Humanising Language Teaching
Year 2; Issue 1; January 2000

Gianni Rodari was a marvellous writer of books for opening up children's imaginations and he wandered the length of breadth of Italy telling stories in primary schools. His books include

La Grammatica della Fantasia ( The Grammar of Fantasy)
Lettere scritte a macchina ( Letters written on a typewriter ).

The first text presented here requires the students to finish the story ( which is a West African one):

Ali, Hassan and Mohammed lived on an island off the coast. One day there was a terrible storm which sank the canoe that plied between the island and the mainland. The princess was washed ashore. Lifeless.

Distraught, her father sent out word that any man who could bring her back to life would be offered her hand in marriage and half his kingdom.

Ali and his brothers were out working in the fields on the island. They had taken cover from the great storm. Ali took out his magic mirror and saw the lifeless princess and the grieving father.

Hassan unrolled the mat he had with him- they all three sat on it and flew across the Straits to the mainland.

Mohammed found the princess and breathed into her face. She came back to life.

When the king was told what had happened he was flummoxed. He did not know which brother should wed the princess.

In his place, what 10 options could you think of, and which might be the best?

Get the students to do this work in threes and insist they think up ten options in their triads.. Do a whole class round-up.

( You could read the story to your class but the best technique is to get the main plot into your head and then tell it in your own, special way.)

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In the second West African story the students' task to decide which of the people in the story are the most foolish:

The three friends each came from separate villages but they shared the same house in the town. One of them owned a tie ( get a student to draw the tie on the board) and the tie meant that he was very successful with girls.

Number 2 asked him to lend him the tie. He too got himself loads of women.

Sadly Number 2 went back to his village on a lorry and was killed in a crash.. He was wearing the tie. The law in his village demanded that people who committed suicide or who had died in accidents should be buried in whatever they were wearing at the time of death.

His two friends watched as the tie was lowered into the grave round Number 2's neck.

Two days later the original owner of the tie made up his mind to go to heaven to get the tie back. He killed himself.

A few days later the last friend, who had had no news from Heaven, decided to go up there and find out what was going on. He killed himself.

Write up this list of people on the board:

the market woman who sold the tie
the tie owner
the girls who fell for the tie
the village people who honoured the burial tradition
the writer of the story
the guy who was killed in the accident
the third friend.

Working in 3's have the students rank the people in order of foolishness.

Do a plenary round-up.

The point of both exercises is student empowerment.