Fun, Creativity, Cooperative Learning, Thinking Skills and Oral Proficiency Development!

Oral story retelling is an essential AIM activity that leads to development of creativity and proficiency.

This activity:

➸ is an opportunity for students learn to put a story they know well into their own words

➸ develops the ability for circumlocution to find alternate words/ways to communicate the same idea.

➸ teaches students to realize there is a variety of options available in self-expression – translation being the least desirable option

➸ has, as its goal for students, to use very few words from the original story, embellish, add details, descriptions, explanations while remaining true to events and characters.

Students must not repeat any sentence word for word from the play that they are retelling.

Tips for success:

☛ Model to the class. Choose a strong student to model with you as your partner or have two strong students do this. Guide students as needed, release responsibility as much as possible!

☛ You may show photos of the play, placing them in a location where students may refer to them during the story retelling.

☛ Initially, the first student may simply say two sentences at a time, then the second student says/you say two sentences.

☛ You may use a story stick that is passed from one student to another as they speak. Some teachers call it ‘le microphone imaginaire/el micrófono imaginario’!

☛ Do several modeling sessions for the class, taking approximately five minutes each over several classes.

☛ Once students are ready, place them in partners and ask them to begin their oral story retellings.

☛ Have students engage in this activity with different partners every few classes for the remainder of the kit!

☛ This activity provides outstanding preparation for written story retelling and allows students to gain experience with sustained speech.

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