Yesterday, September 26, 2011, I took part in a forum organized by Education major students at the Colegio de San Lorenzo, and I was tasked to talk about Storytelling. This is my second time to conduct a storytelling forum with teachers and soon-to-be teachers as my audience.
I discussed concepts about "imprinting print" (Norfolk, B. and Norfolk, S., 2011, personal correspondence); that is, when the storyteller, or the story reader decodes words.
Learning to imprint print entails exposure to a "print-rich environment"(Ocampo, 2009, personal correspondence). A print-rich environment includes symbols, materials, or situations which a person encounters that are necessary for imprinting print.
In the classroom, we offer a print-rich environment when we display labels of objects, set-up a mini-library,and, post calendars, posters or symbols which the student can interact with.
At home, a print-rich environment consists various activities such as, asking the learner to read grocery lists or recipes, reading a bed time story, displaying a mini-library...I could go on and on...
During the seminar, we had small group discussions. I also demonstrated a storytelling session, using read-alouds and oral tradition techniques.
I was inspired by what G1 (http://yourtale.wordpress.com/g1-the-storyteller/) mentioned in her blog about Randel McGee's version of the Princess and the Pea. G1 said that while Randel McGee tells the story of the Princess and the Pea (Hans Christian Andersen), he cuts a piece of black paper, and when the story ended, Randel forms a figure of what seemed to be like the princess on her bed with mattresses and quilts. I tried the same activity, with rain sound effects courtesy of Shiela Wee (the godmother of storytelling in Singapore) but of course no one would beat the original work of the master himself, Randel McGee.
Thanking Teacher Cecile Cardasto for giving me the opportunity to present and to share my knowledge to co-teachers and future teachers.
