About

GrowStoryGrow

GrowStoryGrow is a story-telling website for learning languages. Stories provide wonderful educational platforms that make children laugh, cry, squeal, question and think. They also provide a stimulating context for language-learning.

GrowStoryGrow is unique in many ways:

You can choose one or a combination of languages
The stories are uniquely written in the way that they 'grow' using high frequency words
You can follow the stories with or without translation, audio, text and animations, making them a very versatile educational tool
Learning tasks teach the children to build their own sentences
A whole teaching and learning package includes interactive games, lesson plans, downloadable books to take home and more...

We hope that the unique approach used in GrowStoryGrow will offer your children a truly enjoyable and productive language-learning experience.

The stories

The stories are uniquely written for learning languages. They start off very simply and 'grow' with the addition of high frequency words. The idea is that learners can start off with minimal language and slowly build their confidence and language knowledge as they progress through the levels.

There are many types of stories:

Educational stories (The Solar System, The Plant Cycle, World Culture, The Easter Story)
Traditional stories from around the world (Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, The Dreaming Tree, The Honeyguide's Revenge)
Funny stories, sad stories, interesting stories (Indian Village, The Great Wall of China, Blob)

Through the stories children can:

Improve their literacy skills
Enhance their listening skills
Raise their level of confidence
Express themselves and their emotions
Understand other cultures and subjects
Learn a new language just by listening, reading and joining in
Learn structured language which they can practise and build on.

The method: Progression through high frequency words

The method used is called 'progression through high frequency words'. The stories progress by adding high frequency words, giving the children the skills to understand and build their own sentences. In English there are 12 words that make up 24% of all reading and writing. The same theory applies in other languages. By focusing on these words in your teaching you are providing the children with an excellent start to their language-learning journey. If you are interested in this method you can download a paper written on this method here.

The learning tasks

The learning tasks have been developed to provide children with a step-by-step learning facility and are particularly useful for independent learning. Up to four words are learnt at any one time. These words and sentences have been taken from the context of the story and are (usually) of high frequency. The words are introduced in a sentence, learnt separately and then put back into the sentence so the children can then use these important words confidently to manipulate and formulate their own sentences.

The resources

There are many resources. Children can:

Make the scripts into mini books to take away and read at home
Listen to the talking books and read their own copy of the story at the same time
Have their own character cut-out for role-playing and become more involved with the story
Make masks and puppets
Complete worksheets.

The lesson plans

The lesson plans are written for the non-specialist but can also be used by an experienced teacher who is looking for imaginative ideas and resources. The plans provide the teacher with a framework on which to build his/her own personalised lesson. Because the stories are educational, they often provide a springboard for general discussion. This does not have to take place in the target language. Indeed, the lesson plans are not designed for full-immersion, and use of the mother tongue for explanations, introductions and discussion is perfectly acceptable.

The key is to introduce very small chunks of language at a time. Even just one word a lesson can be enough. Little but often! And build, build, build.

The author of GrowStoryGrow

Val Thornber is a language teacher who is passionate about language-learning methods and has a strong belief in the potential benefits of Computer Assisted Language Learning. She is particularly keen on a method she calls 'progression through high frequency words' and has produced three software packages which map this approach: Little Tails of the Unexpected, Language Martians and Language Futures. GrowStoryGrow is the culmination of her experiences and skills.