Describe how would you prepare yourself for story telling in English teaching
Answers
Storytelling is an important part of language learning. In order to make it an effective session, there are a few things that need to be considered before the storytelling session.
1. Objectives- You need to be very clear about what you want to achieve through the storytelling session. Is your focus on a particular aspect of grammar (nouns or verbs or tenses, etc.), on the features of a good story or something else?
2. Appropriate plot- Select a story with a plot that suits your purpose. If you simply want to make it a practice session for punctuation, do not choose a story with an unnecessarily complex plot. Also consider the age of the learners.
3. Vocabulary- The vocabulary in the story should be age appropriate. A few difficult words can be included, but they need to be placed in such a manner that even if the learners do not know the meaning of those words, they can draw inferences from the rest of the sentence. One difficult word should not ruin the joy of listening to a story.
4. Activities- Plan activities for all three stages of the session- pre, post and during storytelling. It is important to keep the students involved in the story, especially since storytelling is usually not an interactive activity in higher classes. If there are no activities, the chances of students losing interest become high.
5. Sensory details- The story should have a lot of sensory details, meaning that it should be such that the learners can imagine the scenes in their minds. Words that give information about how something looks, feels, smells, etc., that can help in imagining a scene should be added.
These are a few points to work on to prepare oneself for story telling during a language teaching class.