Post-Storytelling Session Reflection

August 1st, 2012

Post-Storytelling Session Reflection

Information on the task

Courses: Children 1 and 2

School: Cultura Británica

Date: July 20th

Time: 10.00 – 10.30

Number of students: About 25

Ages: Between 8 and 10

The whole experience of storytelling was quite new. I had read stories to children before, but not really told any. In addition, I had not prepared a story, either.

Overall, I enjoyed the task, but not all throughout.

The planning stage was very fun. Adapting the story we had found and coming up with the details of how to tell it was not difficult, but at times I was not sure that our idea would pan out as planned. While wrapping the magic box, and preparing the chest and all the details, though, I was not very worried. I just relaxed and thought "We will do the best we can and hopefully it will be a success." Furthermore, I had fun working with my classmate, and the teacher's suggestions and comments we actually reassuring, so at this stage, the heebie-jeebies were not present.

The minutes before the actual task, though, made a whole different story. Contrary to what had happened before, my classmate was very much relaxed and I allowed myself to freak out a little. I started to think about what we would do if the children did not get engaged, whether what we had planned would work out, whether the kids would understand the story and respond to it, whether they would have fun or just give us bored faces! I remember, too, re-thinking what we had already decided: would the kids really understand that particular word? Should we have included a princess to make the story more appealing to girls? Was the story too short? Was the story too complex?        

Luckily, when the moment of truth arrived, I managed to keep my head on (generally speaking) and just played my role. The fact that I was working together with a classmate was a big help.

During the telling of the story, I must say I loved to see that quite a few kids were engaged, and participating! I actually had a lot of fun looking at their faces and reactions, and interacting with them. I was a bit worried about the girls, who did not seem so interested, but I managed to keep up the enthusiasm. The best part was when the kids all wanted to come up front and take a pick at the chest, and when they all helped to answer my classmate's questions ("Is there a dog there? Is there gold? Is there a cat?") and laughed at them. Finally, I must say I just love kids, and it is nice to be able to remember that I do with these type of activities.

A few final comments are in order. Firstly, it is really nice to find that "the magic of storytelling" still works with the new generations. I had not really considered storytelling as part of a children's class, probably because I did not think that kids today would enjoy that type of activity, but I realized that the task is actually very engaging. Secondly, storytelling really is as difficult as one hears it is. Preparing a story, pitching it at the right level, drawing on one's creativity and performance abilities, and managing to really exploit a story with children are not easy aspects to master. Hopefully, with a lot of practice, I will become a good storyteller someday (I hope I will, because I really enjoyed it!).