A sketch note on narrating skillLalit Kishore, Jaipur, India

Key points

Narration is a skill which retelling or telling back something.

Many educators think that ‘retelling’ is surest test of learning.

If one is able to retell what has been seen, listened to or felt to someone else properly that means it has been understood well.

Use of metaphors and analogies clarify hidden meanings as well as develop discerning.

Teachers with reasonable skill in develop a love of learning among students.

The ability to tell what one sees, listens to or reads can be developed through storytelling or narrating experiences or events.

Sorting out sequence of events in an experience and talking about them vividly is needed to be learned by acquiring narrating skills.

When teacher reads outs something, shows something or tells something to students, ask them to tell it back to you or others.

First teacher should narrate something skilfully and then get children to narrate the following.

~When they read a book~when they watch a movie or a cultural programme~when they participate in a social event~when they visit a place~when they learn a new skill outside the school

It is more important to develop oral narration first before switching over to how to write it properly. Develop students as thinkers and communicators of their thinking to others.

It needs to be understood that the narrating skills that are necessary for a clear oral presentation of a thought are the same skills that are necessary in the written form too.