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!).
