Who’s afraid of the Big Bad Wolf? by Despina Vardaki, Elpiniki Psomataki and Elsa Plakida - Report and Interview

In a packed room Despina Vardaki, Elpiniki Psomataki and Elsa Plakida gave their presentation entitled “Who’s afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?”. It was a presentation full of creative storytelling techniques for young learners. The presenters showed us numerous multi-sensory activities, which can be used to teach storytelling in a fun and simple way. The story they chose to present was that of “Little Red Riding Hood”, their first love as they said.

Their presentation started with a basket full of goodies and a pair of red socks that served as an introduction to the story i.e. the pair of socks belonged to Little Red Riding Hood. Then there was a game where the participants had to guess from different flash cards where the Little Red Riding Hood might be. Afterwards, using a doll, there was a game of hide and seek where the participants had to guess where the Little Red Riding Hood was from the different places shown to them in flashcards. After that, the Big Bad Wolf appeared and there was a game of “Mr Wolf says” in the fashion of “Simon Says”. 

Then there was storytelling. The teacher can start narrating a story and then pantomimes the rest of the story. Then the students are given flashcards with pictures of objects and characters from the story and the teacher starts reading another part of the story. While the students listen to the teacher narrating they stand up whenever they hear the name of the character or the thing they have in their flashcards. Another activity presented was telling the story with mistakes for the students to correct. Another activity was a “whispering activity” where a student stands up and the teacher whispers an activity to them and they have to mime it for the other students to guess what they are doing.

In the last part of their brilliant presentation we were shown some interactive quizzes Despina, Elpiniki and Elsa have created. The first one was a “hotspot quiz” where students have to show where the object they hear is in a picture. The second one was a “click on the words you hear” quiz where students listen twice to a word and they have to click on the correct picture. The last interactive activity presented was an alphabet quiz where young students check how well they have learnt the ABC.

This brilliant presentation was full of songs, music, miming, chanting and energy. All the people who attended it had a fantastic time singing and taking part in all the different games and the presenters gave them so many wonderful and easy to use ideas and proved that storytelling can actually be a fun and creative process. 

By Emmanuel Kontovas

Interview by Christina Chorianopoulou