Relaxation and Visualization Strategies for Story Telling

Abstract: The importance of trainingstudents to tellor retellstory is self-evident for mastering Englishlanguage. The following activity introduces relaxation and visualization strategies for story telling.

Key Words: relaxation visualization story telling Purpose: To use the strategies of relaxation and visualization to practise story telling techniques. The students are asked to visualize while listening to a short passage and then to use the mental images to retell the story or create a new story in a speaking activity.

Time: 40 minutes

Materials: short passages

Format: Interactive

Procedure:

1. Brainstorming， e.g. What usually do you do when you want to lower your anxiety? What strategies do you employ when youare required to listen to a passage then retell it? Note down their answers and then teachers put forwardthe strategies ofrelaxation and visualization.

2. Ask students to relax and listen to a short passage with their eyes closed， and visualize the images in their minds as they listening. Then， they will use these mental images for a speaking activity. For example， the teacher''s directionscould be like this: I''d like to read you a story: There''s a Lot More to Life than a Job. Try to picture the story in your minds as I read it to you.Keep your eyes closed and breathe slowly and deeply. Relax. Here it is:

3. Get students to put down their pens and notebooks and ask them to relax by making them comfortable in their chairs， closing their eyes， and breathing slowly and deeply.

4. Read the passage out loud in a pleasant， soft and relaxing tone of voice and ask students to listen to prepare for retelling the story or for creating their own stories.

5. Ask students to retell the story or tell their own story in pairs.

6. After the participants have finished speaking， ask them for their reactions to the strategies. For example: discuss and report the answers to thefollowingquestions.

Did you achieve your goal?

Why is it that you did (/did not)?

Have you visualized or relaxed?

Have the visualization and relaxation help you with the speaking task?

What other ways could visualization or mental images be used in?

What other ways have you tried to relax when listening to a foreign language passage?

How have you activated background information to prepare for task?

What other retelling techniques have you resortedto?

7. Wrap-up: Emphasize that the strategies of visualization and relaxation can be used in many different ways. They can and should be transferred to new tasks. Such relaxation and visualization strategies can hopefully employed by learners on their own， whether in the learning of challenging grammar structures， vocabulary words， pragmatic routines， or other readingmaterials. It is important to keep the emphasis on learner-generated strategies， not those applied by a teacher， since the learning of a language ultimately falls on the students'' shoulders.

Justifications:

Procedure 1: It is often helpful to brainstorm ways to achievingstudents''goals before theyexecute a speaking taskand model of the strategiesby the teacher， with direct explanation of the strategies''use and importance.

Procedure 2-5: Guided practice with the strategies.

Procedure 6: Evaluate and revise the strategies training.Judgingfor studentsthemselveshow theyhave achieved their goals and what caused them to fail to achieve theirgoals.

Procedure 7: Students''independent practice with the strategiesand application of the strategies to new tasks.

The purpose of the activity is to experience and practice relaxation and visualization as strategies for learning to tell or retell a story. The task involves strategies for listening，preparing for speaking， and speaking， therefore some useful strategies can be mentioned:

Before listening:

Lower your anxiety;

Identify the goal and purpose of the task;

Ask for clarification of the task if you are unsure;

Activate your background knowledge;

Predict what is going to happen.

While listening:

Keep listening;Use background knowledge;Use information from the segment itself.

Before speaking:

Plan what you will say.

While speaking:

Plan what you will say;

Keep your goal in mind;.

Control your feelings;

Concentrate on the task;

Monitor your speech (vocabulary， grammar， pronunciation， etc.);

Compensate for any difficulties you have.

After speaking:

Reward yourself;

Evaluate how well the activity was accomplished;

Identify the problem areas;

Plan for how you will improve the next time;

Ask for help or correction;

Keep a learning log.

Other Useful Strategies

Use non-verbal cues;

Use formulaic phrases;

Choose logical patterns of organization (chronological， cause / effect， etc.);

Using paraphrases for structures youcan’t produce.

References:

[1]Oxford， R.L. Language Learning Strategies: What Every Teacher Should Know. Heinle Heinle Publishers.1990.

[2]文秋芳.英語(yǔ)口語(yǔ)測(cè)試與教學(xué).上海：上海外語(yǔ)教育出版社，1999.