The Voices of Birds

Michael Berman, UK

Michael Berman works as a teacher and a writer. Publications include The Power of Metaphor for Crown House, The Nature of Shamanism and the Shamanic Story for Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Shamanic Journeys through the Caucasus for O-Books, and All God’s Creatures: Stories Old and New for Pendraig Publishing. ELT publications include A Multiple Intelligences Road to an ELT Classroom, In a Faraway Land (a resource book for teachers on storytelling), and On Business and for Pleasure (a self-study workbook). For more information please visit www.Thestoryteller.org.uk

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Notes for teachers
Comments
Worksheet

Notes for teachers

Level: Intermediate
Target Audience: Adults
Language / Skills Focus: Listening & Speaking, and 2nd conditional for hypothetical situations

Materials: Photocopies of the worksheet. Photocopies of the story (optional) to hand out at the end of the session. In class Pre-listening: Have you ever wondered why all the most beautiful birds are unable to sing? What do you think is the reason for this? Now listen to the story to find out if you were correct or not.

Post-listening: Hand out copies of the worksheet for the learners to work on in pairs or small groups.

Match the numbers on the left with the letters on the right to find explanations for the new vocabulary. ANSWERS: 1 b / 2 a / 3 h / 4 e / 5 d / 6 g / 7 f / 8 c

Without looking back at the text, place all the parts of the story in the correct order:
ANSWERS: 1 a / 2 e / 3 c / 4 h / 5 b / 6 k / 7 i / 8 g / 9 j / 10 f / 11 d

“How happy you would be if you were brilliantly coloured with red, blue, orange, and green!” How happy you would probably be if you could speak English perfectly! Now complete the following sentence starters, using the same grammatical structure (2nd Conditional): Invite the learners to work on this individually and then compare their answers – in pairs or small groups.

Comments

The story was taken from Ogumefu, M.I. (1929) Yoruba Legends, London: The Sheldon Press, and is in the public domain. It can be used as a lead-in to work on the topic of Animals or The Environment. All such etiological tales can be used in class as a means of encouraging the learners to produce similar tales of their own. So for a post-listening activity, you can arrange the students in groups to make up parallel stories, while you circulate to provide any assistance required. A spokesperson for each group can then tell their story to the rest of the class and they can be produced in written form for homework. Here are some possible titles:

Why Elephants Have Tusks / Why Camels Have Humps / Why Dalmations Have Spots / Why Loch Ness Has A Monster / Why Bees Have Stings /Why Snails Carry Their Homes On Their Backs

Worksheet

Match the numbers with the letters to find explanations for the new vocabulary:

Without looking back at the text, place all the parts of the story in the correct order:

1. A magician once passed through a grove in the forest where a great many brown birds fluttered from tree to tree and filled the air with songs.
2. And the birds agreed that it was a great pity to be so ugly.
3. At last he felt that he must by some means or other possess the voices of these singing birds, so he called them all together and said:
4. But the birds were satisfied with their bright feathers. And this is why the most beautiful birds are quite unable to sing.
5. For a long time he sat and listened, enraptured by their beautiful melodies, but in the end he became very jealous, for he himself could not sing.
6. From that day he had an exceedingly sweet voice, and people came from far and near to listen to his songs.
7. He then used his charms to turn the dull brown feathers of the birds into orange and green and red, and they were very pleased.
8. “It grieves me that the gods have given you all such poor, ugly brown feathers. How happy you would be if you were brilliantly coloured with red, blue, orange, and green!”
9. The birds thought over his words, and desired very much the beauty he promised them. So they foolishly agreed to give him their voices, which the magician placed all together in a large calabash.
10. The magician hurried away, and as soon as he came to a deserted place he  opened the calabash and swallowed its contents.
11. The magician then suggested that by means of his charms he could give them all beautiful feathers in exchange for their voices—which were, after all, of very little use to them, since nobody came into the grove to hear them.

1 ___ 2 ___ 3 ___ 4 ___ 5 ___ 6 ___ 7 ___ 8 ___ 9 ___ 10 ___ 11 ___

“How happy you would be if you were brilliantly coloured with red, blue, orange, and green!” How happy you would probably be if you could speak English perfectly! Now complete the following sentence starters, using the same grammatical structure (2nd Conditional):

1. How happy my boss would be if __________
2. How happy my parents would be if __________
3. How happy my teacher would be if __________
4. How happy my partner would be if __________
5. How happy my colleagues or flatmates would be if __________

The Creative Methodology for the Classroom course can be viewed here
The Teaching English Through Multiple Intelligences course can be viewed here