Storytelling with Toys

This week my ESL (English as a Second Language) class is studying family relationships (mother, father, sister-in-law, etc.).  And as often happens, my efforts to accommodate a blind learner in my class yielded a great multi-sensory activity for all my students.

As we moved from basic vocabulary into more complicated terms such as "stepson," "former wife," and "birth mother," I realized that it would be helpful to have some props to illustrate these terms.  With the help of a nearby thrift store, I came to class equipped with a large bag of plastic doll house-sized family members.

My students had a great time creating elaborate story lines about divorce, foster care, adoption, an even death with these plastic dolls.  They were able to use the dolls to demonstrate relationships and talk about sometimes difficult topics like mental illness (in one story the husband died and the mother suffered to the point of not being able to take care of her children who ended up in foster care).

The lesson was a great success because learners were able to demonstrate their knowledge of the vocabulary through physical manipulation of props -and laugh while doing it!

The next day, a blind learner used the dolls as props for illustrating her extended family.  While other students drew pictures of their families, she lined up and grouped the dolls to show her family.  Learners then walked around the room and introduced their families to one another.