Tikki Tikki What?

Totally!t

As soon as my School-Based Experience is over and the Raya holidays wave goodbye, the assignments will get piled up once again. Setting aside 3 lesson plans and the time-consuming corporate video we have to create, storytelling is another huge agenda to be prepared and endured. Not enough of  the singing and poem-writing activities the previous semester, this time around we have a subject solely focused on storytelling in primary ESL classroom. Fortunate for some while unfortunate for beings like me, the coursework for this particular subject requires us to conduct a storytelling session with level 1, 2 or 3 pupils for about 10 minutes. Ain't no joke buddy!

The only consolation being, we do not need a lesson plan for this one!

Point blank, what worries me the most is the 'fact' that I'm not a good storyteller nor a good story-writer. Have you ever seen me writing a story? (Not those long facebook or interpals replies okay?) I hate that in fact. I spent my years in secondary school avoiding essay questions which demands for a story, like a plague. I love public speaking and have participated in English Debates a few times but story-telling is not at all in my field of expertise nor it is under the list of interests. However, if you were to praise me for the Jungle book storytelling session, honey that's what we call as fluke! Just in case you are still in denial, I so totally love you!

Whatever it is, there is no escape in this one, so I better start doing something instead of voluntarily- embarrassing myself in front of those kids. If they laugh because it's a fun session, that's absolutely fine, but if they were to laugh because of my rotten-eggs-worth-'showmanship', I rather take an MC and repeat the semester! Seriously Renuka? 

Hell NO of course! What do you think? I'm a warrior okay, haven't you heard that about me? =p

Even though, I have ranted for paragraphs about the work-to-be-done, to your surprise I have actually picked the story already. Excited nah me? It's not a boring fairy-tale with a lame happy-ending, not a modern fantasy with huge giants and mythical unicorns, and also not an allegoric fable with personified animals. I chose a chinese folktale entitled, Tikki Tikki Tembo.

Interesting name right? And that's is indeed the highlight of the whole story. Since I'm too lazy to write my own summary, here you go, the one given by wikipedia.com;
"Tikki Tikki Tembo is set in ancient China and invents an ancient Chinese custom whereby parents honor their first-born sons with long, elaborate names that everyone is obliged to say completely"


The boy's tragedy is caused by that long name he had. Read the story if you are interested! It's pretty short. 

The one thing I have to practice well now is the boy's long-lengthy name which is "Tikki Tikki Tembo-no Sa Rembo-chari Bari Ruchi-pip Peri Pembo"  which means the most wonderful thing in the whole wide world. It's not easy to get it right every time and that's such a huge risk as kids hear well you see. And as this is the most interesting thing about the story, I really have to make sure I can pronounce it well throughout the session, each time when the name is repeated, which is like 6 times! The props and other stuffs can WAIT!

Let's just hope for the best!

Renuka G