Publications on storytelling

Below is a list of articles or webpages I have written, many relating to using storytelling in education

Articles on teaching teenage and adult learners

Articles on teaching young learners

Activity Teaching Packs: multi-lesson projects based on a storytelling video

Articles and interviews on storytelling or stories

Environmental storytelling – download a compilation of resources

Storytelling as a Means for Communication and Change
(a resource of environmentally-themed folk tales for a workshop in Ethiopia)​

Articles written by others

Articles on teaching teenage and adult learners

• Telling stories in the classroom: basing language teaching on storytelling

• El profesor de inglés como narrador: la narración como una actividad cotidiana en el aula
  Here is an English version: English teacher as storyteller: storytelling as an everyday classroom activity

• “Close your books and I’ll tell you a tale” – storytelling in bi-lingual religion teaching

• Handbook of Teaching Ideas – to accompany the tales on the audio cassette The Wife’s Letter and other Tales

• Storytelling cards – something every teacher needs in their schoolbag

• Sixty Seconds Non-Stop Talking – a versatile activity to start a class, generate vocabulary, reinforce grammar or even spontaneously develop an entire lesson

• Kate Crackernuts – storytelling to practise free writing in an intermediate langauge class (includes an example of a written test)

• Storytelling in the Classroom: Discussing Mr Fox (pub. Humanising Language Teaching, July 2002)

• Ein Storyteller erzählt um die Welt und auch an der EKS
  A teacher’s report about my visit to her school in Bergheim, December 2014

• Language Checklist – download this aid for students’ free writing (pdf)

Articles on teaching young learners

• Old Woman and her Pig – published in Primary English (Oldenbourg Verlag, June 2006)

• The Magic Mitten – published in Primary English (Oldenbourg Verlag, Jan. 2005)

• Telling A Christmas Carol – – published in Primary English (Oldenbourg Verlag, Nov. 2004)

• Telling The Frightened Mouse as a participation story – published in Primary English (Oldenbourg Verlag, Jan. 2003)

• Finding stories on the internet – published in Primary English (Oldenbourg Verlag, March 2005)

Activity Teaching Pack

Full details of materials for multi-lesson projects based on a storytelling video – for beginners to adult learners

Articles and interviews on storytelling or stories

• Old Rinkrank – an interpretation of the Grimms’ fairytale

• A beginner’s tale of organisation and art: How I became a storyteller – pub. Facts & Fiction (Feb. 2004)

• A review of In Arabian Nights: In search of Morocco through its stories and storytelling by Tahir Shah – pub. Facts & Fiction (summer 2013)

• A two-hour interview on Radio Darmstadt, together with teller and harper Peter Wucherpfennig (in German)

• A report on the 24th Ljungby International Storytelling Festival, 2013 – pub. Facts & Fiction (autumn 2013)

Articles written by others

• Speaking the Truth with Folk and Fairy Tales:The Power of the Powerless
  An academic/philosophical article by Jack Zipes on the social role of telling folk and fairy tales

• The Web of Silence: Storytelling’s Power to Hypnotize
  Fran Stalling’s article is not only a deep exploration of many aspects of the storytelling experience, including the storytelling trance, it also offers great insight into the art itself

• Effects of storytelling on the childhood brain: near-infrared spectroscopic comparison with the effects of picture-book reading

• Storytelling: A Non-literate Approach to Teaching Reading
  Tim Jennings describes his experience teaching extremely difficult, illiterate teenagers in New York in the 1970s. Everyone who works in a classroom should read this

• Telling Is Listening: Ursula K. Le Guin on the Magic of Real Human Conversation
  Interesting article on communication

• “The Golden Arm”: Collecting and Performing the Folktale
  Tim Jennings’ article shows how a master storteller handles the most difficult aspect of this classic tale

• The Laos Experience: Stories are something to remember
  Fabian Stober

• The Laos Experience: English storytelling workshop
  Jessica Porscha’s (2017) blog of working in Sikud, Laos

• Tales to wonder at: Ein Workshop beim Storyteller Richard Martin
  An article in German from Der Fremdsprachliche Unterricht Englisch (2013) on attending one of my teacher-training workshops

• A socio-linguistic analysis of a performance
  This is an academic article by Susan McCullough of my telling of The Blacksmith and the Devil

• Activities, ideas, suggestions, etc.
  Ideas from others which I have collected over the years