The Language Teacher
02 - 2002

Magical Journeys: Folktales in the Classroom

Robert Croker

Nanzan University

<croker@ic.nanzan-u.ac.jp>

QUICK GUIDE

Key Words: Folktales, narratives
Learner English Level: Pre-intermediate to advanced
Learner Maturity Level: College to adult
Preparation Time: Significant
Activity Time: 90 minutes for each class

When you enter the enchanting world of a folktale, you embark on a journey to the time and land in which they were first told. Folktales are a narrative form which represent a valuable resource for the EFL classroom. The student as storyteller can imaginatively reconstruct each folktale and enjoy a creative foreign language learning experience. The student as listener can accompany the storyteller on their magical voyage.

Folktales are an excellent topic for oral communication classes. They are interesting and relatively simple. Telling folktales fosters verbal creativity, and develops narrative skills such as scene and character description, plot development, and the use of temporal markers, reported speech, and body language. Students can also discuss the cultural basis of folktales and explore their own values.

Procedure

Folktales from any culture can be used. Students can also create their own folktales. In the course described below, a university-level EFL content-based class tours a different culture week by week. In each class, students hear one folktale from the teacher, read one themselves for homework and tell it in class to two different partners, and hear one or two more folktales in class from other students. These activities could be part of a wider range of classes, with simple adaptation.

Embarking on the voyage: Keywords, self-talk and share-talk

To prepare to tell the folktales in class, students read one folktale before class for homework. They circle the keywords in the story, then write them in a box under the story. These keywords include both "useful language phrases" (once upon a time, at the same time), and also "topic phrases" (old woman, peach floating down the river, little boy jumped out). During storytelling in class, students look only at these keywords and construct sentences based upon them. To help students develop proficiency before class, they are asked to "self-talk" -- practice telling themselves their own folktale, on the train, in the bath, or as they walk to school; and to "share-talk" -- sharing their folktale with their friends and family, even in Japanese at first.

The journey begins: The teacher as storyteller

At the beginning of each class I put students into pairs, and allocate one student to be "Spring" and one to be "Autumn." Each class, I start by telling a representative folktale from that week's culture. Students usually enjoy teacher storytelling, and it also provides important narrative and linguistic examples. Selecting an appropriate folktale and practicing before class are important. Ideal folktales are reasonably short, relatively easy vocabulary, and an easy storyline with interesting characters, events, and plot. Comical tales and tragic love stories seem to work best.

In the same vein as split stories (Deacon, 2000), I tell half the story, stop, and ask Spring to retell the first part of the story to Autumn. This gives the pair the opportunity to internalise the language and check comprehension with each other. I then complete the story, and this time Autumn retells the second part of the story to Spring. I sometimes ask the pair to create an alternative ending, or stop before the end and let the pair create their own ending, which they can later share with others. As students listen, they are encouraged to write keywords to help them retell the story. They are also shown how to shadow: the listener picks up the key topic words, and softly says them to themselves (Murphey, 1998). This helps the listener understand the story, and lets the storyteller know when they do not.

The magical journey: Student pair-share and pair-talk

In the main part of the class, students tell the folktales that they have read for homework through pair-share, then listen to other students tell theirs through pair-talk.

Many students initially find telling a folktale by themselves daunting. Pair-share, two students telling the same folktale to each other together, overcomes this and allows students to check comprehension. Pairs are arranged that have read the same folktale for homework. Spring begins telling the folktale to Autumn. Using a timer, after one minute I say "Change," and Autumn continues. The students continue to alternate each minute until they have finished telling the folktale. There is always a shout of surprise when the students hear the bell, but the next partner quickly and excitedly continues the story. Students seem to enjoy exchanging roles frequently, and listening to how their partner tells the same folktale.

After pair-sharing, students change partners and sit with a partner who has a different story. They then take turns telling each other their folktale -- pair-talking. I rename students "Summer" and "Winter" at this point. Summer tells Winter their story, then asks Winter the homework comprehension and discussion questions. They then swap, and Winter tells Summer their story. In this way, each student becomes not only the storyteller, but also guides the listener to understand and explore each folktale. The listener is encouraged to shadow, which keeps them focused on the storyteller.

After both students have retold their folktale once, they change partners once more, and tell their own folktale to another student who has a different folktale. This gives each student the chance to tell their folktale at least three times in class, and serves to build competence.

Journey to a new land: Creating my own folktale

For the final class, students are asked to create their own original folktale with two endings -- one happy, the other sad. This time, students also draw a picture and write a short three-line poem (haiku) in English to illustrate their folktale. During this class, students are given the opportunity to tell their folktale to three different partners, then present their folktale to a small group. Students enjoy showing their pictures as they tell their own folktales. The storytellers can invite the listeners to complete the story before telling their own two endings.

In the final 15 minutes of class, students make a tape-recording of their original folktale, which forms part of their assessment. Student folktales, recordings, and their illustrations are collected and put together, creating a colourful album of the many imaginative lands visited on this absorbing journey.

Note

I would like to acknowledge the generosity of a Nanzan Pache I-A subsidy which helped this project.

References

Deacon, B. (2000). Sp-stories-lit. The Language Teacher 24(7), 32-33.

Murphey, T. (1998). Language hungry: An introduction to language learning, fun and self-esteem. Tokyo: Macmillan Languagehouse Ltd.