Before this week, I did not know about storytelling and much less how to use it in class. So I am going to start telling what is Storytelling.
Storytelling is narrate a story in a different way and always from a narrative point of view. It is a technique that you can use in class to tell a story that contain difficult vocabulary or contents that help to the listeners to conect with the story and contextualize it.
It is an effective technique in class because we can use it to tell stories in a foreing language and children will be entertaing.
Why are children entertaining ? Storytelling activate the children ´s imagination and they have the feeling of being inside the story so it is an exciting adventure for them. This is other reason that it is an effective technique, children don´t lose the attention.
How do you tell the story ? This technique consist on make gestures with your body, a lot of expressions with the face, use onomatopoeias, different tones of voices…. these thing make to the audience understand the story and know in every moment where are their.
This week in class, we have had the opportunity of see some great examples of storytelling. All of these examples are created my Michael Rosen.
The first storytelling was ” Chocolate Cake”. It is an amazing story where Michael Rosen use a lot of gestures and tones of voice that make the story fun. Here I leave the link of the video by Michael Rosen and the Chocolate Cake :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BxQLITdOOc
Also we have seen other example of Storytelling by Michael Rosen. In this case, we have seen this example in other way. Firstly we listened the story with images and then we saw a video of Michael Rosen making the gestures and making a lot of sounds about of the story. We saw the video once and then all classmates stand up and told the story, following in the footsteps of Michael Rosen. It was a great and fun experience.
I leave the link of the Storytelling : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytc0U2WAz4s.
Now we have as task create a storytelling using gestures, sounds and expressions… so I recommend you that see the videos by Michael Rosen and try to create your storytelling and use it with children. I assure you that will be a very fun experience.
Hello Nuria!
I really liked your entry because you provided a clear explanation about what Storytelling is, and the reasons that lead teachers to use this technique in their lessons. It makes complete sense for me to communicate with the pupils exactly at the level that they can understand and benefit the most from, which includes:
– using appealing topics that foster motivation
– presenting them in a not-too-formal way in the shape of stories
– reinforcing oral language with facial expressions and body gestures that could help children infer meaning from the context.
If we consider Primary Education students, we can realize that there are some aspects that could be difficult to understand for them, such as the abstract terms, and contextualising them with motivating stories could make a great difference.
On top of this, storytelling usually catches the audience’s attention up to a point where they can feel they’re part of the story itself. When you hear a good story, amazingly narrated as the examples we had the pleasure to watch in class, you suffer with the protagonist, you are happy when he/she is happy, and you become afraid of being caught by the bear, if you Go on a Bear Hunt. This can be done thanks to the excellent communicative skills that storytellers need to have, but also relies on the pupils’ imagination and creativity, that will help them to create in their minds the fiercest creatures, the scariest monsters and Mmmmm, the most delicious chocolate cakes in the whole world.
As you also remarked, it is important not to lose the children’s attention, and that is why stories that are told orally, will usually be short. And short needs to be my commentary, so I will end it in here. Thanks for your entry,
Loli