Great stories engage, inspire and educate.
So it makes sense to use them in our teaching, as stories can bring language learning to life. Another dull coursebook exercise or a juicy story - which would you find more interesting?
Unfortunately, finding a story that’s at the right level, practices the target language, and engages your students is challenging and time consuming.
That’s why today we’ll look at how to use AI to create (or adapt) a great story in two minutes. I’ll also share the prompts with you.
But first - why do stories work so well?
What makes stories so effective?
Stories have been passed down verbally since language first formed. As a result, we’re hardwired to pay attention and learn from stories.
We can tap into this innate psychological fascination, that all humans possess, to capture our students’ attention. This is a great start, as it’s impossible to teach unless you have their attention. But stories do more than engage. They can also;
Break down complex topics into relatable tales
Give targeted practice for specific language points
Give a flavour of a different culture or way of thinking
Introduce new language in context
The biggest benefit of using stories is their ability to make learning feel like fun, and less of a chore. This not only makes learning more effective but also more enjoyable for both students and teachers.
Research shows that short stories are effective in teaching EFL students listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills.
If stories are so great, why don’t we teach with stories all the time?
Challenges with stories
Finding the right story for your class can feel like looking for a needle in a haystack. There’s a lot to consider when looking for a story for your lesson. While you can find stories in your coursebook, in library books, or online, they usually have one or more of the following issues:
It’s too simple
It’s too complex
It doesn’t use the target language enough
It’s too long
It’s too short
The topic is boring for your students
It’s badly written
It’s feels inauthentic
It’s out of date
It’s culturally inappropriate
The answer to how can we quickly overcome all of these negatives and turn them into a great story is to use AI - but how?
Use AI to create a story (with prompt)
Simply asking AI ‘please write me a story’ won’t work.
We need to gather all of the information we need to help AI. That means we need to tell the AI about our students (their level and interests), the aims of our lesson (which language points do we want to focus on), and some extra information so that the story will work with our lesson.
Here’s a prompt template that I created to use with ChatGPT, but that also works and is tested with other AIs; Claude 3, CoPilot and Gemini.
Remember to replace what’s in the [brackets] with your own information.
You are an expert TEFL teacher. Please write a short story for a lesson. Here are some details.
###
Students' age: [age range]
Students' English Level: [CEFR and describe level]
Target language: [grammar, vocabulary or pronunciation]
Topics: [topic]
Story length: [# of words]
Story genre: [genre]
###
Some tips to make the story better:
- Make it dramatic to engage the learners.
- Use the target language as much as you can.
- End the story with a cliff-hanger ending.
- Use these names as characters in the story: [2-4 student names]
- Use English
Here is an example I used:
You are an expert TEFL teacher. Please write a short story for a lesson. Here are some details.
###
Students' age: 10-12
Students' English Level: B1 on the CEFR, pre-intermediate
Target language: past simple grammar
Topics: travel
Story length: 250 words
Story genre: adventure
###
Some tips to make the story better:
- Make it dramatic to engage the learners.
- Use the target language as much as you can.
- End the story with a cliff-hanger ending.
- Use these names as characters in the story: Jeff, Sue, Brian
- Use British English
Remember: always check your results.
AI’s sometimes hallucinate or produce odd results, but you’ll also want to check for accuracy, that the target language is present a good number of times, and that it’s at the right level.
Please feel free to play around with the template - remove details you don’t need, add in other details you’d like to see. If you don’t want a cliff-hanger ending, remove it!
As you use the prompt more, test it and make a note of what works and what doesn’t.
Use AI to adapt a story (with prompt)
If you already have a story that you think your students will like, but it doesn’t meet your lesson requirements, then adapt it!
The prompt template to do this is very similar to the one above, but you’ll need to also paste the story in the appropriate place.
You are an expert TEFL teacher. Please adapt a short story for me, for a lesson. Here is the story:
####
[story]
###
Please adapt it to meet these lesson requirements:
Students' age: [age range]
Students' English Level: [CEFR and describe level]
Target language: [grammar, vocabulary or pronunciation]
Topics: [topic]
Story length: [# of words]
Story genre: [genre]
###
Some tips to make the story better:
- Make it dramatic to engage the learners.
- Use the target language as much as you can.
- End the story with a cliff-hanger ending.
- Use these names as characters in the story: [2-4 student names]
- Use English
As with the last prompt, remember to always proofread your story for accuracy, appropriacy and level.
Top tips when creating AI stories
Even with AI speeding up the process, it can still take a few minutes to get your story just right. You might need to edit it, tweak a word or two, or add personalise a bit more.
Here are a few tips I’ve found to enhance your story even more:
Incorporate feedback from your students to make stories more relevant and engaging.
Use personal anecdotes and classroom experiences to make stories relatable.
Always review AI-generated content for appropriateness and accuracy.
Ask the AI to write some comprehension questions, or quiz.
Remember, the ultimate goal is to improve learning through engagement and personalisation. Your students will pay more attention, learn more, and have more fun (and so will you!)
Final thoughts on AI stories
It’s hard to start with a blank page.
AIs are great at helping you create content quickly and easily. Even if they need editing, it’s still faster than starting from nothing.
Good luck, and leave a comment or email me to let me know how your AI stories work in your lessons!
References
Pardede, P., 2011. Using Short Stories to Teach Language Skills. , 1, pp. 14-27. https://doi.org/10.33541/jet.v1i1.49.
If you liked this article, you’ll love my books:
📝 Lesson Planning for Language Teachers - Plan better, faster, and stress-free (4.5⭐, 175 ratings).
👩🎓 Essential Classroom Management - Develop calm students and a classroom full of learning (4.5⭐, 33 ratings).
🏰 Storytelling for Language Teachers - Use the power of storytelling to transform your lessons (4.5⭐, 11 ratings).
🤖 ChatGPT for Language Teachers - A collection of AI prompts and techniques to work better, faster (4.5⭐, 10 ratings).
💭 Reflective Teaching Practice Journal - Improve your teaching in five minutes daily (4.5⭐, 16 ratings).