HOW CAN I HELP PUPILS TO UNDERSTAND A STORY?

As far as I know, and based on my experience, I can say that everyone loves to listen stories.
stories has the power of engaged and let then feel that they are also participating in the procces of the story.
If story telling is made into an interesting expercience and fun filled activity here the listeners also participate in telling, guessing, manipulating, it could be a joyous learning experience.
For us, as teachers we have to do everything as we can, to help pupils to understand the story, but not translating it.
first of all, to tell a story we have to be close and we need to be close to story telling techniques, and we need to love the story and enjoy it.
If you do this, the storytelling ill be amazing.
Other skill is to encourage children to participate, asking things duting you are telling the story, and here you can see if they are following and understanding the story or not.
Of course, you have to do mime and sounds,and maybe you can show the pictures that the book has, or you can use flashcards, or you can take some pictures with you from internet, and show it during the story.
This probably helps children to understand the story, and maybe you can have an after and before activity, and you can ask children what are they expecting about that book, and at this momento, you are indtroducing children to the story.
 
To sum up, the most important thing, as my point of view, is to choose a story that you enjoy, to know the story, to practice to telling story in front of someone, and to try to feel confortable, and try to do as good as you can.

children are going to enjoy this time with you, even if you aren´t a good storyteller, so have fun, and enjoy this moment.