How to improve storytelling:
During the previous weeks we have been dealing with storytelling activities for children in class.
First, we took some videos of Michael Rosen, who is an English children’s novelist, as a good example of storytelling. Then we analyze curiously the characteristics that made Rosen´s stories catchy for children and even for adults. We conclude that there are plenty of things that make his stories so attractive, such as the repetition of grammatical structures and vocabulary, the mystery included in his stories, the first-person narration and all the gestures, voice intonations, noises and funny things that make the auditor feel involved by the story and its characters.
After this analysis, we thought about new innovative ideas that could improve Rosen´s story according to CLIL. Finally we thought about some useful ideas, for instance, it would be motivating to activate the children´s prior-knowledge by asking them if they like chocolate cakes, or what would they do if they were the protagonist of the story. Moreover it would be eye-catching to introduce pictures, visuals, encouraging them to repeat the body language of Rosen and pre-teaching some of the difficult vocabulary words that appear in the story.
Although we proposed some great ideas, the teacher showed us more ideas to create extra tasks for each story. The one that I really liked was called “Kung Fu Punctuation Poster” it consisted in practicing some different Kung Fu techniques in the air while reading the story, but they have to do a specific melee attack depending on the punctuation mark that they´ve just read. For example, each time that they had to stop reading due to a dot, they have to punch the air while saying “ha”.
We also saw another model of story in which for every action and noun that appear in the story the students have to imitate the gestures that the teacher does, so that it could be more attractive for the students.
Finally, the teacher told us to create our own story using the previous one as a model, so that, every group could prepare a different story but using the same structure, we have to develop our own gestures for the different verbs, adjectives and nouns of the story and try to link it to other subjects apart from English in order to make the story educational.
So next week I will write about how the activity resulted in class.
Michael Rosen´s chocolate cake story
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BxQLITdOOc
Kung Fu Punctuation Poster:
http://displays.tpet.co.uk/?resource=1264#/ViewResource/id1264
Jaime García
Hello Jaime, I read your article and I have to say that that class was one of my favorite ones until now.
I never realized that storytellers were so fun but Michael Rosen got to catch my attention since the beginning and I think my classmates had a great time as well. It is admired how that man could turn a simple story into an awesome show for children. And the point is that when the story finished the only thing that filed my mind was just eating a piece of that smooth and spongy chocolate cake…
As you said Jaime, Michael Rosen was dealing with an amount of things that have the power of becoming whatever story in a fascinating one, what were the mystery since the beginning, the first- person narration, as you said, the gestures, the voice intonation, onomatopoeias… However, this man deals also with a very important thing that make their stories the best ones: He has creativity, charisma, is not a shy person and I’m sure that he love children… I mean, I’m not saying that you have to have all these things to be a great story teller, but I think that at least, you must love your audience in order to surprise them.
Moreover, if you want to improve your show, you can also create a spectacular environment if you previously prepare an introduction of the story, such as sweet questions as “do you like chocolate cake?”, “are you hungry?”, “what is the sweetest thing you would eat right now?”, you can switch off the lights and create a mystery darkness at the beginning as well or invite your audience to eat a piece of chocolate cake at the end.
In my opinion, I do agree with our teacher in that we don’t have to use the resources enough if we want to surprise our audience, if we want to leave them astonish we must surprise ourselves by getting the best of us.
Hello mate! I have really enjoyed your post because to me, it was a great class too.
With this video about Michael Rosen we learnt that is not necessary create big and difficult materials to take their attention, and motivate them. Another point that we could take into a count is that we can use this kind of activities with all subjects and things that we want to teach and it can be used with different year (because I have to say that I’m sure that all of us were really hypnotized looking at the video).
We can noticed that the message or content of the video was really easy (a boy that love the cake and eat it all the time), the most important thing of the video, the thing that make that you feel like you were this child (and in some cases makes that you lick your lips) is the enthusiasm, the little theatre that he makes to represent all the sequences, his face, his voice his hands…how he transmits
Sometimes the most important thing is how to say something, and not what you are saying.
Excellent post, Jaime. It is both well written and informative. I’m glad you liked that lesson. Storytelling is a great resource to use narrative structures to learn content and to enjoy! It improves pronunciation intonation, vocabulary acquisition, etc. you will surely use it in your next Practicum, won’t you?