Made to stick

     Thank you for the book. I would recommend it for all teachers to read even though it was not written for teachers. To my mind, we, teachers, need to know the aspects which are unavoidable when you want somebody remember what you say. The power of stories is incredible. I remember my husband saying: If it were possible I would teach all aspects of foreign language through inspirational motivating stories. At that time he started collecting “stories to surprise you”. It is really hard work because among thousands of stories you have to choose the most influential ones. I used some of them in my teaching experience. It worked. But what I noticed was that children listen even more carefully to the stories from real life (better from your own life). It is an advantage if you have stories in your luggage. They must come out naturally as you were not thinking to tell them. They must be “simple, unexpected, concrete, credible, emotional” and to the topic. There always must be connection between your story and what you want children to remember. I will give you one example. At the lesson of phonetics when we study the difference between long and short vowel sounds I tell children a short real story: I had a colleague of mine, an Englishman, with whom we met several times at the teachers’ seminars. He had a Russian wife and a daughter. Once after the seminar I asked him what the most problematic sound in English for Russian speakers was. He replied that when they were about to go out with his wife she used to say one phrase. But what did she mean? It always remained unclear. She said: I CAN’T LEAVE WITHOUT YOU, DARLING or I CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT YOU, DARLING.

     It sticks to the students’ mind and  they remember this rule without rule immediately.