Using Wisdom Stories in Language Teacher Education

How ancient wisdom, anecdotes and aphorisms can enhance teacher training and development

Wisdom Stories offer absurd, creative, and often nonsensical narratives which work on many levels,  are open to interpretation, and easily spark discussion and debate. Alan Maley shares Wisdom Stories from across the world and suggests a framework for how to use these for teacher training and development.

Wisdom Stories present narratives which, on the surface level at least, often appear absurd, paradoxical, illogical and nonsensical. They are open to multiple interpretations and are often allegorical, which makes them extremely valuable for sparking discussion and debate. These Wisdom Stories often come from a number of traditional sources from cultures and countries across the world. This includes Zen stories, Sufi stories, Prankster stories such as Anansi stories of West Africa or the Xieng Mieng stories of Laos, fables, Folk stories and, more recently, Urban Myths. They also come from personal anecdotes, poetry, certain categories of jokes, flash fiction and more.

These stories often provoke discussion and debate on issues which touch on life in general. However, they can also illuminate pedagogical and other classroom issues. In this book, Alan Maley shares a wide variety of Wisdom Stories and explores how they can be deployed in teacher training and development. This includes traditional Wisdom Stories alongside stories from published accounts on teaching and stories from ELT colleagues. These Wisdom Stories and the accompanying framework and ideas aim to provoke discussion and exploration and challenge teachers and trainee teachers to think about their own teaching practice.