The mix of imagination and drama need not be confined to pre-school children.
For English class for primary school kids, drama gives practical experience in interacting, both written and verbal, gives them the opportunity to:
- Learn to work together
- Develop acceptance and compassion as they start to see the globe from different viewpoints
- Actively discover, enhance and reinforce their more traditional class experiences.
Drama is suitable for all children
Active engagement required in a drama lesson includes not only the intellect yet also children’s creativity and feelings. By motivating self-expression, drama encourages kids to use language with confidence and creatively.
Theatre is a suitable method for teaching children with various learning styles and at various degrees of ability. No person learns in precisely the same way, all of us have varied techniques of handling information. By actively including him in his own discovering procedure, dramatization enables each kid to absorb the language in his own method. Similarly, children whose language skills are still extremely limited are offered the possibility to interact using nonverbal cues such as body language and facial articulations.
How to use drama successfully to teach English
Appropriate difficulty
The secret here is to make the activity difficult, however attainable for every kid. Plays are optimal for this purpose, of dealing with varying capabilities, as you can give larger parts to better pupils, thus keeping them motivated and challenged while making it substantially easier for the weaker pupils by providing fewer lines. In the meantime, all students will be benefiting from being present and listening to the English spoken over and over again.
Displaying enthusiasm for the subject
The teacher’s own eagerness additionally goes a long way towards motivating a child. Anybody who has instructed a classroom of children knows how rapidly they pick up and reflect your emotional state. If you believe your English grammar class is monotonous, so will they! By utilizing theatre as a teaching technique and allowing kids to experience language in the simulated world of a story they will obtain much more fun from the class and fun is always encouraging.
Try this activity: The Human Slideshow
In the Human Slideshow, we ask students to create “slides” or pictures by striking a pose. For example, I appoint each team of pupils one chapter from “The Joy Luck Club,” and get them to choose the 3 crucial moments from the part.
They will develop a living image to illustrate the moment, and afterwards the storyteller will clarify what is taking place and why it’s a key moment. If you desire, let them use props and develop costumes to contribute to the fun of the scene.
