The Future of Education

It is well known that using tales in teaching has a long history since they offer numerous advantages to both teachers and learners (Parkin, 2004). Particularly for language teachers, they are valuable materials to facilitate teaching and learning process (Mart, 2012; Patil, 2013). They are usually short texts with their simple plots and a few characters, and hence are suitable to focus on in one or two teaching sessions. Their themes are mostly universal and easy to comprehend. In addition, they are easily accessible and language teachers prefer using them  in their classroom practices. For learners, they are appealing because  they trigger their curiosity and imagination. Tales are accompanied with story telling techniques most of the time and create a more sharing and cooperative atmosphere within classroom. Bearing the advantages of tales in mind, it might be useful for teachers and teacher educators to pay a special attention to use tales as language teaching materials. The purpose of this study is to offer  a model to be used in ITE (Initial Teacher Education) and to encourage teacher candidates to write their own tales by rethinking the setting, characters and messages which are in line with the changing life styles in the 21st century. Instead of using the widely known tales, the new ones written by teacher candidates can lead to new classroom implementations.

Key Words: Tales, Initial Teacher Education, Tales for  the 21st century

References

Mart, C. T. (2012). Encouraging Young Learners to Learn English through Stories. English Language Teaching, 5(5), 101.

Parkin, M. (2004). Tales for change: using storytelling to develop people and organizations. Kogan Page Publishers.

Patil, U. R. (2013). Scope for Teaching English Communication through English Short Stories.