Invented Reader

This story is written and ilustrated by Joana Montes and Laura Arribas.

Distorted story

* This distorted story about princess is based on the tale written by Irune Labajo "Ser princesa no es un cuento".

READER. Room on the Broom

YES and NO Finger Puppets

Puppets are a good tool to teach children and to encourage them to imagine and acting using a second language. One of the advantages to use puppets is that children can elaborate their own character in the way they want so this is also motivating for them.

Puppets can be use to tell stories or to teach some contents.

One of the activities we can do as a teacher is “yes and no puppets”.

In this activity, we can practise some questions of a specific structure and affirmatives and negatives answers for the structure given.

At the beginning, the teacher uses two different puppets to present the question to work with and their possible answers (affirmative and negative). After that, children will have their own puppet to practise those structures with it.

These are some examples of structures we can teach with puppets:

-          Do you like…?

-          Yes, I do/ No, I don’t

-          Have you got…?

-          Yes, I have / No, I haven’t

-          Would you like to be a ….?

-          Yes, I would / No, I wouldn’t

Storytelling and drama activities

Storytelling and drama activities are very useful for second language learning.

I am going to highlight some activities that I like from “500 Activities for the Primary Classroom”

4.3. Picture book covers

The aims of this activity are: “to use the front and back covers of a picture book to engage children’s interest and attention in a story; to develop visual literacy; to predict a story from the cover.” (Read, 2007)

This is a simple and useful activity we should use each time that we read a book for children in order to motivate them to listen to the story.

In this way, children can develop their imagination and they can also predict what they think the story is going to be about just seeing the title and picture of the cover. We can encourage them to participate asking them some questions like what can you see? Who is the main character? Is it nice?

4.5 Finger stories

The aims of this activity are: “to listen and follow a story doing the actions with your fingers; to develop concentration skills; to develop physical coordination.” (Read, 2007)

I like this activity, specially the example given on the book, “Mr Wiggle and Mr Waggle”

This is a very funny activity which involves children in the storytelling.

Pupils are normally interested in the story and concentrated in following the different movements and sounds of the story.

I show you a video of this activity. You can see children reactions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6kToxNvdP8

4.11 Story circle

The aims of this activity are: “either to listen and retell a familiar story in turns and/or to express your views and opinions about a story; to collaborate and take turns; to respect and value other people’s opinions.” (Read, 2007)

Children will be sitting down in a circle. They take turns to retell a familiar story by passing a ball.

From my point of view this is a good activity for children because it encourages them to use the second language in an easy way. They can tell a story they know with their own words and they can also express their own opinion and feelings about the story.

In this way they improve their skills, speaking and listening, at the same time that they acquire others values such as respect, collaboration or communication.

4.27 Hot seating

The aims of this activity are: “to ask relevant questions to someone playing the role of a character in the story; to think in more depth about a character and story, e.g. by considering moral issues.” (Read, 2007)

For this activity, a child is sitting on a chair. His teacher and partners can ask him some questions about a character from a known story. The child will have to do a role play of that character so he should answer like that character.

This activity supposes a challenge for children and it helps them to encourage their imagination and creativity at the same time that they have to be intelligent to know what the character would answer in different cases.

Bibliography

READ, C. (2007). 500 Activities for the Primary Classroom. Australia: Macmillan.

ROALD DAHL

Roald Dahl is an author who likes write poems and stories. Some of these poems are collected in Revolting Rhymes such as “Cinderella” or “Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf”. Some interesting books from this author are “The Witches”, “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” or “Matilda”.

Firstly, I would like to highlight some words from Roald Dahl:

“A story idea is liable to come flitting into the mind at any moment of the day, and if I don’t make a note of it at once, right then and there, it will be gone forever. So I must find a pencil, a pen, a crayon, a lipstick, anything that will write, and scribble a few words that will later on remind me of the idea. Then, as soon as I get the chance, I go straight to my hut and write the idea down in an old red – coloured school exercise book.”

Related to this, he considers that any good story must start with a strong plot and for that reason he collects some ideas. His main preoccupation when he creates a story is a terror of boring the reader. Thus, as Roald Dahl says, he try to invent stories that cause the reader to laugh, squirm, become enthralled and become tense and excited and say: “read on!, don’t stop!”

By knowing this mentality from the author, we can understand the good results and success of his stories. I like the way in which they are written and the possibilities that they offer us to do different activities.

Revolting rhymes show a different point of view to tell a story at the same time that they attract children attention because of the way in which they are written.

On the other hand, Roald Dahl books are very funny and interesting for children. They include all the factors that I mentioned before, but the ones which are more important for me are the ones that make the reader laugh and the ones which do the reader continues his reading.

Definitely, I consider that Roald Dahl stories are a good resource for children entertainment and for working with them as a teacher in an English class.

I let you the official Roald Dahl website in which you can find a lot of interesting things such as different resources or the author’s opinion.

http://www.roalddahl.com/

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.