REFLECTION

For LGA 3033 Stories for Young Learners coursework, we need to perform

storytelling individually. First, we need to select any story that is suitable for 5

minutes of storytelling session for Year 4, 5 or 6 pupils. We also need to prepare the

props or aids for the storytelling.

According to Vera Nazarian, storytelling is an activity that goes back to

something very old and precious in human culture. Our children especially love

stories told with or without book.

For my storytelling, I have chosen The Pea Blossom by Hans Christian

Andersen. I think this story is suitable and good for pupils in Level 2 as it is in sync

with their level and it is easy to be understood. Besides, this story also have a moral

value which tells children that every cloud has a silver lining.

Thus, they will learn to not give up easily when they are in a negative

circumstance as something good usually happens in the end. The storytelling didn't

go according to my expectation because there were more weaknesses than

strengths . The only strength of my storytelling was that I used interesting props

during my storytelling session which I invested a lot of time in making them. These

props attract listener’s attention and thus help them to understand more about the

story. However, there are a lot of criterias which I need to improve on according to

my lecturer's evaluation in order to make my storytelling better as a good storyteller

can make full use of his or her voice according to the character. It can create a real

atmosphere of the story. For the weaknesses, there were a few that I admitted in

committing. One of them is my voice pronunciation. My voice was too soft that it

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seems that I was talking to myself instead of interacting with the audience which

made it difficult for my audience to understand what I was telling thus affecting their

attention to my storytelling. The other elements which received discouraging

evaluation were my diction and intonation. I learned that starting with clear and loud

voice projection, my diction would be better heard and my intonation wouldn't be flat.

Other than that is I should practice more with my gestures, body movement

and facial expression. I find that these were awkward to do once I noticed that I was

losing my audiences' attention. But this is a also very important criteria in storytelling.

Gere, J (2012) states that “bad storytelling is often static and word based. Children

respond to physical movement and enliven the tales.”

In conclusion, there are many ways of telling a story to young learners. Every

storyteller must be ready to improvise in a creative way to accommodate all the

different variables of a storytelling event. This storytelling task is quite important for

trainee teacher to gain new knowledge and experience on making the teaching and

learning process more interesting and attractive. I hope that this storytelling task will

help me to understand more on teaching processin order to be a good teacher in the

future.

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