Teacher: Ulrikke Smith
Ringstabekk elementary school, Bærum, Norway
Duration: 36.33 min
Download: film / information sheet

In this film, we see how Storyline is used in the study of German language at beginner’s level by students in the 8^th year of compulsory education. In brief, Storyline is a thematic story created by students in cooperation with their teacher. The key elements are time, place and characters. The teacher has fixed the framework for the story and has chosen the time and the place, while students give the story life through the characters they create.

The story is driven by key questions. Key questions are always open as regards form, permitting the students to be active and to use the prescience they already possess. Cooperation and discussion are important aspects of Storyline. The students are consequently organized in groups of four.

This storyline story starts with the students and the teacher establishing the place where the storyline is going to happen, an imaginary town in the state Baden-Württemberg. The first key question is: what is our town going to be called? The students vote on what to call the town and the streets. They write the names of the streets onto a large, empty city map that the teacher has prepared beforehand. This map contributes to the students’ visualization of the theme they’re working on, and places the context in more concrete terms.

The next key question is: who lives in our street? Each group creates a family of four persons. The students draw and cut out models of their characters, give their characters names, ages, jobs, interests, etc. Finally each group introduces their families to each other.

After introducing the families, the groups draw the house where their family lives. Both in this round of work and in the prior one, the students make glossaries with the German words they need to know.

To the key question “what does your character do in the course of a day?”, the students rehearse a certain word order, “Um 8 Uhr … ich …” etc., which they use to describe the doings of their character in the course of the day. Thereafter, the students enact a role play to the question “what do we talk about at the breakfast table?”.

In the next storyline-lesson, a confused tourist suddenly turns up, needing help to find her way around town.  The tourist’s role is played by the teacher. This is the beginning of a role play where the Kleinstadt residents have to explain where everything is to the tourist, based on the map of Kleinstadt.

At the next key question, “how do we celebrate carnival in Kleinstadt?”, the students suggest what the town’s carnival is going to be like.  It turns out to be a carnival with a procession, festive foods and fun.

Finally the students evaluate their work with the storyline. What have we learned? What did we like about this way of working? What could have been done in a different way?

Questions to discuss
What kind of linguistic activities took place during the course of this storyline?
How can a method like Storyline contribute to teaching and learning foreign languages?
What kind of storyline process would you want to carry out with your students?

Resources
The Socrates Project “Creative Dialogue” on Storyline in foreign language tuition

“Wer bin ich? Differentiating teaching with the storyline method in German”, by Annette Carsing, Sproglæreren 1/2006 (periodical published by the Danish association of language teachers, title translates as “the Language Teacher”)

Falkenberg, Cecilie and Erik Håkonsson (2001): Storylinebogen. En håndbog for undervisere, (The Storyline Book. A handbook for teachers). Kroghs publishing company, Denmark

Steve Bell on Storyline

Producer:
Snöball Film

Developed in cooperation with and financed by:

Fremmedspråksenteret (The Norwegian Centre for Foreign Languages in Education, Østfold University College)