Robert "Bob" Seberry

Senior Research Associate, Homerton College, University of Cambridge

Research: Using Folktales in Multi-Cultural & Cross-Curricular Education in Primary Schools.

My research starts from the viewpoint that the strategy of using folktales in primary education i not only effective in teaching affective and spiritual aims involved in multicultural, social and moral education but also very valuable in promoting the learning objectives of such key cross-curricular areas as Design and Technology, Art, Language skills, Music, Science, History and Geography.

The current focus of my work is a project aimed at promoting awareness of Celtic and Japanese cultures through folktales.The project models the Japanese kami-shibai method of story telling. This involves presenting stories written in dialogue form with illustrated pictures aimed at facilitating and promoting childrenšs involvement in the story. The work will:

  1. investigate the use of the Japanese kami-shibai method of story telling in both Japanese and English contexts.
  2. explore the potential of a traditional Japanese approach to story telling in English schools.
The project is likely to be of interest to teachers not only through its cultural context and its approach to story telling but also because it will provide opporuntities for activities, based on the stories (such as puppet -making and the making of fans) which contribute to cross-cultural and cross-curricular (eg design) learning.

The work will involve the development of teaching materials to support a number of stories selected with the help of contacts in Ireland, Japan and England. They include:

Click on one of the stories for more details.

More of Bob's stories

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