Abstract and Key Words

Abstract: With the in-depth of English curriculum reform, The new English course standard in the stage of compulsory schooling points out that teaching must be student-oriented and take students’ law of somatopsychic development and interests into consideration. Teachers should let students learn English in a active and relaxing environment, thus combining teaching with pleasure. Stories, as the expansion of task-based teaching, play an important role in primary school English teaching. Story approach carters to the natures of children, who are curious about everything and are happy to imitate others. This paper will discuss the value of story approach from the aspect of definition, actual application, strategies and meaning, and how teachers use story approach in teaching.

Key words: story-based approach; primary school; English teaching

摘要：随着英语课程改革的深入，新的《义务教育阶段英语课程标准》指出教学要以学生为主体，要考虑到学生身心发展规律和兴趣特点。故事作为对英语任务型教学的拓展，在小学英语教学中占据着举足轻重的地位。儿童的天性就是好奇，乐于模仿。故事教学正是迎合了孩子们的这些心理特征。本文从故事教学的定义、实际操作、策略、意义等方面探讨了小学阶段英语故事教学的价值，以及教师在实际教学中如何进行故事教学等问题。

关键字：故事教学；小学；英语教学

1. Introduction
Story-based approach is a teaching method of accomplishing teaching aims through stories in the teaching process. The English course standard emphasizes that students’ interests, life experiences and cognitive level should be taken into consideration in the English learning. The foreign language theory in western countries gives first priority to students’ learning interest. The western scholars advocate that pupils should learn foreign language in a relaxing environment and story-based approach is a good method for students of any age in primary schools. In Britain, story-based approach is a very common teaching method, the English educator Andrew Wright points out that “Stories are particularly important in the lives of our children; stories help children to understand their world and to share it with others.” Gail Ellis and Jean Brewster also argue that interesting stories can stimulate pupils’interest of learning foreign language. In our country, Mr Chen Heqin says that “stories are important spiritual food of children.” Professor Ji Yuhua proposes “sandwich story approach” after years of research. We can conclude from the above that the foreign research materials mainly focus on the hidden philosophy and education theory of story-based approach and in our country, the usage of story-based approach is not common and the corresponding research materials are very few. The value of story-based approach is not attached attention to and exploited. This paper will discuss how to arouse pupils’ interest and improve their English level through story-based approach.