Books don’t tell the whole story…
Many primary teachers include storytelling in
their repertoire when teaching languages. They will often have
built up a collection of favourite story books to provide enjoyable
content and contribute to the development of pupils’ language and
language learning skills. A class with pupils from a variety of
linguistic communities can benefit from access to such books in
dual-language format that reflect this diversity.
However, storytelling isn’t confined to books.
Teachers will also want to identify software or online resources,
from a variety of sources, that can match (or enhance) what the
more traditional medium has to offer.
CBeebies
The BBC’s CBeebies
website is an easily accessible resource that would seem to meet
this need. The ‘Stories and Rhymes’ pages offer a wealth of stories
arranged by character and theme. One such theme is ‘Around the
World’. This groups together ‘stories in other languages and from
other cultures’. A parent or teacher can read the story, clicking
their way through screens that mirror the pages of an illustrated
story book. The texts are presented in both English and
the new language. There is also a ‘Read, watch or print’
facility that can vary the way the material is exploited.
At the moment, only one story is on offer for
each language, but there are also stories with cultural relevance
to speakers of other languages, so it is possible that the current
provision will be expanded.
The range of languages is as
follows:
Arabic; Bengali; Cantonese; Danish; Gaelic; Hindi; Portuguese;
Russian; Somali(an); Swedish; Turkish; Urdu; Welsh; and Yoruba.
There is also a story in Jamaican patois. The stories can be
accessed on the CBeebies
website
Local authorities online
Another source of free online material is the range
of sites, (portals, grids for learning, etc) that have been
developed by local authorities. Have a look at the resources pages for a complete list of LA
websites or for material dedicated to stories and storytelling
try:
A number of others (e.g. Enfield
Council MFL portal) contain materials that support individual
units in the QCA Schemes of Work, which may well address
the storytelling elements contained in those units, so clearly this
is a dynamic strand of activity.
CILT Library online
catalogue
If you want to see what there is in the way of
resources in the other media that would lend themselves to a
story-based approach, a subject search of the CILT Library online catalogue will identify 83
items (I know, because I’ve just done it!). This encompasses the
sort of story books (dual-language or not) referred to above, some
identified by published schemes of work; core resources
(courses/schemes of work/resource files) that integrate
storytelling as a significant feature of their methodology; and
dedicated storytelling materials from publishers such as b small,
Badger Publishing, Brilliant Publications, Early Start, La Jolie
Ronde, Mantra Lingua and Merryman (to name but a few…).
Use
the browse search facility