Fostering Creativity and Critical Thinking through Stories

Abstract

Many teachers may agree with the statement that stories are considered the es-sence of education. Hence, storytelling forms the basis of an effective approach to teach the coreof the English language to children. Through stories teachers can inspire children to become fascinated with the language and can create a desire to continue learning.Stories have the capacity to motivate, challenge and develop positive attitudes to-wards learning. In response to these facts,Idesigned a creative course through stories for young learners. The course was designed to help young learners develop their critical thinking skills through logical thinking and reasoning tasks which involve comparison, classification, sequencing, cause/effect, patterning,webbingforecasting, and hypothesiz-ing. In addition, the course promotes creative thinking through generating and exploring ideas and making original connections. Furthermore, the course was designed to support young learners as they develop both receptive and productive language skills as well as enrich their vocabulary. The main aim of this course was to teach the English language through stories in order to create a memorable class time which will lead the students love the English language and develop the 21stcentury skills needed for successful learn-ing.Thiscourse was designed for young learners ranging in age from 7 to 10 years old. I will discuss approaches which promote creativity and critical thinking skills through stories.Furthermore, Iwill share20 lesson plans withfun and engaging activi-ties, as well nine childrenstories used in this EFL original course.