All learners expressed familiarity

All learners expressed familiarity with the idea of story in their L1 and identified a wide number of different genres they enjoyed reading and listening to, such as children’s books, mystery, adventure, action, romance, tragedy, biography, folk tales, and oral histories. All students reported that they enjoyed telling stories about themselves and listening to stories about other people. However, few had had an opportunity to write stories in their L1. Student 6, in fact, recalled,When I was little, in my school, I write some stories. But my mom discourage me. She tell me, ‘You concentrate your studies, not story writing.’ In my culture, it’s different from here so I can’t write.During the interviews, in addition to answering the questions, Students 1, 6, and 7 wanted to tell or read some of their own personal stories. The stories provided evidence that these learners had developed some under- standing of the conventions of storytelling in English (see Wajnryb, 2003).