As our population continues to diversify and technology and travel draw the world closer, educators find themselves facing the challenge of working with individuals who have little or no English language skills. One way to bridge this gap is through bilingual storytelling. Working with or without a native speaker, a storyteller can touch the minds and hearts of all listeners. Internationally renowned storyteller Margaret Read MacDonald has called upon a diverse group of storytelling experts to share a variety of techniques to bridge the language gap; along with sample stories that librarians, teachers, and professional storytellers can easily incorporate into their repertoires. DEGREESLAfter discussing why this skill has become vital to today's storytellers, the author gives general guidance on bilingual telling, working with non-English speakers, finding a translator, travelling abroad, and so on. Four basic techniques for bilingual telling are explored: summarizing, line-by-line translation, tandem telling, and inserted phrases. Sample tales illustrate each technique. In addition, contributors cover such topics as the translator's role, using story in language instruction, presenting tellers of other languages, giving workshops abroad, The book concludes bibliographies of bilingual folktales and foreign translations of English language folktale collections.

Contributors include Joe Hayes, Nat Whitman, Murti Bunanta, Masako Sueyos, Olga Loya, Angela Lloyd, Wajuppa Tossa, and many others.