Nurturing young minds through creative storytelling - IATEFL YLTSIG Mini-course

27 Jan

It was around lunch time a couple of months ago, not long after the first edition of ‘Storytelling in Education – Global Online Conference’ – and after all the excitement and the work behind the scenes for the conference, things were quiet. I was talking about storytelling with my partner, and saying how I wished I could do always more with it, and share my passion and ideas with always more people… my phone buzzed. I picked it up and looked at it – a new message from my storytelling friend Manuela! I wondered what she had written. I read it:

“I’ve been asked by IATEFL YLTSIG to lead a free course on storytelling for young learners. This is a fantastic opportunity to connect with fellow teachers and share our experiences with storytelling for young learners. It also provides us with a chance to collaborate and work together. What do you think?”

I started jumping with excitement. I ran around the house, I did a pirouette or two, then I answered:

“It’s a big fat YES from me!”

And so, this fantastic journey began.

After careful brainstorming, choosing activities, choosing stories and planning – we were ready, the moment had come and we were so excited about the course we had created together. But, as always, life throws curveballs and you need to be ready: on the morning of the first day of the course… oh no, I was sick! With a high fever, I spent all morning moving from the sofa to the bed and wondering how I would ever be able to lead the first part of the course being such a mess. But, ah!, the power of medicine and of Dr Theatre saved me and as soon as the first meeting ended, I wrote a message to Manuela:

“What a lovely group!”

And the excitement from the session and meeting such lovely people must have had a healing effect on me, because the following morning I was feeling well again and I was ready to continue with the rest of the course.

Manuela and I shared our favourite activities and techniques (together with some stories, of course – what kind of storytelling course would it be otherwise?):

1. On day 1 we focused on what to do “Before the Story” – how to gauge our students’ attention, how to introduce concepts and language, how to create expectations – we talked about what it means to be an oral storyteller and the importance of including this ancient art in our language classes.

2. On day 2 the focus was on what to do “During the Story” – how do we keep our students engaged during the telling? How do we keep them listening? Let’s involve them, let’s use our bodies, let’s use our voices and facial expressions, let’s play with them. Also, we looked at props we can use when telling stories, and Manuela introduced us to her funny friend, Monkey!

3. On day 3 we focused on what to do “After the Story” – ways to work on the story and on the language through the story, using our creativity, playing and having fun with the story and learning from it. We saw how we can work on the re-telling of the story, or just build up on it with a creative response task.

At the end of each session, we gave participants the chance to stay a bit longer if they wanted to ask questions and one of the most wonderful things was seeing how, even if we were way overtime, nobody wanted to say goodbye, but we all wanted to stay and talk about storytelling.

It was my first time leading a course, instead of just a one-off workshop or a session at a conference, and I have to say: I loved every single moment! Being able to really connect with the participants, go in depth, explore, share, discuss… wow, I am so looking forward to doing it again!

My warmest and most sincere thanks to my dear friend Manuela Kelly Calzini for being the most wonderful co-host for this mini course and for thinking of me, giving me the chance to spread my passion for storytelling in language teaching even further! Secondly, but not less importantly, a huge thank you to IATEFL YLTSIG for the opportunity and the great organization and network behind it – we had the best of times delivering this course and we’re still buzzing with excitement. And lastly, a huge thank you to the wonderful participants: Helen, Joyce, Miranda, Alyssa, Mariagrazia, Mechthild, Bhavna, Ireena and Eleni!

This course reminded me of something really important: the power of stories to bring us together. It didn’t matter if we were in and from different parts of the world – China, Brazil, Italy, Germany, Greece, India, UK, USA… - it didn’t matter if we were meeting for the first time and we were all sitting in the comfort of our homes and staring at a screen, it didn’t matter if we had different backgrounds and prior knowledge… we were all there because we were united by a common passion: stories – telling stories, sharing stories. And, starting out as complete strangers, through stories and storytelling, through sharing and experimenting together, we created wonderful bonds… and I’m looking forward to meeting you all again soon!