Little stories that fit in a tweet

At #ICTCLIL_URJC we have learned about Twitter as the main social media for teachers to search, share and connect with other teachers worldwide.
Some of our students already had a Twitter account but were not too aware of their educational potential.
Nowadays, everyone in the group has its own account. The first activity we have done, in order to get used to seeing how Twitter works, has been to tweet a tiny story by using #TinyStory_URJC hashtag.

And here is the result:

Sharing stories through comics

Comics can be used in our CLIL lessons as they engage learners. They are a composition of art, dialogue, character expressions and frames.  

Basically, comics allow us to tell a story by mixing images and text, bubbles that are supported with visuals. This will help our brain to process the information in an easier way than reading a large amount of text on a page.

As digital storytelling tools, many of the comic creation tools are easy to use allowing the learners to fill in their frames by clicking on a choice of characters, props, scenes, and so forth. Our learners will be able to quickly create a story, view it, and share it.

Our children can use real or made up characters. When students create cartoons or graphic images of themselves, they are creating avatars. Avatars are a safe way for students to navigate the web. They often encourage students to express themselves because they feel safe in the comic world. 

Creating comics engages students and encourages them to explore vocabulary, summarize information, and contextualize what they learn in a creative way.

The tools we have used have mainly been Pixton and StoryboardThat.

Some great comics designed by Máster Universitario en Enseñanza Bilingüe en Centros Educativos de Educación Primaria e Inmersión en Lengua Inglesa's students follow. Comics by Sonia, Daniel, Uxía, Catalina and Nadia are just examples of the creativity shown by them.

Creating and telling our own stories with Storybird

Storybird is a website which allows us to foster our storytelling creativiy in a fun way. It will help us boost our writing skills by creating beautiful colourful stories within minutes.
There are a ton of already published books by professional writers to be used in our lessons straight away. Or, and this is the best option in my opinion, you can invent and make up a new story yourself. Once it is finished, we have the chance to print or share high-resolution PDFs of our picture book or poetry in various formats.

Here you are an example of a picture book we have created at Máster Universitario en Enseñanza Bilingüe en Centros Educativos de Educación Primaria e Inmersión en Lengua Inglesa at URJC by gathering all of our tiny stories published on Twitter: Telling our Tiny Stories.

Click on image to read our picture book.

Our tiny stories on Twitter #tinystory_URJC

These are our tiny stories. Aren't we creative? Enjoy them!

'Developing the 4C's of CLIL through storytelling' workshop

Developing the 4C's of CLIL through storytelling was the title of the workshop we attended on Thursday at the Ilustre Colegio de Doctores y Licenciados in Madrid. Organised by Asociación Enseñanza Bilingüe we really enjoyed D. Mercedes Pérez Agustín's talk.
She offered us a practical CLIL lesson on storytelling. To do so she used "Press here" children book by Herve Tullet.

Then she taught us about Vladimir Propp's narratemes and morphology of fairy tales. So interesting!
Finally we got down to work and made up an original story in groups by taking into account Propp's character types just to finish the event by performing our made-up tale in front of our audience.

La Asociación Enseñanza Bilingüe apuesta por la formación del profesorado.
“Developing the 4C’s of CLIL through storytelling”
Taller de Mercedes Pérez Agustín organizado por @Ens_bilingue en el @CDL_Madrid pic.twitter.com/S3x4lMuPgJ

— Xavier Gisbert (@XGDC) 7 de febrero de 2019

Excelente taller de storytelling promovido por la Asociación de Enseñanza Bilingüe. Enhorabuena a Mercedes Pérez Agustín!@XGDC @Ens_bilingue @UNIRuniversidad @CDL_Madrid #storytelling #inglés #CLIL #AICLE #enseñanza bilingüe https://t.co/Ii2KK1TM9n

— Virginia Vinuesa (@VirginiaVinuesa) 7 de febrero de 2019

#ICTCLIL_URJC Meet you in a couple of hours! #Storytelling #CLIL @Ens_bilingue pic.twitter.com/bfqrZSqAHr

— Francisco González (@FranciscoGonGal) 7 de febrero de 2019