Sunday 15 November 2020

Daydreaming and improvising or spinning stories

 

I like daydreaming and improvising. The latter is an acquired habit which formed after many years of planning. I dare say it is the inevitable concomitant of meticulous preparation for every single class – the privilege of taking students by surprise or challenging them to do what they don’t believe they can accomplish. And as children also daydream and improvise profusely, especially when they haven’t got a clue about the “right” answer, it is not hard to sweep them away with your enthusiasm. 

When students have to talk about a specific subject, they often lack the ability or the patience to structure their speech. As a teacher, I feel I have to show them that structuring their ideas and thoughts can take on many different forms, and all of them can be valid.

Stories, like questions on a passage, can be open-ended or we can reach the solution or a resolution following different routes.

By way of illustration, I have created a slide show, which starts with the image of an unfinished tale and the question why this story was cut short, left untold. The fourth slide puts an end to the story by implicitly attributing the sound on the door to a figment of the mother’s imagination.

But the story could take a twist and instead of stopping short it could continue in the realms of fantasy. 

The slide show could be presented without the narrative so as to get the students to supply their own ideas about why the story was interrupted and what happened afterwards. Besides, I have written out a two-tiered narrative for intermediate and more advanced learners – and thence the three slide shows. (videos)








https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ip_xkccszFfYoMxYybC9kBXJ8kMZQb6E/view?usp=sharing


https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Wx33pNfmFcJv3BwOuWOA-dFlGaoah2RP/view?usp=sharing

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xRTIiqZRZNo-ZOsbX_C5ARv_VoUwnp1d/view?usp=sharing


 

 

 

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