Stories provide shared contexts for natural language development and are a powerful vehicle for learning. Stories appeal to children's emotions and develop their imaginations. Stories also open children's minds to new ideas and engage them as thinkers with issues that are relevant and real.

I’ve had some memorable experiences using stories. Once, when visiting a country recently emerged from war, I was asked to demonstrate a storytelling lesson with 30 children, aged 9–12. I had never met the children before and did not speak their language. The story I chose was Something Else, a picturebook about diversity and exclusion. The children's response to the story, and the way they related it to their country's experience of war, was extraordinary. Their attempts to use every bit of English they had available to try to communicate to me, as an outsider to their country, their views about how wrong it is for people to exclude, hate and fight each other, were impressive. As well as bringing home to me the power of stories in a way I’ll never forget, this experience led me to reflect how often we underestimate the maturity of children's thinking and how refreshingly open they can be in discussing complex issues that adults often shy away from.

My key tips for storytelling are:

• 21 Select suitable stories

• 22 Make the most of the storytelling process

• 23 Exploit stories for learning (but don't spoil the pleasure!)

• 24 Go beyond stories

21 Select suitable stories

There are many different sources for stories. These range from fairy tales, and modern versions of fairy tales, to well-known, traditional children's stories from the English-speaking world and other cultures. They also include oral stories, picturebooks, graded readers, stories from coursebooks, and digital and animated stories online.

Whatever the source of a story and its role in the teaching–learning process, the most important criteria are age-appropriacy, interest and appeal to children, and suitability of language. Other criteria to consider include:

• • Story structure: is it a real story with a problem, conflict and resolution? Or is it a vehicle for language practice?