Tell To Teach

Steps for Teaching with the Storytelling Method

Before we even start teaching, we need to design our lesson and know where we want to get, what our goals are.

The best way to do this is two-fold:

1. Define the list of important, practical vocabulary to be taught; we will call this our Small Circle, and it includes all the most basic, high frequency words that we need to teach for storytelling and practical life, words or structures such as there is, is called, lives in, goes to, wants, likes, has, etc. This may vary depending on the criteria used by individual teachers. There are many roads that lead to Rome. In Waldorf schools, the students have already amassed a good amount of vocabulary during the first three years, such as some foods, colors, animals, days of the week, family members, several action verbs, etc.
2. Extract the vocabulary needed for the end result we want to achieve, the final target story we want them to read. We can choose a nice folk legend, a fairy tale, or just a story to work from. This vocabulary will include many of the basic Small Circle, plus a few less frequent words, which will be nonetheless a crucial part of that particular story.

Once you have chosen a story, write it in the simplest vocabulary possible. Extract the important vocabulary to be taught for it. Start by choosing two or three structures for each lesson. An example will be shown later in this book.