Storytelling for language maintenance and mental well-being

Introduction

Often bilinguals* do not have the opportunity to use their first language(s). This is due to a number of reasons. Major ones are the imposition of a colonial (national) language on people and the assimilation of immigrants to a majority culture. Whatever the reasons, not having the opportunity to use their first language(s) often results in people feeling a loss of self-worth and pride. In my classrooms, many students have shared negative experiences in connection with their first language(s) when they were not given the space to learn or speak them while growing up. These experiences do not only cause distress and negative emotions, but create added concerns over losing one's first languages. In this blog, I explain how drawing on a storytelling approach can be beneficial for improving well-being and supporting language maintenance.

The storytelling-for-mental-well-being approach

First of all, well-being is defined in this project as 'a state of happiness and contentment, with low levels of distress, overall good physical and mental health and outlook, or good quality of life' (American Psychological Association, 2018). To enhance mental well-being, this study draws on a storytelling approach, which is defined as a narrative approach that is commonly used so that people can make sense of events in their lives by putting them into a story-like format. As several scholars have found, putting experiences into words and using creative arts can greatly help to improve people's physical and mental well-being (see, e.g., the work by Clift, Gergen & Gergen, Mancuso, and Sarbin, listed in the bibliography). In addition, the fact that something is being narrated implies that it is of value. The fact that lives are narrated shows that they are "worth telling and thus worth living" (Frank 2002, 111). In the case of the research presented below, narrating lives that document people's language experiences gives value to those experiences.

The project

The Principle Investigator and the storytelling-for-mental-well-being instructor designed a flyer to recruit participants who use marginalized, minoritized, suppressed, or endangered languages. The flyer stated that participants would be asked to (1) choose a language they use that is marginalised, minoritized, suppressed or endangered, (2) reflect on what the chosen language means to them, and (3) share their reflection as stories through the chosen language, either partially or fully. This process is designed to not only enhance participants' well-being but also to preserve their beautiful languages as these stories also document the languages. Five individuals of different language backgrounds shared an interest in exploring the meaning of a language they chose (either their first language or a language they had learned later), and volunteered to join the project.

We organized two workshops, one rehearsal workshop and a final event day for story telling with an audience present. The workshops were held in English, and the participants were encouraged to craft their stories in the language of their choice (with translations if the stories were not in English). After each project part, participants were invited to write reflective blogs on their experience, with an interview at the very end of the project. On the event day, we also sent out a survey to the audience in order to collect feedback on the event. Below please find a more detailed description of the procedures used in this project, findings from the reflective blogs, and the observation data that were collected.

The aim of the project was to give participants the space to reflect on their experience with their chosen language, put their experiences in words in a sensible order, and share these experiences with others. The participants had the choice to tell a story using the third person, make up a story, or perform it through a song or dance. During the story crafting process, we also included mindfulness practices such as taking deep breaths as a group, using body language to "perform" how each of us feel that day and the rest copying this body language without judgement, as a process for embodying and feeling the others' emotions, visualization ("body scan"), and breathing practice. These mindfulness practices were an essential part of the story creation as they helped participants to ease into the memories they are reflecting on, and to work on story crafting.

Workshops

Workshop One (2.5 hours)

The first workshop started off with participants introducing themselves. They told others their names, talked about their language backgrounds and explained why they joined this project. This was done through what the instructor called "theatrical interaction". To break the ice, the instructor asked participants to first say their names and then use body language to express how they were feeling that day, so as to embody it. The others were asked to copy the name and the body language. For example, a participant showed their happiness by raising their hands in the air and making a circle, while another participant showed their excitement by rolling their arms. The other participants repeated their names as well as their movements. In their blogs, participants shared that these ice-breaking activities gave them the sense that "they are a group and they are together" (Participant D) as they learned about "everybody's situation or mood on that day from this activity" (Participant E). Essentially, the interaction with each other by embodying their emotions as a theatrical activity built a "safe space" (Participant A) that enabled them to create and share their stories with each other.

The key activity for Workshop One was story crafting. The instructor guided the participants through two rounds of visualization, mind mapping and free writing activities. For the visualisation activity, the instructor asked everyone to close their eyes and take a few deep breaths. Then the instructor asked the participants some questions to reflect on positive experiences related to their chosen language (in the first round) and negative experiences (in the second round). The activity ended with taking a deep breath to come back to the present. In the following mind mapping activity lasting 5 minutes, participants were asked to visualize their language experiences on paper through a creative process. The next activity, also lasting 5 minutes, was a free writing activity in which participants were asked to put these experiences in words.

After the writing activity the instructor introduced the story template "a hero's journey", which includes the following stages: (1) the hero/home, (2) call, (3) mentors/helpers, (4) try/trial, (5) try/trial, (6) try and succeed, (7) gift, (8) return (for an explanation on story basics see also Story Structure: An Introduction and Every Story is the Same). Participants were then given some time to work on their story following each of the stages. This final activity helped create a structure to the stories participants crafted.

Workshop Two (2.5 hours)

Workshop Two took place a week later. Because there was a new participant who could not join the first workshop, Workshop Two started off with a reflection on people's motivation to join the project. Participants were again asked to introduce themselves along with showing body language to express their emotional state that day (theatrical interaction). After this the instructor guided the participants to telling stories using different genres and types of communication. The first activity was to "gossip" their stories in pairs. Participants found this activity quite challenging. Some were not sure how to tell a story about a language and its meaning to their interlocutors. The next storytelling activity the instructor introduced was to ask participants to use gestures to tell the stories to another participant. Participants found this activity also challenging. However, some found it a meaningful practice as it allowed participants to be creative in telling their stories (Participant B). One of the participants was a British Sign Language (BSL) user. Even though they were asked not to use BSL to gesture their story, the repertoire they could draw on was broader than the other participants'. The gesture practice was also beneficial to the participant paired up with the BSL user. For instance, in their reflective blog, the participant paired up with the BSL user found that they learned creative ways to tell stories.

The last activity of Workshop Two consisted of sharing stories. Before getting invited to share their stories, participants were given more time to craft their stories using the 8 stages skeleton introduced by the instructor in Workshop One. When sharing their stories with the other participants (interlocutors), each participant was given no more than 10 minutes to share what they had crafted up until then. The listeners were invited to ask questions of the storyteller reflecting on what they liked about the stories and what they would like more details on. Participants shared in their reflective blogs how they were moved by others' stories. For example, Participant A stated "I've been deeply moved by others, and I cannot deny being affected by their emotions, prompting me to reflect on myself. It's been like a journey of self-discovery". Linking to the project topic on the meaning of the language of their choice, Participant A stated: "I've come to realize that picking up my mother tongue is an act of reclaiming my most vulnerable and genuine self. The significance of my mother tongue extends beyond personal identity to familial bonds". This reflection is particularly salient specifically because Participant A was not given the chance to properly learn or use their first language growing up, especially in their family setting. Their first language is thus going through intergenerational language shift but prior to joining this project they had perceived the family language as a barrier. Coming to realize the important meaning of their first language was a wake up call.

Rehearsal Workshop (1.5 hours)

Before the Event Day, we organized a Rehearsal Workshop. This workshop was shorter. Its goal was to refine the stories and practice sharing them. Again the Workshop started with an activity involving body language. The instructor first asked the participants to walk around the room at different speeds. Then they were invited to interact with each other through facial expressions and high fives. Like the theatrical interaction activities of the previous workshops this activity aimed to increase the bond between participants and to enhance the safe space created earlier.

The second activity consisted of pronunciation practice. The instructor wrote down English-based vowels combined with consonants as a unit for participants to pronounce, such as "im", "oom", and "em", and then asked participants to throw in a random consonant such as "b", "l", or "c" to add to the units introduced earlier (i.e., "bim", "lem", "coom") for pronunciation practice. After this the instructor guided participants towards a visualization activity, starting with a few breathing exercises, then a body scan, and back to breathing exercises. The participants later indicated that these visualization activities were very helpful for calming their minds, opening their hearts to others and improving their mental well-being, as these practices helped address their anxiety.

The rest of the workshop was dedicated to refining stories, with a story sharing practice at the end to get feedback from other participants.

Event Day (2 hours)

On the Event Day, members of the university were invited to come celebrate the stories with the storytellers. The project's Principal Investigator welcomed the audience, explained the rationale of the project (i.e., storytelling for mental well-being and language maintenance), and introduced the instructor-host and the storytellers. The host then invited the storytellers on stage one by one. Before each story the host asked the storyteller and the audience to keep quiet for a minute at the beginning, and again after the story. After all stories were shared, we opened the floor to the audience for Q&A, with a social event at the end.

Storyteller and Audience Reflections

Both the audience and the participants praised the pre- and post-silences on the Event Day as effective tools to help create a space for everyone to "enter" the story, and hold the space for the story that was just shared.

Reflections from the storytellers indicated that they felt "happy" having had the opportunity to reflect on their language journey and craft it into stories (Participants A, B); this opportunity gave them "confidence" and they felt proud of themselves (Participants A, B, D). These findings resonate with earlier research findings on the health benefits of narrative. In addition to improved mental well-being, the storytellers felt that they were "heard", which made their stories matter and made them "matter" (Participants A, B, D), which aligns with Frank's (2002) statement on the increased value of experiences once they are shared.

The audience recognized the storytelling for mental well-being and language maintenance nature of this project, as they stated that the "sharing of experiences and having people willing to listen in itself is a great approach to relieving stress and boosting mental well-being, and it is a bonus as it contributes to language maintenance" (the latter because stories were told partially or fully in the language chosen by the participants). This important feedback captured the core of this work also from the audience's perspective. Upon reflecting on the storytelling for mental well-being and language maintenance approach, the audience shared that they found the event "meaningful" and that storytelling for mental well-being is a "creative" approach to reflect on languages, a "powerful tool to emancipate those who are oppressed", "a good way to reflect on our identities and experiences", and a "useful approach complementary to national and local language plans". Some audience members said they felt "emotional" on hearing different stories, found the stories "interesting and fulfilling", and thought that the approach created "an incredible safe space to share and appreciate others' linguistic journeys".

After being part of the event, some audience members shared that they were "inspired to learn more languages to communicate with others". Some asked for "more storytelling evenings, community events, lectures, and symposiums on this topic". Others mentioned that they would revisit their language teaching practices to create space for mother tongues by drawing on these languages in the classroom.

Conclusion

This project set out to (1) explore an innovative method to address the mental well-being of bilinguals who suffer from a lack of space for their languages or who are kept from speaking or learning their first language(s), viz., storytelling; (2) to preserve minoritized, minority, suppressed, or endangered languages by documenting these languages through the crafting of stories. The findings showed that storytelling is an effective approach for helping storytellers to reflect on the meaning of the language(s) they chose to focus on by putting those meanings into words and sharing their story with others. Such a process has also enhanced the well-being of the storytellers as well as the audience on the Event Day. In addition, given that the stories are shared partially through the chosen language(s), these stories act as creative ways to document the languages(s) used for the stories.

* In line with HaBilNet's use of the term "bilingual", bilinguals may use two, three, or more languages.

Bibliography

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