•Pre-service teachers’ impressions about the implementation of a Kamishibai in the bilingual classroom were analysed.•Cooperation and respect, as well as art techniques were issues pre-service teachers learnt from their partners with the Kamishibai execution.•Pre-service teachers were satisfied with the Kamishibai experience and the teamwork.•The Kamishibai project in the higher-education classroom fosters creativity.•The Kamishibai project in the primary-school classroom promotes reading, fosters creativity, and catches pupils’ attention. The storytelling technique Kamishibai has shown multiple advantages in educational settings. However, there is a lack of studies that deepen on its implementation in teacher training. A total of 114 pre-service teachers (mean age = 20.76 years), enrolled in the Degree of Primary Education at the University of Málaga, participated in a project where they had to design and perform a paper-based theatre for primary-education pupils as a target audience. A semi-structured online survey was administered to determine pre-service teachers’ satisfaction and perceptions towards their Kamishibai and the work in teams. The results revealed that most of the pre-service teachers were satisfied with the team experience. Besides, some benefits were listed: fostering creativity, at university; catching pupils’ attention, fostering creativity and promoting reading, in primary-school context. The Kamishibai implementation goes beyond promoting reading and other linguistic skills in both mother tongue and foreign language; it may be considered a multidisciplinary educative resource to strengthen further cross-curricular competences.