The Teaching of a Story

The teaching of a Story

Prose and Poetry are two principal forms of literature. Both differ widely. The prose is words in their best descriptive order. All the written material except verse is kept under the heading prose.

There are many types of prose such as Essay, story, fiction, biography, composition, and drama, etc. A story is a short prose composition. It is a comparatively later development in English literature. As early as Chaucer, there were short stories in verse. His Canterbury Tales are stories but into the mouth of traveling pilgrims. In Hindi literature, the story ‘Rani Ketki ki Kahani’ written by ‘Insha Alah Khan’ is counted as first milestone.

Story-telling is a message giving form of literature and children enjoy learning through it. The smallness of story is the main feature. It is composition of so small size that it can be completed in one sitting. It is also an effective method of teaching used for small children as they take keen interest in listening stories related to their life situation.

Aims of teaching story:

1. To increase knowledge through entertainment

2. To provide general awareness about life situations.

3. To educate and train the children for social

4. To show the students the path of character building

5. To develop the vocabulary and language style

Introduction:

First, the teacher can give an introductory talk to create awareness in the children on the topic. Second, the more popular one is that the teacher tests the previous knowledge of the student by asking some questions related to his topic. The teacher may declare the moral of the story and connect his/her students with the subject matter.

Presentation Model reading

The teacher should give model reading of the story with proper gesture and action. Here the teacher should be creative enough in art of story reading so that the students pay more attention.

Loud reading:

It should be done by the students. All the students should be given opportunity. Repeated loud reading will improve their pronunciation.

Explanation:

This step demands the teacher’s skill, to explain difficult words, phrases, sentences and their grammatical constructions. He should not only explain them but also teach their usage. For the purpose of explanation the following devices are generally adopted

(a) By associating the words directly with objects, pictures, and actions.
(b) By giving parallel words, which have been learned by the students as synonyms.
(c) By using antonyms of the used word. The teacher can enrich the vocabulary of the children by this step unknowingly.
(d) By using translation method- It should only be used when the teacher is not in a position of using other methods.
(e) Usage method- In this method, the meaning is explained by using words in sentences.
(f) Reference method- By telling the cultural or social story or reference of the used words.

Silent Reading :

After the explanation of the words and phrases teacher should give the time to read the story silently. It is necessary to create a habit of reading. The class remains quiet. Students should sit in an appropriate posture. The teacher should supervise the class.

Comprehension questions:

After silent reading some questions should be asked from the paragraphs of the story. Textual exercises can be asked to reinforce the knowledge. This can be done as follows:

(a) By asking meaning of difficult words.
(b) By asking short questions form the main portion of the story.

Let’s take an example of story telling from the text of class V, ‘A wise friend’.

Teacher can ask some relevant questions related to the title of the story for creating an interest among the students. This activity will initiate a discussion about the story. Then we will follow the steps of teaching a story. We can explain some difficult words of the story as follows:

kingdom- a small region ruled by a king

screaming shouting loudly

chased followed someone closely

heaved breathed

sigh of relief- deep breath with a sound of satisfaction

After this the teacher can ask some questions for a better comprehension of the lesson.

For example:

Question:

1 Name the kingdom mentioned in the story.

2 Name the river where the prince used to take

3 Who helped the sparrows?

4 Who laid eggs?

Read the following statements and mark right (V) against the correct statements and wrong (x) against the incorrect statements.

(a) The prince used to come to the river for boating
(b) The guards killed the snake

(c) The mother sparrow did not go in search of a food bath.

3. Choose a word from the box and fill in the blank.

(her, these, he, him, mine )

(a) Give this book to me. It’s …..

(b) Meet this gentleman………… is my friend.

(c) Throw ………is my friend. rotten mangoes into the dustbin..

4. Fill in the blanks with suitable words given in the brackets.

1 Our examination will begin………….Monday (on/at).

2 A stream flows …………. the forest. (through/out)

The above module is one of the many methodologies for teaching a lesson. The teacher is the facilitator and judge of her/his own class. She/he can adopt the pedagogy according to the environment of the class.

 

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