Reasons for using this storybook

WE’RE GOING ON A BEAR HUNT

We`re going on a bear hunt is the book I chose for storytelling activity.

This book is written by Michael Rosen and illustrated by Helen Oxenbury.

The story is about a family who goes on a hunt for a bear. The family has to overcome different obstacles during their way. Finally, they find a bear and they were scared so they come back quickly to their house.

Firstly, I chose this book because it is a funny story you can tell in different ways such as telling the story with or without book, representing it, with puppets, with a song… A good way to involve children in this activity is that they can participate and interact while the story is being told. E.g. they can use puppets, repeating some sounds with teacher or representing the prepositions which appear in the story through different actions, depending on the way chosen to tell the story.

Besides, in this story different places are describing so a lot of adjectives are used. These adjectives allow children to imagine the places where the story happens and they can learn new vocabulary. There are also repetitive structures which are useful for children.

From here on, we can think in some criteria for choosing a book which are essential to take into account as a teacher to select good storybooks for children.

I am going to describe some aspects to consider when we select a book, according to the book I am writing about, “we’re going on a bear hunt”.

-          Level

Level of this book is accessible for children. The short sentences given are close for level of children. Also, new vocabulary supposes an appropriate level of challenge for them.

-          Literary devices

In this story there is a lot of repetition that help children to understand and memorize some parts of the story. The structure of the book allows children to participate in the storytelling. The sentences repeated and the sounds represented on the book are those which allow children interact in the story.

In this way, alliteration is used a lot in the book. The repetition of the beginning consonant sounds is on some pages. For instance: swishy, swashy (through the grass) , splish, splosh (through the river).

Besides, these factors encourage anticipation about what is going to happen next.

Other important aspects in this book are rhythm and intonation that can be improve in their language learning and which make the story realistic and help children to understand the situation which characters live.

-          Content/subject matter

This is an interesting and amusing story. Characters live an adventure which involves the reader, specially when the family of the tale finds an obstacle and they have to pass through it. In those moments, some sounds are representing and repeating three times each one. Children can imitate their teacher representing that sounds with their voice and gestures to take part of the story.

-          Illustrations/layout

Illustrations of the book appear in two ways, black and white and coloured. In this way, different pages have the same structure:

o   The black and white pages include: “We’re going on a bear hunt.  We’re going to catch a big one.  What a beautiful day!  We’re not scared.  Oh-oh!  (Family find an obstacle)  We can’t go over it.  We can’t go under it.  Oh, no!  We’ve got to go through it!” 

o   The coloured pages show the sounds which are produced when family go through an obstacle. 

Illustrations are so beautiful. They represent what characters are feeling in different moments; these images help children to understand the situation which characters live during their adventure. For instance, we can see in pictures the facial expressions or gestures of family which show different emotions like exciting, happy, worried, frightened…

-          Educational potential

The story helps children to become aware of and develop their learning strategies. Children can listening for general meaning, they can do hypothesis about what obstacle family is going to find in their way or they can predict what is going to happen to the characters and, in this way, they can predict what structures are going to be used on the book.

When pupils are listening or reading the story, they pay attention to form and meaning of the sentences given in order to understand the plot of the story and the way in which is written. Furthermore, this book allows children to be active and interact while the story is being reading by teacher.

Besides, this story develops other subjects in the curriculum (cross – curricular links) some of these ones, are develop or not depending on the way to tell the story and to work with it after telling it.

o   Art and design: making puppets.

o   Computing: watching a video of the story.

o   Geography and the environment: knowing different places of the world.

o   Music and drama: singing a song, mime.

-          Motivation

As I told before, this story is motivating for children. It has also some components which are related to pupils’ personal experience, generally, children have a family who do different activities with.

Storytelling helps to develop a positive attitude towards the target language. Children take part of the story and they interact in L2 receiving feedback in that language.  It provides also positive learning experiences in which children feel comfortable in a game environment who allows children to become more confident in their use of a second language.

-          Values

Children can learn some values with this story such as family, bravery or empathy which are important in real life. In addition, it provides children with opportunities to work together doing different activities about the story in groups or in pairs.

This book helps pupils to understand the sense of family and some feelings that we can have in different moments of our life like fear, courage, happiness, motivation…

-          Global issues

This book does not take into account global issues; it is not its main objective.

-          Language

The text of this book offers an authentic language with useful words and putting emphasis on sentences which express different feelings.

The story offers pupils a rich experience of language specially that vocabulary referred to adjectives and some grammatical structures in future, present and past tenses.

-          The teacher

From my point of view as a teacher, I think this is a good story to tell. I have mentioned a lot of reasons about why this book is good to be told specially to children.

I like this story, it is amusing, at the same time that it teaches many things and allows children to participate in the story and in several activities about it.

Personally, I feel that I can tell it well. I had the opportunity to tell it in a class and it was a good experience.