Motivating teens to speak English through group work in Storyline

Abstract

Overcoming the reluctance of teenage learners to speak in the language classroom is a challenge for many teachers. This article reports on a study in which 60 Swedish pupils, aged 15–16, took part in a Storyline project based on a young adult fantasy novel. In the Storyline approach, a fictive world is created when learners, taking on the roles of characters in a story, collaborate on tasks to develop the story. A key feature is that the learners work in the same small groups for much of the time. During the six-week period of this study, these learners used English in a variety of speaking and writing tasks. The project showed a number of benefits, the most important of which were an increase in their motivation to speak English and enhanced self-confidence through doing so.