidently involved in storyreading and displayed even greater
participation in drama activities. As I believe these experiences helped them to get
familiarized with the story and the language as well.
As I have mentioned before these children were accustomed to using simple
separated words in English lessons; at best short sentences in guided practice activities.
Through storyreading and following activities they had enjoyable experience of fluent
language to hear and also to speak in a certain manner. I could appreciate especially the
shy children that were ready to speak like someone else in a role.
With drama activities the children could also show their creativity and
imagination for example in miming, voice experiments, live sculptures or in the final
performance and its preparations.
Finally, there were notable excitement and pleasure whenever we were going to
read the story and plan the performance. I could observe that it is still natural and
attractive for children of this age to prepare a sort of final performance for external
audience when being motivated in an effective way with the funny story, for example.
Nevertheless it is necessary to provide them with comfortable conditions to manage it
as to the time, materials, space, language requirements or creative atmosphere to work
in.

66

Literature
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Council, 1999. 81 s.
2. BENK, va a kol. Islands Themepack: Pupils Workbook. Hungary: The
British Council, 1999. 35 s.
3. COCKETT, Stephen; FOX Geoff. Keep Talking! :Learning English through
Drama Storytelling and Literature. Krakow: Wydawnictvo Naukowe WSP,
1999. 124 s. ISBN 83-87513-84-9
4. COUNCIL FOR CULTURAL CO-OPERATION EDUCATION COMMITTEE,
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267 s. ISBN 80-244-0404-4
5. ELLIS, Gail; BREWSTER, Jean. Tell it again! : The new storytelling handbook
for primary teachers. Harlow: Penguin English, 2002. 188 s. ISBN 0-58244774-7
6. ELLIS, Gail. Learning English through childrens literature.
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January 2007
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68

Appendices
Appendix A
Lazy Jack by Tony Ross
A sad princess sat at her castle window. She had never laughed, and didnt know how to.
Her mum and dad hoped that one day, somebody would make their daughter smile.
Once, a boy called Jack lived with his mother. Jack was probably the laziest
person in the whole world, and he would just sit around while his mother did all the
work. At last, Jacks mother could stand no more of his laziness.
Unless you get out and get a job, she shouted, youll get no more meals from me!
Youll have to wash your own socks too. Okay, said Jack, and he went to work for a
farmer, who paid him a shiny pound.
On the way home, Jack had to jump over a stream, and he dropped the pound
into the water. Of course, his mother was angry. Twit! she cried. You should have put
it in your jacket pocket. Okay, said Jack. Ill do so next time.
Next day, Jack went to work for a cow keeper, who gave him a jug of milk for
his wages.
Remembering his mothers advice, he poured the milk into his pocket, and he went
home.
Silly sausage head! shouted his mother. You should have carried the jug on your
head.
Okay, said Jack. Ill do so next time.
Next, Jack went to work at the dairy. For payment, he was given a fine cheese,
all for himself.
Remembering his mothers advice, he put the cheese on his head. When he got it home,
it had melted into a gooey mess. Gormless beetle brain! screeched his mother. You
should have carried it in your arms. Okay, said Jack. Ill do so next time.
Jacks next job was in a sausage factory, where he was given a cat as a payment.
Remembering his mothers advice, he carried the cat home in his arms. The cat was a
nasty beast who hated being picked up. When Jack got home, he was scratched to bits.
Jelly-headed hen brain! yelled his mother. You should have pulled it behind you on a
string.
Ill do so next time.
Next day, he went to work in a bakery. The bakers were pleased with Jacks
work, and they gave him a cake for his trouble. Remembering his mothers advice, Jack
pulled it home behind him on a string. Nitwitted pinhead! shouted his mother. You
should have carried it on your back. Okay, said Jack. Ill do so next time.
69

Next, Jack went to work in a stable. When the work was finished, the owner of
the stable gave Jack a donkey as payment. Remembering his mothers advice, Jack
heaved the donkey onto his shoulders. It was not easy, not easy at all, and Jack
staggered away towards his home.
His way took him past the castle of the sad princess who could not smile, and
she was sitting at her window. She watched Jack stagger by, with his donkey on his
backHe looked so funnythat the princess burst out laughing. The princesss mum
and dad were so happy, they let Jack marry her. The princess was happy to have such a
funny husbandand Jack was happy, because he never had to work again.

Appendix B

70

71

72

Appendix C

73

Storyreading in a reading cubby

74

Appendix D

Lazy Jack figures

Paper coins

75

Appendix E

Cardboard picture cards for Old McDonald song

76

Appendix F

Worksheet
77

Appendix G

The circular story

78

The cover of the circular book

79

Appendix H

80

Appendix I

The cast

81

Appendix J

Storytellers struggling with the script.

Props men

Creating the props.

Storyteller in action

Props men watching their work.

First rehearsal
82

Busy Lazy
Jack studying his speech

Sad princess sitting at her castle window.

Instructions

And they lived happily ever after

83

Appendix K
THE SCRIPT
ST Storyteller
M Mother
J Jack
P Princess
F Farm
CK Cow keeper
DM Dairyman
BU Butcher
BA Baker
HM Horseman
Scene 1
Castle
ST: A sad princess sat at her castle window.
P: I am so sad. I do not know how to smile.
House
ST: Once a boy called Jack lived with his mother.
J: Hello children. My name is Jack and I am very lazy.
M: Jack, can you help me please?
J: Oh no, I do not like to work. I like to sit and sleep.
M: Jack, go away and get a job! Now!
J: Ok. Goodbye!
Scene 2
Farm
F: Hello Jack! Hello children. I am a farmer, and my name is McDonald. I have got
this farm. Jack, here you are a shiny pound!
J: Oh, thank you very much!
ST: Jack went home and he dropped the pound into the water. His mother was angry.
M: You should carry it in your pocket!!
J: Ok. Ill do so next time.
ST: Next day Jack went to work for a cow keeper.
Scene 3
Cow keeper
CK: Hello Jack! Hello children. I am a cow keeper and I have got a lot of cows. Jack,
here you are a jug of milk!
J: Oh, thank you very much!
ST: Jack poured the milk into his pocket and went home. His mother was angry.
M: You should carry it on your head!
J: Ok. Ill do so next time.
ST: Next day Jack went to work at the dairy.

84

Scene 4
Dairy
DM: Hello Jack! Hello children. I am a dairyman and I work at the dairy with milk and
cheese. Jack, here you are a fine cheese!
J: Oh, thank you very much!
ST: Jack put the cheese on his head and went home. His mother was angry.
M: You should carry it in your arms!
J: Ok. Ill do so next time.
ST: Next day Jack went to work in a sausage factory.
Scene 5
Sausage factory
BU: Hello Jack! Hello children. I am a butcher and I make sausages. Jack, here you are
a cat!
J: Oh, thank you very much!
ST: Jack carried the cat in his arms and went home. His mother was angry.
M: You should pull it on a string!
J: Ok. Ill do so next time.
ST: Next day Jack went to work in a bakery.
Scene 6
Bakery
BA: Hello Jack! Hello children I am a baker and I make rolls and bread. Jack, here you
are a cake!
J: Oh, thank you very much!
ST: Jack pulled a cake on a string and went home. His mother was angry.
M: You should carry it on your back!
J: Ok. Ill do so next time.
ST: Next day Jack went to work in a stable.
Scene 7
Stable
HM: Hello Jack! Hello children. I am a horsewoman and I have got a lot of horses.
Jack, here you are a donkey!
J: Oh, thank you very much!
ST: Jack put the donkey on his back. The sad princess watched him from her window.
P: Hello Jack! You are so funny! Will you marry me?
J: Ok. I will marry you.
ST: Jack and princess were very happy and Jack never had to work again. This is the
end of our story!!!

85

Appendix L
Feedback on lesson taught 26. 9. 2006
Teacher: Elika Vintrov

Observer: Nada Vojtkov

Class: 5th grade

Number of pupils: 17 (8 boys, 9 girls)
Lesson: 8.00 8.45
Aims (as seen by the observer):
-

to consolidate vocabulary, structures and phrases from the book

to make children participate in the story

to revise the story

to make some practical reminders of the story which could be used later for
revision

to promote childrens interest in the story

Teaching aids: the book (Tony Ross Lazy Jack)

The hat
Circular books
Lazy Jack figures
Pictures with animals
Tape recorder, song
Blackboard
Stages and comments:
1. Greetings well done, you greeted them in English and set up the beginning of the
lesson in this way.
2. Chant with gestures you said the chant and prompted the meaning of the words
with the hat, that was excellent. I think that you could do it in three separated steps:
a) you and children just listen and follow
b) you + some children, all of them point at the body parts
c) altogether
Asking individual children was not a good idea; remember the possibilities (boys
only, girls only, those who are wearing jeans..)
However, it was a very good activity.
86

3. The circular books again a very good idea, at first you were very good at giving
instructions, you should not have given up English, you helped them individually
and they all knew what to do. I also liked the idea of doing it in pairs although they
might like to show it at home and this could cause a problem. Try to think how to
solve it. Your monitoring was quite effective, English would have worked here. We
have mentioned slower and quicker pairs; you should let them know what to do
when they finish earlier than the others. And at the end you should stop the activity
completely and perhaps change the place so that they could not colour the pictures.
4. Using the circular book very good, you should use the three examples before
you ask the pupils to do it. You should have been more consistent with their use of
English; they could use numbers and other simple things in English. They could
continue in fours in the same way.
Just one language comment you said ON the picture instead IN the picture. It
might have been a slip of the tongue but be careful about it, it is the most common
fossilized mistake.
This was a very good activity; class management is important here, give clear
instructions and clear divisions in between stages.
5. Reading the book excellent, I liked the idea of the blanket on the floor and the
whole
arrangement, make sure that all the kids can see you and the book.
Your reading , I mean the performance, was really worth seeing, it was evident that
you
enjoyed it and you wanted the same for the children. Reflect on what helped you to
be so successful and use it further!!!
6. Talking about some of the issues of the book partnership, jobs etc. Good that
you did it in Czech. Think of other ideas and other subject links.
7. Feedback on the work with the book you praised them which is good.
8. Handout with vocabulary consolidation well-prepared, however you should
have spent more time checking the results and consolidating the vocabulary.
9. Lazy Jack figure write down the new words from the session. Again great
activity, it would deserve a bit more time working with the words. It is very useful
for autonomous learning.
10. Song and dance well-done, you should have tried to include the boys more.
11. Saying goodbye
87

General comments:
You are a very nice teacher with an excellent rapport with your pupils. I liked your lesson
very much, it was full of ideas that linked together, they could involve all their senses and
intelligences,
you gave the children the space to be creative and you definitely made them interested and
involved. Your preparation was evident in the lesson (though you should have provided a
lesson plan for the observer, it is easier to observe the lesson then), I especially liked your
reading and body language. The two areas that you should work a bit more on are:
classroom management which is closely connected with classroom language. Saying that I
am aware of your situation on the teaching practice, you cannot change much there.
THANK YOU FOR HAVING ME IN THE LESSON.
Nada Vojtkova

88

Rsum
This diploma thesis deals with a question of the teaching/learning use of authentic
English stories for children in primary classes and how these can interact with suitable
drama activities.
Particular chapters of theoretical part introduce number of concrete benefits of
stories; their selection criteria and range of arguments for using drama activities in
story-based lessons.
Practical part is built on five story-based lesson plans together with all-day
drama project finished with a final performance where the teaching potential of the
concrete children story and suitable drama activities has been verified. These teaching
plans are completed with practical reflexive comments, characteristics of the book and
class and finally with evaluation of a short written test based on the story.

Resum
Diplomov prce se zabv otzkou vyuit autentickch anglickch pbh pro dti ve
vuce na prvnm stupni.
Jednotliv kapitoly teoretick sti objasuj, m mohou bt pbhy ve vuce
pnosn, jak jsou kritria jejich vbru a uvd mnostv dvod pro spojen pbh s
technikami dramatick vchovy.
Praktickou st tvo podrobn plny pti lekc a celodennho projektu
zakonenho zvrenm pedstavenm, jejich realizac byl oven vchovn a
vzdlvac potencil konkrtnho pbhu pro dti a s nm spojench dramatickch
innost. Tyto vukov plny jsou doplnny praktickmi poznmkami a postehy,
charakteristikou knihy, tdy a tak psemnho testu vychzejcho z danho pbhu
s jeho vyhodnocenm.

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