Some of the things that I have found students actually doing when listening to a story
If you ask students with whom you have good rapport what they have actually done while listening to a story you find that they have been involved in many different processes.
Let me randomly list some of the things I have found:
- Students have had distracting side-thoughts provoked by some detail in the story
- One student once turned the story into a film in a foreign language, with subtitles in his language and with a strong musical soundtrack. ( amazing) ( The story was set in this foreign country)
- Another person was reminded of another story they already knew and fused this story with the story I was telling.
- Students drift out of the telling for some seconds and miss a whole bit as they thinking of something quite else.
- Students sometimes get small, black and white still pictures in their minds as I tell.
- There are students who get no pictures and have strong feelings...they tend to know the temperature and the weather in the story.
- A few students wonder about the narrative plot and where it is leading.
- Students who like the story will often get vivid colour pictures at the beginning and then mentally find themselves in the same space as the action, like in a dream.
- Occasionally a student will become so associated that they become the protagonist of the story.
- Occasionally a student will start noticing the story telling technique and the use of voice.
I could go on listing listener behaviours but the above suffice to give you some idea of the complexity of what is going on in student heads as they listen to a story.
Knowing what I do, how can I possibly dream of insulting these sub-consciously brilliant folk with absurd "comprehension questions" about my original text that has been fully superceded by theirs.
Warmly yours, Mario