STORYTELLING IN EFL: 25 communicative activities

While teaching English communicatively, oral, especially speaking skills are essential. We cannot say a person knows English communicatively if s/he doesn’t speak it. There has been a period when retelling texts has been viewed as non-communicative. But the technique had successfully served many purposes for centuries: practicing vocabulary and grammar, coherence and cohesion, spontaneous speech production (or at least reproduction), etc. As a result today many students can pass language tests and take part in simple everyday dialogues, but cannot utter a long enough monologue. I believe that it is time to return to storytelling (and retelling) its good name, but of course from a communicative perspective.