Josanne Cassar interviews Rita Antoinette Borg, educator and presenter of ‘Yes!’ On Education 22

How did you become involved in this programme?

“It was a coincidence really (though I do not believe in coincidences.) Claudine Portelli called me up to see if I would be the featured author of her show “YES!” on Education 22.

She told me that her co -host Anton Falzon saw my storytelling sessions at Europark B’Kara.

So I took up the opportunity that I had long been waiting for - I asked her if she could find 5-10 minutes for me on the show just for storytelling.

Both Anton and Claudine decided it was worth a try and I thank them very much as others were not as generous.”

What is the idea behind this project of storytelling in English and why is it different from other approaches?

“Storytelling has been around for a long time now. For cave people it was the only form of entertainment. Gathered to keep warm around a large fire, they told each other what they learned and did during the day. Later they drew pictures on the cave walls. Stories gave them identity and later created their culture. Somewhere along the line, language became refined and the stories became better and more interesting. Prehistoric humans learned how to communicate and how to depend on each other thus forming communities.

Fast forward to today, the humble picture book is still alive and kicking though now it’s printed on paper with colourful pictures and is portable enough for a five minute bonding session between adult and child.

The Maltese picture book is relatively a new thing for the country and still needs time and good authors to develop and compete with English language picture books.”

The standards of reading and writing are plummeting especially in English - why do you think this has happened?

“There are many reasons why reading and writing of all languages are plummeting. Mostly it is the fact that we are not reading enough books and not writing long forms of communication with our fellow human beings anymore. Don’t get me wrong. I love the computer, but I think it plays a big part in the deterioration of language skills. Reading and writing go hand in hand – you can’t have one with out the other. Television, the Internet and anything technology comes up with, have the knack of bombarding us with ideas, images, and sounds.Their own particular ideas, images and sounds. It’s usually a one way traffic. With reading, a good writer lets you, the reader, flex your imagination muscle. Your brain works in reading between the lines, figuring out what the characters look like, deciding if you empathise with them or not, how slow or fast you want to read in order to build up your imaginative setting.You don’t get this chance with movies or television.While writing, of course, has all our imaginative brain powers working overtime to put our thoughts on paper(or computer). And God forbid we should do that! To put it all in a nutshell – we’ve become brain lazy. Remember the cave people? They developed language from mere sounds; today we seem to be reversing the process.”

What age group do you target?

“Everyone needs stories; there is no age limit. From when we are born until we die. When I was reading at the hospital to child patients, someone rightly suggested that it would be great to read to the elderly patients. I would have loved to but lack of time is always a problem.

Parents snigger when I suggest reading to infants. I read to my own children while they were in the womb. There is no scientific proof that this can make a difference to the child’s brain development, however my children all learned to read before the age of three. I truly believe that even the process of child-parent bonding that storytelling involves, enforces the child’s language skills, his/her willingness to listen and stay still, and the ever growing need of the child to feel special. This is my own made up theory: I think that children who don’t like reading fear being alone and fear being bored. If only they were to realise how a book can be a great friend to help the reader travel to the depths of the ocean and to way outside our known universe, to meet creatures / characters we would otherwise not encounter and listen to new thoughts we would have never thought up ourselves. Reading is discovering. Everyone is invited.”

How important is it for parents to tell stories to their children?

“The luckiest children in the world are those children who have parents that read to them.”

What other ideas do you have to improve the standards of English?

“Malta needs:

Good, modern books in local libraries.

Storytelling sessions in every school.

More emphasis on drama and oral recitations.

A greater chance of publishing works by children

The publication of a good English language local

magazine

Storytelling on television and radio

Less emphasis on reading for the sole purpose of getting good grades and writing compositions

More emphasis on creativity in and beyond the school

Less class structure, more debates, more hands on learning by the pupil

All children are curious and want to learn about the world around them, even the most under privileged child.

All children learn by playing and just having good old-fashioned fun!”

How can parents who don’t speak English themselves help their children in this area?

“You would think that this is a disadvantage. It well could be if the parent gives up. But as I said, a lucky child is a child who has parents that reads and plays with them. Books come in all shapes and sizes, from no words to thousands of words. Grab a book. Talk about the pictures. Today the parent/child team learned the word C A T. Tomorrow together read the book The Cat In The Hat by the wonderful Dr. Seuss. Follow up by reading the fairytale Puss In Boots. Alice in Wonderland has the word C A T too: read about him, he’s quite a character.

It’ll take time but they can learn any subject under the sun once they know the language books available, whether it be the Maltese language, the English language or any other language. Language is the key to communication; communication is the key to knowledge; knowledge is the key to creativity; creativity is the key to the imagination; and imagination is your own special key to find out who you truly are inside.