Using Fairy Tales to Teach ESL: Engaging Lessons for Young Learners

 

Fairy tales are more than just enchanting stories—they are powerful teaching tools that can offer valuable lessons about life, culture, and human behavior. In the ESL classroom, fairy tales captivate students’ imaginations while providing rich opportunities to teach vocabulary, grammar, and comprehension skills. Despite what some might assume, fairy tales are not just for very young children—they can engage learners from birth up to around seven years old, and even inspire older students through adaptations and retellings.


In this post, we’ll explore five fabulous ways to incorporate fairy tales into your ESL lessons. From interactive storytelling and role-playing to creative writing and arts-and-crafts projects, these strategies make language learning fun, meaningful, and memorable for all types of learners.

Smash Mats

These fairytale-themed smash mats are a versatile way of practising essential vocabulary linked to popular stories, such as Cinderella, Snow White, Rapunzel, and Goldilocks and the Three Bears. They work brilliantly for one-to-one sessions or paired work where the leader chooses an item for the mat; the other should find it and either use a dabber to mark it off or smash some playdough onto it, covering it up. Alternatively, you could allow students to choose their own image on the mat, say what it is, spell it even or use within a sentence. There are unlimited possibilities, and it is simply to differentiate for whatever ability of learner you are working with.

5.     Draw and Write – Fairy Tales

This Draw and Write – Fairy Tales pack is brilliant for allowing your students to choose their own favourite character from a fairy tale, whether it is one you have studied or not. With 61 printable pages, there are many to choose from – Peter Pan, the Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, to name a few. The worksheets present students with the outline of the character, for them to add features and colour. Next, there is a section blank for students to write a little about their chosen person or animal. A word bank at the top will support them. You could use these for character descriptions or an explanation of why they’re a favourite, for example.

 Playdough Cards

Combining fine motor skills with the acquisition and practice of vocabulary linked to fairy tales is possible with the use of these fantastic playdough cards. Children’s favourite characters, as well as some of the tell-tale items from the stories, are included in cards within this pack. While moulding Goldilocks, for example, children can practise the names of colours, shapes, sizes and, of course, the character or item itself. 

3.     The Gingerbread Man - Foldables

The Gingerbread Man is one of the world’s favourite fairy tales. With its repetitive nature, children enjoy the ‘Run, run as fast as you can’ parts and join in eagerly. This literacy activities pack is excellent at any time of the year, but many associate gingerbread with Christmas, so it could be used then. There is a wealth of printable and foldable resources to support the children to sequence key moments of the story and retell the fairy tale using certain words and phrases. Being able to answer questions about the Gingerbread Man is a vital skill too, and you will find comprehension activities here. To bring this topic to life even more, students could make their own gingerbread men, taking photos at each step of the way, explaining the process. They could also label the parts of the gingerbread man onto an image of theirs they have printed out.

4.      The Little Red Hen- Retelling

A tale with a moral, which appeals to so many, the Little Red Hen is a fantastic way of supporting the teaching of ESL in your classroom. This book study pack contains an enormous number of resources which will make your life easier as well as helping you to create enjoyable lessons. From vocabulary cards to graphic organisers, a comprehension cootie catcher to sequencing activities, there is a considerable amount of learning that can come from using this pack in your classroom.

These strategies will help you breathe new life into your fairy tale lessons and make them more engaging for your ESL students. Remember to stay flexible and adapt each activity to meet the needs, interests, and proficiency levels of your learners. Most importantly, have fun with it—after all, fairy tales are timeless stories that spark imagination, creativity, and a love of learning in every child!

Grab your free copy here