Abstract
Drawing on Bruner´s concept of narrative understanding, we acknowledge that stories function as a powerful tool to pass on knowledge in a social context and that the human brain is cognitively predisposed to understand, remember and tell stories: stories mirror human thought since humans think in narrative structures and, most often, remember facts in story form.
A storytelling methodology in English Language Teaching (ELT) for young learners is an especially effective approach to second language acquisition and the promotion of cultural literacy given the rich communicative function of stories in both linguistic and cultural terms. How are stories constructed? How do they, in turn, help us to construct personal and collective identities? These questions are explored in the primary classroom through the active engagement of the storyteller and listener in creating narrative understanding through children´s stories.
Storytelling offers a dynamic, multi-sensory way to expose young learners to the rich tradition of children´s literature in English in which nature and animals are prevalent themes. The natural settings evoked in picture books help stimulate children's understanding of the self in relation to the environment.