STORYTELLING IN THE IMPLEMENTATION OF MORAL EDUCATION IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHING

Doc. Zlatica Zacharová & Štefánia Ferková, Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia

Storytelling is a modern innovative and activating method often used in English-speaking countries for foreign language education. It develops the sense of language, vocabulary, promotes critical thinking, but above all it stimulates interest in the subject content, thus promoting an informal form of language learning as well as content learning. Storytelling is not only a valid method from a didactic point of view but is equally important in the field of education in terms of developing the personality of the pupil, interpersonal and multicultural understanding, but also the formation of relationships, communicative patterns of behaviour and the value orientation of young people, thus contributing to the development of moral education. The results of our previous research indicate that foreign language teachers mainly use the explanation method (85.5% of teachers) and the example method (80.0%) to implement moral education. Activating methods, which include the Storytelling method, are used by less than half of foreign language teachers (49.0%). The analysis of the foreign language teachers' statements showed that Storytelling and working with a literary text or a story are used to implement moral education by only 7 foreign language teachers out of 55. None of the foreign language teachers relied on working with film or series characters, or even with computer game stories, which form a dominant proportion of leisure activities in adolescence and largely influence not only adolescent narrative but also vocabulary and worldview and views on morality and its application. In this paper, we focus on a practical demonstration of the use of stories to elaborate several moral education themes (values, responsibility, personal growth, defending against bullying in the context of moral education requirements) in primary school. Examples are given not only in examples from well-known English fiction (e.g. Harry Potter), but in watching foreign fairy tales, series, films (Disney, Marvel productions, etc.) as well as computer games, which form a common narrative of the teenage generation and are the content of their everyday discourse, often using terms and phrases in the English language.