Developing Primary Students' Discourse Competence By Means of Storytelling

The global increase in the number of primary students learning English has given rise to new teaching techniques, among which is storytelling. A great deal of works is dedicated to this technique today; however, still scarce information is published solely about the use of storybooks for the enhancement of young learners’ spoken discourse competence. This research was intended to fill in this gap and to illustrate the ways storytelling can foster the development of primary students’ speaking skills. To this end, we conducted the literature review on this topic, analysed primary students’ textbooks and designed the procedure for developing young learners’ spoken discourse competence via storytelling. This study is of practical value to teachers providing them with the core information on how to organise and implement storybooks in the English language classroom at the primary school level, and thus can make a positive contribution to the quality of primary school English language education.