Music

Today’s first workshop was music. This week’s workshop was all about how using our voice in the classroom is an obvious essential part of teaching and therefore taking care of our voice is crucial in being an effective teacher. At the start of the class, Julie got us on our feet to do some vocal warmups, such as holding our breath for a duration of time and letting our breath out after. One of the warm ups we all put our hands on our rib cages to feel what happens when we breath in and out and how it changes when we do this. I  thought that this would be a good exercise in a class to contextualise the learning and relate it to using the organs in our body and how they work. Julie also showed us a very useful website called ChoonBaboon. This website showed us various range of various to warm up our vocals and our face muscles in order to use our voices.

This would be a fun way in order to warm up the children’s voices. I would definitely use this and other similar songs to introduce a music lesson with younger learners. It would be good way to introduce the lesson and get them focussed. As Fleming (2012, p 19) suggests the arts can ‘enthral, move, enlighten, inform, inspire, amuse, challenge, entertain or provoke.’ I would certainly agree that using these warm up activities above they did enthral, inspire, amuse, entertain and challenge me proving that the arts have many values.

Next we considered using the theme of fireworks to give a real life context for learning within music. As in the integrated arts as we have seen time and time again, they connect to other subject areas to form a creative process. Hallen (2010). First of all we were given a choice of instruments that would make a noise similar to bang, boom, pop, crackle and hiss. There was a grid up and we used pictures to represent the sounds and as a class we then played with a conductor leading us and directing us of when to play our instruments. This activity was so much fun and very simple. I think this could be used in lots of different stages in the school and I would differentiate the amount of instruments, how many beats could be used and the length of the notes within each stage and also in each class to provide challenge. There was a lot of trial and error, a lot of chatting about what worked together and what didn’t and how it could be improved. Therefore music certainly extends the children’s language and discussion skills using Blooms Taxonomy higher thinking skills of analysing, evaluating and creating. Furthermore Fleming (2012, p18) comments that the integrated arts ‘push the limits of language.’

Drama

The second workshop was drama. I am still growing more confident in my self esteem and performing in front of an audience. The focus this week was on Hallowe’en to contextualise the learning. The main drama conventions we looked at were;

• flash forward/ flash backwards
• narration
• slow motion

We started the session by being shown an old abandoned house in the local area, giving this a sense of reality. We were told the house was up for sale but there were rumours that it was haunted due to an incident that happened years ago. Andrew set the scene as he was the teacher in role and we had to act out a scene for an overnight stay at the house. We the used flash back / flash forward techniques to reflect and discuss past and future events. This would give the learners an opportunity to discuss the consequences of certain actions of possible past and future events. The narration gives the children a focus and a reason as to why such events are happening and gives time to understand what and why this is the case. I particularly enjoyed the slow motion as it gave me a chance to reflect and think about the situation and how I was reacting. This could be easily transferred  to the classroom situation if there was a problem in class and something needed discussed this would be a good way for the class to reflect on it by becoming part of it. Therefore it is as if the children are ‘Living through the given circumstance of the imagined situation as if these events were actually occurring to them.’ Neeldans, (2000, p3) And I would agree as I felt connected to the situation of the haunted house and had a better understanding of what was happening because I was taking part in it.  I feel I now have a wide range of drama conventions from this week and last week that I would be happy to include in my lesson as a trainee teacher.

Finally I was made very aware about the importance of the teacher’s voice. A teacher uses her voice constantly in the classroom be it to teach, direct, manage, sing , encourage or feed back. ‘The voice is essential to the teacher’s career.’ GTC (n.d, p6)  We considered different ways of getting the class to pay attention without having to raise my voice. It was suggested repeat clapping, repeat singing, raising hand and waiting for silence, saying rhyme or standing and waiting. I have noticed on my work experience that the teachers who are the loudest have the noisiest classes and the opposite is also true. Therefore as a trainee teacher I must try and find ways of managing the class without shouting and becoming an effective teacher.’ There is a lot of evidence in the teaching profession of voice problems and  teachers being at ‘risk of developing voice problems is complex,’ GTC (n.d, p6). Therefore I will need to protect my voice and not overuse it within the classroom setting and if I start this now as a trainee teacher hopefully my voice will last the duration of my teaching career without too many problems.

References

GTCS (n.d) Voice and the Teaching Profession [online] Available: http://www.gtcs.org.uk/web/FILES/FormUploads/voice-and-the-teaching-profession1652_214.pdf [Accessed: 6th November 2017]

Hallam, S (2010) The power of music: It’s impact on the intellectual, social and personal development of children and young people, International Journal of Music Education [Online] pp.269-289. Available: http://ijm.sage.pub.com/content/28/3/269 [Accessed: 29 October 2017]

Neelands, J. (2000) In the Hands of Living People. [Online] paper presented at : The National Drama Conference. York, UK, April, 2000 Available:  http://moodle.uws.ac.uk/pluginfile.php/109425/mod_resource/content/2/T2%20Neelands.pdf