PROMOTING INCLUSIVE CLASSROOM PRACTICES THROUGH STORY-TELLING:

LECTURERS REFLECTIONS AT A MULTICULTURAL UNIVERSITY

(A work in progress paper)

Gregg Alexander Department of Postgraduate Studies (Psychology of Education). Faculty of Humanities,

Central University of Technology, South Africa. alexanderg@ufs.ac.za

Glynnis Daries and Tracey Herman. School of Education. Sol Plaatje university.

glynnis.daries@spu.ac.za & tracey.herman@spu.ac.za

AIM OF THE PAPER

The purpose of this paper is to explore teacher education students’ views of the pedagogical approach of story-telling as a means of promoting inclusive classroom practices. This was done through the lecturers’ reflection on their student’s narratives after they participated in a presentation on oral story-telling.

Social constructivism: Meanings and understandings grow out of social encounters and how people interact and understand certain realities.

Vygotsky's theory of sociocultural learning highlights the role of socialand cultural interactions in the learning process.

Prawat (1992) constructivist theory involves a dramatic change in the focus of teaching and puts the students’ own efforts to understand at the centre of the educational enterprise.

Back groundMulticultural education (ME) Inclusive education (IE)

Comprehensive school reform strategy which challenges various forms of oppression and is aimed at empowering all learners to become knowledgeable, critical, caring and democratic citizens. (Nieto, 2000; Clemons, 2005).

Inclusive education is about ensuring access, active participation for everyone irrespective of difference: nationality, language, various abilities and different cultures (Swart & Pettipher, 2019).

IE WP6 (2001) acknowledge: All children can learn with the necessary support.Enabling learning methodologies to meet the needs of all children

Oral story -telling

Oral storytelling is more than the story, the music, the images or the interaction with the medium- it is about what happens between people while they are sharing the story (Erasmus, 2014).

Value Oral story-telling “Oral story-telling ignites the most powerful faculty-imagination” (Rose, 1966).

“Engaging the imagination through story-telling is not a sugar-coated adjunct to learning; it is the very heart of learning” (Egan; 2005: 36 ).

Research Question

This paper attempts to respond to the followingresearch question: What are lecturers’ reflectionssuggesting about teacher education students’ views onstory-telling as a means of promoting Inclusiveclassroom practices?

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY AND DESIGN

A qualitative, research method employed for this study.

Thematic analysis was used to interpret the written texts of students narratives and reflective skills on inclusive education.

The short narratives of 294 students were studied and analysed as to ascertain students' understanding of the story telling method as a pedagogical tool to promote inclusive practices in multicultural classrooms.

Write a short narrative of 10 sentences on how story- telling can be used to promote inclusive practice in the classroom. Provide examples from the video.

Video – Presentation of Dr Prasong

Module outcomes: Structure a comprehensive understanding of inclusive education to address diverse barriers to learning

Incorporate appropriate learning opportunities into lesson plans and make use of strategies from an asset based perspective to accommodate learners in the classroom.

Themes 1: Cultural experiences

..”Storytelling is a meaningful and accessible way to teach all learners, no matter what their culture or the type of learning difficulty they may have – it includes everyone”

..”explore their (learners’) own cultural roots”

…”Dr Prasong included the audience by having them bring in the lullabies they know in their language to help them relate within their context”

Since early times story-telling has been a fundamental method for transferring knowledge and culture from one generation to the next. Fables, fairy tales, poems, and nursery rhymes were more than just vehicles for providing entertainment, they communicated important cultural information in a memorable way (Gandz, 1936, p.93).

Module outcomes: Structure a comprehensive understanding of inclusive education to address diverse barriers to learning

Incorporate appropriate learning opportunities into lesson plans and make use of strategies from an asset based perspective to accommodate learners in the classroom.

Themes 2: Differentiation through the accommodation of different Learning styles

“He made use of different hand gestures and body movements to demonstrate what he was talking about and this is an advantage to visual learners, kinaestheticand auditory learners”

“If storytelling is regularly practiced in a classroom context all learners can feel included because there is something that suits each of them”

“Picture books accommodates especially the visual learners”

“In storytelling you can effectively include different learning and teaching styles and include all learners in your classroom”

Themes 3: Language development for inclusion

“He made use of repetition of information which makes the learning of new words easier”

“…enables learners to use their imagination”

“Repetition in a story can be used to introduce new concepts, new dimensions of language: tenses, prepositions, and nouns”

“All learners will be able to remember something…Dr Prasongmade us repeat phrases”

“Sing along in a different language is positive for the inclusion”

“The storyteller used his own language and made use of other languages and in this way students learned something new”

Storytelling improves:- the use of oral language- written language- literacy competences.- communication & social skills.

(Erasmus, 2014)

Themes 4: Conducive Learning environment to foster inclusion

“…creates a space for enthusiasm and make them willing to listen”

“Allow learners to feel that their stories are important”

“An easy way to capture learners’ attention”

Increases learners’ participation…and feeling of relaxation and well-being”

“Can be used to promote inclusive education because it requires everyone to participate – he allowed learners to sing the welcome song in their mother tongue which promoted inclusion”

“Storytelling encourages participation and interaction with the storyteller and also amongst each other”

Good stories stir our emotions and offer us opportunities “to use our mind in fresh experimental ways, to flex our emotions, to enjoy and to learn” (Gadanidis and Hoogland, 2002, p.3).

Implications Therefore, Teacher Education students (pre-service

teachers) should be educated about having ademocratic point of view and attempt to include alllearner voices in engagements as well as supportinglearners from diverse backgrounds to create equivalencein multicultural classrooms (Banks, 2008).

Bell Soares (2013), argues that Teacher Educationstudents should have acquired the competencies ofrestructuring curricula and adopting pedagogy whichare prone at promoting fairness, equality and thecreation of a democratic classroom culture ofacceptance.

Concluding remarksOral story-telling has the potential to promote Inclusive classroom practices through: The creation of the awareness to cultural

experiences; Language development for inclusion; Differentiation of the accommodation of different

learning styles, and Conducive Learning environments to foster

inclusion.