Danna Mae T.

Yuzon 2009-11177 DEAR and DEAL by Storytelling: ACLE Season 2 Reflection Paper

Speech 181 January 25, 2013

DEAR. This acronym suddenly flashed in my mind as I reflected upon the new sensible things I have learned from a storytelling workshop I attended for my ACLE. It was organized by the UP Educators' Circle and the guest speaker was Ms. Ergoe Tinio, marketing associate of Adarna House. Prior to the event, I expected that I would really get what I want to know and I was not wrong because truly, I learned a lot. Going back to the acronym DEAR, I recalled that when I was in high school, it means drop everything and read. Our English teacher introduced DEAR in order to encourage us to drop everything senseless during our vacant time and instead, read books. I remembered this acronym because the speaker also emphasized the importance of encouraging the young generations to read or learn to read. She promoted their advocacy for reading while explaining how good storytelling can promote reading to children from all backgrounds. Eager to gain fresh and useful ideas about effective storytelling, I felt satisfied and amused as I have learned about the necessary preparations for storytelling, the tools to be read, ways of handling the book and the process of storytelling itself. For the first part of the workshop, I already realized that storytelling is not an easy thing. I have learned that before you do a storytelling, you must consider some essential things such as the venue, the audience which includes the gender, age, and social status of the children. For the tools, it is important for a storyteller to use his/her voice, face, body, and book properly in order to narrate the story effectively. For this part, I enjoyed the exercise that we had about the 'open' and 'closed' voice and position of the body because we were really asked to perform the said concepts. The ways of handling a book may look like a small detail but I also saw its importance since a storyteller should know how to handle the book in a hassle free way to make it visible to the kids and make himself/herself presentable to them as she browses through the pages of the book (without having the need to fold the pages). Finally, the process of storytelling itself was discussed along with the ways on how to engage the children to listen to your story and of course, on how to properly end it. So, the children would end up having the acronym DEAL---Drop Everything And Listen. Truly, attending the said ACLE is one of the worthwhile learning experiences I will not and should not forget to value and use in my future ventures, one of which is to be the one who helps children not only to read and listen to stories from storybooks but also to make their own worthwhile stories in life----a future teacher.

http://littlemisshoney.blogspot.com/2011/05/solving-people-puzzle.html