Välkommen till Sagoteatern: Storytelling and Story-Acting in a Swedish-Immersion Preschool in the United States

• In Event: Storytelling and Story Acting Across Cultures: Early Childhood Teacher Researchers Investigate Language and Literacy Learning

Abstract

Objectives and Context:
ST/SA offers a flexible process that can be used to support language development in any language; for example, the Boston Public Schools, where one in every two students speaks a home language other than English, embeds this process in their district-wide curricula for Pre-K and Kindergarten (Boston Public Schools, n.d.; Department of Early Childhood, n.d.). In this study I explored the potential of using ST/SA to support Swedish language development, building on previous research supporting the value of ST/SA for emergent bilinguals (Author, 2018). The context for the study was a part-time (one afternoon weekly) Swedish language immersion preschool class of eleven 5-6 year old children situated in the Northeast U.S. All children in the class were emergent Swedish-English bilinguals. Two children were described by their families as having selective mutism and although they participated nonverbally, seldom produced spoken Swedish in the classroom. The ST/SA approach (Sagoteater in Swedish) was used and documented throughout one school year, to explore the question: How could ST/SA support development of spoken Swedish and verbal in-class participation?

Theoretical Framework and Methodology:
This presentation utilizes the theoretical framework of inquiry as stance and the methodology of teacher research as presented in the overall session summary, applicable to all three papers.

Data Sources:
Data included 22 transcribed children’s stories and 6 video recorded Story Acting sessions. I reviewed and coded these as primary data sources, along with 26 still images of both story dictation and story acting sessions, and my own journals/memos about the process.

Conclusions:
Overall, ST/SA did support development of oral language skills in Swedish. First, children (especially those with selective mutism) exhibited increased participation and production of spoken Swedish during ST/SA. For example, one child who rarely participated dictated a page-long story in May using complete sentences in Swedish. Participation also increased overall; over time, all children began to take on roles in acting stories regularly. Second, Swedish vocabulary development was supported by the ST/SA process. Children frequently asked for clarification of words used in peers’ stories. For example, during Ella’s story about a seahorse, another child asked, “Vad betyder ‘sjöhäst’? What does ‘seahorse’ mean?” The use of storytelling props (e.g. cards with pictures; stones painted with symbols) also led to children using more novel vocabulary in their stories; however, the props also focused on particular themes (e.g. forest animals) and may have limited the scope of vocabulary explored. Next steps include inviting the children to create their own props (e.g. illustrate their own story cards) rather than solely using pre-prepared materials that may inadvertently limit their imaginative ideas.

Author

• Megina Baker, Neighborhood Villages