👨🏽🏫All students, especially kids, love stories, and they are an excellent medium to help develop ESL reading skills. This example story is written in the present tense for A1 beginner students, but it could just as easily be written in the past tense, or in a mix of verb tenses for more advanced students. The main point is that the story is easy enough for students to follow, but also slightly challenging. Of course, the more interesting and enjoyable the story is, the better. Please feel free to copy and use this story for your own classes.
👨🏽🏫 Before the lesson, the teacher reads through the story and chooses any new vocabulary that might be useful to preteach before the students read the story.
(For this particular story set in a zoo, I chose the nouns ‘zookeeper’ and ‘bars’, and the verbs ‘grab’ and ‘squirt’.)
Preteaching can be done quickly with a couple of pictures from a Google search, sketches on the blackboard, or, for verbs, a kinetic demonstration (I always have a water pistol handy, so ‘squirt’ was easy!).
The Reading Lesson
👨🏽🏫First, the students are each given a copy of the story, and the teacher and students read it together (for this level, I choose one or two students to read sections aloud).
👨🏽🏫 Next, the teacher instructs the students to read the story to themselves quietly one more time and to try to remember all the details.
👨🏽🏫 When all the students have read through the story a second time, the teacher instructs them to turn the page over so they can’t see it. The teacher then rereads the story. However, this time the teacher changes some of the details. If a detail is changed, the students must raise their hand and ‘correct’ the teacher.
👨🏽🏫 Every time a student successfully corrects a detail from the story, they gain a point.
👨🏽🏫 Below is the original story of A Day at the Zoo. In the right column are a few examples of how the teacher changes the story’s details to test the students…
A Day at the ZOO
Tim and his little sister Sally go to the zoo on Saturday morning.
The sun is shining, and the zoo is very busy.
Sally is very excited.
She runs to the gate and waves her zoo map.
First, they visit the monkey house.
The monkeys jump and scream.
They reach through the bars of the cage.
Suddenly, one monkey grabs Tim’s camera.
“Hey! That’s my camera!” says Tim.
Another monkey grabs Tim’s baseball cap.
“My cap! Give it back!” shouts Tim.
Another monkey grabs Tim’s sunglasses.
“You naughty monkeys!” says Tim.
“Don’t worry,” says Sally.
“The zookeeper will get your things back.”
Next, they walk to the elephants.
The elephants are big and slow.
One elephant drinks water.
It pushes its trunk toward Tim.
“He wants to say hello,” says Sally.
Tim puts up his hand.
Suddenly …Sploosh!
The elephant squirts Tim with water.
Sally laughs.
Next, they feed the goats some carrots.
The goats are very hungry.’
They eat the carrots.
Then they eat Sally’s map.
“Stop! That is not food!” says Sally.
After that, they watch the sea lions.
One sea lion has a fish in its mouth.
It shakes its head.
It throws the fish at Tim.
“Splat!”
“Oh no!” says Tim.
All the sea lions clap and bark.
Then they all throw fish at Tim.
Tim has lost his things.
He is wet.
He smells like fish.
“I don’t like the zoo,” says Tim.
As Tim and Sally leave, the zookeeper comes to them.
He has Tim’s camera, baseball cap, and sunglasses.
At home, Tim checks his camera.
He sees a photo.
It is a monkey selfie.
Tim smiles. “I like the zoo!” he says.
🧑Tim and his BIG sister Sally go to the zoo on SUNDAY MORNING
The sun is shining, and the zoo is very busy.
Sally is very BORED
She runs to the gate and waves her zoo map.
First, they visit the monkey house.
The monkeys jump AND LAUGH
They reach through the bars of the cage.
Suddenly, one monkey grabs Tim’s CELLPHONE
“Hey! That’s my camera!” says Tim.
Another monkey grabs Tim’s baseball cap.
“My cap! Give it back!” shouts Tim.
Another monkey grabs Tim’s sunglasses.
“You NICE monkeys!”
“Don’t worry,” says Sally.
“The PARK keeper will get your things back.”
Next, they walk to the elephants.
The elephants are SMALL AND FAST.
One elephant drinks MILK.
It pushes its LEG toward Tim.
“SHE wants to say hello,” says Sally.
Tim puts up his hand.
Suddenly …Sploosh!
The elephant squirts Tim with water.
Sally laughs.
Next, they feed the goats some carrots.
The goats are very THIRSTY.
They eat the carrots.
Then they eat Sally’s DONUT.
“Stop! That is not food!” says Sally.
After that, they watch the TREE LIONS
One sea lion has a fish in its mouth.
It shakes its HAND.
It throws the fish at Tim.
“Splat!”
“Oh YES!” says Tim.
All the sea lions clap and bark.
Then they all throw fish at Tim.
Tim has lost his things.
He is wet.
He smells like GOATS.
“I don’t like the zoo,” says Tim.
As Tim and Sally leave, the zookeeper comes to them.
He has Tim’s camera, baseball BAT, and sunglasses.
At home, Tim checks his camera.
He sees a photo.
It is a monkey selfie.
Tim smiles. “I like the zoo!” he says./quote
A Spin-off Speaking-Listening Exercise
As well as developing ESL reading skills, other skills can also be practiced. At the top of this page is the monkey selfie Tim saw (thanks, AI!), which is the story’s highlight. As a follow-up exercise, I divided the class into pairs with one student sitting with their back to the board, pencil at hand, and a blank sheet of paper at the ready. On the projector screen is displayed the famous monkey selfie. The students facing the picture have to describe the selfie to the sketching students in five minutes. At the end of the exercise, the pair with the most accurate monkey selfie sketch gets the points. This kind of exercise is described in more detail in this lesson plan.
The feedback sessions are always interesting….^^
For more story-based lesson plan ideas, check out my game-and-activity book. Your students will thank you for it. Get yourself a copy here.
