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Tell it Again – The Storytelling Handbook for Primary English Language Teachers Foreword Foreword Storytelling. Its power must not be forgotten. The telling of stories has been a vital mechanism ever since humans developed language – perhaps the most vital in transferring knowledge of all sorts. The invention of writing, then printing, word processing and home computers means that we now have many other methods. But storytelling remains a powerful and appealing tool. And these days, stories are not just for parents with children or journalists with readers. Good teachers have always known the power of stories in the classroom. Stories often hold a strange and magical quality that can interest and engage learners in a way that few other materials and methods have. While the telling of stories in class is often associated with primary-age children, the attraction of the story remains throughout life. Tell It Again! was first published in 1991, before the age of the internet. We are re-launching it in a new edition over 20 years later as we believe that it is just as useful to teachers and learners as it was then. While many of our recent publications have concentrated on innovations such as the use of new technology, or methodological approaches such as content and language integrated learning, we firmly believe that we must not forget about traditional pedagogical approaches that have stood the test of time. Storytelling is such a tried and tested approach. The re-publication of this handbook also adds to the growing portfolio of British Council publications addressing the primary school sector. All these publications are freely available on British Council websites and can be used by educational institutions. The publications include Early Language Learning in Europe edited by Janet Enever, the Survey of Policy and Practice in Primary English Language Teaching Worldwide by Shelagh Rixon and Crazy Animals, the collection of activities submitted by teachers from all over the world, edited by Fiona Copland and Sue Garton. The growth in the number of children learning English in primary schools around the world is arguably the biggest revolution (Johnstone 2009) in English language teaching globally over the past two decades. Tell It Again! is a resource that can give real practical help to the many new teachers of English at primary level, as well as reminding experienced teachers at all levels of the real value of a story-based approach. This handbook gives a full treatment of a story-based approach, addressing both theoretical background and practical activities relating to actual stories. It highlights the fact that a story-based approach can take the learner well beyond the improvement of English structural knowledge, to reach into cross-curricular areas including values education. The British Council thanks the authors Gail Ellis and Jean Brewster for their permission for this new edition. John Knagg obe Head Research and Consultancy, English British Council 2 Foreword © British Council 2014
Tell it Again – The Storytelling Handbook for Primary English Language Teachers Preface Preface Since the second edition of this handbook in 2002, we have witnessed further expansion in the teaching of English around the world to ever younger ages. Primary English language teaching now involves around half a billion children and six million teachers working in a wide range of contexts. There is a great deal of variation in policy from one country to another (Rixon 2013) and practice differs enormously within countries, meaning that children receive language learning experiences of differing types and quality. Teachers are, therefore, finding themselves with classes of children with diverse learning needs, as well as children with varying levels of English. Storybooks provide teachers with an ideal resource for meeting these diverse needs. The visual attractiveness and authenticity of storybooks are extremely appealing to both teachers and children. All children are able to understand the overall meaning of a story with the support of the teacher’s storytelling techniques and the accompanying illustrations, which give clues to meaning. Each child can then respond according to their own linguistic level and cognitive ability. Storytelling is widely accepted as one of the most natural and effective ways of introducing children to continuous and coherent spoken discourse (Cameron 2001). From my own experience of working with children and teachers, I have seen how storybooks and the technique of storytelling create rich and naturally contextualised learning conditions that enable teaching and language learning to be developed spontaneously and creatively in a whole curriculum approach. Imagine my delight when trainee teachers from the Early Childhood Education strand of a BEd course in the Department of Education at Dubai Women’s College invited me to look at their work. Developing the competencies to use a story-based approach is a core component on their course, and trainees are asked to produce a storybook as one of their assignments. This means writing, illustrating and publishing a storybook that is appropriate for their cultural context. In addition, they produce story notes and props to accompany the story. The students’ pride in their work was visible not only in the finished products, but also their happy smiles. They told me they had not thought they would be able to write their own stories, let alone illustrate them, but the exercise revealed undiscovered creative talents. At the British Council in Paris, storybooks and storytelling have been an integral part of the holiday classes curriculum for many years. As a result, there is now a team of dedicated and passionate teachers developing 30-hour intensive cross-curricular and intercultural story-based courses which take place in a charming setting that resembles the school house in Ludwig Bemelman’s Madeline. Storybooks unleash the creativity and imagination of both children and teachers. Carol Read (2010) writes of her storytelling experience in a country that had recently emerged from a long and bitter war. She was asked to demonstrate storytelling techniques with a group of children at a conference, for teachers to observe. She used the story Something Else, and describes the children’s response to the story as one of the most powerful teaching moments she had ever experienced. The children were able to relate the story to their country’s recent experience of war. I experienced a similar powerful teaching moment when I was reading Susan Laughs (Ellis 2010) to a group of nine year olds. Susan Laughs is a short rhyming story that delivers a powerful message about disability. The use of ‘withheld image’ means that it is not until the last page that we discover that Susan uses a wheelchair. When the story was finished, there were several minutes of complete silence as the children reflected and related what they had just heard and seen to this last image. They then began asking questions about the story. Such experiences highlight the power of stories. They initiate conversations and allow children to explore questions and concerns about issues that are meaningful and real to them. While working for Penguin Jeunesse, a children’s publishing section of Penguin France, I was surrounded by one of the richest collections of children’s literature – Puffin Books. The creation of teacher’s notes to provide guidance and support on how to use carefully selected titles from this list marked the beginnings of Tell it Again!, first published in 1991 as The Storytelling Handbook. Over two decades later, this third edition of Tell it Again! shows how a story-based methodology brings together the best of primary English language teaching (ELT) and the rich and motivating resource of children’s literature. This fusion of ELT and trade publishing offers a highquality and innovative approach to teaching language by promoting language development in an enjoyable visual, literary and cultural context, as well as promoting diversity, values and intercultural understanding. Tell it Again! provides story notes provides story notes for 12 stories that provide support, or frameworks, for teachers to ensure that successful story-based learning is carefully planned, structured and effective. This support is often referred to as scaffolding. As a teacher’s competence grows, the scaffolding can be reduced until the teacher can function autonomously and adapt the approach to their own context and plan and implement a programme of work around a story of their own choosing. As Coralyn Preface © British Council 2014 3
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