(Oscar) One time, I went to Legoland.

(child) Oh!

(Noelle) <i>Because our class
does storytelling, story acting,</i>

<i>our students know
and respect each other more.</i>

<i>It's a language and literacy practice,
really, but it does so much more.</i>

<i>It helps the kids with their social
emotional development.</i>

<i>It's really community building
within the classroom.</i>

(child) I went to Legoland.

♪ (music) ♪

(Sarah) <i>Amigos is a two way
immersion school</i>

<i>for students, in Cambridge, 
Massachusetts.</i>

At Amigos, we look to support biliteracy
in the early years

<i>by really developing and strengthening
oral language skills,</i>

<i>and the students' ability to tell stories,</i>

<i>understand the shape of a story,
and be able to share that</i>

<i>with oral language
in both Spanish and English.</i>

With my mom, my dad.

(Oscar) <i>So storytelling, story acting,
we first ask a child to tell us a story,</i>

and it could be 
a personal story of theirs,

or something that they have made up.

<i>And then when it's time to do
the story acting,</i>

<i>we are actually seeing a visual
representation of their story.</i>

(Oscar) And there was petals.

<i>We're actually working with language,
but at the same time,</i>

we're working with elements of a story.

(Oscar) You can use Legos to make a car.

(children) Brrmm, brmm

<i>It has setting, characters.</i>

(child) A brother.
(Noelle) Brother.

(Noelle) <i>Each day, a different student
has a turn to tell a story to me.</i>

(Noelle) It was a family of turtles.
(child) Yeah.

(Noelle) Ah, okay.
So there was a family of turtles.

<i>I take the story dictation
during rest time.</i>

<i>It's a quiet time,
so I call the student over.</i>

(child) The shark.

(Noelle) There's a shark in your story? 
(Child) Yeah.

(Noelle) <i>It just probably
takes five or ten minutes.</i>

They tell me the story.

(child) Then I-
(in Spanish) I need four people.

(Noelle) <i>And often because
we're a bilingual school,</i>

it's really a motivator for the kids,
who are just learning Spanish

to try to tell the story in Spanish.

<i>And then we clean up the mats,
we get in our circle,</i>

<i>and then I call the student
up to sit next to me.</i>

There was a family of turtles.

(Noelle) <i>I read the story aloud.</i>

(girl) Do you want to be the baby? 
(boy) Uh-huh.

(Noelle) <i>And then they are responsible
for choosing who the actors are.</i>

(girl) Do you want to be the mommy?

(Noelle) <i>We just go in a circle.</i>

<i>So it's not popularity contest,
but more of just whose turn it is.</i>

(girl) -Do you want to be the sister?
(in Spanish) -Yes.

(Noelle) <i>And they put 
them in their places,</i>

<i>and then I read the story
for a final time, and they act it out</i>

The turtle said "Hi!" to the girl.

Hi. 
- I'm not the girl, she is.

Oh, so if you're a turtle,
then you have to go like that.

<i>(Noelle) For the very shy kids, it gives 
them a structure and a platform</i>

<i>and rules to be able to do that.</i>

And then the shark
ate all the turtles.

<i>For other kids, it gives them
that much-needed like</i>

<i>"This is my turn. I've been 
wanting this all day long!"</i>

<i>So it depends on the child.</i>

<i>But it is very powerful for everyone
to have that kind of spotlight on you.</i>

<i>Wow, look at the shark.</i>

<i>Look at the shark!</i>