The Power of Stories in the Languages Classroom

Jonathan McBride | 11th June 2025 | Opinion Piece

In this article, Edinburgh-based languages teacher Jonathan McBride argues that stories have the potential to transform modern languages teaching at all levels. Reflecting on his classroom-based research in schools in Canada, Switzerland and Germany, he considers how stories can increase linguistic input, motivation and help all learners to succeed.

I grew up in Northern Ireland, a place where the tradition of storytelling was all around us, not least in the two diametrically opposed political narratives that emerged during ‘The Troubles’. I was reminded of this during a conversation with a History teacher colleague, whose class had recently watched the documentary Once Upon A Time in Northern Ireland, which featured first-person accounts of people’s lived experience during the conflict. His pupils were captivated by the personal, real-world stories. Their curiosity had been sparked, and they wanted to know more.

If stories are a means of understanding the world around us, what role can they play in the languages classroom? How can we use stories to create a curriculum that is both relatable, and culturally sensitive, which also inspires our students to be successful learners?

A substantial amount of research supports the claim that reading can have a positive effect on second language acquisition (SLA) (Watkins, 2018). The motivational potential of stories means they are a useful tool for teachers who wish to increase the amount of meaningful input their learners are exposed to, thereby increasing the likelihood that the language acqusition process can unfold.

In 2024 a Churchill Fellowship enabled me to conduct classroom-based research in secondary schools in Canada, Switzerland and Germany. The aim of this project was to gain practical evidence of how teachers use stories and narrative techniques in the second language classroom. My research involved lesson observations, focus groups and interviews with teachers and students.

At Semiahmoo Secondary School in Vancouver, Spanish teacher Adriana Ramírez primarily uses stories to teach students from beginner level through to the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme. Using short stories, graded readers, co-created stories and narrative films, Adriana mostly keeps the focus of her lessons on meaning rather than the form of the language itself. This focus on meaning, interesting content and communication meant learners could situate their learning within real scenarios. Lessons were conducted mostly in the target language and the multimodality of the lessons was evident in the way the teacher and the learner discussed and wrote about stories and short films in the target language. Grammatical explanation was used judiciously and always in context. As meaningful input and communication were prioritised at all times, there was very little focus on error correction. Despite this (or perhaps because of it), learners wrote and spoke Spanish with an impressive level of fluency and accuracy for their level. Moreover, learners’ general motivation and desire to use the target language in class was notable.

My second period of observation was at the International School of Lausanne, where I learned how Spanish teacher Dr. Liam Printer has constructed a motivating curriculum around graded readers, rather than a traditional textbook. These graded stories formed the foundation of each thematic unit, and were supplemented with other activities that maximised input. I observed the enthusiasm of a Year 9 class (13-14 years old) as they discussed (entirely in Spanish) the novel Los Sobrevivientes (The Survivors) by Bryan Kandel. This true story about a plane crash in the Andes provided the context for students to learn about the history and geography of South America, as well as more typical travel-related language. The level of engagement amongst the students was high and they were both eager and able to discuss the content of this compelling story.

So why are stories so powerful in the language lesson? First, they can provide meaningful content that is worth talking about.  If second language acquisition is a largely implicit process that results from meaning-oriented input and output, there needs to be meaning at the centre of the lesson that students can talk and think about. This approach stands in contrast to that taken by many language textbooks where presenting and practising certain grammatical structures out of any real context is prioritised over meaningful content.  Stories, in contrast, provide a relational knowledge base beyond that of the language itself, which can be of inherent interest to learners.

Second, language learners require extensive input for the acquisition process to unfold (Truscott 2024, Lichtman & VanPatten 2021). In the classrooms I visited, extensive reading programmes were thoroughly embedded in the culture of learning. Students had access to a wide range of graded readers and had the autonomy to choose their own books. This modelling of language through extensive reading allows a linguistic system to be built steadily. Metalinguistic knowledge (i.e. explicit knowledge of grammar rules) can be built progressively upon the foundations laid by meaningful input.

Third, stories can make language learning accessible to learners of all abilities. New language structures are introduced in context, making it easier for learners to comprehend meaning. Structures can be repeated extensively in a narrative text, which means learners encounter key vocabulary more frequently. Repetition and retrieval of previously learned vocabulary can reduce cognitive load and aid long-term vocabulary retention.

Finally, there is an extensive field of research that highlights the important role emotions play regarding motivation in languages learning. Through dialogue, plot and description of characters, stories can make a languages curriculum more relatable, leading to positive emotions amongst learners (Printer 2023). Typical topics such as ‘describing your family’ or ‘daily routine’ can be taught in a more enjoyable, engaging and meaningful way when situated within the context of a story.

In this article I have argued that if we are to sustain motivation and interest in language learning, teachers, school leaders and policymakers could start by rethinking the very substance of our lessons in schools. Rather than focusing primarily on the system of the language itself, we should prioritise engaging, meaningful content through which learners can progressively build their linguistic repertoire. Stories represent a transformative way to help students uncover the joy of learning a second language, and in turn, to discover their place in the world.

Further Reading

Lichtman, K. and VanPatten, B. (2021). Was Krashen right? Forty years later. In Foreign Language Annals 54 (2) (pp. 283–305). Available at: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/flan.12552

Printer, L. (2023). Positive emotions and intrinsic motivation: A self-determination theory perspective on using co-created stories in the language acquisition classroom. Language Teaching Research, 0(0). Available at:  https://doi.org/10.1177/13621688231204443

Truscott, J. (2024) Input. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (Elements in Second Language Acquisition).

Watkins, P. (2018). Extensive reading in ELT: Why and how? Cambridge Papers in ELT series. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Available at: https://www.cambridge.org/us/files/7915/7488/5311/CambridgePapersInELT_ExtReadingPrimary_2018_ONLINE.pdf

McBride_2025.pdf

Download PDF • 53KB

About the Author

Jonathan McBride teaches German and French and is Assistant Head of Department at The Edinburgh Academy. In 2023 he was awarded a Churchill Fellowship, enabling him to spend six weeks abroad conducting classroom-based research into the use of stories and narrative techniques in the languages lesson.