Creative and Engaging Storytelling for Teachers

Course title: Creative and Engaging Storytelling for Teachers - 5 stars

Course teacher: David Heathfield www.davidheathfield.co.uk

'David is a great storyteller and teacher. I highly recommend his life-changing course experience.' Evrim Ölçer , International Storyteller and Folklorist

Course dates: 25 October to 9 November 2025

Course fees: £195 (if this is unaffordable for you, email me directly to make arrangements)

Course location: online wherever we all are

Maximum number of participants: 12

Course description:

This course offers you an immersive experience of Creative and Engaging Storytelling.

Engage your learners emotionally, imaginatively, intellectually and playfully both face to face and online through your presence as a storytelling teacher, through effective use of the physical classroom space and the virtual online space as well as through imaginative interplay and creative response activities.

Discover techniques for developing your learners’ confidence and competence as storytellers and listeners.

Find out about the wisdom and delight in folk tales from the world’s oral cultures.

Storytelling humanises the learning experience.

The course will focus on two kinds of storytelling:

1. tales from the world’s oral cultures: folk tales, wonder tales, fables and myths

2. personal stories: anecdotes and life experiences

We will

• explore the joy of storytelling, our most ancient and potent teaching tool

• focus on opportunities for learners to express themselves creatively

• explore possibilities for change offered by stories

• develop as storytelling teachers

By channelling our learners’ interests and creativity, we can make our classes motivating and fascinating learning events.

Synchronous live sessions: In each live group session we will try out and experience storytelling techniques and creative activities and examine how to adapt and integrate them in our individual teaching contexts. You will prepare and tell a story and respond to feedback from David and other course participants, as well as devise creative learning activities.

Asynchronous autonomous learning: Pre-live course, between live sessions and post live course there will be follow-up and preparation activities. These will include reflecting and responding personally to each session and learning from suggested written and video materials. What you choose to focus on will depend on your own teaching context, experience and interests.

What you will learn:

• how to develop your own storytelling voice and your own ways of finding, preparing and retelling stories to engage the learners you work with

• a variety of creative and practical storytelling activities for starting lessons, giving meaningful input, providing practice opportunities and rounding off classes.

• how to support your learners as they develop as creative storytellers and listeners, valuing what they bring to their learning and noticing what they need

• how to adapt storytelling materials, activities and techniques for your own teaching context.

The course focuses on teaching groups, both in person and online. The ideas can be adapted for one-to-one teaching.

Your storytelling teacher: David Heathfield www.davidheathfield.co.uk

David Heathfield is a storyteller who tells tales and runs workshops in the UK and around the world. He has worked as an online storytelling teacher trainer internationally with the British Council and has done storytelling teacher training in Nepal, Brazil, Germany, The Netherlands, Denmark, Italy, Portugal, Austria, Slovakia, Turkey, Libya, Palestine, India, France and Cuba. He also teaches English, writes about student creativity in language learning, is the author of the teacher resource and development books Storytelling With Our Students: Techniques for telling tales from around the world and Spontaneous Speaking: Drama Activities for Confidence and Fluency (both from DELTA Publishing) https://davidheathfieldblog.wordpress.com/publications/

David's storytelling projects include:

Tell a Child in Gaza's Tale https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLj-mcWeMmSZw63V5abQ4fw3JIITI_S_kS&si=du47VczUOOkf3dQo

Around the World in 88 Tales inspired by museum objects at RAMM https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvtZwXey1PYKW2YH_C9Hso3W9arBgELJ6

David's YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/user/dwh202

David loves to create connections and build bridges across cultures and between people through storytelling.

Course length: 24 hours (12 hours synchronous live sessions and approx. 12 hours asynchronous pre-live course, between live sessions and post live course )

Course timetable (UK Time): Live Zoom sessions 13.00 -15.00 UK time on 25, 26 October, 1, 2, 8, 9 November 2025

Course fees: £195

Technical requirements: You will need a computer with a reliable internet connection and will be encouraged to use tablets or phones as well.

Please note that you will be sent pre-course information so you can familiarise yourself with Zoom, which is the platform used for the live sessions on this course.

To discuss any aspect of the course including payment of fees, contact: davidheathfield@hotmail.co.uk

Here below is a video taster session which is not from the course but gives you a sense of the course:

Nearly all participating teachers have awarded the course 5 stars in their feedback - here is what they say:

Evrim Ölçer 'I am a folklorist and an academic. David is a great storyteller and teacher. I highly recommend his life-changing course experience.'

Sikha Gurung 'I am a Senior English Language/Arts teacher at Ullens School, Lalitpur, Nepal and a Visiting Faculty for MEd program at Kathmandu University School of Education. I cannot thank you enough for the overall learning and sharing experience. I had never done a course before which did not feel like a course at all. It was so engaging, a truly flawless course which has helped me socialize with so many literally amazing storytelling teachers from around the world. I learnt so much from their own unique ways of telling stories. Thank you for introducing me to this wonderful art of storytelling and helping me grow with it. Storytelling is indeed for, by and of humans and their societies.'

Sahar Salha 'I'm a teacher of English and I work in UNRWA schools for Palestinian refugees in Gaza Strip. Storytelling with such a great trainer empowers your abilities as a storyteller . The more you engage in the course, the more creative you are.'

Beverly Whittall 'I'm the Director of Studies at International House Braga in Portugal, and I teach there as well. If you are a storytelling language teacher and would like to hone your skills, then I highly recommend David Heathfield's course 'Creative and Engaging Storytelling for Teachers'. I've just finished it, and not only have I come away with loads of creative tasks and techniques for my storytelling toolkit, but I've connected with a fantastic group of educators from around the world, sharing wonderful stories and experiences and laughter with them.'

Mindy Neo 'I am a teacher in a primary school in Singapore. I teach 10-12 year olds English and Science. David has helped me to be confident in myself as a storytelling teacher. I now have a bag of techniques and activities that I can use in my classroom to help my students be confident and creative in using English. David is a wonderful teacher and storyteller. I have learnt so much from his and I am sure you will too.'

Sanja Raskovic 'I am an EFL teacher and I run my language school (Global Lingua) in Croatia. I have attended several storytelling courses, but I found David's one the best so far. It was so well planned and organized, very practical (with quite a lot of theoretical stuff to be done individually) and gave us the opportunity to practice actively all the useful techniques we learnt, to work collaboratively, to listen to so many stories. It was very dynamic, resourceful with fantastic multinational participants from all over the world who unselfishly shared their stories and feedback and vividly and enthusiastically participated in all the activities. And David as the creator of the course and the moderator and teacher was extremely supportive and generous with the advice, help and feedback he gave us. I would strongly recommend this course to all the teachers and all the people who love telling stories professionally and non professionally. You will definitely benefit a lot from it!'

Sue Piper 'I am an ESOL teacher for Oldham Council in Manchester. This is great course! David is supportive and encouraging throughout, sharing his vast knowledge and experience of storytelling technique, creative responses and improvisation. It was also great to connect with others from across the globe and hear their stories too! A fantastic experience.'

Elena Deleyto La Cruz 'I design digital materials and video for language learning for Digital Learning Associates (DLA). I thoroughly enjoyed the course: it made me a better storyteller and allowed me to learn from an amazing group of like minded individuals!'

Heba Hamouda 'I work as a teacher of English as a foreign language at UNRWA schools, Palestine. The course was extremely beneficial for me as it allowed me to develop my storytelling skills and techniques. It is also special as it offered a cross-cultural learning environment which promotes diversity and innovation.'