We focused on drama and music this week. The inputs were a little different than what we are normally experience but they were brilliant to experience and will help my teaching practice significantly in the near future.
Drama
This week in the drama input, we had the chance to teach our class a drama lesson through microteaching. Our group chose to focus our story on ‘The Gruffalo’ by Julia Donaldson. We chose this story because we thought that it would be easy for the class to understand and engage with. As well as this, it is a well-known children’s story book and so we felt that it would be easy to implement this into real practice in the future.
We decided to use various drama conventions. This included; narration, role on the wall, teacher in role, voxpop, thought tunnel and flashforward. However, the class could use other conventions such as mime and freeze-frame when performing if they wished. Kelsey and I had the task of directing and teaching the thought tunnel to the class. We asked two groups to make the tunnel and Kelsey and I played the role of the mouse and Gruffalo. The class then told us how they felt about the characters as we walked through the tunnels.
I felt rather anxious before the lesson because I don’t really like drama or performing in front of other people. Bloomfield and Childs (2002) say that drama is communicated and portrayed through actions, movement and talking in front of an audience to gain a reaction. In order to do this, it takes great confidence, which is something I struggle with. So, for me, this is something I felt quite nervous about. I was nervous because I felt that if I was embarrassed or nervous then I wouldn’t be able to deliver this part of the lesson as well as I wanted to.
Despite this feeling, I feel that the lesson went really well. I think that I did better that I thought I would with my part of the lesson because I felt that the class engaged well and I managed my nerves well. I feel that the class responded well to the lesson and engaged well with the story. The class participated very well even when we didn’t think things were going as best as they could have.
Things that we could improve on
• In reflection, I think that a few things could have been improved about the lesson. I think that the timing could have been a lot better. our lesson took 35 minutes when the guideline was only 20 minutes. I think we tried to cram everything into the lesson and underestimated the amount of time that it took to carry out each convention.
• I also think that we could have improved on our standing position. We mostly remained in the same spot of the room for the whole drama. I think that this was because of nerves and could be improved through practising teaching drama on a regular basis.
• A comment that was made was that the story could be hard to engage with on a personal level if you had never heard it before. We should take this into consideration and sometimes pick a story that children do know before- hand. We could also introduce the story before working on a drama in a primary school, such as, simply reading the story one day so that the children have had a chance to hear the story.
Things that went well
• We incorporated a wide range of conventions in the drama which gave us and the class more experience of using them.
• We gave the class thinking time when carrying out the conventions.
• We read the story loud and clear for the class to hear and interpret.
• We gave all the groups a chance to perform and participate.
Overall, I think that we did do a good job of the drama lesson. There are some things that could have been improved but this will get better with more practice. I actually really enjoyed teaching the drama which I never thought I would because I was quite nervous before it. I think that this activity has helped me combat my nerves a lot because I was pushed out of my comfort zone which is really good for me even though it might not feel like it at the time. I also think that the group worked really well together as we all contributed ideas and helped each other along the way during the lesson. We all took a part of the lesson to deliver so everyone had some responsibility and not just one or two people which I really liked. This is something I would like to do again because I feel that this sort of thing will help my confidence in teaching and performing drama.
If I was teaching a lesson like this with my own class in the future I would hope to achieve outcomes such as:
I have developed confidence and skills in creating and presenting drama which explores real and imaginary situations, using improvisation and script. EXA 1-14a ( Scottish Government, n.d, p8).
I enjoy creating, choosing and accepting roles, using movement, expression and voice. EXA 1-12a (Scottish Government, n.d, p7).
Music
This week in the music input, we were very lucky to have some primary school children come in and teach us how to play some stringed instruments. The children were part of a school project which allows them to be taught how to play string instruments from P4-P7. I also found it amazing how the children were so engaged and played so well from only having one lesson a week as an orchestra and never have one to one lessons. They also have the chance to perform in concerts, competitions and conferences. They recently had the chance to perform in front of Prince Charles, who is the sponsor/funder of the project. The children started by teaching us some warm up games which helped with finger position and strength. I thought that these exercises were really useful because they are not only useful for improving fine motor control, they are fun too. The children loved carrying out these exercises and also loved teaching them to us.
I was paired with a primary 5 pupil who taught me how to play the cello. He first showed me the strings and told me what notes they were. He taught me a rhyme to remember the names of the notes. This was ‘Aunt Daisy Goes Crazy’ or, notes (ADGC). He also showed me how to hold the cello and where to put my fingers when playing the strings.
We then had the opportunity to play a small tune on the instruments. This was the first time I had ever played a cello before, so I found it quite difficult, but my partner was so confident in showing me where I was going wring and how to fix it. I found it so humbling and amazing at how well the children were able to teach us how to play these instruments with such confidence and ease. It was lovely to see how much the children loved playing the instruments and how keen and engaged they were in teaching us how to also .I loved this input and has made me realise even further of why I want to do this job. Today was very inspiring and showed why teaching is such an amazing profession. It was interesting and brilliant to see that through music, these children have confidence and charisma about music which I have never seen before. This was lovely to see.
Throughout both inputs, I found that there were links to confidence and willingness. Firstly, there was the promotion of confidence in the drama workshop and the music workshop as we had to be confident in standing in front of our peers performing and we had to be confident in trying out a new instrument. Secondly, we had to be willing to participate in the workshops or the activities simply wouldn’t have worked to their full potential.
References
Bloomfield, A and Childs J. (2002). Teaching Integrated Arts in the Primary School: Dance, Drama, Music, and the Visual Arts. London: David Fulton Publishers
Scottish Government .(n.d) Curriculum for Excellence. [Online] Available: https://www.education.gov.scot/Documents/all-experiences-and-outcomes.pdf (Accessed 21st December 2017)
