Ir al contenido principal

Children love drama classes!


  This pictures were taken from my drama classes with students in one of the school where I work. Children really enjoy acting out, getting dressed with funny items of clothes. Besides, they learn vocabulary, intonation and pronunciation. Let´s find out about some drama techniques for your lesson plan...


WHY USE DRAMA GAMES OR THEATRE GAMES IN YOUR TEACHING? 
   They are simple, cost-effective way of accomplishing a wide variety of educational goals, not just in theatre class. The games combine elements of creative drama, improvisation, pantomime, creative movement, and storytelling. They develop foundational skills needed in theatre arts that also have tremendous positive effects on literacy development, academic success, and social interaction. The games are easy to integrate with content from other school subjects or content areas. The drama game or theatre game is a versatile teaching tool that reaches multiple learning styles, content areas, age groups, and levels of language and experience.
   Drama education is a powerful teaching and learning tool with profound positive effects on a student’s cognitive, social, emotional, and physical development. The benefits of regular theatre arts instruction spill over into all school subjects and everyday life. Creative drama is sound pedagogy that reaches students of multiple intelligences and different learning styles. It is a multi-sensory mode of learning that engages mind, body, senses, and emotions to create personal connections to the material that improve comprehension and retention.

Here you have some examples: 

ENERGISING: ICE BREAKERS
  Step on toe tag A high-energy game that is self-explanatory! A variation on this – slap back of thighs. 

  Budge Five in a group – four stand on the points of a square and one in the middle – object of the game is the middle person to get onto one of the points. Point players can change places – but they must send a visual or aural message to one of the others before they move – otherwise everyone just runs to the same place making it easy for the guy in the middle! Try to do it fast! It’s quite exhausting so don’t let it go on too long! 

   Melon, melon, melon Give every member of the group a fruit except yourself. The idea is to “catch” their fruit by saying its name (e.g. melon, melon, melon) three times before they can say it once. If you succeed, you become their fruit and they have to catch someone else out. WARNING: 
choose short names e.g. pear or cherry.

CONCENTRATION 
  Count to 10 Rules are: anyone can say the next number 1-10 but if two or more people speak at the same time the count goes back to one again 
   
  Animals (or adjectives etc.) Standing in a circle of about six with one player in the middle. The players in the circle all choose an Animal (or a colour/ a city/ an emotion/ adjective/ adverb etc.) The player in the centre has a rolled up newspaper; when the leader calls out the name of one of the animals (or colour etc.) in the circle, the central player tries to hit that person before they can say another animal etc. in the circle – if they manage to do so before he says his animal then they change places so that the loser goes into the centre and the outgoing “hitter” takes on the loser’s animal name!

IMPROVISATION / STORYTELLING 
    Park bench The first player sits silently on a “bench” displaying as much about his character as he can without verbalising it. The next player joins him and makes a strong complimenting character choice. (A complimenting character may be contrasting or supporting.) The player coming on should make strong character choices as soon as he is off his seat. This means the character should be embodied in his walk, voice and intent. The two characters interact for about thirty seconds and the player that was on the bench first finds a reason to leave. This leaves the second player on the bench alone for a while. The next player creates a character and joins the player that is on the bench. This continues until all in the workshop have done one or more characters. 

   Drawing Magic Pictures Sit in pairs with a large imaginary piece of paper between you. The idea is to draw “everything” you say as you tell a story. Swop over on a signal [given by the teacher]. The game helps to stop the imagination being “blocked” by thinking what you will say next – there is not time for thinking just draw!


Comentarios

Entradas populares de este blog

Freytag's pyramid, the dramatic structure in literature

Just like life, some stories are difficult to understand. Whether you are reading a novel or watching a play or film, there are times when you have to apply certain methods to better understand what you are reading or watching. Gustav Freytag, a German novelist and critic of the nineteenth century, observed the similarity of plots so he created a pictorial tool to visually illustrate dramatic structure. Called Freytag’s Pyramid, he constructed a pattern in the form of a pyramid to analyze the plot structure of dramas.    Freytag’s Pyramid : How to Analyze a Story Words You Need to Know Conflict: a problem that occurs in the story Tragedy: a story ending in death and sadness Analyze: to look at something very closely. According to Freytag, every story worth telling has the following parts: exposition (inciting incident), rising action, climax (turning point), falling action, and denouement (resolution).  Freytag’s pyramid is used to show how stor

Pride and Prejudice. Literary elements

We will analyse Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen according to the setting, the character´s points of view and the tone in which the phrases are expressed. Setting. Where events took place:  Netherfieldd Park (Bingley´s residence) Pemberly House (Darcy´s estate) The Derbyshire countryside Rosings (Lady Catherine´s home) Other settings may be include Longbourn, Hansford and Meryton. Narration. The novel is told in third person with limited omniscience and we are connected with Elizabeth´s perspective and experiences all the time. Characterization. Austen provides details about their physical characteristics and their personality too. Fine, eyes, pretty, woman, tolerable, tall person, handsome features, etc.  Tone. If you want to understand the story, you need to focus on the tone whenever a character is expressing an idea. For instance, Mr. Bennet´s reaction to Elizabeth´s refusal to marry Collins. Interesting video: https://www.y

C. Auguste Dupin, the original model for the detective in literature

    Dupin is a Paris  gentleman of leisure who for his own amusement uses “analysis” to help the police solve crimes. In the highly popular short stories “The murders in the Rue Morgue ” (1841) and "The Purloined letter"  (1845), as well as the less-successful “ The Mystery of Marie Roget” (1845), Dupin is depicted as an eccentric , a reclusive amateur poet who prefers to work at night by candlelight        Dupin, a man of genious, is perfeclty described as a typical detective in Literature. A literature in which a crime is introduced, investigated and needed to be revealed: “He derives pleasure from even the most trivial occupations bringing his talent into play. He is fond of enigmas, of conundrums, of hieroglyphics; exhibiting in his solutions of each a degree of acumen which appears to the ordinary apprehension præternatural”         Dupin has a greater power of observation and a superior mind: “He makes, in silence, a host of observations and inferences” . He