Storytelling can be one of the most engaging ways of teaching English (or any foreign language, for that matter) if the teacher knows how to create good stories and tell them compellingly. The greatest bliss for you as a future storyteller is that both inventing and telling tales is a craft you can actually learn following some structural and practical tips. While applying them to your performance, keep in mind the most important rule: telling stories differs substantially from writing them.

Construct a plot

There are several basic elements that a good engaging plot should contain. First of all, what you need to decide on at the very begining of weaving the story is the goal towards which all the events must lead. That will help you structure your narrative tightly around a logical line of events and reduce the redundant digressions. Next, your story needs to be pretty dynamic and all its events should lead to a climactic event which may be preceded by a series of hints, such as bad omens or signs foretelling it. Not only structural elements but also emotions can add to the dynamics of your plot. Include an emotional or psychological tension between the characters which will change dramatically at some point. For example, you may have a bad character save your hero's life or the enemies fall in love. Introduce a secret to the story, something crucial that only one character will know but will not be allowed to reveal or capable of doing so. End your story with a moral or a cliff-hanger. While the first idea is a good opportunity to introduce a key idiom, a proverb or a famous quote, leaving your story open should lead to a debate over what may happen next. Finally, if you do not feel confident about creating a plot on your own, use the outline of a familiar tale like Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty and change it at some points in a surprising way. This is a particularly good idea when you want your listeners to focus more on the language of the story or lead to a follow-up exercise on comparison and contrast with the original version of the tale.

Act out your characters

Even the best plot will be boring and impersonal without great characters that your audience can identify with, at least to some extent. The best way to render your princesses and wizards closer to your listeners' hearts is creating them on the basis of the common archetypes of victims, heros and villains. For humor, you may also consider drawing your characters on some of your listeners' distinguishing features but be very careful to choose the neutral or positive features and not to hurt your students' feelings. Remember that as a storyteller you dispose of multiple means of conveying your characters' personality. To make them more realistic, use your facial expressions and gestures and mimic their pace walking in front of or among your audience. Acting your characters out rather than merely describing them is more interactive and focuses the attention of your listeners on you. Remember also to include a fairly large amount of dialogues (or monologues) but keep them rather short and use their attention grabbing potential by varying the tone and pitch of your voice while speaking for your characters. The icing on your storytelling cake is the skillful creation of yourself as the narrator. If you really want to take your audience to another world, tell the story as one of the witnesses of the described events or as a bard entertaining guests in an inn. Especially for younger listeners, you may even consider putting on a costume or a cape that will give you an air of mystery but do not exaggerate with it either – it is your story that should be at the forefront, not you.

Teleport your audience to a different setting

If you want to take your audience on a journey to a different world, you really need to act on their imagination and make them see the place where you are taking them with their minds' eyes. You can change the classroom into any place you wish with the skillful use of language and, possibly, some interactive aids. First of all, whether you want your listeners to teleport to a forest or to a castle, use language relating to the sensual and physical experience of the place such as the cold or the fluffy animal tails brushing against their skin. If a given element is particularly important for your story, you may, for instance, fan the audience from time to time or spread the smell of pine needles in the room before the storytelling event. Use music such as rattles, bells or tapes with singing birds for the background or for marking the menacing moments of your story. While trying to build a realistic setting with these aids, try not to turn into a fifty-handed monster carrying more props than you can handle.

Interact with your audience

Who said only one person can tell a story? As a teacher, you can make better use of the exercise if you invite your students to participate in the tale. Before the performance, distribute cards with short dialogue lines for each student and let them know when you expect them to read them out. You may also leave some room for their spontaneous improvised contributions but make sure they do not overrule you. Sometimes, you may ask questions like: "And what do you think he did next?" or "Should she eat the apple or not?"Also, try to tailor your performance techniques to your audience each time bearing in mind that every group of listeners has a unique character and may like different things. Finally, do not bore your audience to death with your monotonous voice. Nothing can kill a good and otherwise perfectly prepared story than a boring or too quiet a speaker. Practise your narrative in front of the mirror or an informal audience beforehand and prepare techniques for waking the audience up should they actually start falling asleep.

To sum up, to create a good story, pay attention to structuring your plot logically on the basis of such elements as conflicts, emotional tensions, cliff-hangers, hints and climactic events. Tell your story compellingly, acting your characters out whenever possible. Try to make it interactive and whether you tell it to an English class or to any other kind of audience, account for the specificity of your listeners.