Telling True Stories

By Kenneth Beare, About.com Guide

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Telling true stories is a basic English usage task that we use on a daily basis. Unfortunately, students sometimes get caught up in trying too hard to speak English 'correctly' and can get lost. This at the cost of the story becoming difficult to understand or even incoherent. This lesson plan is aimed at helping students give structure to their relating of true stories.

Aim: Learning the basic structure and expressions used when telling true stories

Activity: Listening to a story, text arrangement, questionnaire, structure study and final story telling segment

Level: Intermediate - Upper Intermediate

Outline:

• Tell the class a true story about some experience that has happened to you. Make sure to follow the story telling structure outline used during the lesson:
  • Introduction: Introduce the story by telling what kind of story it is
  • Beginning: How the story started
  • The Story: The main events related in order
  • The End: What has changed or how things are now
  • Moral: Final comments or moral conclusions about the story
• Follow up your story with some basic comprehension questions.
• Ask the students to put the reading comprehension into the correct order.
• Have students underline key vocabulary that introduce and relate the sequence of events.
• Discuss this vocabulary as a class.
• Ask students to fill out the questionnaire. You can also do this activity as a pair work exercise with students asking each other the questions.
• Ask students to review the story telling structure. Point out how your story and the reading comprehension follow the structure layout.
• Ask students to use the information from the questionnaire to write their own true story.
• Have students get into pairs and read each other the story. Ask students to pay careful attention to the story as they will need to relate the story to another partner.
• Ask students to find another partner and relate the story that they have just been told to the new partner.
• For Homework: Ask students to plan and write another true story of about 100 words.

Answer the following questions:

• Think of a story that has happened to you or a friend of yours that is remarkable. What happened?
• Was this a happy or sad story? Why?
• What were the main events of the story? In what order did they happen?
• How have things changed because of this story? What are things like now?
• What lessons did you learn from the story?

Look at how we tell stories in English.

• Introduction: Introduce the story by telling what kind of story it is
• Beginning: How the story started
• The Story: The main events related in order
• The End: What has changed or how things are now
• Moral: Final comments or moral conclusions about the story

True Stories

1 It concerns my best friend at college who became a famous rock and roller after he had failed completely at trying to become a stock broker on Wall Street.	2 I guess this all just shows how you can never stop believing in yourself, even if everyone around you thinks you are crazy!
3 This is a great story about a guy who everyone said was a loser.	4 First of all, Jack immediately went to New York after he had graduated. He then got a job as a stock broker in a small trading company. After a few months, and a lot of lost money, he decided to bet his future on a new Internet company by convincing his clients that it was a fantastic investment.
5 In the end, he decided to start playing his guitar again in a nightclub with a group of friends. Well, they were discovered and signed a contract with a major recording company three months later! The rest is history and Jack is currently enjoying a wonderful career as a rock and roll star.	6 Unfortunately, that was in April of 2001 - right at the moment of the Internet bust! Needless to say, the company went bankrupt and all his clients were furious with him! He eventually was fired and found himself in New York City without a job.

Telling a story

Telling a story

A useful skill in English is to be able to tell a story or an anecdote. Anecdotes are short stories about something that happened to you or to someone you know.

How to start

Traditional stories often start with the phrase "Once upon a time". However, if you are going to tell your story after someone else has already spoken, you can say something like:

That reminds me!
Funny you should say that. Did I ever tell you about…
Hearing your story reminds me of when…
Something similar happened to me….

How to tell your story

First of all, your story should be quite short. Try to keep it grammatically simple as well, so that it is easy to follow.

Make it easy for the listener to understand by using sequencing and linking words:

Sequencing words
These words show the chronological sequence of events.

First of all, I (packed my suitcase)
Secondly, I …. (made sure I had all my documents)
Previously (before that) ….. I changed some money.
Then… I (called a taxi for the airport)
Later (on)… (when we were stuck in traffic, I realised…)
But before al that… (I had double checked my reservation)
Finally… (I arrived at the wrong check-in desk at the wrong airport for a flight that didn't go until the next day)

Linking words
Use these words to link your ideas for the listener. Linking words can be used to show reason, result, contrasting information, additional information, and to summarise.

I booked a flight because….
As a result, I was late…
Although I had a reservation, I hadn't checked the airport name.
I made sure I had an up-to-date passport and I also took along my driving licence.
In short, I had made a complete mess of the holiday.

Tenses

We can use a variety of tenses to tell stories and anecdotes. Jokes are often in the present tense:

A man walks into a bar and orders a beer.

We also use the present tense to give a dramatic narrative effect:

The year is 1066. In medieval England people are worried that the king, Harold, is not strong enough to fight off a Norman invasion.

However, we generally use past forms to talk about past events. If you tell your story in chronological order, you can use the past simple:

I double checked my reservation. I packed my suitcase, and then I called a taxi.

Use the past continuous to describe activities in progress at the time of your story, or to describe the background.

The sun was shining and it was a beautiful day. We were driving along the motorway quite steadily until we suddenly saw in front of us the warning lights to slow down. We were heading towards a huge tailback.

Sometimes, you might want to avoid telling your story as one chronological event after the other. You can use thepast perfect (simple and continuous) to add more interest to your story by talking about events that happened before the events in your story:

I double checked my reservation, which I had made three days previously.

I wanted to visit some friends who had been living in France for the last five years.

Vocabulary

Try to use a wide range of words to make your story more interesting. Remember that you can "exaggerate" when you tell a story, so instead of using words like "nice" or "bad", experiment with more interesting words, such as "beautiful", "fabulous", "wonderful", "horrible", "awful" or "terrible".

Finally – remember that you are telling a story – not giving a lecture. Look at the people listening, and try to "involve" them in the story or anecdote. Keep eye contact, use the right intonation and try to make your face expressive. You might also want to try practising a few anecdotes in the mirror before "going live". Have fun!

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12 comments

Augusta
Just a note to thank you very much for your help in english. This article is very helpful to me and to everyone who need to improve her/his english like me.Good bless you!

ANNA
I think trying to tell stories is really good idea to improve English. from that we can learn a lot of new words, ways of expressing ideas and to interest listenners. what about if we creat a competition or something like a forum so every member can write a story there and we can read it discuss together. what do you think?

Pham Minh Tuan
Thank you addmin , it's a very nice way to tell a story and bet site yo learn english / I hope everyon on the world will know your site .

Dennis
its simply superb.... its quite interesting and also informative... thanks a lot CHENNAI

tom
i am reading more article in english ,so improve my reading skill and writting skill! i am going to write some stories or anecdotes and then tell my colleage and my family in english. at the sam time ,i can post these stories and anecdote in my bolog or forums,then correct my failing please! wish someone can help me!

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