We are nervous because, though we hope for the best, though we know that at times our skills and training allow us to hit the stories out of the park, we are always fearing the worst — stories that fall flat, that do not engage our students, that leave us wishing for a way to deliver more reliably-engaging stories or, failing that, a way out of the profession.
So we crave something more from our teaching. We have a sense that the language we use can be richer, and freer, and our teaching can become less nervous, that our classes can be far more enjoyable. We sense that somehow the goal of using only certain parts of the language over and over is putting a fence between us and our students.
Many storytelling teachers know the uneasy, scary feeling that comes when we stand up to create a story with our classes, and we ask ourselves if we will ever get enough repetitions of the target structures, and if we will be able to hold the students’ interest, and if their suggestions will be cute enough, and kind enough, and school-appropriate, and if the class will help us or sabotage our efforts on that day.
We all know it happens, how classes will often sense neediness on our parts, and how they will learn quickly that we need them to help us out with cute ideas to make the repetition of the targets less of a chore. But they don’t always do it. And so we often felt nervous, sensing that we were putting too much burden on everyone – the burden of making something fun and engaging out of what basically amounted to a vocabulary list. It was like putting makeup on a pig. It’s still a pig. Just a little easier to kiss, perhaps.