15th March 2010
DEVELOPINGTHEWEB.COM - MOODLE HOSTING
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Storytelling tends to crop up quite a bit in the Tips as it's a great way of giving your students authentic natural exposure without too much preparation.
When telling stories it's important not to read the text out loud. It won't sound natural so read it to yourself, take some notes if necessary & then tell the story from your notes. A much more natural way of telling a story. Depending on the level, you may have to grade your language & delivery but do try to make it sound natural.
Here are a couple of reasons & activities you can use in no particular order:
- to give extensive listening practice, students simply listen for pleasure, you gauging their comprehension through their reactions & questions.
- if you need more of a check on comprehension, students could have a series of pictures & when they hear something related to them they turn them over. You can see at a glance who is with you & who is not, & then take appropriate action, not leaving anyone behind.
- to convey some information that leads into another activity - an article that you have read but don't want to use in class, but the information is interesting to all, & will lead into something else.
- to preview a reading text - for lower levels to help them tackle a difficult reading text. Tell them the story first & then on to the reading. In the telling you could leave out something that they have to find when they read.
- chain stories - get your students to take it in turn to tell the next part of the story. This could be spontaneous for the more confident group or give them some preparation time.
- ask the students to retell your story but give each student a different ending to make it much more interesting. They then vote on the best ending.
- encourage the students to check their understanding - comprehension strategies - as you tell the story. See how they do for the first part of the story, stop & introduce ways they could use, & then start again, encouraging them to use the new ways of checking.
- use storytelling to introduce any way of introducing a speaking sub-skill. There's an activity in 'Conversation' by Nolasco & Arthur (OUP ) called 'As I was saying..' which gives three roles; the storyteller, the listener who uses the sub-skill, & the observer who notes down ways the sub-skill is being introduced.
In the task the sub-skill is 'interrupting', the listener's job being to interrupt as much as possible. when the story has been told, the observer feeds back to the other two & then the teacher can round up the ways of interrupting on the board, adding a few new ways in, & then on to some more practice with interrupting.
To get hold of the excellent 'Conversation' - R.Nolasco & L.Arthur (OUP)
Amazon.co.uk
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0194370968/developingteache
Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0194370968/developingteac0b
A lesson plan that uses a Manual for Storytelling as the text:
http://www.developingteachers.com/newsletterplans/
News_lplan_june2001.htm
An article by Andrew Wright about Storytelling:
http://www.developingteachers.com/articles_tchtraining/
stories_andrew.htm
A couple of related books by Andrew:
Storytelling with Children - Andrew Wright (OUP)
Amazon.co.uk
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0194371026/developingteache
Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0194371026/developingteac0b
Creating Stories with Children - Andrew Wright (OUP)
Amazon.co.uk
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0194372316/developingteache
Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0194372316/developingteac0b
An article by Michael Berman about Storytelling:
http://www.developingteachers.com/articles_tchtraining/
story1_michael.htm
Check out Michael Berman's new book out 'Shamanic Journeys Through Daghestan':
Amazon.co.uk
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/184694225X/developingteache
Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/184694225X/developingteac0b
As St Patrick's Day is near,
now is a good time to look at Ireland in some of our lessons.
There is a lot of information on the net - see the links
below to Ireland in general & also specifically to St
Patrick, Ireland's patron saint.
Below is an abbreviated story
of St. Patrick. If you want
more detail for the story check out the links below. Try out the ideas above with the story.
In Catholic countries your students might have their own Saint Day, the name of the saint being their name. Ask them to tell all about the history behind their own saints. Possibly tell the the lesson before so they can research & prepare.
- St Patrick
is the patron saint of Ireland.
- In Ireland, March 17th is a national holiday in honour
of his memory.
- He is sometimes known as the Apostle of Ireland and
is credited with bringing Christianity to the country.
- He was the son of a Roman officer who was stationed
in Britain & he was brought up in a wealthy household.
- When he was 16 Patrick was carried off in a pirate's
raid & taken to Ireland and sold as a slave to a
chieftain called Milcho
- Milcho did not like Patrick, so he sent him off to
Mount Slemish to look after pigs and be a swineherd.
Life was very hard for Patrick on the mountain.
- One night he escaped and walked for 200 miles until
he reached the sea.
- He found a ship sailing for Brittany & when he
arrived there he went to Auxerre, where his Mother had
some relatives.
- Patrick wanted to return to Ireland and convert the
tyrannical Pagans there to Christianity.
- He entered the priesthood in Auxerre and spent several
years studying.
- The Pope agreed to let Patrick go to Ireland and gave
him the special title of "Patercuis", from
the Latin pater civium, which means father of his country.
- Patrick set sail from Brittany in the summer of 432,
and landed near Wicklow on the east coast of Ireland.
- He first went to Milcho's fort & converted him.
- Patrick then converted the rest of Ireland to Christianity.
- Patrick is famous for ridding Ireland of snakes, driving
them into the sea. There are no snakes in Ireland and
nowadays this is believed more the result of the island
separating in the Ice Age. |
Any more ideas? Please post for all in
the Forums at:
http://forum.developingteachers.com/index.php?topic=1936.0
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The Weekly Teaching Tip is written by Alistair Dickinson at Developing Teachers.com.
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