Everything a teacher needs to take a student from "I have no story" to standing on stage in front of 200 people. Free, always — built by the same team that runs the competition.
Before anyone can perform a story, they need to find one. This unit is about digging through a student's own life for the true thing worth telling.
Students learn the difference between a "story" (something that happened, with a turn) and a "topic" (an opinion or fact). Ends with each student writing one sentence that starts "The day that..."
Guided brainstorm using sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch to pull specific childhood memories to the surface — the raw material most competition stories are built from.
Students draw a simple timeline of their life and mark 5 moments that changed something. Homework: ask one family member which moment they remember most.
Each student brings an object from home (a photo, a tool, a piece of jewelry) and free-writes for 10 minutes on why it matters. Almost always produces a usable story seed.
A structured 5-question interview template (in Thai) for students to use with a grandparent or parent, then report back what surprised them.
Every winning story has a moment where something shifts. Students identify the exact sentence in their own story where the "before" becomes "after."
Take five "telling" sentences ("I was sad") and rewrite them as "showing" scenes (what the body did, what was said). Core skill for judged Voice scoring.
Students cut every sentence from a draft that explains a feeling instead of showing it happening. Usually shortens a story by 30% and makes it stronger.
A simple 3-question filter (Do I still feel something when I tell it? Does it have a clear turning point? Would a stranger care?) to pick one story from three candidates.
Write the full story in Thai or Isan first. Translation comes later — this lesson protects the emotional truth of the story before English grammar gets in the way.
Just enough grammar to tell a clear, true story out loud — not a full English course. Built around what actually shows up when Isan speakers tell personal stories.
Drilling regular and the 20 most common irregular past-tense verbs students actually need for personal narrative (went, said, saw, felt, took).
First, then, after that, next, finally — practiced by re-telling a simple daily routine before applying it to their own story's structure.
"One day," "that morning," "years later," "it was the rainy season" — phrases that orient an audience in time without a single date or number.
Building a bank of adjectives and small physical details to make a parent, teacher, or stranger in the story feel like a real person in 10 seconds.
Sensory setting vocabulary — heat, dust, the sound of a market, the smell of a kitchen — so the audience can picture the village, farm, or city block.
How to drop one line of remembered dialogue ("She said, 'Don't be afraid'") into a story for maximum impact without getting lost in grammar rules.
Because, so, but, although, even though — the connector words that turn a list of events into a story with cause and consequence.
A working list of 30 high-frequency verbs (realized, decided, promised, refused, discovered) that do more emotional work than generic verbs like "was."
Breaking up the long, comma-heavy sentences common when translating directly from Thai sentence structure into clean, speakable English.
Students read their draft out loud for the first time and mark every sentence that's hard to say — usually the same sentences that need grammar fixes.
A perfect script told badly loses to an imperfect script told with real presence. This unit is entirely about performance, not grammar.
Most first-time speakers rush. Students time themselves telling one paragraph, then retell it 20% slower and compare how it feels to an audience.
Identifying the 2-3 places in a story where a 2-second silence does more than any sentence could — usually right before or after the turning point.
Practicing holding eye contact with 3 fixed points in a room while still remembering the next line — done in pairs before trying it on a full story.
Simple breath-support exercises so a story reaches the back of a 200-seat hall without a microphone — and without sounding like shouting.
The difference between performing an emotion and actually feeling it while speaking — and why judges can always tell the difference.
Recording a 1-minute retell, counting every "um," "uh," and "like," then retelling with a rule: silence instead of filler.
Nervous swaying and foot-shifting distract an audience from a story's content. A simple stance drill to build stage stillness.
Timing a full run-through and learning to cut or stretch a story to land between 4:30 and 5:00 — the competition's hard limit.
Structured peer-feedback protocol: one thing that worked, one thing that was unclear, one question the listener still has.
Using a phone to record a full run-through, then watching it back with the sound off first (body language) and again with sound on.
Targeted vocabulary banks pulled directly from the kinds of stories Isan competitors actually tell — family, farms, food, and home.
Relieved, proud, ashamed, grateful, torn — a working emotional vocabulary that goes past the first two words every student reaches for.
Rainy season, drought, monsoon, harvest heat — setting vocabulary that instantly places a story in a specific, felt moment in Isan.
English kinship terms mapped against Thai equivalents (which are far more specific), so students don't lose precision when they translate.
Som tam, sticky rice, the morning market — vocabulary for the food-centered memories that show up in a huge share of competition stories.
Rice paddy, buffalo, harvest, irrigation — practical vocabulary for the rural-life stories that make up much of the tour's strongest material.
For the migration stories — leaving a village for Bangkok or further, and what changed. Bus stations, factories, homesickness.
Speaking prices, ages, and years out loud clearly — a small detail that trips up more competitors than any other single grammar point.
Like, as...as, more than, less than — used to make a single vivid image ("as quiet as the temple at dawn") instead of a flat description.
A short, curated list of English idioms that land with a general audience — and a longer list of ones to avoid because they don't translate.
A running notebook system for students to collect new words tied to their own story as they revise it, instead of memorizing generic lists.
The final stretch — turning a rehearsed story into a competition-ready performance under real judging conditions.
Breaking down Truth, Voice, and Connection — what each judge is actually listening for, with real examples from past winning stories.
Low-stakes practice round in front of classmates, scored casually on the real judging criteria to remove the mystery before it matters.
Simple breathing and grounding techniques used backstage, plus reframing nerves as energy rather than a problem to eliminate.
Comparing weak openings ("Today I want to tell a story about...") against strong ones that drop straight into a scene.
Why the best closing lines connect back to the opening image, and how to avoid the two most common weak endings ("...and that's my story," trailing off).
The same true story often needs slightly different framing for a judging panel than for a casual audience — what to add, what to cut.
Practical recovery techniques — paraphrasing, using a pause, returning to the last clear image — so one blank moment doesn't end the story.
Guided viewing of past winning performances (see Past Winners), identifying specifically what Truth, Voice, and Connection looked like live.
Full run-through under near-real conditions — introduction, walk to the mic, full story, exit — with structured feedback after.
What to bring, what to eat, when to arrive, and a final mental checklist to run through backstage before a student's name is called.
Free entry, all eight cities, all levels welcome.
Register →