I
enjoyed being introduced to the Storyline approach this week. In class, we
experienced it in a practical way, as we took part in a Storyline situation
ourselves, allowing us to fully understand how it works. This approach was
developed in Scotland and aims to ‘recognise the value of the existing
knowledge of the learner.’ (http://www.storyline-scotland.com/whatisstoryline.html
Accessed on 23rd April 2012)
Camilleri
(2002:35) explains that, ‘The storyline method provides a structure for
organising learning and involves three basic components of a story: the setting
or scene, the characters and the plot or critical events.’ The lessons take the
framework of a story, with key questions being used in a way that the teacher
knows the sequence the lessons should take, but not the actual content, as the
children will provide this through their responses. As Brandford (2007:68) notes, ‘Whilst the
teacher has the outline of the Storyline, it is the pupils who will create the
detail and content.’ This is what happened during our class, as the teacher set
the scene of the class being residents in the village of Bogardia, and each of
us had to take on a particular role such as; school teacher, butcher, mayor,
gardener etc and we then had to work together to solve problems surrounding the
fictional village.
This
approach really appealed to me and I found it to be something which I can see
myself using as a teacher. I could really see the benefits of this approach,
with particular emphasis on improving pupil motivation. The Northern Ireland
Primary Curriculum (CCEA, 2007:4) requires teachers to help pupils ‘develop
their motivation to learn and their creative potential’, something which the
storyline approach facilitates greatly.
The
main idea of this approach is supported by the Northern Ireland Primary
Curriculum (CCEA, 2007:2) which states that teachers should ‘integrate learning
across the six areas of learning to make relevant connections for children’ and
storyline provides excellent opportunities to do so. This method of active
learning provides many opportunities to also meet the skills and capabilities
as set out in the curriculum. For example, they will ‘be given opportunities to
engage with and demonstrate the skill of communication and to transfer their
knowledge about communication concepts and skills to real-life meaningful
contexts across the curriculum.’(2007:5) The Storyline approach aims to help
children develop the skills of becoming independent and working to find out
information themselves, rather than simply being taught to from a textbook. The
situations given should be real life situations which the children have
previous experience of, such as opening a restaurant or pet shop. This also
links to the focus which the Northern Ireland Primary Curriculum has on, ‘Thinking,
problem solving and decision making’ (CCEA, 2007:8) and will provide children
with numerous opportunities to develop these skills.
While
learning about this approach, I found myself comparing it to the topic based
learning which is common in Northern Ireland. Skinner (2010:95) highlights
that, ‘Storyline is a clear improvement on the weaknesses of traditional topic
web approaches. There is a natural, organic move from one subject to another as
answers to key questions are researched and as the storyline unfolds.’ It is
clear that this method brings many benefits with it and it is one I am keen to
try out for myself.
This week has been a busy one as I was in school for
three days and had quite a lot of work, but we managed to fit in a day trip to
Warsaw with Anna’s friends from home, which was really good fun and it was
definitely worth going to. Our other trips seem to be falling into place now, which
is very exciting and due to how little free time we have left it seems like it
will be no time until we are going home!
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| Birthday cake time! |
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| Palace of Culture, Warsaw. |
References:
-Brandford,
V. (2007) Chapter Seven: Use of storylines to develop reading and
writing skills in the modern foreign language. In Pachler, N. and Redondo,
A. (Eds) A Practical Guide to Teaching
Modern Foreign Languages in the Secondary School, Oxon: Routledge.
-Camilleri,
A., (2002) How Strange!: The Use of
Anecdotes in the Development of Intercultural Competence, Strasbourg: Council
of Europe Publishing.
-
CCEA (2007) The Northern Ireland Primary School Curriculum, Belfast: CCEA Publications.
-Skinner,
D. (2010) Effective Teaching and Learning
in Practice, London: Continuum International Publishing Group.
-Storyline
Scotland. Available at: http://www.storyline-scotland.com/whatisstoryline.html
(Accessed on 23rd April 2012).
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