TEACHING YOUNG LEARNERS
Making storytelling
cross language barriers
Trisha Lee believes every child has a story to tell.
‘B rrrrrm, Brrrrm, Brrrrm, Brrrrm,
Brrrm, chhhhugg chhhuggg
chhhugg chhhuuuggg chhuuugg
Chuggg chhhhhh eeeeeeeeeeeeeeekkkkk
ahhhhhh …’ Hamir aged 5
Hamir’s story
Hamir is a five-year-old boy I met in
a reception class in Tower Hamlets.
His first language was Bengali and
he spoke very little English. That was
September, and he had only been
in the school a few weeks before I
started delivering Helicopter Stories
with his class. He took to the approach
immediately, jumping on the stage
and acting out the role of a tiger
crawling through the jungle. This told
me and his teacher far more about his
n Volume 24 n Issue 4 www.modernenglishteacher.com 37
comprehension skills than any baseline
assessment ever could.
Later that morning Hamir came to tell me
his first private story. His teacher shook
her head behind him, and mimed to me
that he couldn’t speak English. I shrugged
and smiled at her. Hamir was standing
beside me, his face beaming and there
was no way I was going to send him away.
‘Have you got a story for me Hamir?’
I asked. He nodded, his face lit up
with excitement. I could sense his
teacher behind me, ready to jump
in and rescue me should Hamir fail
to produce words. ‘It’s okay,’ I said.
‘Whatever happens, it is okay.’ She
seemed to relax but kept watching,
keen to see what Hamir would do.
I patted the seat next to me so he could
sit down. He did for a moment and then
he jumped up. He placed his hands in
front of him and held onto an imaginary
steering wheel. He moved around the
area in front of me making car noises,
‘Brrrrrm, Brrrrm, Brrrrm, Brrrrm’.
‘Do you want me to write that down?’ I
asked, as I always do. Hamir stopped for
a moment, looked at me and nodded.
I repeated the sounds, Brrrrrm, Brrrrm,
Brrrrm, Brrrrm, and spelt them as best
I could. He looked at my pen and
paper and then at my hand scribing
his words and then he continued.
‘Brrrm, chhhhugg chhhuggg chhhugg
chhhuuuggg chhuuugg …’ He didn’t
stop moving as he spoke, circling
around in front of me in his imaginary
car. ‘I need to catch your story,’ I said
to him, desperately trying to record the
sounds he was making. He stopped
vocalising for a moment, although
continuing to run around, moving his
invisible steering wheel to determine
his direction. As soon as I looked at him
the sound came back and he presented
me with the climax of his tale. ‘Chuggg
chhhhhh eeeeeeeeeeeeeeekkkkk
ahhhhhh …’ As he said the word
‘eeeeeeeeeeeeeeekkkkk’ he reared
up as if crashing into something
and stopped in his tracks. The word
‘ahhhhhh’ was followed by him falling
to the floor. Smiling I recorded his
sound, enjoying my role of mark-making
to ensure I captured his story.
Just before dinnertime, we returned to
the stage to act the stories out. Hamir’s
 TEACHING YOUNG LEARNERS
turn arrived and I looked at his page
in front of me and wondered how I
would read it.
‘This is Hamir’s story,’ I said, indicating
to him. ‘He is going to be the driver in
the story.’ He stood on the taped out
stage. ‘Brrrrrm, Brrrrm, Brrrrm, Brrrrm,’
I began, and immediately Hamir came
to life. His face lit up, his hands grasped
the steering wheel that was so vivid in his
imagination and he sounded and acted
out the story of the car that drove too fast
and eventually crashed. The watching
children clapped and gasped as Hamir
fell to the floor at the end of his tale and
his teacher looked at me bemused.
Helicopter Stories works as an
innovative approach to teaching
language. Young children, whatever
their first language, don’t learn to
speak by rote. They are surrounded
by it, immersed in it, until it becomes
second nature. When learning a second
language, however, it is possible to lose
that natural sense of submersion which
enables a child, or an adult, to take it up
with the same easy confidence.
This is what makes Helicopter
Stories such a unique approach to
understanding language. Was Hamir
really telling a story? I would say
definitely yes. The narrative structure
was clear, the car sped up over the first
few beats of the story, then there was a
point of conflict, the crash, and finally a
resolution, the driver fell to the ground.
But alongside all of this, Hamir had
reaped numerous benefits on the way.
An inclusive approach
On that day, and on many days
afterwards as his teacher continued to
work in this way, Hamir had a chance
to experience an inclusive whole
class approach which valued every
child’s contribution irrespective of their
language, background or ability. His
confidence grew as he realised that
however he chose to share his tale, we
could find a way to make it work. It did
not matter that his ability to communicate
in English wasn’t as strong as some of
the others in his class; he was able to
participate. Something which fed him
and empowered the rest of his learning.
38 www.modernenglishteacher.com n Volume 24
“This is an
incredibly
empowering
method of
learning, free from
the traditional
confines of having
to get everything
right first time.”
A huge stumbling block for many children
when learning a second or third language
is that of confidence. The fear of making a
mistake prevents them from trying, which
in turn stops them making progress. What
Helicopter Stories does is give children
back the power to communicate, without
being restricted by the grammatical do’s
and don’ts, or tricky spelling. They are
free to experiment with language, which
is incredibly motivating. They are also
invited to do this through listening to the
stories of others and creating their own
stories, so their desire to find the words to
communicate is heightened.
In the example above, Hamir also
made a brief connection between the
sounds that he was sharing with me
and the marks I was making to record
these sounds. Over time, sounds were
replaced by words, his confidence grew
and his stories evolved. However, I will
always remember that first day when he
eagerly sounded his story and I had the
opportunity to help him feel valued.
Helicopter Stories is, in theory, a simple
approach. The child dictates their story.
The practitioner writes it down word
for word and then the whole class
gathers together to act them out. Based
on the work of Vivian Gussin Paley, its
only complexity is rooted in its child
centred ethos. By scribing verbatim, we
honour the child’s sense of narrative. We
celebrate the poetry in their language and
we also have a record of their words.
Having worked in both early years and
with children of all ages across the
primary and secondary age range, I am
constantly in wonderment at the stories
that younger children dictate to me.
However, Helicopter Stories also works
with older children. We have supported
Year 2 pupils in scribing stories from
each other. They are given a storybook
that will never be marked and they
are told to record the stories of their
friends as accurately as possible and
not to worry about their writing or their
spelling as long as they can read what
they have written down. Each morning,
six children have the opportunity to
scribe and six to dictate. At the end of
n Issue 4
 TEACHING YOUNG LEARNERS

the day, the scribes lead the acting out

with their class.
When children dictate their stories they
don’t modify their language to fit with
what they can spell. They don’t need to.
And if the children scribing the stories are
not worrying about getting it wrong, they
have a go at words they would normally
steer clear of. This is an incredibly
empowering method of learning, free
from the traditional confines of having
to get everything right first time. For
children for whom English is an additional
language, they are free to simply have a
go at expressing themselves, or that of
their classmate, without fear of reprisal.
For some children this can be something
of a revelation.
Tips for using Helicopter
Stories in an EFL
classroom:
nn Explain in English what you want the
children to do. Mark out a rectangular
stage and invite the children to
sit around it, before reading an
introductory story, stopping after the
first sentence to enable children to
begin acting out the roles. If children
struggle to understand the words
of the story you use to introduce to
them, ask if anyone in the class can
help by demonstrating the actions of
a character or miming how an object
might look, to help clarify the meaning.
nn Next, invite someone to dictate a
story to you, in English. Tell the child
that the story can be as short as they
like, but that it can’t be any longer
than the bottom of an A5 page.
nn Encourage the children to create a
story using only English. If they are
“They are also
struggling with a word, see if the
other children can help them to find
invited to do this
it. Allow them to use mime or acting through listening
to convey their meaning and if there
is no-one in the classroom able to to the stories
supply the English word for what they
are trying to communicate, see if you of others and
can supply it. I have often worked
with children who have English and creating their
an additional language and by using
this approach, I have seen them
own stories, so
demonstrate greater comprehension
skills than I anticipated. Also, when
their desire to
I feed in language to support them find the words to
in finding a word they are struggling
with for their story, I often have to communicate is
work as hard as them to ensure that I
supply the right word. If it is not what heightened.”
they are looking for, the urgency of
their need to tell the story in the way
that they want to often means that and say each word out loud as you
they are not prepared to settle for scribe. Be sure that all stories are
an easier option and suddenly you acted out on the day they are taken.
are given a window into their level
of understanding. What better way To find out more about the how’s and
of finding out the meaning of new the why’s of Helicopter Stories, buy
words than to be driven to discovery Trisha Lee’s latest book Princesses,
through the story you want to create. Dragons and Helicopter Stories,
published by Routledge in August
nn Encourage the children not to be
2015 https://www.routledge.com/
afraid of saying something wrong.
products/9781138797659
It’s all about creating a narrative and
Or visit MakeBelieve Arts website
communicating with the rest of the
http://www.makebelievearts.co.uk/early-
class. Be sure to write down what
years-storytelling/
they say verbatim; this will give you
Or watch Trisha in action on http://
a record of where the child is, what
youtube/UkJl8dyzRQQ
they are struggling with and what they
are excelling at. Did they mix up their
tenses? If you are working with older
children, you could ask them to review
the stories at a later date. What could
be done to make the narrative clearer?

nn Create a ‘judgement-free’ atmosphere.

This type of learning is about feeling
free to express yourself in a positive
environment. Ultimately, language is
about communicating. Encouraging
children in a supportive environment
can make them more comfortable
with the details of the language.
nn Once you have scribed and acted
two or three stories, ask if anyone
would like to tell you a Private Story.
This is a one to one story told away
from the stage that is acted out later.
Write exactly what the child dictates
Trisha Lee is the Artistic Director
and founder of theatre and education
company MakeBelieve Arts. She has
recently returned from a worldwide trip
where she worked with children in a range
of capacities to develop their learning,
delivering sessions with teachers to
help boost children’s confidence with
language and communication. Making the
connection between theatre work and her
interest in the fantasy play of children,
Trisha has developed approaches that
cross both fields which has been detailed
in her recent publication Princesses,
Dragons and Helicopter Stories.

n Volume 24 n Issue 4 www.modernenglishteacher.com 39