Spontaneous and Planned Storytelling and Story-Acting in a Rural Kenyan Preschool

• In Event: Cross-Cultural Investigations of Storytelling and Story-Acting: A Dialogue Among Early Childhood Teacher Researchers

Abstract

Objectives and Context:
Our study was conducted in a preschool class of five-year-olds by a classroom teacher and preschool director in a small private English-language preschool serving 28 children ages 3-5 years old in a rural town in Kenya. The preschool caters for children who are exposed to rural life with very little exposure to preschool and uses a learning through play approach. All children in the school are emergent multilinguals of Swahili and a local dialect, acquiring English at school. From October 2018 until present, we have used ST/SA by asking children to come up with their own stories. Once the stories were written the teacher read them out loud to the children, and the children act out the stories as well. Some of the older children were able to write their own stories without support. The following questions guided our inquiry: 1) In what ways does ST/SA support children’s learning? and 2) What happens when we attend to children’s spontaneous stories, as well as those transcribed more formally by a teacher?

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 sources included written stories dictated by the children (to explore RQ1), and eight video recordings of ST/SA sessions and spontaneous storytelling moments (for RQ2). With the families’ permission, we engaged in co-analysis with another teacher-researcher.

Conclusions:
Regarding RQ1, we found benefits to children’s English language development, creativity, and self-esteem. The children used a variety of English nouns, verbs, and prepositions in their stories without prompting or support. For example, “A rocket was flying…I went to the moon and then Shem got out of the rocket. After, his rocket was broken.” Documenting the children playing and story-telling spontaneously and later on reading the story to them created a sense of ownership and pride that drove the children to want to role play more often. We found the children were highly engaged in the ST/SA process. This was evident in their animated facial expressions, laughter and excited tones. For example, several children who were typically more reserved and hesitant to speak English volunteered to tell stories, and took roles in acting out peers’ stories. When we observed children’s spontaneous stories (RQ2), we noticed more. variation in the themes of their stories, and thus, expanded vocabulary use. For example, while most teacher dictation sessions elicited stories about animal characters and home life, spontaneous stories included themes of space travel and robots. Finally, we found that children drew upon their family experiences in their storytelling, for example one child told a story about a family wedding she had recently attended. This provided a window into the children’s experiences outside of school and fostered community within the class.

Authors

• Rebecca Ngaywa, Blossoming Cherries Learning Centre

• Sybil Wakaka, Blossoming Cherries Learning Centre