Storytelling classroom

Topics 2

 Creating a storytelling classroom

Storytelling through communication:

   Junko, a middle-aged student in one of my lower intermediate classes, caused a flurry of excitement. The students were doing paired practice with a list of “Have you ever…?” questions: “Have you ever climbed a mountain/driven a foreign car/sung on a stage?” One question was “Have you ever met anyone famous?” Junko and her partner’s interaction went on something like this:

Q: Have you ever met anyone famous?
A: Yes, I have. I’ve met Kirk Douglas.
Q: (Excitedly) Eeeeh! Kirk Douglas!
When did you meet him?
A: After I graduated from high school, I was an elevator girl in a big hotel in Osaka. Kirk Douglas was a guest at the hotel, and I met him in my elevator.
Q: Did you speak to him?
A: Yes. I said, “Hello.”
Q: What did he say?
A: He said, “Hello. How old are you?”
I said, “Nineteen,”

and he said, “Oh, very young.”

So, I (mimickingcoy expression) — Hee! Hee!

 The approach of conversational storytellers:

1. The first step is an introductory lesson that presents learners with a model story and follow-up questions to raise their awareness of the story’s generic structure as described by Eggins and Slade .

2. Step 2 is a follow-up lesson that invites learners to apply the Eggins and Slade framework and practice telling stories of their own. This practice is combined with a fluency development technique

3. In Step 3 teachers make conversational storytelling a regular feature of their classes and help their learners add interest to their stories through the use of devices such as extreme adjectives, idiomatic expressions, and direct speech.

4. Finally, Step 4 draws attention to the active role of the listener by helping learners use back-channeling and other linguistic devices to show interest and empathy as they listen to and interact with the storyteller.

Teaching strategies to Include Stories:

1-Share your own stories, just for fun:

2-Use stories as introductions.

3-Use stories as illustrations:

4-Tie storytelling to learning goals:

5-Tell stories to engage reluctant learners

Types of Stories

• A true story from your own life.
• A true story from the life of someone you know, like a friend, family member, or neighbor.
• A true story from the news or a current event.
• A story that took place sometime in history.
• A fictional story, with made up characters or events.

Why Storytelling Works

In its simplest form, storytelling remains a powerful element of communication, with the narrative being equally as compelling as essays and textbooks. They humanize learning. It offers us the opportunity to connect to like-minded characters, or see the world literally from within someone else’s skin. Stories touch our emotions and make us laugh, cry, fear, and get angry—a sharp contrast to a plain old presentation.

As a learning tool, storytelling can encourage students to explore their unique expressiveness and can heighten a student's ability to communicate thoughts and feelings in an articulate, lucid manner. These benefits transcend the art experience to support daily life skills. In our fast-paced, media-driven world, storytelling can be a nurturing way to remind children that their spoken words are powerful, that listening is important, and that clear communication between people is an art.

Both telling a story and listening to a well-told tale encourages students to use their imaginations. Developing the imagination can empower students to consider new and inventive ideas. Developing the imagination can contribute to self-confidence and personal motivation as students envision themselves competent and able to accomplish their hopes and dreams.

Other benefits for storytelling:

• Inspires purposeful talking, and not just about the story -- there are many games you can play.
• Raises the enthusiasm for reading texts to find stories, reread them, etc.
• Initiates writing because children will quickly want to write stories and tell them.
• Enhances the community in the room.
• Improves listening skills.
• Really engages the boys who love the acting.
• Is enjoyed by children from kindergarten to the end of elementary school.
• Gives a motivating reason for English-language learners to speak and write English.

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Have Students Tell Their Stories

As you incorporate your own stories, recognize how they connect with students on a different level. But why keep the power of storytelling to yourself? You can also actively help students become their own powerful storytellers, too!

Allow students to write, illustrate, and tell their own tales. The way you incorporate this may vary depending on your curricular goals, but it is essential that children understand how to tell a good story and how this relates to effectively accomplishing an objective. Students can use stories in their essays and argumentation—they can help in remembering processes or formulas, or connecting events with one another. The opportunities are endless, and easy to employ.

My own attitude:

 Storytelling is a kind of self reflection. It is a kind of dialoguing for the learner with himself then with others. This is active the learning which we we call and seek for. Language is a means of communication.  How wonderful if the learner expressed his story with his attitude! It is a kind of analysis and analysis is one of the high levels of learning in Bloom's taxonomy of learning.  Look at the examples below:

1-Sub-sequence of events:

Learners who listen can recall the events through their natural times and order them through composing events through sentences using:

First of all.................

Next,..........................

Then,............................

Later,.............................

After that,.......................

Finally,...............................

2-Venn Diagram:

Learners can do analysis to show the differences and similarities between characters through storytelling if they are studying a novel.