Look, No Book!

Look, No Book! Is a highly effective and straight forward programme for teacher professional development that uses oral retelling of traditional narrative as a basis for improving literacy skills.

SUMMARY OF WORKSHOP:

Michael will model a simple story in English using specific gestures to model connectives (a particular challenge for children from households where books and stories are not often used). 

There will follow simple activities to help imbed the story and the gestures used and participants will have the opportunity to practice the story in pairs or small groups.

What to expect:

• Michael has developed a unique approach to storytelling in the classroom that both enhances new language acquisition and can be used for literacy development.
• This workshop will focus on storytelling for younger children and although the teaching will be in English, the stories and methods can be adapted for any language.
• Look, No Book! uses a style of telling that is very embodied and engaged and amplifies certain aspects of the telling, particularly connectives, with simple gestures that fit seamlessly into the flow of the telling. For second language work, simple laminated pictures are used to anchor the action of the story in young listeners’ minds.
• Look, No Book! has been used to great effect in schools in the UK with participating schools seeing significant improvement in their pupils’ confidence and ability.

Learning:

The participants will:

• learn a road-tested story and be ready to tell it
• learn a number of simple connective gestures
• experience the powerful ludic learning possibilities of storytelling
• be able to apply the principles to their own telling