STORYTELLING TECHNIQUES

Subject: DRAMA AND LITTERATURE

Task: Commenting Andrew Right´s Conference

Mr Wright is an excellent person and has specialized himself in Storytelling. Here is what I have found most relevant.

Story bag. Story jacket. Story hat. Drawings. Andrew Righ is always looking for visual support.

He starts making funny jokes that follows the interest of children, Like when two cats are born from his jacket...

He looks at his watch and tell us that he hadn´t fed the crocodile yet (the croc lives in his jacket too) 

There where in a middle of a big story and a forest… there were 12 big wolfs and two cats... He tells us an abstract story: it´s made up by children.

He explains what children can do. They should use what they´ve got when they are learning English. They shouldn’t make up one story in their own language and then translate it. They have to use what they have got.

He talks about feelings, not methodology. This is what he considers important:

1.-Why stories are so important

2.-How stories affect us

3.- Stories as central path in the classroom.

4.- Using stories in language teaching

He tells another story from Duncan Williamson, Once upon a time, about a white kitten convinced that she´s black. She will become a witch’s cat. The story is beautiful, and the end of it is made up by children.

We need stories to do things we´ve never done before....

He also talks about his childhood in II World war.

Summary

Stories are not just for children. We all share the stories, and stories are changing by internet. It´s so motivational, and all the skills are related to the story. We can even tell a story in a no-verbally way. 

Story could and should be a central path in colleges. At least, he mentions Steven Krashen, a linguist, in which class children just read; no comprehensive questions, no tasks… his research had discover that this is the only thing that takes to develop lingual skills.

http://www.sdkrashen.com/

Little Red Riding Hood AUDIO

Subject: PHONETICS
Here's me, trying to improve English pronunciation.
Reading aloud one of Roald Dahl´s Revolting Rhymes...
A hardcore review of the classic version that converts this rhyme into a classical itself

5 BOOKS SELECTION FOR THE CLASSROOM

Subject: DRAMA AND LIITTERATURE

Task: SELECTION OF FIVE BOOKS FOR TEACHING ENGLISH IN CLASSROOM

Forever Young

Bob Dylan

Illustrated by Paul Rogers

 Dylan has recently wone the Nobel Prize and in my opinion... children deffinitely should know. They have to be exposed to all type of text, not only the ones that are supposed to be “childish”. 

Illustrated by Paul Rogers, with different and amazing drawings, it will approache kids to both music and poetry.

Here´s a link to a video to watch in class:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hc-a1kP7ITA

Little Blue and Little Yellow

Leo Leonni

Ed. 

 

I´m a huge fan of Leo Leonni, so I had to have included  in this selection one of his small pieces of art. Leonni´s books are primarly dealing with abstract and creative thoughts. This is whole what we are made of, and chidren even more.

A great book for developing this skills and symbolic play.

The story toughts us about frienship, how a peer can transform reality much better than just one. Here, blue and yellow get along with each other and make the green color, a friend, apart of themselves, but yet a third one.

A perfect example of less is more.

The Invisible Boy

Trudy Ludwig

Illustrated by Patrice Barton

Not even Miss Carlotti notices Brian, The Invisible Boy, in the classroom. This is a perfect book to work with children kindness and compassion, watching how Brian begins to turn visible to everyones eyes, specially to his own.

Ketchup on my Cornflakes?

Nick Sharratt

 

This books allows to play with it, turning the pages in order to create new and disgusting questions that children will find amusing, and will help them to improve food vocabulary and Reading skills

Little Red Riding Hood

 

I´ve work a lot in this blog with the Revolting Rhyme, so here´s the regular version.

ROALD DAHL´S RHYME: LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD AND THE WOOLF

Subject: DRAMA AND LITTERATURE 
Task: Choosing a rhyme 


LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD AND THE WOOLF




Cover


I´m thrilled by Roald Dahl´s Revolting Rhymes. Just a warning: You have to read it in English; it´s a perfect example of how can sooo much of a text be lost in translation. The language comes directly from fairy stories, the verse is full of music and rythm and the rhyme is both funny and smart.

Though they may be appropiate for kids from 5-6, I think Riding Hood is sort of special. The adaptation of this story is in my point of view so good and powerful that it could compares itself with the traditional "fairly" Red Hood.

I have told my kids both versions and I can tell that they loved it...
In this Rhyme, Red Hood is a modern version of herself. She becames the hunted and the hunter at same time. Therés nothing sweet in the adaptation: Grandmother is swallowed from tipto toe by the wolf, without clothes though (the wolf is no dummy)



The wolf, dressed up with his afternoon snack's clothes


The elements of fairy tale, so important, are still in the story. Red Hood is transmuted into the hunter; the symbolic items are transformed into objects like the pistol. Very interesting turning Red Hood into a kind of western heroine.

Quentin Blake´s illustrations turn the Rhymes into something even bigger; a book that becomes in my opinion a piece of art, that shows a second language through the drawings.



Red Riding Hood with brand new coat. Where did she get it from...?

REFERENCES

The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales, Bruno Bettelheim, 1980.