David Heathfield, the international storyteller has a decade of experience in storytelling, and his students range from three years old, adults, and people with mental health problems, physically challenged to those who have profound learning difficulties.[break]
Also a teacher trainer and a writer of educational resources, Heathfield was an ardent storyteller since he was a child, and with time he honed his skills to become a professional storyteller.
He is the author of his first educational resource book “Spontaneous Speaking” and has extensively traveled to Dubai, Turkey and other countries, mostly in Europe, for his workshops. He believes that storytelling is an influential tool and a way to celebrate cultural diversity. He has written many pragmatic articles on creative approaches in education, and his approach lies in using storytelling, drama and music.
David Heathfield, who describes himself as an interactive storyteller, is also a teacher trainer and a writer of educational resources.
It is Heathfield’s first time in South Asia as part of a program organized by the British Council where he conducted a series of workshops for teachers and students in Kathmandu.
The Week’s Nistha Rayamajhi met with Healthfield to delve more into the art of storytelling.
Can you tell us about your venture into storytelling?
I grew up with three sisters and had a very close relation with them. Our father used to come home from work and would delight us with his amazing stories when we were children. I still remember the time when I was just four years old and was tucked in bed when he would make up stories which slowly developed my imagination. That’s how I picked up some of his skills as even back in school I was very much into writing stories.
So how did you turn your passion into a profession?
After I graduated, I started teaching English as a foreign language in private language schools where students came from all over the world. Since I was interested in theatre, as acting has been my passion, over the years I used more drama techniques in my teaching. I would use stories in my classrooms and ask the students to do the same as I found it to be very powerful as their attention was really gripped. In about 10 years, I changed my job and went from being a fulltime teacher into part-time teaching at universities and also worked as a freelancer. So I’ve visited a lot of schools, museums, festivals and a whole lot of different places where I participated as a storyteller.
What methods and approach do you use for storytelling?
I would describe myself as a very interactive storyteller and I think that comes partly from my nature and my language teaching background. I tell stories in a clear way by using a lot of repetitions and getting students to participate very actively in stories. This has a powerful effect in learning as when students tell a story and hear them they can retell that story even though they might be learning that story as a second language. Typically, when I do a project or a workshop I have a theme which is usually proposed by the organizers and the theme can range from health, geography, a country, or even love. That’s how I come up with a program that fits that topic.
As a storyteller, how has your experience and that of your students been like so far?
There are many diverse areas in which I work. For instance, I work for lots of primary schools where I run a project of storytelling. There are times when most of the children in those schools are from white British families and are unfamiliar about other cultures living in the UK, so storytelling can actually break down prejudices and discrimination. There are lots of students who come from various cultures, so in school they may be speaking English but at home they speak their native language which may be Punjabi, Portuguese, among others. So storytelling is a way of bridging their culture and languages as well. When the children go home and share their experience, the parents also realize that storytelling is a unifying thing as there are a lot of common themes that are universal, and we also attempt to bring in details that are culture specific.
What’s the scene of storytelling like in the UK?
There are lots of projects going on about storytelling. A lot of educationists and teachers are realizing that it’s very effective in kids as telling a story confidently will have lots of effects in their other branches of learning as it will improve their literacy, their reading and writing skills, presentation skills. I usually link up storytelling with presentation skills so that they grow up to become more confident while presenting. I’m also a member of a society for storytellers in the UK, and there is lots of mutual support there as well.
Can you tell us about the project World Stories that you’re involved in?
The project is a part of the charity called KidsOut which managed to get some funding through the website www.worldstories.org.uk and it is all about celebrating spoken languages. Many children who have come from families from other countries learn about British culture but there aren’t’ enough opportunities in school to learn about other diverse cultures that they come from. So the main idea was to learn through stories. So the World Stories is a growing collection of short stories which has recorded stories in English as well as the mother tongues of various countries. The stories can be read and listened to online, or downloaded for free. When I heard about the project, I really wanted to get involved because storytelling is what I have always been interested in and I wanted to celebrate multiculturalism by collecting and retelling inspiring and fun stories.
Tell us about your book “Spontaneous Speaking.”
The book is about building confidence and improving spoken fluency for language learners. It’s also a book for teachers as well, about how they can get their students talking freely and enthusiastically, and the book also deals with subjects about personal storytelling that includes their lives and also has a lot of drama and improvisations. I’m also almost done with my second book which is on teacher development and is an activity book for teachers about developing storytelling skills so that they can become better storytellers.
How did your experience with the workshops in Nepal go about?
The British Council invited me here for the workshop as they hadn’t done anything like this before. I’ve been really impressed with the schools that I visited in Kathmandu to see the knowledge in English that they have. I found that the students and teachers I worked with are really fluent in English and experts in the use of English language, and not just language but they are very expressive, descriptive, animated and confident storytellers more than in the UK. The reason might be because they are closer to their oral traditions as it has kind of died out in the UK. I had sessions with young children, their parents, older students and training with the teachers. Many seemed interested with the workshop, so the next time I’ll come up with a bigger project.
Would you like to give some suggestions for aspiring storytellers?
Storytelling is a very ancient culture and it’s been going on since a long time. I firmly believe that human beings are born storytellers. Since the written literature originated and we became literate beings, the focus moved on to writing and reading and so many cultures forgot the power of oral spoken words. But it’s all about rediscovering your storytelling roots. I can’t deny the fact that some people are skilled and have the natural ability with words, but from my experience I’ve learnt that we all can be storytellers if we have the confidence, as it’s just about finding your way.
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