Teaching through Storytelling as a Way of Improving Emotional Intelligence and Reducing Bashfulness among Female Students

Emotional intelligence is the ability to control and manage emotions. Bashfulness is an emotional characteristic that could lead to social isolation and impact children’s performance across their developmental years. Learning social skills could help shy students overcome this problem. It has been hypothesized that such skills can be taught through storytelling, and hence, improve children’s emotional intelligence. To test this hypothesis, a group of 25 fifth and sixth grader girls identified by their teachers as shy, were assigned to two groups one of which learned social skills through storytelling while the other did not do anything. Both emotional intelligence and shyness of both groups were assessed before and after the eight 45-minute storytelling sessions. Data analyses show that the emotional intelligence of the experimental group improved and their bashfulness detectably reduced. It is thereby suggested that within the educational environments storytelling be deployed as a way of helping students overcome their shyness.