Humanising Language Teaching
Year 5; Issue 2; March 03

Circle the episodes

Ages 11 and up
Levels Pre-intermediate-Advanced
Time 15-40 minutes, depending on the length of the stories
Focus Reading (fairly intensive), oral storytelling, listening to another's story
Materials Class sets of two narratives of 150-3,000 words.

This reading-then-telling activity can be used to exploit short narratives which consist of several episodes that are given in strict chronological order. (See below for example stories.)

Preparation
Find two suitable narratives. For instance-

• One might be a story about a man who meets an ancient woman who has found a potion that will make her young again. He meets her again three more times—each time she is 20 years younger. Then he goes to her flat to meet her for a date. But she has disappeared.
• The other might be a story about a princess who will only marry a man who gives her a blue rose. Various hateful men give her things like a blue rose painted on a vase and a white rose dyed blue. She sends them all away. Then she is smitten by a handsome street musician. He gives her a white rose. She declares that it is blue and accepts him as her husband.

Procedure

• Check that they all know what an episode of a story is.
• Tell your students that half of them are going to read one text (i.e., a narrative) while the rest read another. Add that eventually each of them will tell their story to someone else.
• Explain that when they have finished reading their text, they should go back and do two things—
  a) Circle the introduction (if any) and each episode as well as the conclusion (if any), which might be a final comment such as a moral.
  b) In each part, or episode, circle or highlight nouns (not pronouns) that refer to important people, places and things that are mentioned for the first time. Explain also that they will later need to refer to their marked text when they tell (not read out) their story to someone else.
• Hand out the texts and ask everyone to begin reading.
• As individual students finish marking their texts, ask them to pair up with someone who has read a different story. Remind them that when they tell each other their stories, they should look at their texts (so that they don't leave out anything important) but that they should not read directly from the page.

Two example stories (pre-intermediate-intermediate)

Beauty and the Beast [Perhaps pre-teach wool, vain, greedy, afford, ashamed, rare, crawl, kneel and pick (a flower) as opposed to pick up (a pencil).]

A long time ago, there was a travelling businessman; he was a wool buyer. He had three daughters: Vain (the ugliest), Greedy (the greediest), and Beauty (the youngest and most beautiful). He had no wife. Years before she had run away with a travelling guitar player. One year, in spring, the wool buyer found it necessary to plan a long business trip. Before his trip, he asked each daughter what he should bring back with him. Vain wanted expensive perfumes. Greedy wanted several boxes of chocolates. Beauty wanted only a single white rose. When the wool buyer got to his destination, he found that wool was very expensive. So, when it was time to make the trip back home, he had no money left for presents for his daughters. He couldn't even afford a single rose. Feeling rather ashamed, he began his trip home. On his long road back he passed by an old castle. It did not look like anyone lived in it. Near the castle was a garden with a wall around it. Through a large hole in the wall, the wool buyer saw a rose bush with just one white rose on it, a rose of rare beauty. He crawled through the hole into the garden. He made his way through tall grass to the bush and then picked the rose. Immediately, he heard behind him a horrible voice, "MY ROSE!" Something big and strong grabbed the wool buyer from behind and threw him to the ground. He looked up and saw standing over him a horrible monster. Angrily, the monster said, "You have just killed the only thing of beauty in my life. For that, I will kill you…unless you give me the most beautiful thing in your life. If you lie to me, I will see in your eyes that you are not telling me the truth and I will kill you." The wool buyer was not a brave man. He promised to give the monster his youngest daughter. The monster said, "She must come to me. She must live here with me for one year. Then there will be a wedding." When the wool buyer got home, Vain and Greedy immediately asked, "Where are our presents?!" But Beauty happily welcomed her father with a kiss and asked how he was. Her sisters were terribly disappointed when their father said he had nothing for them. They were even more disappointed and angry when, to Beauty, he gave the white rose. Then their father spoke of his experience with the monster and of the terrible promise he had made. With her head down, saying nothing, Beauty only nodded 'yes'. Her father told her she had to leave the following morning for the monster's castle. Her sisters looked happy to see her go. At the end of her long journey, Beauty arrived at the monster's castle. On the open castle gate was a letter. It told her where to sleep, nothing more. Days went by. Beauty seemed to be alone in the castle. Where the monster stayed, she did not know. True, she sometimes she felt like someone was watching her, but she never saw or heard the monster. Then, after some weeks, she finally saw him. She heard, coming from the garden, a voice singing a heart-breakingly sad song. She looked out of one window, then another, then another. "Who is it?" she thought. Finally, she saw who was singing. It was the monster. He was kneeling by the flowerless rose bush. During the following days, she lost more and more of her worry and feeling of fear. A monster who could sing so beautifully could not be very dangerous, she thought. Then, one morning, on the table where she always found her breakfast waiting for her, there was a second letter from the monster. It told the story of why he had attacked her father when her father had picked the white rose. This rose had been the life of the monster's own dear sister. Years before, a cruel magician had changed her into a white rose because she would not marry him. A year passed. The day for the wedding came. From the window she could see, in the garden, the monster kneeling by the rose bush, singing his sad song. Quietly, she went downstairs…then, quietly, into the garden. Quietly she came up behind him. She could see he was crying. Softly, she touched his shoulder. He turned and looked at her. He was very very ugly. But she did not turn her eyes away from his. Slowly, slowly, as they looked into each other's eyes, he changed into a handsome prince.

donkey, stable, dawn, messenger, royal part
Joha and his donkey
A few hundred years ago, in a town in Egypt, there lived a poor man named Joha. All he owned was a tiny house in town, a tiny stable behind his house, a donkey (which lived in the stable) and a small field in the countryside. Early every morning he rode his donkey from his house out to his field. He worked hard all day under the hot sun. At sunset he made his way back to town. One day, while he was working in his field, some wild dogs came by and frightened his donkey, which ran away. Joha called and called, but his donkey didn't come back. Finally, after sunset he decided to walk back to town, thinking that maybe his donkey might already have returned to his little stable. That was, after all, where it got its food. After some time, Joha got home, but his donkey was nowhere to be seen. He was very worried because he really needed this donkey. It helped him with all kinds of jobs. Some jobs he just could not do without his donkey. So, after a night of worry and no sleep he got up before dawn and spent the whole day walking through the surrounding countryside calling for his donkey. All for nothing! Late in the afternoon, he sadly made his way back to town. He was half dead and his feet hurt. He could hardly walk. When he got to town, he was surprised to see everyone leaving it. Joha asked, "What's going on? Why are you all leaving town? Have you heard that some foreign army is going to attack?" "No", came the answer, "a messenger from the king has ordered everyone to leave town. We have to stay away until after dark because the king himself is going to visit with his new wife, our new queen! And the king wants to be completely alone with his bride." Joha saw that almost everyone was riding a donkey, a camel or a horse or was in a wagon pulled by a donkey. But he had no donkey now and his feet were killing him. People said, "Come on! You can't stay here! If the king's soldiers find you in town, they will certainly kill you." But Joha said, "I can't walk any farther. I'm staying. I'll hide." In the center of town there was a park full of trees. Joha went in through the open gate and climbed a tall leafy tree. He made his way high up and sat on a branch. Immediately, through the leaves of the tree, he saw the royal party coming straight towards the park! Soldiers surrounded it. Then, in through the gate came the king and the queen. She was young and oh so beautiful! But Joha could not see the king's face clearly. For example, he could not see that the king had a hard and cruel face. The king and queen approached the tree Joha was in! A servant laid a carpet on the ground directly under Joha. The king and queen sat down and the servant disappeared. The king said, "O my queen, you are everything to me. In your eyes I can see the universe and all the stars, I can see the moon and the earth, I can see all the countries of the world, all the oceans, all the mountains and rivers. All the beautiful birds and flowers. All…" Joha was so excited he couldn't help himself. "So, the king can see everything!", he thought. In a loud voice, Joha happily called out, "O king! Can you not also see my donkey?"

Seth Lindstromberg