Page 5 - Arı Okulları - internAtional

AN INTERVIEW WITH MR.SAM,
THE STORYTELLER
We are happy to welcome Mr. Sam Whittam in our magazine. He is a
passionate writer and storyteller, whose inspirational webinars and
online stories give children all around the world a chance to travel
through pages and times…
We express our gratefulness to Mr. Sam Whittam for this amazing
opportunity.
GOLD Team: How did your ‘book’ adventure start?
S.W.: The story of my love affair with literature is a classic one. As a child,
I was lucky enough to have a living room filled with books. I remember
looking through them regularly, most of them were my fathers so I didn’t
understand a large part of them but that didn’t stop me pushing through
and taking in as much as I could. I loved the way that simple pages in
books could transport me to thousands of different places and people.
GOLD Team: What happened next? Is writing your own stories a long way,
or does it happen ‘all at once and suddenly’?
S.W.: The next step was creating stories, I always had a story in my head,
each night before I feel asleep, I would discover the next chapter. I began
writing short stories -exaggerated and amusing versions of everyday
events that I’d experienced.
I always knew that books and literature would stay without me throughout
my life and I’m lucky enough to say that it’s part of my job too now.
GOLD Team: Do you have your most favourite part or parts while working
on your ‘real’ stories?
S.W.: One of my favourite parts of my work is visiting schools (virtually at
the moment sadly) and spending time passing on stories to students. It
always excites me to hear how imaginative and creative the students are
and I try as much as possible to encourage students to take a part in the
story process instead of being passive readers (or listeners).
I try to encourage higher order thinking skills with activities that include
problem-solving and prediction, it’s always nice to hear how a story
could go in a different direction, or even to hear opinions that I hadn’t
considered the first time I read the story.
GOLD team: What would you recommend to students who read stories in
English as a foreign language?
S.W.: Instead of focusing on intense vocabulary study with standard
comprehension I try to encourage students to understand the meaning
of the words through context, just like I used to do (and sometimes still
do!)
GOLD Team: And what about those children who love writing or want to
write their own stories?
S.W.: The most important thing is to write, write and write! Write everything
you think of, whether it’s a few sentences or a few pages, everything you
do now will help you in the future. By doing this you’ll find your voice
and develop it. When it comes to telling the stories, the standard tip for
storytellers is to be energetic, lively and to show lots of movement. In
our current online world, some of these methods aren’t entirely possible.
A storyteller who is jumping in and out of the camera shot isn’t getting
their message across. I try to adapt my online storytelling with extra
focus on speech; different voices, extra emphasis on words, as if I am
telling a story that happened to me, instead of reading words from a
page. During this distance learning time my best friend has become
PowerPoint, I have discovered so many new tricks and features that
enable me to make the screen interesting and colourful for the students,
as well as giving them options for where the story can go.
GOLD Team: We would like to wish you a healthy and adventurous journey
of 2021 full of happiness and hope to meet you in person!!! Thank you!!!