Getting Started with Stories: How to Create Compelling CI Stories Based on your World Language Curriculum

We have lots of teachers asking us how to get started telling stories using comprehensible input, especially when they have to follow a required curriculum. We’d like to give you a few strategies and step-off points to help.

Strategy 1: Use your vocab list or grammar topic as a theme.

Think of the key ingredients of any good story: An interesting character who has a problem and does x, y, and z to solve the problem.

Let’s say you need to teach weather vocab. Maybe your character is a crab who doesn’t like living in the cold ocean, so he goes to a bunch of different places with different weather conditions to find a new home.

How about teaching imperfect vs. preterite?* Maybe your character used to love riding her bike with her friends when she was a kid. She used to explore her neighborhood and go on many adventures every day after school. One day, a boy from the neighborhood threw rocks at her tires and she fell off her bike, knocking out two teeth. She went to the dentist and got medicine, and the boy got in trouble.

These are both stories I’ve used in my classes, and they incorporate key vocab and structures but in a COMPELLING way. Kids get hooked on hearing how the stories end, and they naturally want to listen for understanding.

*Note: I didn’t teach every conjugation of the verbs in the bike story - they naturally learn each conjugation as a vocab word over time. Later in the year, I teach the conjugation charts after they have acquired a subconscious framework for it.

Strategy 2: Create a vocab anchor chart.

If you want to focus on specific vocab or grammar, create an anchor chart as you tell the story. Read more about how I do this here.

Anchor charts draw attention to key structures you want to reinforce with tons of repetition. Co-create them with your class as you tell the story, or as you review the story during a Write and Discuss activity.

Strategy 3: Use cliffhangers.

You might teach block classes and feel like you have plenty of time to tell a whole story in one class period - but if you can find a way to end a story with a cliffhanger, DO IT! You want to build anticipation and energy with your story and encourage listening for understanding.

Use cliffhangers to build interest and engagement!

Take the story above about the girl and the bike. On day 1, I would describe the setting and character to build interest, review prior vocab, and introduce new vocab while building the anchor chart. I’d ask my class who used to bike ride as kids and about their favorite pastimes. Then, I’d end with a predictive activity where they might guess what happens next to the girl. A slide with “Pero, un día algo malo ocurrió…” and then a list of possible choices they vote on (one is true).

On day 2, I review the setting, story, and character to drag it out just enough…and then finally reveal the ending.

Strategy 4: Use Google Slides to animate the graphics.

Using animated graphics helps infuse humor and aids comprehension. You can do a Google image search for PNG images or type “transparent background” after the image title (“red cartoon crab transparent background”), and then animate them to pop up as you tell the story. I use a remote clicker for this that connects to my laptop via USB.

Strategy 5: Stretch the story out over days and RE-READ!

There are so many tricks to keep reusing the story before it gets boring and maximize it’s value in acquisition.

Listen and Draw: retell parts of the story and have kids illustrate them. Use blank bingo boards for the illustrations and now you’ve built a bingo game to play later!
Create a mini-book. Students either glue / draw illustrations to match the printed story pages, or write captions below printed illustrations.
Play Flipped Running Dictation using the mini-book.
Lucky Reading Game
Agarra el Número - a re-reading small group listening game
Quince - a re-reading dice game
Tres en Raya Review Reading
Write and Discuss Bingo

I hope this helps give you ideas to get started! We’d love to hear from you and support your teaching journey - join us on Facebook and Instagram - links are below!

Wishing you all the best,