Language Experience Stories

Language Experience Stories

What is a language experience story?

• A way to target language • A way to practice targeted language• A hands-on activity• A way to get kids talking• A way to talk about past experiences• A way to practice auditory skills• A way to practice speech skills• A way to practice new vocabulary

• A language experience activity

should be interesting and motivating to the children

Language Experience• Teacher planned• Teacher directed

Choose activities • That are hands-on• That will motivate children by

holding their attention and being interesting

Teachers choose:

• Vocabulary and concepts to be taught

• Language structures to target

In order to meet the needs of their students language levels.

• Language experiences provide an

opportunity for children to communicate for a variety of reasons:

• Expressing wants and needs• Protesting/Rejecting• Asking for information• Transferring• Giving directions• Expressing opinions, feelings

• Asking for help or permission• Predicting or speculating• Explaining a problem

How to do it• 1. Choose the language• targets• vocabulary

Guidelines for choosing the activity…

• 1. Will doing the activity provide practice on the targeted language?

• 2. Is it interesting enough to get children to talk?

• 3. Is the task simple enough that the children can complete it with a minimum of adult help?

• 4. Are the materials manageable:• 5. Is it fun for the teacher as well

as the children?• 6. Is it designed so that several

children of various levels of development can all participate?

• 7. Will participating give the children a feeling of pride and sense of accomplishment?

• 8. Is the language applicable to other experiences at home or at school?

• 9. Do the activity and the language relate to other everyday experiences of the children?

• 10. Is it related to some specific concepts or topics being worked on at other times?

2. Plan the activity• Think through the steps• Plan the language to

teach/practice• Think of questions, comments or

actions to use to get the children to produce the target language

3. Assemble all materials

• If you have not done this activity before, you may want to try it out.

4. Conduct the activity• best with smaller groups• group by language needs• 20-30 min. and may be shorter for • younger students

5. During the activity• Introduce new vocabulary• Use language eliciting techniques

and modeling/imitation- practice• Use questioning• Provide opportunities for the

children to talk during the activity

6. After the activity• The language Experience story is

written.• Revise planned language to

meet the needs of the actual happenings

Do language experience everyday

• It is fun, fun, fun…

Experience Story should go along

with your unit of study.

Experience Chart Stories

• These are your stories that you write from your experiences

Chart Stories• Children enjoy and look forward to

using the chart because it is about them and a fun activity in which they took part.

Chart Stories• Provide a permanent record and

can be used repeatedly for a variety of activities, including speech and auditory paractice as well as language instruction.

Why use chart stories?• To develop and practice targeted

language• To develop and practice speech

skills in the context of connected language

• To develop listening skills• To develop reading readiness

and/or reading skills

How do we do it?• Think through the story – plan the

story as you plan the activity to target specific language

• Adjust the story as you write it with the students to fit the events that occured

Tips to decide what language to use:

• Use language that is natural and appropriate for the situation

• Use language that incorporates the structures selected as targets for the children

• Use a variety of sentence types and syntactic elements

• Use some old and new vocabulary• Use language that will transfer to “real life”

situations• Use language that expresses attitudes and

opinions

Chart Story• Introduce the story• Give it a title• Reveal the story sentence by

sentence – add pictures• Read through the whole story• Have students identify sentences

Practicing the chart• Chart practice is worth doing

every day for listening practice practice producing sentences producing the sentence

without the teacher saying it first

Things I like to do• Experience book for each student• Class experience book• Keep all charts hanging in the classroom all

year• Add additional poems, songs, and fingerplays

to the books• Sharing time for experiences from home• Can also be in their own books.• Tie language to weekly story that ties to unit

of study

• Children learn through doing.• Experience stories and charts help

build on the learning.