15 Storytelling Activities for EFL Classes
Summer’s approaching and the days are longer, unlike our students’ attention span. We can either fight it with more worksheets (good luck) or embrace the magic of storytelling. As you know, I’m always happy to enjoy a storytelling session or two, so for me it’s a no-brainer. Why? Because I believe storytelling is the ultimate goal of learning a language! Oh, and also something we may include in our classes whenever we want.
Storytelling is an awesome low-prep, high-impact classroom activity. It boosts fluency, builds narrative skills, and lets learners play with language creatively. Plus, it brings a lot of fun! And honestly, summer is the perfect time to gather ‘round the metaphorical fire. Now, the following no-prep storytelling activities will add extra spark to your classes. Whether you’re at a summer camp, wrapping up the school year, or just want your students to talk more – go for them!
Setting the Scene
Around the Fire: sensory writing warm-up
Ask your students to describe a summer night using all five senses. Prompt them with sentences like You’re sitting by a campfire. What do you hear/smell/see/feel/taste? You may also write the phrases on the board to build a shared storytelling word bank.
The Fire Starts Crackling…: sentence starters
Prepare some mysterious or funny sentence openers (The map was upside down. / We shouldn’t have opened that old box.). Students choose (or draw) one and build a story from it, individually, in pairs, or as a whole-class chain.
Backpacking Gone Wrong: travel story failures
Everyone loves a disaster story! Ask your students to share real (or totally made-up) tales of holiday mayhem. Think missed buses, spooky cabins, strange food. Emphasise narrative structure and sequencing language.
Creepy & Fun
The Tent Was Empty: 3-Scene comic story
Ask students to create a three-frame comic strip. Base it on a spooky sentence like The tent was empty… but the flap was open. It’s a great activity for reinforcing past tenses and storytelling logic.
Urban Legends Retold: short story workshop
Retell simplified urban legends like Bloody Mary, Slender Man, or a local tale. Ask your students to modernise the story, change the setting, or act it out.
Campfire Conspiracies: improvised speaking
Ask each student to invent a bizarre event that “definitely happened” at summer camp. It may be lost in time event, mysterious footprints, a ghostly whistle at midnight… Then vote on the most convincing story.
Language Boosters
Vocabulary Swap: boring to brilliant
Give students basic sentences (It was a dark night. / He was scared.) and challenge them to rewrite using vivid, atmospheric vocabulary. Goodbye nice, hello bone-chilling.
Time Travel Trouble: tense review through story
Retell a well-known story… but encourage your students to jump across timelines. Ask them to reveal what happened before, what’s happening now, what might happen next. It’s a fantastic activity for reviewing narrative tenses.
Drama & Movement
Whispers in the Dark: chain storytelling game
Sit in a circle. First student whispers a story sentence to the next, and so on. Final version is spoken aloud… usually hilariously different from the original. You can also use Story Dice and roll to create stories! Use real dice or online generators to choose a character, setting, and problem. Try themes like forest creature, lost map, strange sound at night.
The Interview: hot seat character work
One student plays a character from a well-known story (e.g. the forest ranger, the camp cook, the haunted teddy bear). The class interviews them to find out what really happened.
Games & Interactivity
Two Truths and a Lie: storyteller’s twist
Ask your students to prepare and share three campfire-style anecdotes. One is true, two are fake. The class guesses which really happened.
Story Puzzle: reordering text
This activity requires some preparation. Print and cut up a mini-story into jumbled chunks. In teams, students race to reorder it correctly, using sequencing clues and logic.
Creative
Design a Mythical Creature
Ask students to create their own summer forest creature (e.g. The Mosquizard, The Muckelfluff). Then encourage them to write a backstory, legend, or “news report” about its sightings.
Campfire Radio Play
This is a great idea for a whole project! Encourage your students to write and perform a spooky radio drama. Think creaking doors, whispering winds, footsteps in the leaves. Bonus points for dramatic voice acting! Plus, such recording makes a fantastic souvenir!
The Last Message: story from a screenshot
Show a fake phone screenshot (text message, map location, photo). Students write or tell the story behind it. Start with: This was the last thing they received before…
Storytelling doesn’t need props, tech, or prep. All it really needs is a good spark, and maybe a bit of shadowy suspense. These activities are perfect for boosting your students’ creativity, speaking skills, and having some eerie summer fun. So light that imaginary fire, dim the classroom lights, and get ready to hear So there we were… when we heard the growl.
Happy storytelling! And don’t forget to subscribe to my newsletter to receive a no-prep lesson plan on Whispers in the Forest!
