Tunne kieleni - tseba leleme la ka - know my language

This is one product of the friendship school project between Arethabeng school and Mikkola school. This is book has been made by storycrafting first grade pupils in Mikkola school and in Arethabeng school. In storycrafting a child (or a teenager, adult, etc.) tells a story, someone else writes it down. Then the child hears her story and then she can make changes if she wants. Simple! All the stories of this book are in Finnish, English and North Sotho (the language of Arethabeng school). Some of the stories have been told by an immigrant pupil here in Finland. Those stories are aso in their mother tongue. So the book is multilingual.

I really like the book. You can hear children's voice in it. If you compare the stories made in South Africa and stories made in Finland you will find differences. South Africans tend to tell about their every day life as Finns tell a story more often. Also the places they tell about are different. In comparison you will also find similarities. Boys play with cars and girls get happy of the new doll - no matter where you are.

Some of the stories have violence, some tell about fears, some are representations of every day life, some are cute little stories about friendship, some tell about unfareness of life some tell about how you can find compromise in life. It's a very many-sided book and it tells me that children see this life much better than we adults think they do. We should listen children more carefully in order to understand life in itself. Storycrafting is a wonderful method for that.




All the pictures of the book have been made by children. If you got interested about the book: Tunne kieleni - tseba leleme la ka - know my language, go an read it in thislink! I would love to hear what is your favourite story.