The rich tradition of Arabic storytelling, which brings to life fables, legends and tales of kings and warriors, gets a new platform with Canon Middle East bringing captivating stories, narrated by expert Hakawatis, through the newly launched \u2018Hakawaty.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A digital\nplatform for Arabic storytelling, which underlines the vast and varied Arabic\ncontent that has been handed down over generations through the art of\nstorytelling, comes just in time for the Holy Month of Ramadan and as families\nstay at home following the Covid-19 situation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The platform\u2019s\nlaunch coincides with research Canon has recently undertaken in collaboration\nwith YouGov, identifying attitudes amongst families about their overall\ne-learning experiences. In the UAE, some 60% of respondents said that so far,\ntheir experience has been \u2018excellent\u2019 or \u2018good\u2019, with the majority, 56%,\nchoosing activities such as reading and other hobbies including musical\ninstruments and sketching as their favourite way to keep kids occupied. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In Saudi Arabia<\/a>, 63% stated that their experience was \u2018excellent\u2019 or \u2018good\u2019 with the overall experience of e-learning. 52% of Saudis chose reading and other hobbies such as instruments and sketching. They preferred choosing these options to keep families entertained whilst at home. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The\nlaunch of \u2018Hakawaty\u2019 is even\nmore pertinent for the region, where there is an increased focus on popularising\nArabic among the younger generation, more so as many young ones speak English\nat home and are not familiar with stories of yore, from the region and by the\nregion\u2019 storytellers. It also complements the efforts across the region to\npromote Arabic skills among students, as they become more familiar with the stories\nfrom Arab literature, and are inspired not just to share them but also narrate\nthe stories and continue the tradition of storytelling. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Several studies\nhave documented the importance of storytelling in shaping a well-rounded\npersonality in children. A research<\/a> published in the\nEuropean Journal of Language and Literature Studies cites that storytelling promotes\ncognitive development as well as in memorising new vocabulary and phrases,\nwhile another<\/a> states that\nstorytelling and children\u2019s literature are \u201cmeans and catalysts for behavioural\nmanagement, behavioural modification and modelling desirable behaviour.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018Hakawaty\u2019 aims to foster\nin children a love for the written word and the fine art of narrating stories, and\nfeatures a catalogue of Arabic short stories for children below the age of 10.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mai Youssef, Corporate Communications & Marketing\nServices Director, <\/strong>\u200e<\/strong>Canon Middle East and Central and\nNorth Africa, said<\/strong>:<\/strong>\n\u201cStorytelling is at the heart of the Arab heritage. Now, with more people\nspending more time at home and with the advent of the Holy Month of Ramadan, we\nsee Hakawaty as an ideal platform to inspire children through compelling\nstories narrated by expert storytellers. The diversity of themes, settings and\ncharacters that Hakawaty will present will further strengthen a love for\nliterature in children. We will continue to build Hakawaty over the coming months\nand create a strong digital bank of Arabic stories that will celebrate the\nrichness of Arabic literature and the proud tradition of story-telling.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A digital platform for Arabic storytelling, which underlines the vast and varied Arabic content that has been handed down over generations through the art of storytelling, comes just in time for the Holy Month of Ramadan and as families stay at home following the Covid-19 situation. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":2877,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9619],"tags":[1312,387,727,1310,487,575,1311,1313],"contributor":[],"class_list":["post-2875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-top-stories","tag-arabic","tag-canon","tag-canon_yougov","tag-hakawaty","tag-middle_east","tag-saudi_arabia","tag-storytelling","tag-traditional"],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/techxmedia.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/visual-2-e1588521712898.png","author_info":{"display_name":"Rabab","author_link":"https:\/\/techxmedia.com\/en\/author\/rabab\/"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/techxmedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/techxmedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/techxmedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techxmedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techxmedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2875"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/techxmedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2875\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techxmedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/techxmedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techxmedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techxmedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2875"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techxmedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=2875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}