Verb stories are a skills flow activity so students use all four modalities of language: listening, speaking, writing, and reading. Verb stories help students to focus when listening, and to notice and use correct verb forms. They also help students to retell stories with appropriate scaffolding orally and to write a retelling of the story using correct verb forms.
The teacher tells a story and as the teacher talks they write the verbs on the whiteboard, each verb on a new line. The students then retell the story, using the verbs as prompts. Retell the story several times for practice. They can then write the story and compare their version with the original. In this way a skills flow is used – the students listen, and then speak, and then write, and lastly they compare and notice the language differences.
Watch this short video to see a year 11 geography class using verb story
Teaching and learning sequence planning examples:
Primary level:
Secondary level:
Published on: 19 Jan 2018
