To sum up, we argue that FL and L2 curricula should incorporate activities that introduce students to specific narrative structures and devices, raise their awareness of what constitutes engaging narratives, and offer them systematic opportunities to practice L2 narrative skills. We outlined three components of L2 narrative competence that should be practiced in the classroom – narrative structure, elaboration and evaluation, and cohesion – and provided recommendations for exercises that target the development of these components. We also illustrate these suggestions with exercises developed on the basis of our project for American learners of Russian.

• Labov, W. (1972) Language in the inner city: Studies in the black English vernacular. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
  
• Labov, W. & J. Waletzky (1967) Narrative analysis: Oral versions of personal experience. In Helm, J. (ed.) Essays on the verbal and visual arts. Seattle: University of Washington, pp. 12-44.
  
• Ries, N. (1997) Russian talk: Culture and conversation during perestroika. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

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