The Storyline approach is little known in language teaching contexts
although it has much in common with task-based education. Learners play
the parts of characters in an unfolding narrative, collaborating on tasks
in small groups, a method which combines the use of language skills with
practical work. A word often used by participants in a Storyline topic is
`fun´. This article reports on a study in which I attempted to identify the
features that particularly appealed to a class of Swedish 11–13 year olds, and
how working in this way impacted on their learning of English. The data
show that learners were strongly motivated by particular tasks and that the
experience of taking part in a Storyline brought specific language benefits.