The Brain is Built for Stories: Using them in ELT
Curtis Kelly
In his presentation, Curtis discussed why stories and narrative structure are so readily received by the human brain and how language teachers can implement narrative structures in their classes to assist language learning. Curtis explained that the mind actively makes predictions when processing the flow of a story, releasing several chemicals such as dopamine, cortisol, and oxytocin that focus attention and activate both analytical and emotional processing centers in the brain. Several studies have demonstrated that this can lead to increased performance in both short and long-term language retention compared to expository or descriptive methods of instruction. He also shared examples of how classroom activities where students generated their own short stories using presentation software led to increased motivation and self-confidence in students who did not respond as well to more traditional analytically oriented language instruction.
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