ESL Picture Story: Super Robot Goes Fishing

Antonio Graceffo teaches his ESL Grade 2 in Taiwan to use picture clues to create and tell their own, original story. The exercise started with Antonio copying pictures from a class textbook on the board and asking students to take turns, making up part of a story. Once a completed story was created, the next evolution of class was to have students come up and retell the story in their own words. The class then transitioned into creating their own story board. Each student drew his own version of the pictures, and wrote one or two sentences under each. The students colored their story boards and hung them on the classroom wall as decorations. A writing exercise followed. Again, each student wrote the story, in paragraph form, as he or she remembered it and according to his or her own level.

Once the original story pattern and pictures were solidly in the childrens minds, Antonio
Invited the children to the board to retell the story, adding a new, random picture each time, which the children would have to incorporate into their version of the story. This video was shot at a parents demo. The students are between the ages of seven and eight years old. Most have had two years or less of English.

Duration : 0:6:6