"LANGUAGE ACQUISITIONAL STORYTELLING": PSYCHOLINGUISTICS IN ACTION IN THE ITALIAN EFL CLASSROOM

Abstract

The aim of the present paper is to analyse the educational activity of storytelling
from an innovative perspective: storytelling as a "psycholinguistic" teaching/learning
tool, which can effectively facilitate the acquisition of English as a foreign language
by presenting a story through the main stages of acquisition of English as a first
language. The educational context where this new teaching/learning strategy is
proposed is the class of English language/culture in Italian primary schools. In
particular, a new typology of storytelling will be here presented and examined, under
the definition of "language acquistional storytelling". This teaching/learning tool can
enable teachers to expose their pupils to simple stories in English, in which the
language is gradually construed through the main stages of acquisition of English as a
first language, and is at the same time adapted to the specific context of
teaching/learning English as a foreign language.
In the course of our discussion, some examples derived from an English
children's book "There's an Alligator under My Bed" by Mercer Meyer will be
offered. Alongside, this teaching/learning proposal intends to suggest some creative
activities and games which can help pupils understand, employ, internalize and reemploy
the language forms and rules that are inductively introduced by the teacher in
the course of the narration itself.