Grade 3 EFL Class - Retelling

The skill of retelling is essential for our students, yet we do not often provide enough opportunities for the children to practice it. 

While planning for my classes I remembered that I have old tapes with great stories, that also come with the stories in book form. Today online read alouds are available and popular both with teachers and students but since I had the tapes I decided to use one of them. 

We began with listening to the story. The artistic narration with sound effects helped my students to imagine the events and the setting of the story, and as a result, understand the story better. It also made it easier for the students to remember the story.

After the first listening, I asked my students to fill in the Five W's Chart and retell the story to a partner, using the Five W's Chart as a planner and a scaffold.

Constanza successfully filled in her Five W's Chart.

Then we listened to the story once again and the books were also available for the students to read through. After the second listening, the children were able to add more details.

Constanza is rereading to pick up the details.

Finally, I asked a volunteer to retell the whole story in front of the class. The rest of the group listened carefully and was asked to give feedback. The first risk-taker did a really good job retelling but omitted several important details and that were picked up by the audience.

Yannis was a real risk-taker and did a good job retelling!

The second volunteer retold the story once again taking the feedback into consideration. The second retelling was more accurate.

Julia was the second reteller and she learned from Yannis's mistakes and her retelling was more accurate.

This way the students had several opportunities to practice retelling during one class, as well as give, receive and use feedback.