Storytelling session with a Russian teacher for class 2A

“Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much .”-Helen Keller

On December 17, 2020, the students of class 2A got the opportunity to interact and engage with Ms Alena Maskaeva, educator from Russia. The students interacted with Ms. Maskaeva on a range of topics including how they are coping with the current Covid-19 situation. 

For the interaction with the second graders, the educator chose a popular folktale, The Three Little Pigs. Using a captivating power point presentation, she brought the story alive for all the students. Her storytelling skills demonstrated that storytelling is a shared experience in which the audience is just as active a participant as the storyteller.

The unique warmth in the way she narrated the story drew the children into the plot, leaving them asking for more! Listening in rapt attention, the children were exposed to some

basics of dramatisation, in terms of  movement and gestures, voice modulation and the incorporation of rhythm in storytelling.

The session was followed by a short interaction round where the students were asked to solve a crossword puzzle relating to the folktale. Ms Maskaeva was very impressed with the lively and intelligent young learners, as they answered all the questions with ease and confidence!

This was followed by an attempt at storytelling by Vrishank of class 2A . He left everyone in awe as he did exceptionally well presenting,  ‘The story of Two Kids’ with puppetry.

Ms. Maskaeva ended the session with a short presentation on common words and phrases used in Russian, demonstrating how to pronounce these correctly.

The lit-up faces and looks of awe spoke volumes about the interest the session had generated in the children. The session lasted for about an hour and experience had truly seemed to have worked its magic on the young learners.

“If you don’t know the trees you may be lost in the forest, but if you don’t know the stories you may be lost in life”. —Siberian Elder.