Storytelling as a Teaching Technique
Teachers, educators and researchers
are always in the search of models and simulation to support learning process
in classrooms. Storytelling is the most popular technique in almost every
society of the world. A good number of written work exists in every culture for
the preservation of folklore, values, traditions and heroism. The history of
storytelling is unfortunately not known exactly. However, societies have taught
their key principles for thousands years through stories (McDonalds 1998). It's also evident from the history of
storytelling that when written shapes of various languages was not standardized,
storytelling was the only tool which have been used by great scholars, teachers
and leaders to convey important massages and instructions in the form of
parable, fables, myths, legends and real life examples (Leonard- Barton 1995).
It is difficult to find out a uniform
definition of storytelling. However, majority of educators are agree that
"it is a form of a narrative that recapitulate past experiences by
matching verbal sequences of clauses to the sequence of events" (Labov 1972).
There are a number of publications which
provide information about the effective use of storytelling techniques in classroom
environment. But the real question that arises in the minds of teachers of our
region, who are dedicated and devoted to
their profession, is that how stories
could be linked to the topic of curriculum for a specific age group.
Before answering the question, it is
important to note that Pashto language has all its characteristics that an
advanced language must have. Its literature is full of all varieties of
stories, folklore, fictional and non-fictional materials focusing on all human
values we are teaching in our day-to-day life. Interestingly, our Pashto
language proverbs also bear attractive
and gorgeous stories in its background.
The following are few examples of
recorded stories in my own voice that will not only answer the question posed
above but also tell about different patterns of giving information in story
format. It is pertinent to mention that these stories were basically recorded
for radio broadcast and aired from PACT Radio, F. M Khyber, F.M Global (DI
Khan) and Radio Pakistan.
Please enjoy &
comment.
