Written by Meg MacKenzie, Language Disorder Australia.
Ask a class to share something that happened on the weekend and you will hear students deciding what their listener needs to know, which details matter, how one event led to another and why the experience was important to them.
One student may describe the moment so clearly that the class leans in. Another may begin with “and then he did it!”, leave out who he is, jump around in time, or finish without making the point clear. This student may have an equally meaningful story but need support to organise so they can be understood.
This is where storytelling connects belonging. Students need more than opportunities to speak and they deserve a fair chance to be understood.
Storytelling is a complex language task
To tell a story, a student must coordinate language at two levels. First, they must organise the overall structure (macrostructure): who was involved, where and when it happened, the important event or problem, what people/characters thought or felt, what they did and how it ended. They must also select vocabulary, build sentences, use clear references that connect individual ideas and use words such as he, she, they and there for the listener to follow (microstructure).
All of this happens while the student remembers the event, considers the listener’s knowledge and decides what is important. It is a complex process that students do throughout the school day.
Narrative skills do not sit beside the curriculum. They can support reading comprehension, written expression and a student’s ability to explain ideas and experiences.
Storytelling is a part of every single day
Imagine that your students come in from lunch. You discover a student joined a handball game, another child changed the rules, the ball rolled away and an argument followed. In order for the students involved to feel heard and understood, they need to explain who was there, what the original rule was, what changed, what happened next and why they became upset.
For a student with Language Disorder, the experience may be clear, but telling it may not be. Their explanation might begin halfway through: “He did it again, and then they said I couldn’t, so I just did it.” People may be introduced without names, key events may be missing and the order may be unclear. The student may not have the language needed to explain another person’s intention, distinguish an accident from a deliberate action or describe why it mattered. They might even become ‘the fall guy’ only because he might not have the language to advocate for themselves.
The listener is left holding pieces of a story without the full picture. This can make it harder for the student to seek help, have their perspective understood, resolve the disagreement or repair the interaction.
Stories help students find their place
Belonging involves feeling accepted, included, respected and socially connected. Storytelling cannot create belonging on its own, but it supports many of the interactions through which belonging grows. Interactions like joining a conversation, sharing humour, explaining what happened, repairing a misunderstanding, describing a conflict and discovering common ground.
Narrative ability has been linked with peer adjustment. Conversation and shared activities matter for friendship, while social interaction can sometimes feel overwhelming.
The message is not that a child must become a polished storyteller to deserve connection. Belonging is not something students earn through fluent language. Our responsibility is to reduce the communication barriers that can make connection harder.
Importance of both fictional and personal narratives at school
Fictional stories provide shared content for teaching how characters, goals, problems, emotions and consequences fit together. They allow students to explore characters’ motives, feelings and actions, cause and effect, what happens next as well as complications and resolutions.
Personal narratives bring students’ experiences, relationships, humour, values and knowledge into classroom life. We use them to share news, how we are feeling, explain problems, entertain others and make sense of experiences.
Success with fictional stories does not guarantee success with personal narratives, or vice versa. The genres place different demands on the storyteller. Teaching both gives educators a fuller understanding of a student’s abilities and support needs.
When storytelling is difficult
Students with Language Disorder may have established ideas, strong memories and a genuine desire to connect, yet find it difficult to create a story that can be understood by the listener. Their narratives may contain loosely connected events, unclear references, missing causal links or information that assumes the listener already knows the context.
These features should prompt curiosity, not judgement. A difficult-to-follow story does not mean the student was not listening, does not care or has “nothing to say”. Often, the invisible architecture of storytelling needs to be made visible.
Six ways teachers can help
- Make structure visible
Use a visual framework showing the people or characters, setting, event or problem, feelings, actions and outcome. For personal stories, ask: Where and when did it happen? Who was there? What happened in order? Why did it matter? - Model the thinking
Tell a short story and think aloud: “You do not know who Sam is, so I need to explain”; “That happened because…”; “The important part was…”. Different examples help students learn a flexible structure rather than memorise one formula. - Practise complete stories
Coordinating a narrative for a listener is a complex language task. Give students frequent opportunities to retell and create whole stories, gradually reducing prompts and visuals. - Rehearse before writing
Let students tell the story to a partner, sequence ideas or use a visual map before writing. Support students to identify strategies that support their narrative production (both written and oral). - Teach fictional and personal narratives
After exploring a fictional character’s problem, invite students to create another fictional example and, if they wish, connect it to a personal experience. Keep personal sharing optional because expectations about discussing experiences and emotions vary across cultures. - Protect the meaning
Respond first as a genuine listener: “I can see why that mattered”; “That sounds frustrating”; “I did not know that about you.” Then choose one or two supports that will make the story easier to follow. Effective narrative teaching is explicit and structured, but storytelling should remain purposeful, social and authentic.
Every story needs a listener
The goal is not to make every student’s story sound the same. It is to help students organise language so that their ideas, experiences and imagination can reach another person, while teaching listeners to remain open to different ways of telling.
Every student has a story. A language-friendly classroom helps ensure that the students who find storytelling hardest are not the ones left misunderstood and that every student has a chance to be connected and to belong.