Storytelling for class V by a South Korean teacher

The future of the world is in my classroom.- Ivan Welton Fitzwater

On 30 December, 2020, over 50 students of classes VB and VE, accompanied by their teacher Ms Martina Roy, interacted with Ms Jennifer Park from Seongnam in South Korea for a storytelling session held online. The special session was organised as a part of the ISA activities conducted by The Indian School in association with The British Council.

Aryahi Das of class VB opened the session with an impressive power point presentation put together by her team of classmates and welcomed Ms Park. Other Indianites shared the platform with interesting pieces of information about India and South Korea, previous interactions with the country, pop cultures, cuisines of the two countries and some amazing similarities between the two nations.

Ms Park was visibly impressed with the display of information that was put together by class VB and congratulated all the students for their hard work. For her interface on folktales from around the world, Ms Park chose The City Mouse and The Country Mouse- a Korean folktale inspired by Aesop's Fables. As she carried on with her session, the students could be seen enjoying themselves thanks to the vibrant pictures and text of her presentation. Her session ended with an interactive and thought-provoking Q&A round, where students answered questions about the main characters of the story. While some gave answers using excellent environment-conscious reasoning and metaphors, others backed their answers with knowledge and weighty articulation.

For the next part of the exchange, the students of class VE presented a live enactment of an Indian folktale- Three sons and the bundle of sticks. Dwita Arora shared some interesting information on the history of folktales and how they were passed down over the generations. Parth Takkar confidently took on the role of the narrator and introduced the characters of the story. With colourful costumes chosen from what was available at home, to props and other resources required for the play, the fifth graders presented a mesmerising show which left Ms Park highly impressed. The act ended with Pragya Kalra sharing the moral of the story- the Power of Unity, linking it with the unity of India and South Korea.

The hour long session was yet another experience allowing students to appreciate diverse perspectives and the advantages of collaborating across cultures and countries.