As teachers our voice is our main teaching tool. It’s how we communicate with children throughout the day. It’s how we set rules and manage behave. Our tone and volume can tell children a lot about the message we are trying to portray (GRAD, 2017).

It is therefore important that we understand how to take care of our voice and other ways of communicating our message to children.

We should ease our voices into the day ahead this could be done by singing your favourite songs on the way to work. Growing up I remember lots of teachers talking about having a sore throat and not being able to talk. Being a student teacher I can now understand why this happens.

Classroom management and behaviour create a picture in my mind of an unruly class and a teacher shouting. Personally through experience of working in nurseries and after school groups I think there are better ways of managing behaviour than shouting.

One way of classroom management that helps our voice is:
Clap and clap back – this is were the teacher would clap a rythem to the class and they would have to clap back to show they are listening. This gets repeated until everyone is paying attention and listening.

Our voice is also important when teaching music as it is the one instrument that we all have..

Singing is something that I am not completely comfortable with but will give it a go with children. Resources such as ‘Choon Baboon’ and ‘Charanga’ are great for teachers. They help with lessons plans and act as a safety blanket for areas out with your comfort zone.Using ‘Choon Baboon’ in our seminar showed me how to practice our breathing, warm up vocal chords and our facial muscles. All which are important for singing.

One song on ‘Choon Baboon’ was about dogs. It was catchy and taught the children exactly how to sing it.

Above is a shot clip of the song from ‘Choon Baboon’ about the dog.

We also learned a song about a penguin coming to tea. This song had actions and was a good game for a lesson starter.

Another part of music is learning to read a score sheet. This can be challenging for some children. Graphic scores is away of making it simpler. They are also visually stimulating.A score is created with boxes, along the side is the sounds that have to be used and along the bottom is the time frame.

 

As a group of 6, during our seminar we created and performer our own graphic score using a variety of instruments.

My instrument was used to create Rudolfs foot steps.

Above is a shot clip of the sound created to symbolise Rudolfs foot steps.

As the sessions on music continue I find myself stepping out my comfort zone more and becoming more confident with various aspects of music.

Drama

As we continued to learn about various conventions in drama, we also focused on how we should teach children to take drama seriously. That when they are acting out scenes children should portray the feelings that the characters feel. That we should try and get the children to refrain rom laughing while acting unless it is part of the scene. By doing this we are teaching children that drama is not just a ‘laugh’ but an educational resource. We need to allow children to develop their own creativity while still having control over the behaviour in the classroom.

Cross-curricular

It is important that no matter what we teaching that we always have control over the behaviour in the classroom. As a future teacher I feel that it is necessary to know skills that will help us with behavioural management. That while the arts may be fun they should also be taken seriously.

References:
Charanga. (2017) Charanga musical school. [Online] Available: https://charanga.com/site/ [Accessed: 31 October 2017]
Choon Baboon. (2017) Choon Baboon. [Online] Available: http://choonbaboon.com/ [Accessed: 31 October 2017]
GTSC. (2017) Voice Management. [Online] Available: http://www.in2teaching.org.uk/hints-and-tips/View/952.aspx [Accessed: 31 October 2017]