Lifestorying and Drawing in a Czech EFL Class

Abstract

This article describes a "lifestorying" activity for developing oral communication in an EFL classroom. The instructor, a volunteer teacher for the Canadian "Education for Democracy" organization in Prague, Czechoslovakia, was teaching four courses at the intermediate level of English for post-secondary students at the Prague institute of Chemical Technology. The article includes samples of the students' drawings which were used in the class to enable the students to generate ideas and build vocabulary for their personal stories, in the re-telling of which they gained confidence and improved their oral fluency in everyday English.