In this post I want to focus
on the storytelling as a tool for a CLIL lesson and how can we use the story to
make easier the access not just to language and content but to culture and
cognition.
Content
The stories are very often
linked to a daily life experiences but they also cope with topics related to
curricular content (family, animals, culture, history, etc.) and it may assist
to present, practice, consolidate or extend children´s knowledge.
Communication
Stories also increase
children´s interaction and communication not just with the teacher but also
with the classmates. We can use a story to bridges and understand a second
language but also as a fantastic source of content which, little by little,
will prepare students for the interaction and communication about a huge
variety of topics.
Culture
To use stories in the
classroom can prepare the students for awareness, openness, tolerance and
acceptance towards other ways of understanding life as stories are open windows
to the world. Therefore, with the stories the students can learn their own
culture and other cultures.
Cognition
Stories demand guessing,
predicting or searching for meaning and connecting it to previous knowledge in
a topic. From this point of view, stories come to be scaffolding tools for the
learning process in the sense of:
1. Stories are a partly
familiar framework that can support the children by listening to or reading
about a topic.
2. With the stories, students
construct their own knowledge step by step.
·
Retelling or remembering the storyline, both individually and in group,
can increase learner´s cognitive and social skills.
·
Identifying characters, comparing behaviours, contrasting actions or
defining terms or concepts, develop concrete thinking skills.
·
Reasoning, finding alternative and
creative endings or solutions, evaluating happenings or attitudes may also
improve creative and abstract thinking.
How to use a
story in class
A story should be clear and have plenty of repetitions, providing
opportunities for participation and helpful illustrations and should have an
appropriate language level.
Before the lesson.
The teacher needs to choose if the story is going to be narrated or read.
Both are good options but the stories produce a different atmosphere that
connect to the old tradition of storytelling and allows the teacher to keep
eye-contact and adjust his input by animating her language.
The teacher should practice the storytelling before the lesson to find
the difficulties that may appear. For example, replacing the words “boa
constrictor” to “snake” can make the story easier to understand to young
learners.
During the lesson.
·
Pre-storytelling stage.
In this stage we have to prepare the students to
understand the story. It involves increasing their interest and motivation and
creating a meaningful context so the children can use their previous knowledge
and experiences to understand better the story (schema).
Lastly, we should introduce the new vocabulary in
order to help for the next stage.
·
While-storytelling stage.
The aim in this stage is to capture the children´s
interest, keeping their attention and helping them to understand the story.
There are some activities which make the students active participants in the
storytelling as guessing the continuation of the story, identifying characters,
possible justifications, etc.
We can also create activities which include movement
as giving cards with characters or objects in the story so the students have to
stand up whenever they hear their character assigned in the card
·
After-storytelling stage.
Finally, in this stage we should check student´s
understanding and to engage further with the topic introduced in the story
either through content-related activities or by relating them to the student´s
own life. The story may act as a trampoline for many curricular activities.
For more information about storytelling in a CLIL lesson check here
Good afternoon Edu,
ResponderEliminarI like your post so much because I think you have focused the topic in a way that some of us haven’t done when we have written a post related to this.
I didn’t know anything about storytelling before the lesson where we were working on it, but I think it is something we need to take into account if we want to become a good teacher with different resources.
I have seen that you haven’t written anything about Michel Rosen, but I suppose you remember who he is and some of his works. I’ve been looking for more videos because I loved the “chocolate cake” one. There are more videos and also interactive videos but with his voice.
It is very interesting the part where you explain the after-storytelling stage because in my opinion some teacher usually forget about that. You are worried about how to motivate children with something you want to do with them, and also you are worried because you should evolve children to participate and collaborate with the story. But it is very important the tasks you should do after you tell a story, what would you do? How children could react? The thing is that we have to connect the story with different post-activities.
I would probably try to focus the topic I want to explain after the story, and it could be easier to create the story and tell to the children. When you have finished these steps, you will have connected a topic with a story, but also with some activities to do after that.
I agree with everything you have written in the post, congratulations!
Laura Gil