The Language Teacher
02 - 2002
One Japanese SHS Teacher's Story of Storytelling
Suzuki Katsuhiko
Nagoya University Attached High School
QUICK GUIDE
Key Words: Personal storytelling
Learner English Level: Adaptable
Learner Maturity Level: Adaptable
Preparation Time: Variable
Activity Time: A few minutes to a whole class depending
on expansion exercises
Storytelling has been a great art all over the world since ancient times. In Japan, there were many professional street storytellers on the road about 30 or 40 years ago called kamishibai. In Tokyo, you can still find theaters for rakugo, comic storytelling, but the number of such theaters is rapidly decreasing. Although kamishibai is almost impossible to find in Japan nowadays, people have not lost their narrative minds, that ability to understand their world and their lives through stories.
Some Japanese teachers of English (JTEs) might not be familiar with storytelling in English and think of it as something only native speakers can do. Not true! JTEs may also think that students must have a high level of English to understand, and that the teacher must be near native to tell stories. Not true! I assure you I do not speak perfectly and I still make lots of mistakes when I tell stories. Yet, I am still convinced that any JTE can use storytelling to help motivate students to learn and enjoy English. It will also help you to improve your own English.
According to Murakami's research (1997), "[a nonnative teacher's] storytelling is more successful than conventional listening practice using [native speaker] tapes" (p. 47). The JTE telling a story in English is a near-peer role model (Murphey, 1998) for the students and thus students can more easily identify with the teacher and imagine speaking English themselves. My own observations are that students don't have much interest in listening to English from a tape, but when I tell my own personal stories, their eyes and ears come alive. They want to listen to a real voice and a real story told by a person who is fully present.
When do I tell stories?
I tell stories mainly at the beginning of the class or in the middle of the class as warm-ups or breaks. Sometimes I will tell one at the end if we have extra time. I keep stories short. I tell stories in my own voice with a lot of gestures. I use many types of stories, such as folktales, personal experiences, newspaper articles, jokes, and mistake stories. When storytelling in the class works well, my students relax and change their attention, they laugh and smile at my stories. I had never before imagined that I could speak English to my students and get them to laugh. It really shows they understand.
Techniques for increasing understanding
At first there were some students who couldn't understand my stories. I needed some techniques to make my stories easily understood. I would advise teachers to do the following: repeat short phrases and pause often, use pictures, retell stories in easy language, use redundant expressions, and allow students to retell the stories to each other using as much English as they can. Murphey (2000) has a nice group of mistake stories and helpful advice for storytellers. He suggests, for example, that you tell your story to many people outside of class to practice your storytelling before you actually do it in class. You can then do it in several of your classes and notice how it gets better and better.
Suggestions for storytelling
Storytelling is easier than some might imagine. Even if you are not confident about speaking English in front of many people as I used to be, this will be a good chance to expose your students to live English. You don't need any complicated process or tools. Begin with your short personal anecdotes or experiences from your everyday life. It starts with a single step.
Here's a short story to begin with: Write the days of the week on the board and make sure students know them. Also, draw a clock. Point to the appropriate items as you tell the story and act with your body and face. "One day, I woke up. [Be asleep and wake up.] I looked at the clock. [Look at the drawn clock and point to it.] I was late! [Increase your volume.] I panicked! [Pull out your hair.] Then I laughed. [Laugh.] Why? [Eyebrows up.] Because it was Sunday. [Point to Sunday.]"
References
Murakami, K. (1997). Effect of storytelling on listening comprehension of Japanese EFL high school students. Nanzan Studies in English Language Education, 4, 27-52.
Murphey, T. (1998). Motivating with near peer role models. In B. Visgatis (Ed.), On JALT97: Trends and transitions (pp. 205-209). Tokyo: JALT.
Murphey, T. (2000). The medium is the message: Japanese teachers of English using English in the classroom (3rd rev. ed.). Nagoya: South Mountain Press. (available from the editor)
My MA project was a 30-minute teacher-training video about storytelling, with classroom video clips of a variety of stories. It is available at cost. Just send a stamped self-addressed envelope and ´300 in stamps to pay for the video to Katsuhiko Suzuki, Nagoya University Attached High School, Furo-cho, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya 464-8601, Japan; <hiko@katch.ne.jp>.
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