A workshop on story-telling and pedagogical potential of stories

Stories, in their different forms such as folk tales, fairy tales, myths, fables and legends, etc., appeal to individuals across the globe. This universal and powerful appeal of stories makes them an integral part of the world of inter and intra-human communication. Irrespective of the age group, stories have tremendous power to elicit emotions, evoke curiosity and sustain the attention of the audience. Researchers and practitioners across disciplines have acknowledged that stories serve different functions such as cognitive, emotional, social, cultural and epistemological. Ample proof has been provided concerning the effectiveness of this valuable form of human communication in different domains of human development. In the field of education specifically, there is a significant body of literature that highlights the importance of stories and storytelling in the teaching-learning process. Every day, researchers are making advancements in related fields, the most recent being relating stories to various domains of human cognition and neurological roots. However, ironically, despite significant theoretical advancements in the practical field of education, i.e. inside classrooms, the pedagogical potential of stories and storytelling is still highly underestimated by a significant section of the teachers’community. Hence, the status of stories being a mere leisure activity still dominates the arena of classrooms as only the fun element of stories and storytelling is considered in most instances