| dc.description.abstract | Storytelling experts are good at giving impromptu performances to unknown audiences and under different situations. This study did not discuss the learning effects of storytelling in teaching, nor did it explore the techniques and rules of storytelling. Instead, through the lens of Communities of Practice, this study revealed the learning contexts of a master storyteller from a storytelling community and the expert knowledge emerged through practice from multiple contexts full of uncertainty.
The present study was a case study and the research questions focused on how, what and where did the master storyteller learn. Interviews, observation notes and related documents were collected from up to 30 storytelling and workshop sessions in which the master storyteller had engaged. Mutual engagement, joint enterprise, and shared repertoire were the conceptual tools used for further analysis.
The present study yielded three findings. First, through multiple engagement in the storytelling communities of practice, the storyteller had gradually become a master storyteller. Second, in pursuit of a storytelling enterprise, the storyteller had constantly negotiated with the members of the storytelling communities and had gradually exhibited features beyond the stereotypical types of voluble and solo raconteurs with well-prepared plans. Instead, being flexible to, being all ears to, and playing ensemble with the audiences were what the master storyteller had put into practice in the storytelling enterprise. Third, it was in the improvisation of throwing and catching, in various transformations of challenging crises, and in the co-creation of storytelling performance with the audiences that the expert knowledge had been identified. The expert knowledge later developed into a shared repertoire of the community, and shaped the landscape of storytelling enterprise.
From this study, there are three contributions. First, from the participation paradigm, the learning trajectory of a master storyteller and the expert knowledge in practice could be recognized, some of which could not be easily observed from the perspective of acquisition paradigm. Besides, a new understanding emerges if the storyteller and the audiences of a storytelling session are regarded as a community, focusing on the mutually-shaped relationships between the community members and the storytelling enterprise. Finally, the present study identified the locus of expert knowledge in storytelling and navigated a new course for the storytelling novices.
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