Workshop on Storytelling for Children
On Wednesday, 10 May 2017, UDE 2014 (TESOL concentration) and 2015 attended a guest lecture workshop on storytelling for children.
On Wednesday, 10 May 2017, UDE 2014 (TESOL concentration) and 2015 attended a guest lecture workshop on storytelling for children. This workshop was a part of English for Young Learners (TESOL concentration) and Second Language Learning and Teaching (UDE 2015) courses this semester. Throughout the semester, both batches have learned about children’s language learning development and English teaching for children among many other topics, and this workshop was organised as a complementary lecture on practical ways of teaching English for children. The workshop was held for 6 hours and was attended by 17 students in total.
The speaker for the workshop was Ibu Winti Ananthia, S.Pd., M.Ed. from Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia (UPI), Bandung. The workshop was started with an ice-breaker activity led by TESOL students, who were appointed as the committee for this workshop. In the first session, Ibu Winti delivered an interesting lecture on the differences between storytelling and story reading, and demonstrated both activities in an engaging way for the students. Students were introduced to various practical ways of using stories to attract children’s interest and attention, as well as useful follow-up activities that could be conducted after storytelling or story reading.
In the second session, students were clustered into small groups, where they were assigned to design their own storytelling or story reading activity using the materials provided by Ibu Winti. Students showed an effective group work as they were excited and very creative in designing interesting activities and children songs to support their storytelling or story reading activity. As each group was preparing their demonstration, Ibu Winti supervised and consulted them with helpful advices. At the end, each group performed a storytelling or story reading in front of their peers and was appraised by Ibu Winti and me. It was very interesting to see the students came up with creative and fun ways of delivering their story.
Overall, this workshop went very well. The topic was suitable for the students—it was familiar, but at the same time also practical and challenging enough for them to explore and develop their teaching skills for children. In the future, other activities similar to this workshop might be valuable for UDE students as the skills can be applied not only in formal teaching, but also in informal ones, such as community services or campus events that involve children.