Will Children Learn English Language Through Story Books?

Abstract

This work presents the research study among children, Mexican students. To accomplish this goal, the study took place within a group of twenty students of the Cosmos Institute in Tangancícuaro Michoacán México. The study focused on strategies and approaches related to teach English based on stories. In summary the following findings were reached: Children like short stories with colorful pictures, they like to listen carefully when the story teller uses different tones of voice and body language, and they pay extreme attention when some of the students or the teacher is telling a story to the group with his own words. Storytelling attracts children. Children love to hear and watch stories about puppies and animals. Storytelling is a good strategy to lead the children attention to any topic within a story. Children perceive the world mostly through pictures, noises, smells and touches, not through mere words. Children like books full of concrete imagination, they like picture books and texts with funny graphics (palindromes, letters of various sizes and colors, words substituted by pictures, etc.). Children do not need any translation because the sentences are reflected on the pictures thus they understand the vocabulary, as well the different simple grammar structures in the story. In other words, I do not need to explain them the grammar structures. Repetition of stories enables young learners to master the language better. Children enjoy listening to stories over and over again. This frequent repetition allows certain language items to be acquired, while others are being overtly reinforced. Many stories contain natural repetition of key vocabulary and structures. The instruments used to collect data were: written memos, videotaping, developing analytic files, and written weekly and monthly reports, all of them based on Grounded theory. Grounded theory generates theory that is of direct interest and relevance for practitioners in that it analyses a substantive topic and aims at discovering a basic social process (BSP) which has the potential to resolve some of the main concerns of a particular group (Jones, 2002).