Great lesson in Len Cabral's story!

                                                    Master Storyteller Len Cabral


This is a story I love and that I have had the pleasure of telling it many, many times. I usually leave it for the grand finale of presentations or workshops. With small groups a great way is to tell it with colourful buttons. Enjoy it!

I had the pleasure to meet Len personally and he is really full of energy. Would love to have him telling stories at school. To learn more about Len Cabral and his work, click here. 

Now you have a great story to tell! 

Big hug,

Juan

Opening and closing stories with grace

Lewis Carroll said that telling a story is giving a gift of love.

I believe that we should wrap up presents when we give them to your friends as this shows how much we value the relationship and the act of being together. When giving stories as presents, we can wrap them up gracefully in many ways. One in particular is with openings and endings, which are very unique sentences that mark that the stories are about to start and that they have just finished. These lines set the boundaries of fantasy and reality, allowing us to be and dream together when we are between them.

I have been always very curious about different ways to open and close stories. Here I present 50 ways to open and 50 ways to close stories in a way to present new options to the traditional "Once upon a time" and "They lived happily ever after".

As I usually say at school, choose a couple of openings and endings that have resonated with you and use these during the semester. Children will not only recognize them straight away, but will also be happy to complete the openings and closings when you start saying them. After some time, I just make a gesture and leave them the delight to announce the stories.

Here is a video that I prepared based on the list at http://www.folktale.net/openers.html

Enjoy them with your children and students!

That's all folks!

Big hug,

Juan

Fostering Self-Esteem through Storytelling

In the days of today in which children get hooked on television, internet and videogames I believe it is of utmost importance to rescue important behaviours that together make a big difference in children development . One is communication and sharing in the family and at school. Many parents and teachers feel guilty because they can not dedicate themselves to the young ones as much as they would like. A powerful way to have quality time and to reach children is through storytelling. While telling stories we are able to look, touch, think, understand, and laugh together. As a consequence we develop a closer relationship with our children. This close relationship will help children feel more loved and able and to develop healthy self-esteem.

Storytelling is an experience in itself. More than just being involved and interested in the content and how a story is going to finish, storytelling creates a relationship. When asked of which stories we were read and told when we were little, many of us remember one or another favourite and what certainly all of us really remember is the warmth and cozyness of being told a story and the feeling that we were important and that someone dedicated this special time to be there with us. It is not by chance that Lewis Carroll called storytelling a love gift.

This love gift can help us build our self-esteem. But before continuing I´d like to share a good definition of what self-esteem is. It is the feeling we have about ourselves. We have high self-esteem when we feel loved and able. It develops through the life experiences children go collecting in their lives. Children value themselves in the same way significant people in their lives have treated them. Storytelling has many linguistic and social benefits and it can work in different areas which foster high self-esteem. Below I analyze these five different areas and the benefits brought through storytelling.

Sense of security: Storytelling prompts conversation and questions about routine happenings and hypothetical situations. It opens a door that might be blocked when we only talk superficially to their children giving commands and asking routine questions. We also provide quality listening time when we avoid making judgements and telling children what to do. Stories give security to children when they show that others have had similar problems to the ones children are facing and that have managed to find a solution. It also allows parents to provide instructions directly and convey acceptable and expected values and behaviour. Children must feel that they are accepted in the way they are and that they are physically and emotionally protected.

A way to promote security is to respect the needs of expression of  children. Storytelling can refine speaking skills, improve listening skills and empower children to relate better to the world expressing themselves and their feelings. It is important to accept during storytelling how the child feels, even if different than what you would like. Many children feel insecure because they do not know what might happen if they do something wrong. Some children for instance might think parents will not like them and even abandon them if they break a glass. Show logical natural consequences that have happened in the story: the character broke something and then he fixed it or cleaned it. This fosters the sense of responsibility. The child must not constantly worry about what is going to happen. Build the sense of trust and how characters have gained it or lost it.

Sense of identity: Telling stories allows us to interact with children at a personal level and both can identify positive and negative qualities in the characters in the story and how they have contributed to the character’s destiny. In this movement we teach children to identify their own abilities and abilities in others they would like to develop. Describe the abilities and qualities of a character and the child has to guess who you are talking about. You can describe the child´s abilities and cheat saying that you have chosen the child. It´s important to teach that we are all different and unique.

Critical and creative thinking skills are enhanced and give resource to the child fostering independence. It does also nourish children’s intuitive side, which helps in decision taking. Have an exercise in which you ask the child what the character is thinking and if it´s right or wrong. Children have a strong sense of identity when they like themselves and know who they are. It is important that parents and teachers seriously listen to what children have to say. The child’s image is formed in the way other people have treated and valued the child.

Sense of belonging: Children feel they are part of a larger community, starting with the family and school. Playing and working together as a family unit and at school build the sense of closeness a child needs. When they are comfortable with others they are able to better relate and to become members of other social groups. Children who are unsure of how others feel about them feel rejected or lonely.

Stories teach children that we live in society and how to be group members. They present social skills such as inviting, apologizing, asking for help, thanking, sharing, taking turns, which are essential for the child to be accepted in groups. Show the difference of uninterested help and helping expecting something in return. In this way we incentivate children to engage in service to others and when children feel they are contributing, their sense of belonging is strengthened.

Important concepts and values are better internalized through stories, instead of parents and teachers presenting them in a very rational way. Children will give more value to the story of Johnny who lost all his teeth than to mom saying that the child will have to go to the dentist. The child transfers the story context straight to his or her reality.

Share your family stories, build a sense of pride, and help children understand where they come from. Encourage them to tell their own stories to you and younger ones and to discover their own family roots. A common way to share is to tell short happenings reporting good and bad moments of the day. Here storytelling couldn’t be more realistic! Start out your sharing traditions!

Sense of purpose: Try working with stories in which you do not show pictures and have your child listen to the story with eyes closed. Storytelling helps with imagination and visualization, which are essential in the process of goal setting. When we dream and visualize we are making a mental plan, thinking of steps and actions necessary to achieve a goal. Help children identify character’s goals in the story and establish ways in which they can achieve them. In this way we lead children to have goals and find ways to achieve them. Ask: “ Why is the hen planting the seeds ?”

Positive endings show children that it is rewarding to have an objective and work hard and that things will turn out to the good. There are many books that convey values in very different ways. A second great benefit is the interest in reading. Let our child choose books and suggest stories for your child to read on his or her own. Incentivate building a library.

Sense of personal competence: We develop the sense of competence through feedback of others on how we do things. Share with them the sense of accomplishment of a character who has achieved a goal. Play that you are one of the characters and congratulate your child for the outcome, let your child also congratulate you. Pay attention that you are giving specific feedback instead of a ‘well done’, which doesn´t help the child to know what he or she did right. Let children retell you the story and identify the process and how successes have happened. Plot what the character has achieved so far.

Stop in moments and incentivate the child to think of alternatives to solve the situation and to identify what needs to be done. Avoid the temptation to tell your child what you would do or believe is best. The child gets the feeling of personal competence by learning how to solve problems independently. With these skills they can accomplish anything that comes their way. As a consequence children know that they are able and confidently face situations in which they do not have the solution at first.

Storytelling is something that we must bring back to the lives of our children. It develops the essential feeling of partnership and we are able to address important areas of self-esteem such as the senses of security, identity, belonging, purpose and personal competence. Let’s remember that we can build self-esteem in ourselves and our children by the way we look, talk, and relate to them. It is also done by the expectations we set, and by the kinds of experience we allow them to have. Storytelling is definitely one of these experiences. We are all storytellers and we can start today. I guarantee that the result is very rewarding: children with high self-esteem are eager to learn, get along with others, enjoy new challenges, and live in peace.


Wish you memorable moments in your storytelling!

A big frog-hug,

Juan


Check also Storytelling tricks: interviewing and personalizing


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Affective teaching movie scene: Mr. Holland's Opus

A great way to clarify concepts is through movie scenes, because we can fully feel and understand teaching situations through the teacher and student perspectives. I enjoy very much using teacher movies  to promote dialogue with educators at school.

Today I will analyze a part from Mr. Holland’s Opus in which the music teacher Glenn Holland meets with Gertrude Lang, a student who is struggling with the flute. 

The following affective teaching lessons can be learned from these inspiring scenes:

Glen made a diminishing comment when he said "Oh, really" after she told him she had been playing the flute for three years. By making this comment, he conveyed the idea that she didn't have talent for the flute, that she was below his expectations.

Glen volunteered himself to work individually with Gertrude. As a result, Gertrude smiled and was filled with hope and excitement. 

Glen established a dialogue by asking Gertrude if playing the flute was any fun when she was about to leave the room. By making the question he didn’t accept her quitting, valued her thoughts and in a subtle way invited her to think together with him about a solution.

He then admitted his mea culpa in the approach he used to teach her, telling her that his conception of education was wrong, that it wasn’t significant to her as a learner because it emphasized more notes on a page than the enjoyment of making music. This attitude was very important, once it relieved Gertrude of her feelings of despair and incompetence. He placed himself as co-responsible on her progress. 

Glen showed confidence in her playing when he took the song sheet and challenged her to play without it. He was calm when she could not at first, and just asked her to try it again without any judgement.

Glen connected the appreciation of her father to her playing, when he told her to play the sunset. That certainly promoted her well being and confidence in her playing and I consider it very appropriate, specially because she had previously mentioned that she wanted to be valued by her family.  

Last, he showed pride and admiration of their work together by the way he laughed, looked and asked her to continue playing. They were doing what he had missed at first, which was to feel alive playing music, having fun.   

The scene at the end of the movie is a very surprising one, as Gertrude appears as an adult and talks about Glen’s influence on her life. Do watch the movie and separate a box of tissues. 

As teachers we are always projecting reflections of how we see students, which strongly influence children in the development of their self-image. In this movie Glen made a fictional difference, we can make a real one.

Big frug (frog-hug),

Juan


Check also the selected affective teaching scenes from Seven Years in Tibet with Brad Pitt. The student? Nobody less than the Dalai Lama!


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Indigenous singing circle

Today I share a fascinating indigenous ritual that I once read and unfortunately I cannot remember where it happens. Do tell me if you know where the singing circle comes from.

In this tribe, people get together and make a big circle in the middle of their village when they have their significant moments. Nothing new, so far.

When a child is born they place this person in the middle of circle and create a unique welcome song for this person that reflects the joy of having a new group member. When it is this person’s birthday, the person goes to the middle and everybody sings it. This ritual is repeated when the person goes through passage rituals, including adulthood and marriage. The unique song is also sung when the person dies and after that to frequently remember this loved person.

But the part that struck me the most was that when this person did something very wrong, they didn’t expel the person from the tribe.  They would put the person in the middle of the circle and sing their individual song. So, discipline would be fostered through group acceptance.

I have no data on how effective it was, but if it lasted long enough to become a tradition, it must have worked somehow to a certain degree. This singing circle method puts us to think on how social institutions usually address troubled children, teens, and adults with anger and repression, making their way back to society much more difficult. This is certainly not an easy them to handle, but this indigenous singing circle is something to have in mind.

Hope you have enjoyed it as much as I did when I first learned about it.

A big hug,

Juan

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100 ways to show students you care

Three years ago we made an youtube video showing 100 ways to show children you care and it was very rewarding to see how the video was watched and shared all over the world. 

This time I have created a similar video thinking about what teachers can do. 

It is with great pleasure that I present: 

100 ways to show students you care. 

Enjoy it! Share it! 

Big hug, 

Juan

Remembering circle

I will share here today a very significant routine that I have learned with Fátima Freire Dowbor, our Pedagogic Supervisor at school.

Every class when children arrive at school we have circle time in which we talk about new happenings in our lives. By the end of the class we also have circle time and talk about the things we did, what we liked, and what we would do in the next classes. Until now, there’s nothing new.

The one thing we do, especially in the end of class, is remembering the students that were absent. We make them present in their absence by saying what we think they would have liked, imagining what they would have said and by sharing what we value about them. Only kind thoughts and remarks are allowed. By doing this we teach children to pay attention to the positive characteristics of other children, reflect about their postures, enjoy being with and praising others. As a result, the group gets stronger, child enjoy more the company of peers and we all celebrate when the group is complete.

One day during this remembering circle, Gabriel, who was six at that time, had an insight and realized that we usually talked about him when he didn’t come to class. He didn’t take more than a second to  ask the class what was usually said about him. After the class shared with him what was appreciated, another student also called Gabriel turned to all the class and surprisingly said: We do not need people to be absent to say that we like them. And then he turned to each one of the 5 peers and to me telling how he enjoyed being with us. Wow!

Needless to say, I went back to the teachers’ room feeling as if I was flying.

Remembering and valuing others is so important!

This remembering circle can be done with people of all ages.

Give it a try and tell me how it worked.

Big hug,

Juan

What is affective teaching?

How is it exactly that teachers involve students to learn by integrating emotion, cognition, and language?

The answer to this question has intrigued me for at least 20 years and still today I feel fascinated by the simplicity and complexity of affective language teaching. Simplicity in knowing and understanding and complexity in implementing and living. 

Even though I have studied the theme for almost two decades, I still consider myself a learner in this vast domain. Here below I outline some key features and teacher postures in affective language teaching:

Affective teaching requires respecting our students. This happens when we value and accept their background, beliefs, religions, sexual preferences, political views, and social status, even when different from ours. We respect our students when we attentively listen to them, sincerely ask for their opinions, and truly value their previous knowledge. Respect is present when we live up to our promises, when we  allow them to fully express with their bodies, and certainly when we fully believe that all students are able to learn, not giving up on any of them. 

Affective teaching requires listening to students. When teachers listen to students, teachers are able to discover previous learning histories, fears, expectations, dreams, and passions. This extremely interesting emotional world of learners is essential in the planning of future classes as emotional states certainly influence student's learning. Important is also to listen with our eyes, to what is not said, as silence may reveal feelings and thoughts that are not ready to be openly expressed. The teacher can choose to verbalize these silent messages and bring them to discussion by asking students to confirm his/her impressions. Circle time is important to everybody, not only to the little ones. This is not lost time, but time invested in the group. It is amazing how students get excited when they notice we really listened and prepared something for the class that is especially significant for them.

Affective teaching requires communicating affectively with students. This means always using English as a real means of communication, in which authentic interpersonal exchanges happen. These take place when teachers mean what they say and say what they mean. One example is to only ask questions that we do not know the answers. Asking students “Is this a frog?” when showing the card of a dog makes absolutely no sense, because students and teacher know that a dog is in the picture. When language is used in this alienating way, children lose motivation to learn (and teachers to teach) because language is dissociated from their lives. Teachers should ask themselves how children would feel if they  listened to that very same sentence in the native language. If perceived as silly or nonsense, language was certainly not being used as a means of communication.

Affect is not only present in our words, but also in how we express ourselves. Our tone of voice, volume, speed and intonation may carry messages of acceptance, patience, partnership and faith. Affect is also present in modified discourse that allows all students to understand and interact. Not to be forgotten is our body language, especially our smiling, looking and moving in the classroom.

Affective teaching requires fostering curiosity.  Curiosity makes learning much more interesting and fun for all involved. Curiosity can be enhanced by surprising children with novelty, contradictions and thought-provoking questions. Curiosity happens when we risk ourselves out of our comfort zone and venture in knowing more about different animals, places, food, music, and people. Teachers can foster children’s curiosity through music, poetry, literature, theater, and all other relevant artistic expression means. But let’s remember to be curious, not fussy, about ourselves. Curious about how our families, our pets, our hobbies, and our learning. Listening to others and talking about ourselves in English is a very affective experience, in which language is just a means. 

Affective teaching involves sharing power in the classroom. Power sharing happens when teachers make decisions with the students about the content and path of future learning. Students feel empowered when they can teach peers, evaluate themselves, and choose how to complete tasks. But most of all, power sharing happens through listening, and this can be worked by being aware.

Affective teaching requires being self-aware. Being aware of our physical presence, our movements, our listening, our talking, our respect, and our commitment to students and to our beliefs. Self-awareness can be developed by reflecting about the dynamic classroom system through reflective journaling, mutual supervision, and self-recording, among others. Meditation, yoga, and mindfulness are also self-knowledge paths that may nurture our well-being and availability with students. Feeling our prejudices, incompetence and impatience is accepting that we are also learners in development to become better teachers and people.

What affective teaching is not

A common misconception to affective teaching is that the teacher is more of a friend to the student than an actual teacher. In this misconception, children would learn as long as they “like” the teacher, who as a result might be inclined to only teach what the child wants to know or to only do what the child wants to do, resulting in a mixture improvisation and permissiveness. Last but not least, affective teaching doesn’t have to do with kissing, hugging or excessively praising children.

Conclusion

I end up this post by trying to define the challenging concept of affective teaching in one sentence. 

Affective teaching is the democratic empowering act of students and teachers learning together in a caring, conscious, curious, and committed way.

I would love to hear your comments!

A big hug,

Juan

Check also the affective teaching scenes of Mr. Holland with Gertrude.

Check also the selected affective teaching scenes from Seven Years in Tibet with Brad Pitt. The student? Nobody less than the Dalai Lama!