Stories are not merely a means of information delivery but a medium for conveying experiences, enabling people to understand reality and make sense of other worlds (Pennington, 2009). In other words, stories help us experience not only the reality that we live in but also other realities, such as the past, the future, other cultures, and virtual worlds. Benabbes and Taleb (2024) emphasized that storytelling is crucial in preserving and transmitting human culture and identity beyond simple story delivery, noting that “throughout the history of mankind, fables, fairy tales, myths, drama, and other forms of narratives have claimed, and still do, this dual purpose of providing entertainment on the one hand and conveying ethical and societal teachings on the other” (para. 4). It functions as an important means of delivering not only entertainment but also cultural customs, traditions, and shared values with both oral and written stories contributing to the preservation of society’s memory and history. Various forms of storytelling, such as myths, legends, fables, songs, poems, and proverbs, have functioned as strategic tools that show how a particular society has existed and resisted. In this way, storytelling transcends time and fights against attempts to erase collective memory and voice, acting as a key element in maintaining a society’s cultural, social, and political elements (Bietti et al., 2019). For a society to continuously develop and prosper, such knowledge and heritage must be intergenerational, and storytelling contributes tremendously to this goal.

The stories in movies allow us to experience other lives, different environments, and imagined worlds that we cannot directly experience; thus, the stories in movies can play a role in broadening our horizons. Jeffries (2024) explored the relationship between movies and storytelling, examining how movies and stories are closely connected and how stories are expressed in movies. Storytelling is an essential element of human experience that enables people to understand the world, connect with others, and give meaning to their lives. These stories are powerfully conveyed not only through literature but also through the medium of movies.

Moreover, movies creatively expand how stories are told while being influenced by literature, transforming literary techniques (metaphor, narration, and symbolism, etc.) into visual scenes. Though different in form, movies and written literature share the advantage of offering meaningful and insightful experiences.

Similarly, Osorio (2023) stated that movies and good storytelling are closely related, which is an important factor for the emotional and cognitive impact that movies have on people. This is because movies can only convey deep emotion and meaningful messages to people when they exhibit good storytelling. In contemporary society, the proliferation of information has led to an increasing emphasis on quantity rather than quality of content. As a result, films that communicate profound narratives or ethical values have become less prevalent, which may have notable implications for students. Previously released movies played a role in transmitting moral teachings and important values of life, allowing audiences to grow together with characters in the story and share emotions. But today, some movies focus on sensory or commercial elements and often overlook good story structure.

Ultimately, movies and effective storytelling are important elements that affect people’s emotions and thinking beyond simple entertainment. As more movies provide only simple visual effects or stimulating content without wellcrafted stories, this risks audiences becoming accustomed to immediate stimulation rather than profound thinking. Therefore, movies with excellent storytelling play an important role in forming life values and emotions for people beyond mere information delivery, making storytelling quality essential.

Fisher (1984) saw humans as instinctively storytelling beings who communicate more through stories than through logical arguments. Fisher (1984) argued that all communication can be evaluated based on narrative coherence and narrative fidelity. The former refers to internal consistency and the lack of contradiction, while the latter means realism and alignment with a viewer’s values and experiences. Thus, according to Fisher, people are more strongly persuaded by stories than by arguments, and they judge based on whether a story is coherent and believable. Narrative theory has also been enriched by Propp’s (1968) morphology of the folktale, Todorov’s (1971) narrative theory of equilibrium, Genette’s (1972/1980) narrative discourse, Barthes’s (1973/1975) S/Z, and Bakhtin’s (1981) dialogic imagination. Although these scholars used varied approaches, they generally agreed that humans naturally create and interpret stories, that all stories share a structure, and that narrative builds meaning that is not confined to one interpretation.

Narrative is also closely related to our daily lives. The everyday stories that we tell each other are reconstructions of our experiences in narrative form, and these become units of remembered life (Cutting, 2016). Here, narrative form is the way we construct events that we have experienced into meaningful stories in chronological order. It is the process of creating a story by connecting cause and effect, not just listing static information. For example, a passage such as “I played online games for a long time. My eyes hurt. I went to the ophthalmologist” lacks narrative form. When it is constructed with an emphasis on narrative form, it becomes “I played my favorite online game all night during the weekend. My eyes hurt, so I tried artificial tears, but it was useless. I had no choice but to begrudgingly go to the hospital, where I received eye treatment.” Reconstructing experiences into narrative form creates a meaningful story with connected causes and effects, producing an important unit of life in memory (Cutting, 2006); such units are independent pieces of memory, the collection of which constitutes our overall memory.

Regarding the difference between “story” and “narrative,” Wiatr (2020) said, “People will pay for a story, but people will die for a narrative,” meaning that while stories are entertaining, narrative connects with people’s beliefs and identities, sometimes with such a powerful force that people will even sacrifice their lives for it.

Narrative theory, which is currently receiving significant research attention globally, starts from the assumption that narrative is utilized as a basic strategy for understanding fundamental elements of human experience, such as time, process, and change. Accordingly, it is applied to studies of the unique nature, various structures, elements, uses, and effects of narrative (Project Narrative, n.d.).

Narrative organizes human experience in time, helping people understand the past, present, and future. People remember past experiences, recognize current situations, and plan for the future through narrative frameworks. By organizing time in this way, narrative transforms experiences into meaningful, coherent stories. Consider someone pursuing a teaching career: they must first obtain necessary credentials from a university, pass teacher certification examinations, and finally enter the profession. This temporal progression toward a goal is depicted by narratives, which reveals how the individual grows and changes throughout the process. In this way narrative explains character development and event progression through changes. Human life is not a simple moment but unfolds through the process of experiencing change. Narrative helps us make sense of the world by temporally organizing change, which is why stories are compelling.

How to actually construct narrative theory in connection with movies can be seen in Todorov’s (1971) five-stage narrative theory. O’Malley (2015) says Todorov’s narrative theory helps movie audiences understand story and plot, analyzing Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) through Todorov’s five-stage narrative framework to illustrate this point. When movies have a clear narrative, they are more systematically and structurally organized. He said one of the key elements of narrative theory is the structure of narrative. Todorov theorized that movie narrative consists of five main stages: a state of equilibrium; disruption of the equilibrium; recognition of the disruption; attempt to repair the disruption; and finally, reinstatement of a new equilibrium.

Todorov’s five-stage narrative structure is also used to explain the development of narrative and the process of restoring balance. This theory helps clarify how events develop and are resolved, as well as how balance is ultimately regained by systematically dividing the flow of a story. Overall, Todorov’s five-stage narrative structure facilitates the clear and systematic delivery of stories and allows audiences to follow and immerse themselves in the flow of narrative. Therefore, when using films in the classroom, it is not sufficient for teachers to merely introduce or summarize the plots. To help students better comprehend and engage with the stories, it is necessary to emphasize the analysis and understanding of such narrative structures.

Combining the visual elements of movies with storytelling and narrative enables learners to engage with movies in diverse ways and appreciate them deeply, making movie English accessible even to those with limited proficiency. This story-centered approach is particularly promising for low-intermediate students who may find traditional language-focused instruction overwhelming.

Participants consisted of five students from a four-year college in Seoul, all non-English majors who volunteered to participate in this study. The sample comprised two males and three females. None of the participants had experience with overseas training or residence. Their English proficiency corresponded to the low-intermediate level based on the TOEIC scores that they revealed. Two were in the 300 to 399 range, two in the 400 to 499 range, and one in the 500 to 599 range. Through a pre-interview before the experiment, they revealed that although they had low motivation for learning English, they felt the necessity of learning English and had the will to learn English if learning conditions were provided.

The teaching material for this study was the movie A Rainy Day in New York (Allen, 2019). This film was selected because its strong story structure and character-centered narrative make it highly suitable for story-centered learning activities. Activities aligned with the research purpose were designed using the movie’s diverse characters and the relationships between them. For example, major events in the movie could be constructed from the perspective of a specific character or from the viewpoint of another character, or a third party. Alternatively, the roles of major characters could be switched to create a new story. A representative conflict throughout this movie is that between Gatsby and his mother. If we switch these two people to opposite positions, we can develop an interesting new story composition.

In addition, the movie featured numerous emotionally-driven scenes³. These moments could be recreated by focusing on particular feelings. Besides this, New York’s cultural elements provide interesting story material. Thus, A Rainy Day in New York was judged suitable for storytelling and narrative-centered research. Rather than using the entire film, this case study focused specifically on the dialogue between Gatsby and his mother, as it represents the most dramatically significant exchange in the movie.

Participants in this case study were low-intermediate English learners. Accordingly, language-centered activities requiring Korean translation of movie scripts or productive English use would be difficult for them. Therefore, the instructor led the class, and participants would focus on learning receptive language rather than productive language. Before the main lesson began, the participants took part in a brief pre-interview. They were asked about their experiences studying or living abroad, their need and motivation for learning English, and their approximate TOEIC scores.

The study sessions were conducted over two months via Zoom, meeting once a week for approximately one hour each. First, the participants were given short dialogue clips (under one minute of movie time) as the main material for each one-hour session. Given the participants’ low-intermediate proficiency, these short clips were intentionally selected to ensure the dialogue was manageable rather than overwhelming for them.

Second, a comprehensive background was provided for each dialogue, including the storyline leading to the conversation, the setting, and detailed character information. Character introduction was particularly emphasized, as characters are central to narrative engagement. When characters are interesting or relatable, audiences are more likely to immerse themselves in a story (Jing, 2023). Thus, helping the participants understand and empathize with the characters was prioritized. As previously states, particular attention was given to the dialogues between Gatsby and his mother, and accordingly, the mother-son relationship, their ongoing conflict, and its underlying causes were thoroughly explored to facilitate deeper engagement with the narrative.

Third, to stimulate the participants’ imagination, the story was expanded to encourage them to explore the causes of character conflicts on their own. They were encouraged to infer these causes by drawing on personal experiences or indirect experiences, observations and accounts from people in their lives, and to engage in peer discussion to exchange perspectives.

These three stages formed the core structure of each weekly session: 1) introducing a brief dialogue clip, 2) providing comprehensive narrative and character backgrounds, and 3) facilitating the exploration and discussion of character conflicts and motivations. The participants focused primarily on understanding and reconstructing the narrative rather than on explicit language learning, engaging with the material through discussion and imagination. The instructor served as a facilitator, providing support and clarification as needed while allowing the participants to construct meaning independently.

Data were collected through three written tests administered after the class sessions at 2-3 week intervals and one written reflection report gathered at the conclusion of the study to gather participants’ attitudes and reactions regarding the effectiveness of the story-centered approach. Given the participants’ low-intermediate English proficiency level, traditional recall tests or translation evaluations were deemed inappropriate for this context. Moreover, as this case study emphasized story-centeredness rather than explicit language instruction, alternative assessment methods were designed to align with the study’s pedagogical focus. The three evaluations prioritized the participants’ ability to comprehend narrative contexts, recognize story-related vocabulary, and understand the expressions embedded in the story.

For the first test, the participants were presented with English utterances spoken by characters in the film and were asked to describe the context in which each expression was used. This test assessed their ability to connect linguistic forms with their situational meanings in the story.

In the second test, various nouns and noun phrases central to the storytelling were selected for assessment, including proper nouns, such as place names. While such vocabulary items are not typically prioritized in conventional English learning contexts, they are essential for comprehending narrative content. The participants were shown these story-specific words and asked to recall and describe the narrative episodes or contexts associated with them. This test was meant to evaluate the depth of the participants’ engagement with the story and their ability to retain vocabulary through narrative contextualization.

For the third test, the participants were presented with idiomatic expressions that appeared in the film and were asked to provide their meanings. This test was particularly challenging, because it required not only the recognition but also the interpretation of figurative language. For example, the participants were asked to explain the expression “consort with a demimonde.” Since they had already encountered “demimonde” in the film’s dialogue context, those who actively engaged with the story could potentially infer the meaning of “consort with” through contextual clues. This test served as a measure of salience, the degree to which story-embedded language became noticeable and memorable to learners.

In addition to being administered the three tests, the participants were asked to freely write their perceptions of how effective the story-centered activities were in facilitating their learning of vocabulary and expressions. This open-ended reflection provided qualitative insights into the learners’ subjective experiences and metacognitive awareness of their learning processes.

The data from the three written tests were analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively, after which the participants’ responses were scored based on accuracy and completeness. The responses were categorized as correct or incorrect, with descriptive statistics calculated to identify patterns in the participants’ performance across the three evaluations.

Finally, the written reflection reports were examined using thematic analysis. The participants’ open-ended responses were read multiple times to identify recurring themes related to their perceptions of vocabulary learning, story engagement, and the overall effectiveness of the approach.

Although the participants would have experienced difficulty interpreting or expressing the presented English utterances due to their limited English proficiency, if they actively participated in story-centered activities, they could remember the story context in which these utterances appeared. Eight questions were given, asking participants to identify the context of each in Korean. The findings are presented in Table 1.

All five participants answered more than half of the questions (six to seven) correctly, indicating that they easily remembered the story context. In addition, the higher scores of participants D and E, who had TOEIC scores in the 300 to 399 range, suggest that insufficient language knowledge or ability is not a major hindrance to participation in story activities. This approach may help low-intermediate learners, especially those who struggle with English proficiency, engage more in class. Thus, focusing on storytelling and narrative can serve as a new method of supporting these students.

In the second test, five individual nouns and four noun phrases were presented⁴. Although these words, place names or nouns (phrases) with specific meanings, have a low frequency, they are meaningful to the movie story. The participants were asked to look at the given nouns (phrases) and remember and describe scenes or plots in which this vocabulary appeared. The results are shown in Table 2.

Participants D and E, who received higher scores in the first test, received relatively lower scores than the highscoring participants in the second test. The results of the second test showed higher correct answer rates in order of the TOEIC scores overall. Participant A answered all the questions on nouns correctly, whereas low-scoring participants D and E answered three out of five nouns correctly.

However, participant A, despite having a high TOEIC score, scored lower on noun phrases than participant E. What can be cautiously inferred from these figures is that forms with two or more words attached may be more advantageous for recalling stories than single words.

The third test built on the second test. If the participants successfully remembered the story context in which the nouns (phrases) were used during the second test, then they were expected to effectively recall the surrounding context in the third test by leveraging those nouns (phrases) to enhance narrative salience. The test had eight questions, consisting of sentences or phrases. The participants who remembered the nouns (phrases) presented in the second test were expected to receive high scores in the third test because remembering the use of nouns (phrases) would have likely increased the salience of the story or narrative for them while helping the learners recall the surrounding context in a chain of events. Table 3 shows the results.

All the participants performed well on the third test, achieving generally high scores. Participant A received a perfect score, which was an improvement from their score on the second test. Going through the first and second tests appears to have solidified story memories that had initially been vague, thereby enhancing narrative salience and enabling the perfect performance on the third test. Participant B completely misunderstood the sentence “I come out on the short end as always,” so they remembered it as occurring within a completely different context. Other expressions were well remembered. In other words, since they already had narrative salience, remembering the context of expressions presented as questions was easy. Participant C interpreted the expression “Do you hear yourself?” well but could not add context. She seems to have misjudged that interpretation was enough as a story. She also remembered the context well, except for this expression. Participant D was unable to fully explain the significance of the phrase “Or more to the point: hooking” in the story. She mentioned context appropriately but did not discover salience in the presented expression, so the story conveyed was not interesting.

Finally, participant E answered two questions incorrectly. Participant E, like participant D, did not discover salience in the presented question. Additionally, she did not remember the place name “Gary” in “Fresh from Gary, Indiana.” If she had recognized “Gary” as a place name, she could have easily inferred that “fresh from” means “newly arrived from” or “coming from,” since this expression typically precedes locations.

In summary, having already gone through two tests, the participants had the stories organized in their heads and took the form of a narrative, so they could handle the third test easily. This indicates that narrative salience, developed through story-centered activities, enables learners to recall language and its surrounding context without explicit language instruction.

The participants’ opinions on story-centered learning in this case study were investigated. They were asked to freely convey their opinions, which are summarized in Table 4.

The common response was that all the participants could easily remember the stories. However, there were somewhat mixed responses about whether story memory led to word memory. Participant A pointed out that language learning is not guaranteed. She stated that if she had studied in advance, she could have remembered the words well, but in storytelling and narrative-centered classes, language learning seems to be left to students. Similar insights were provided by participant D: while the story-centered learning did help memory, rather than word memory specifically, it facilitated situation memory, and she indicated that time should be allocated to studying words.

Meanwhile, participant B completely agreed with the story-focused method, which he regarded as really fun. Participant C also agreed with this method. She said that even though she didn’t have much time to study, she could take the test without much review.

Considering this study’s goal, participant C’s comment can be interpreted positively. Most low-intermediate students are typically learners who have struggled to dedicate time to language learning. The pre-study interviews confirmed that the participants recognized the necessity of studying English; however, whether due to environmental factors or the lack of motivation, they faced difficulties investing time in language learning. Given these characteristics of low-intermediate students, her comment that she could follow this story-centered learning class despite limited study time is particularly meaningful. This suggests that a story-centered approach may help low-intermediate learners sustain their motivation rather than give up on English learning.

Participant E also responded positively to the story-centered learning emphasizing storytelling and narrative. She reported that although she was uncertain whether she could remember the dialogues before taking the test, she was surprised and rewarded to find that both the language and the storyline came to mind easily during the test, enabling her to complete the answers.

In summary, participants B, C, and E expressed satisfaction with this learning method that emphasized storytelling and narrative over explicit language instruction. Participants A and D, while not strongly critical, still considered language-focused learning necessary. Since this is a case study with only five participants, generalizing these results has limitations. However, given the study’s purpose, to explore ways to enable low-intermediate students to participate in class and maintain interest in learning despite limited English proficiency, the findings confirm the potential for story-centered approaches using movies to produce positive effects.