A solo storytelling item for the two Arabic primary bands, where a child narrates a story from memory and is marked on memorisation, pronunciation, presentation, expression and completeness within five minutes.
Kadha Parayal is Malayalam for telling a story. A child stands alone in front of the panel and narrates a story aloud, in the Arabic section of a school arts festival. It is a spoken, on-stage item with no props or accompaniment: the voice, the face and the shape of the telling carry everything.
In the all-sections festival template it is an Individual item offered in two bands, Arabic LP (classes 1-4, about ages 6-9) and Arabic UP (classes 5-7, about ages 10-12), open to boys and girls together. The limit is five minutes in both bands, with a warning at four minutes, and the item is marked out of 100. The template does not print which story to tell or whether it is chosen by the child or set by the organiser, so the organiser should announce that before the round.
A good entry has a clear beginning, middle and end, told without a script in hand. The panel hears whether the child knows the story well enough to tell it in order, whether the words are pronounced correctly in the language of the section, and whether the telling has life: a changing voice for different characters, a pause before the turn of the plot, a face that matches the mood.
Organisers run it for the youngest bands because it needs no equipment beyond a chair or a mark on the floor and a clock, and many children can be heard in one sitting. It builds memory, spoken language and confidence in a way that suits primary classes.
Where Kadha Parayal is run
In this dataset Kadha Parayal is carried by two templates: a state-level all-sections school arts festival and a school Arabic literary-festival template. Both place it in the On Stage category with two competitions each. It is a Kerala school-syllabus item, so outside that setting an organiser can use it as a short memorised storytelling round for children of about 6 to 12 in whatever language they teach.
- Kerala, India (school arts festivals with an Arabic section)
Key facts
- Individual item – one child tells the story alone, never a team.
- Two bands: Arabic LP (classes 1-4, about ages 6-9) and Arabic UP (classes 5-7, about ages 10-12).
- Open to boys and girls together in one competition per band.
- Time limit 5 minutes, with a warning at 4 minutes, in both bands.
- Marked out of 100 across five criteria: memorisation 25, pronunciation accuracy 25, style of presentation 20, expression 15, completeness 15.
- The story itself, and whether it is chosen or set, is not printed in the template – the organiser announces it.
On eTalenter, Kadha Parayal is filed under On Stage and typically scored with Marks. It appears in 2 ready-made event templates — each one can adjust its time limit, age-group assignment and scoring setup independently.
Across the templates that use it, Kadha Parayal is most often entered as an Individual competition, typically scored out of 100, commonly time-limited to around 5 minutes where a limit is set.
The scoring method the templates attach to this item, and what that scale means. The category this competition is filed under when a template is installed. Others in this category: Dance, Music, Drama, Mimicry, Debate, Elocution, Story Telling, Group Song, Action Song eTalenter matches an item to its criteria on the words in its name, and creates exactly these when the template is installed. No criteria match this name, so none are created automatically — judges score it on the event’s own criteria instead. Each organiser scores this competition on its own criteria. These are the ones the ready-made templates carry.How it is scored
Where it sits
Judging criteria installed for it
How organisers judge it
Arabic Sahityotsavam (Kerala Schools)
Kerala Kalolsavam – All Sections
What judges look at in Kadha Parayal
What a Kadha Parayal panel is actually weighing up, and where the marks are usually won or lost:
- Memorisation – Manapaadam (25 marks): the child should tell the story without prompting or reading. Stopping to recall, skipping a scene or being prompted from the side costs marks here first.
- Pronunciation accuracy – Ucharanashuddhi (25 marks): clear, correct sounds for every word in the section’s language. Mumbled endings and swallowed letters lose as much as a wrong word.
- Style of presentation – Avatharanareethi (20 marks): how the story is shaped and delivered, including a confident start, an even pace, sensible pauses and a clean finish.
- Expression – Bhavaprakatanam (15 marks): voice and face matching the feeling of each part, such as a hushed voice for a secret or a brighter one for a happy turn.
- Completeness – Poornatha (15 marks): the story reaches its end inside the five minutes. A telling cut off by the clock, or one that ends with the main event missing, drops marks.
- Where marks are won: memorisation and pronunciation together carry half the total, so a plain, accurate telling usually beats a dramatic one with slips in the words.
Treat these as the judging focus, not a fixed rubric: publish your own weighted criteria for Kadha Parayal under Scoring Setup, or start from the full speech competition judging criteria guide.
How to prepare for Kadha Parayal
How entrants and their teachers usually get Kadha Parayal right on the day:
- Choose a story with a clear order of events and few characters; a child can hold three or four scenes in mind far more easily than a long tale with many names.
- Learn the story as a sequence of pictures first, then add the words, so a lost sentence can be recovered from the next scene instead of causing a stall.
- Practise aloud to a listener every day for a week, and ask them to say which word they could not hear, then fix that word.
- Time a full telling with a clock; aim to finish near four minutes so the warning bell is a signal to wrap up, not a surprise.
- Add the expression last: mark two or three places where the voice should drop, rise or pause, rather than acting every line.
- Teach the child to start calmly, to look at the panel and not the floor, and to stop clearly when the story ends instead of trailing off.
- If a word is forgotten on the day, keep going with the next scene; the five-minute window and the completeness mark reward a finished story over a perfect one.
Events that run this (2)
Ready-made templates that already include this competition. Installing one sets it up for you.
Frequently asked questions
Is Kadha Parayal judged individually or as a team?
Across eTalenter’s templates it’s most often run as an Individual entry, though an organiser can set either participation type when assigning the item to an age group.
Is Kadha Parayal judged individually or as a team?
Individually. Each child tells the story alone and is marked on their own telling.
How long is the Kadha Parayal round?
In the all-sections template it is five minutes in both bands, with a warning at four minutes.
Is it the same as a speech or story-writing item?
No. It is spoken and memorised, marked on memorisation, pronunciation, presentation, expression and completeness. Story writing is a written item judged on the page.
Which age groups take part?
The template offers it in Arabic LP (classes 1-4, about ages 6-9) and Arabic UP (classes 5-7, about ages 10-12). Which story is told is set by the organiser.
Want the full judging picture? Read the full speech competition judging criteria guide, or browse every on stage competition item.
Try Kadha Parayal in eTalenter
See every ready-made template that runs Kadha Parayal, and install one as a live event — age groups, rules and scoring included.
