#ESOLStories: National Storytelling Week 2020
A reflection on National Storytelling week by Seima Mahmood, ESOL Lecturer at Bradford College
Reading stories always entertains and brings enjoyment to people. It also helps people - not only to read for therapeutic purposes to improve mental health, and makes us feel positive. It also teaches us to exercise our brain and enhances our concentration and language skills. Through reading we develop a deep inner connection with the stories which allows us to create imaginary thoughts and become creative individuals. Stories can empower people to place themselves in another world and take on a whole new outlook, so why not? Let’s experience that feeling and read!This year, National Storytelling Week ran from the 1st to the 8th of February. This is the time when everyone comes together to share stories, adults, teenagers or young children alike. To recognise the importance of reading stories, English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) lecturers encourage ESOL students to embrace the opportunity to take part in the National Storytelling Week to improve their own reading and writing skills.As an ESOL lecturer, I took advantage of the popular national day to showcase our students’ literacy skills and approached the library to work with our colleague Lakshmi Banner, who provides library services and offers help and support for all students. We exchanged a few ideas as to what the ESOL students could work on, but after having a one to one chat, I was excited and hoped that project ideas around National Storytelling Week for the 16-18 students, could eventually materialise and be showcased around the world!My colleagues and I invited Lakshmi to visit classes and she brought a selection of readers, which would encourage the students to take part in the ESOL Stories project. This was done by discussing genres, plots and endings of the stories, characters, book covers and blurbs.ESOL Lecturers then decided with students, which piece to work on according to their students’ ability, interest and level to accommodate everyone. We had a variety of tasks planned: elementary students worked on online storyboards using StoryboardThat and wrote book reviews; pre-intermediate, intermediate and advanced classes were challenged to create their own stories and poems. Some higher level students were given an image to explore ideas and create a plot, characters and a good ending. The book reviews and storyboards were displayed in the library, using display stands and noticeboards, to attract students from other departments to view our ESOL students’ creations. Finally, all the stories and poems would be accumulated and presented in a book, which would be published by the library and advertised in the Bradford College library catalogue to inspire future students.Using LibGuides for the #ESOLStories Competition
LibGuides was used as an online publisher for all the stories and poems to create an online competition for viewers all around the world. This gave the ESOL students an opportunity to present their work to a wider audience, and helped us to run a competition, so people could vote for the best story. Voting could take place online at home or incorporated as part of reading sessions in class for students to read and vote. Students could also use phones or laptops, and share their work to family and friends who could also take part in the voting.Lakshmi and I made an agreement not to present the online website to students until all the work was submitted. We wanted to see their reaction and accumulate their feedback on our final design of the website. Four of the ESOL classes participated in the online competition – one from Entry 2, two from Entry 3 and one Level 1 group, so four categories were created.A LibGuide site called #ESOLStories was designed where details of the competition and each story was uploaded to the site once permission was received from the students. Lakshmi also placed a Google Forms ballot on the site which would be easy for students and anyone else to use for voting. The ballot also gave us an outline and collected the exact number of votes. The story with the highest number of votes in each category would be announced as the winner on the 3rd of April. This project aimed to highlight students’ stories in the National Storytelling Week and celebrate their contribution for the World Book Day of 2020!
Promoting #ESOLStoriesEventually the full website was revealed to view the students’ reaction. They were excited and shocked to see their stories uploaded on a professional looking website, they did not expect that! We also knew that in terms of promoting their work online, we had to get each student’s permission allowing us to promote their story on a public site. The students were extremely happy with the end result! The website made them realise how hard they had worked and this project was well worth the effort.All the staff and students at Bradford College were given about 6 weeks to read the stories, vote, and advertise the competition through their own social media sites to get more publicity. I was also interviewed by the college marketing team, which meant they would share the link to the stories on their external website. NATECLA has also published our link on their monthly updates for the June 2020 publication. Furthermore, the Bradford College library promoted the competition via Twitter, Instagram, and their Library Online site. Some students were really impressed and left a review for the library. Here are a few comments:“It was impressive. A page like that need a lot of time to make and I’m sure she put a lot offer in to it so well done.”“It was fantastic and the Bradford college is helped us also published the stories for us. I was very excited to see my story on the website. Bradford College is excellent also the page the made for our stories was amazing.”“The page was really nice designed I didn’t expect is from her, I thought is from some guys designers. I read my story and I laughed again.”The Winners!Our website became a success by receiving nearly 600 votes and over a thousand views. The ESOL lecturers and students were so pleased with the outcome. After receiving all the votes on the 2nd of April, we announced the winners on the #ESOLStories site.Due to the unforeseen circumstances of Covid-19, the winners were announced using remote learning tools and via the Bradford College external website page. Unfortunately, we were not able to celebrate in style as initially planned by presenting the prizes and certificates in person at a ceremony at the college, and prizes were posted to students.
Although the voting has ended, people can still click onto our #ESOLStories to continue sharing or read the stories. All national and international colleges will be able to use our site as an online learning resource either in class or at home, so please click, read and share!