Creating Bridges with Nature: Storytelling in English L2 for Children

The project Let's Tell a Tale aims to establish partnership among different educational institutions (university, schools and libraries) for promoting children's development through stories about nature in English L2. Undergraduates of Primary Education (University of Udine, Italy) are involved as volunteer narrators in English L2 storytelling events in the local libraries of the Udine area. Student-teachers have the opportunity to experiment new modalities, resources and processes of mediation to present stories about nature in English L2. Telling stories is at the core of the events organised in the project: sharing econarratives promotes empathy and identification with the environment. The aim of the project is addressing future teachers of English L2 to adopt ecosustainable narratives. This paper presents the project Let's Tall a Tale as an example of partnership education. It focuses on the aims and the outcomes of the project in relation to teacher training and children's development and awareness on environmental concerns, on the bases that 'out of university' and 'out of school' experiences have the effect of 'bridging' the divide with different institutions.