Story Theatre

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Story Theater in Teaching language

Read this Story:
   One day a hungry beggar went to the house of a rich man. He asked for some-thing to eat. The rich man invited the beggar in and gave him some soup.The beggar drank the soup very quickly. When he finished the rich man asked, “Do you want more to eat?”“No, thanks,” the beggar answered. “That was enough. I’m full.”But the rich man gave the beggar a large plate of meat.The beggar finished that very quickly also.“Do you want more to eat?” the rich man asked again.“No, thanks,” the beggar answered. “That was enough. I’m full.” But the rich man didn’t stop. He gave the beggar some delicious chocolate cake. The beggar quickly finished the food again. “Why do you lie to me?” the rich man asked.“Every time I ask you if you want more to eat, you say no; but every time I give you more, you eat it quickly.”The beggar looked around. Outside the kitchen there was a box. He filled the box with stones and asked the rich man, “Is this box full?”“Of course it’s full, the rich man answered.Then the beggar put some sand in the box that was full of stones. “Is this box full?”he asked again.“Of course it’s full,” the rich man answered.Then the beggar got a pail of water. He poured the water into the box that was full of stones and sand. “You see,” he said to the rich man. “Every time I ask you if the box is full, you say yes; but every time you say yes, I fill the box again. It’s the same thing with the food you gave me. There’s always room for more.”

Why this story?

This is a tale for students to tell. I’ve chosen to begin with it to give a context for what is to follow, and to demonstrate that Story Theater can be used with students of all ages and all levels of English proficiency. With it,we can highlight basic features of Story Theater that will become more varied and complex as the tales become longer, with wider vocabulary and more challenging images for student actors to project.

What is a story theater?

Story Theater takes a text—a piece of fiction,a fable, or a folk tale—and students act it out.They have not written this text, but if there is narration, they recite that narration. They do not write dialogues; but if characters in the story have dialogue, then students will speak that dialogue. Students will orchestrate the drama that a story portrays, choosing sound effects, props, and blackboard pictures to provide background. They decide who stands where and what actions are needed to bring the story alive…in a special way.In Story Theater, students, not the teacher,do the telling, although the success of the telling depends, first of all, and mostly, on the teacher’s original decision in selecting a tale. In making this choice, the teacher should remember that while students may become frustrated, truly exasperated, as they struggle with this foreign language, they also have the faculty of imagination.

The benefits:

1-Story Theater evokes imagination, putting a number of formal pedagogical principles into play simultaneously as action proceeds.

2-language materials ought to engage the students, pique their curiosity, and be within their range of proficiency so that they are not bored.

3-Story Theater is especially relevant at that time when students are tired or are about to become tired.

4-It is also useful with students who are afraid to make mistakes, or with those who have a knowledge about the language and can recognize words, but cannot easily produce what they can recognize.

5-The text of a story gives words to them so that they can actively use the language. This provides security.

Feedback:

Active learning depends on dramatization, miming, acting and playing roles among learners to change the theoretical text into alive practical learning or real life situations through using language in real situations.  The teacher must be like an artist , a musician or a clown that has a role to perform on the stage.  The stage at school is the classroom.  The team of artists that share the teacher are the learners themselves.  This brings life into the content, text, the vocabulary and the structure to be means of communication.  Besides, story theater addresses and envolves the learners physically, mentally and environmentally.

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