Learning New Languages Through the Art of Story Telling

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The Magic of Stories

StoryLearning is a program developed by Olly Richards. He is an educator, author, speaker, filmmaker, and polyglot that has published over thirty language books, worked with major universities, and has been featured in several BBC documentaries. Mr. Richards (2021) believes that stories are the heart and soul of all human communication and that creating meaning through storytelling is an almost universal method of teaching children their mother tongue. We use stories in almost all facets of our lives; in everything from entertainment, politics, psychology, religion, and business. All these fields have a driving narrative that gives them meaning. StoryLearning lets you immerse yourself in the language with stories and from that you learn words, phrases, and grammar by uncovering them from the story itself. The last step is to activate what you learn with exercises based on the story by using worksheets, creative tasks to use what you’ve learned in real situations, and lastly quizzes to test your knowledge and track your progress. StoryLearning comes with an extensive library of instructional videos, vlog posts, animations, podcasts, and short story narrations to truly immerse the learner in their language of choice.

Creating Meaning

In the book Trends and Issues in Instructional Design and Technology Dempsey & Reiser (2017) state that motivation to learn is promoted when knowledge is perceived as meaningful to the learner’s goals. By using methods like the ones used in Story Learning it is easier for learners to draw tangible lessons from relatable events in a story rather than from different theories or raw facts. Storytelling is how we have made sense of the world around us which is evident from the first cave paintings of hunting scenes of over thirty thousand years ago, to what we write on our Twitter feed. We simply communicate by telling other people about the meaningful events in our lives. In his Scientific American Mind article, Jeremy Hsu (2008), found that close to sixty-five percent of all our communication simply consists of personal stories. So, if the primary way we, as people, communicate and find meaning is by telling or listening to stories of one kind or another, why would we choose to learn a new language in any other way? Sometimes what comes easiest to us is what is natural to us, and the Story Learning method tries to use that as effectively as possible and gives meaning to the learner’s goal of learning a new language.

Staying Curious

A good film that has an amazing story can keep people interested and engaged and figuring out the mystery or seeing the hero triumph is one of the best motivators to keep watching, listening, or reading. So, the stories themselves give you the reason to keep learning. Dempsey & Reiser (2017) say that boredom is caused by unchanging stimuli, so if a learner struggles to stay motivated because they are bored by something like a grammar or math test, a good story can offer a motivating alternative by adding some fun and color to the learning material and the same applies to language learning. Not only is a person that learns a new language filling gaps in knowledge by learning new ways of communicating they are also gaining new cultural literacy. According to Richards (2021) knowing a new language means understanding the new culture and being able to interact with others. So, learning a new language is not only about learning new vocabulary words or grammar rules it’s about being curious about connecting with people from a different culture. According to Jeremy Hsu (2008), humans’ enjoyment of stories is rooted in our history as social animals so stories are deeply tied to culture. Understanding a new culture is just as important as learning the language itself. Learning through storytelling helps the learner become literate in the culture of the language they choose to learn.

The Supreme Importance of Volition

Many times, a person picks up a new language to learn but then quits after a few weeks but it’s not because the language is too hard. It is usually because the learner is not motivated enough to do the hard work it takes to learn a new language after the novelty factor of the experience has worn off. A learner’s motivation to learn a new language is the ultimate determinant of their success. In their work on the Principles and Practices in Second Language Acquisition, Higgs & Krashen (1983) write about a concept called comprehensible input. This comprehensible input means that the stories a learner is reading and listening to have to be at a level they can understand and get the gist of the plot. So, the best language learning methods are ones that use comprehensible input in low-stress situations that simply contain messages learners really want to hear. This input method means that people learn not entirely from their deliberate study, but by reading, watching, and listening to material that learners want to understand which in this case it’s stories (Higgs & Krashen, 1983). StoryLearning also helps users by giving them access to forums where they can get constant feedback from native speakers of the language they are learning which is another great way to keep learners engaged and motivated. There are no shortcuts to learning a new language. No app exists yet that can upload language comprehension directly into your brain. Language learning is something that requires considerable study, academic rigor, practice, curiosity, and most of all motivation. StoryLearning is a great tool for those learners seeking a more natural and human way to learn a new language.

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References

Hsu, J. (2008). The Secrets of STORYTELLING: Our Love for Telling Tales Reveals the Workings of the Mind. Scientific American Mind. Retrieved from EBSCOhost: https://web-p-ebscohost-com.oclc.fullsail.edu/ehost/detail/detail?vid=9&sid=e45927b0-568d-4210-9658-531b0550e307%40redis&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#AN=34037274&db=a9h

Reiser, R. A., & Dempsey, J. V. (2017). Trends and Issues in Instructional Design and Technology (4th Edition). Pearson Education (US).

StoryLearning. (2021). How To Learn a New Language With Stories. Retrieved June 18, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPqWN2dlsBg&t=2s.

StoryLearning (2022, January 12). 16 Reasons to Learn a Language Through Story. Retrieved June 18, 2022, from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSKmJ0UQM2g

Higgs, T. V., & Krashen, S. D. (1983). Principles and practice in Second language acquisition. The Modern Language Journal, 67(2), 168. https://doi.org/10.2307/328293