How to Approach Speaking and Listening through Drama
1. How
to Begin with Teacher in Role
Teacher as storyteller
The teacher as a storyteller is something all primary school teachers
will recognise. Good teachers slip easily into it
and use it
frequently. In
its most
observable guise
it occurs when teaching
the whole class and engaging them with a piece
of fiction.
The connection between the teacher as storyteller and the teacher using drama, lies in
the
fact
that they both use the generation of imagined realities in order
to teach. The relationship between story and drama in
education is a complex and dynamic one. It means a known narrative
can still be used, the
knowledge
of the narrative is not a barrier to its
usage.
Preparation for the
role
In preparing to be this
kind of storyteller the
teacher must have made particular decisions
about this child.
Begin by asking the
class out of role
what they want to ask the child
and the order of those questions. The questions will,
to a certain extent, be predictable because they are largely generated by the circumstances of the drama
so far and the role
the class has taken,
which will be that of anxious parents.
Before the
drama session,
decide what attitude you
are going to
take when
questioned by the class. You are going to be telling them a story but it will
be
as if they had just met you and it
will not be the
voice
of the narrator re-telling someone else’s story but
in
the
present tense as if it is happening
now.
Teaching from within
We are describing using role
as ‘teaching from within’ because the teacher
enters the drama world, but it is very important to step out of the fiction often and not let it run away with itself.
When using TiR, the
teacher is operating as a manager as well as participant and must spend as much time stopping
the drama and moving out of role
(OoR)
to
reflect on what is happening and give the pupils a chance to think through what they know and what they want to do.
This OoR working is as important as the role itself. It manages the role and therefore the drama; it manages the
risk, establishes where the
class is and helps pupils believe in the drama.
It provides time and space for
the teacher to assess and reassess the learning possibilities.
The requirements of working in role
The teacher, working
in this way, is an
important stimulus
for the learning.
It is not necessary to
use role
throughout
the piece of work.
It can be
used judiciously to focus
work
at strategic points or to challenge particular aspects of the children’s perceptions whilst other techniques
and conventions are
used to support the work and develop it.
In order to
make the TiR most effective,
we need to look
at educational
drama from the point of
view of
the
‘audience’, an
audience
who in this instance are participants at the
same time.
Disturbing the class
productively
The teacher’s function is to
provide challenge
and stimulus, to
give problems and issues
for the class to have to deal with.
The drama
is developed through
a set of activities that build
the class role, which is usually a corporate role.
We have to help them into the
drama, making them comfortable, and then disturb that comfort
productively. The fact that,
as in any good play,
the
class
discover things as they go along provides
the possibility of productive tension.
The teacher–taught relationship
If the class
decide as a group they do
not want to
learn and they wish to make your attempts to teach
them impracticable, they can
do
it. The power
in the classroom lies with the class. Of course, it does not look
like this when
the class are responding
and
contracting into the
tasks set
by the teacher but should some or all decide not to,
the cohesion can
be broken. In
drama this power
relationship is made overt. We must start from the
point of view
that if the class
do not want the drama to work
then it will not.
2. How to Begin Planning Drama
The ingredients
of planning
Creating a drama is very much
like cooking. It is easy to serve
up
a fast food meal, which has very little
quality and goodness,
but it is a more detailed,
careful and thorough
process to create a quality meal from scratch with good ingredients. Our ingredients include the following.
The learning
can be in any of five areas: Language Development, Spiritual, Social, Moral, Cultural, Personal, Content,
Art Form drama, Thinking.
Tension points – risks – theatre moments
Tension provides the momentum that pushes the
class, demands a response, engages them. It involves taking calculated risks;
for example in
a recent ver- sion of a drama based on
‘Snow White’ the
class, who were
in role
as people helping the dwarves at the mine, returned to
the house to
find Snow White,
who appears to be dead. This
is a very demanding moment, but
one that the
children, after initial hesitation, tackled with great commitment.
Building context
Usually having
one main location helps
the drama
to be properly focused. With ‘The Egyptians’ we did
not have a single location in an
early version. It started with the tomb and we planned to
spend time creating
it and its wall paintings
as the early belief
building
activity.
Decision-making – key developments in the drama which provide
the class with challenges
Inexperienced practitioners often think that they must give the
pupils a decision at every
turn, what to do
next, whom to meet, where to go. This
will lead to
chaos, with too many possibilities to manage. There are teacher decisions and pupil decisions
and we have to
be clear about the
timing and nature of both, why
one should be the teacher’s and why another should be the
pupils’.
The drama conventions, strategies and techniques
There are many techniques for structuring the
stages of a drama. Variety
of activity for
the class
is important but each chosen technique must fit the moment and do a particular job. They
may:
create context, build belief in the
roles
and therefore
the drama, focus learning,
help explore a situation and deepen understanding, help to reflect on the meaning of the event.
Planning as a collaborative activity
We also recommend that you plan with at least one other person.
Planning for true learning is a social activity and needs to have more than one
mind brought in
to develop its full
potential. In our
team, one member may
have the beginning of an idea
and sketch
that idea out, but
usually
turns to another member of the team for feedback and a planning
discussion. This
functions
as a means to bounce ideas,
to see flaws and to provide
insights into the potential for learning.
Road testing
the first version
Once we have the
beginnings of a drama we need to try ideas out. We
try
out the
draft plan with a good class,
one we know and can rely
on
to
be responsive, but also with the
skill to offer new ways of looking at the drama,
to challenge properly and be honest in
response; they will
help us develop the
potential in the drama. When a class are responding to
strong moments in a drama they not only provide ideas for future use, but also show us the
sections which are weak and need re-planning. Their
positive
responses reveal new
possibilities and can often become incorporated as ‘givens’
when the drama
is used in future.
They will
show you how
a TiR is working.
Types of drama
There are two main types of this sort of classroom drama that have evolved:
‘living through drama’, where the pupils face the events
at a sort of life rate in the
here and now, and ‘episodic drama’, or
strategy-based drama, where the class are
led by the teacher in creating situations and events through specific
techniques or strategies and where chronology is more broken.
What about endings to dramas?
The most difficult
thing can be resolving a drama satisfactorily in the time
and to the satisfaction of the
class. This
is to some extent in
the planning but mostly
in the handling of the
drama.
The class
must always
go away feeling they have achieved something. They need to have
solved the problem.
Avoid
that easy ending. We
must be satisfied ourselves with the
feel
of the drama at all times;
it must feel authentic. It is better for the class
to have strug- gled with the
issues and to see
possible futures without the problem role necessarily changing
or the dangers being completely
avoided.
3. How to Generate
Quality Speaking and Listening
Authentic dialogue – teacher
and pupil talk with a difference
What is speaking
and listening ?
Speaking and listening is the
most important
communication form that human beings use.
Really effective oracy, developmental speaking and listening, will help pupils build their language,
their understanding, their ability to handle their own world,
making sense of it and who they are in it.
True speaking and listening for
learning is effective
‘talk’, not two separate activities, as the phrase ‘speaking
and listening’ suggests;
it is an oral language interaction, which, at its
best,
is complex, demanding
and truly creative.
Learning is a social activity and thus talk
is its real source. Writing is a solo activity, which allows
the individual to distil ideas
already learned; it comes later.
Dialogic teaching
This is one
of the most interesting, potentially powerful and new
concepts being promoted in
educational circles in
the UK. It is the
result of extensive work by Robin Alexander
and others (Alexander, 2000, Alexander, 2005). This
approach to oracy
in the
classroom
raises the profile of talk,
speaking
and lis- tening, from the
poor relation of
English in the National Curriculum, to become
the central focus, the
pivot of learning across the curriculum.
In schools too
often speaking
and listening is seen
as question and answer,
usually the teacher questioning and the pupils
answering. What we see in classrooms is very
often the IRF approach, where the
teacher initiates,
a child responds and a teacher gives feedback.
What does dialogic
teaching demand of the teacher?
One of the
key changes that drama brings is a different position for the teacher. If the
teacher is the young boy, Daedalus, who has taken his father’s secret project
design, without his permission, and the pupils are the family servants, then
they have important decisions to make about what they do with this knowledge.
They will talk to Daedalus in a way that they can never talk to a teacher. The
teacher working through drama is intervening as teacher but also as other roles
within the drama, roles that are models and anti-models to promote the pupils’
language in ways that teacher language cannot. They are framed within the drama
context to oppose or sort out this behaviour, all the more motivated by the
fact it is their teacher behaving in this way through the use of role. So the
teacher is able to talk and interact with the pupils in many ways and with many
purposes.
How is listening of high quality
taught through drama?
Drama is the creation of meanings in action and pupils have to
struggle all the time to make sense of what is going on around them so that
they can engage with it. In drama we can get new levels of listening
because of the pupils’ interest in the problem-solving of the drama itself. The
focus of the problem or dilemma that the pupils face embodies the nature of the
language. In order for drama to work the teacher has to listen very closely
as well, to see where the pupils are, to pick up what the pupils are offering and use it within the
drama.
4.
How to Use Drama for Inclusion and Citizenship
So inclusion will always be found in drama’s approach to learning
and it may also be part of its subject content. Let us begin with defining what
we mean by inclusion. In the United Kingdom the Office for Standards in
Education Educational inclusion has a broad scope. It is essen- tially about
equal opportunities for all pupils, regardless of age, gender, ethnicity,
background and attainment, including special needs or disability. The inclusive
school will have, within its policies and curriculum, strategies to ‘address
racism and promote racial harmony where all pupils know they are valued and
important to the school’ .
The concept of drama and keeping pupils safe
There is a perception of drama dealing with issues in a safe way
because it uses fictional contexts. It is almost as if by shifting to the
fictional, a safe emotional distance is automatically created. It would be
simplistic to believe that just because we work within fictional contexts,
using fictional roles and events, that the experience for pupils is therefore
immediately safe from the negative and destructive emotions of real life
experiences. In teaching, whether working inside or outside fiction, we need to
be constantly aware of the need to treat pupils in ways that demon- strate
respect for persons and awareness of their particular social and emotional
circumstances in that learning situation.
The relationship between inclusion and citizenship
The QCA booklet on
Citizenship for the
primary age groups defines the area as follows:
The PSHE and Citizenship framework comprises
four interrelated strands which support children’s personal and social
development. The strands are:
● developing confidence
and responsibility and making the
most of their abilities;
● preparing to play
an
active role as citizens;
● developing a healthy, safer lifestyle; and
● developing good relationships and respecting the
differences
between people.
Drama as citizenship in action
How does
the drama
method promote this
learning? The process of drama itself
is democratic in nature. The underlying rules of drama embody key democratic values. These are:
- that the class work as a whole group, dividing into sub-groups for some tasks, but experiencing their class as a democratic community;
- that every member of the group may speak and contribute to the development of the drama;
- that all members of the group must respect the other members their opinions and viewpoints;
- that we stop the drama at any point to consider and discuss what is happening and what it means so that everyone may clarify their understanding and therefore have a greater chance to make a contribution;
- that when group decisions are to be made, debate may happen, but it is the majority view of the group that will be taken;
- that we reflect together on the meanings we are forging and that together we are stronger in that creative act.
5.
How to Generate Empathy in a Drama
What is empathy?
They will continue to build on their capacity for empathy and on
their awareness and management of feelings, particularly fearfulness in
relation to meeting new challenges. Drama makes one of its greatest contributions
in modelling and generating this sort of learning. For drama to operate most
effectively we need to understand what is happening and how we most effectively
create the conditions for empathy to thrive.
To understand drama’s relationship with empathy we need to
deconstruct the process of empathetic behaviour and see how this is replicated
in drama.
A working definition of empathy
A working definition of empathy
We need a definition that not only belongs to the real world but
can be replicated inside the drama lesson. Pupils will then be able to
empathise without having to bear witness to or have the actual life experiences
of those to whom they are directing their empathy. In this way we protect
pupils from actual real life experiences and yet generate the opportunity to
empathise with those caught up in these experiences.
Framing the affective component – thought-tracking and dealing
with the Workhouse Master
We return to the drama.
The pupils
voice the thoughts of Martha as she passes. They don’t have to
speak but
they must listen to each other and speak
as if they were Martha as she
approaches the workhouse and the Workhouse
Master. This strategy of
conscience
alley will enable the class
to sympathise with Martha’s circumstances.
Pupil 1: I’m
frightened.
Pupil 2: My baby will die if I don’t go
here.
Pupil 3: Must look like I can work hard.
Pupil 4: I don’t want
them
to take my baby
The cognitive stage
The first
stage of structuring for empathising is the
cognitive
stage. In the example given it
has three
components:
1) The role – Martha
represented by a pupil walking
down the conscience
alley.
2)
The attitude of Martha as
negotiated
and agreed with by
the class and teacher.
3) Martha’s purpose – to enter the workhouse and save the baby.
This representation of the
cognitive
stage of empathising has been con tracted with the
class
before the strategy is enacted. Its success
is generated
by the constraints imposed on the roles,
the
context
and the events leading up
to
Martha’s approach to the doors of the workhouse, in other words, the pre-text.
6.
How to Link History and Drama
- There are tensions between history and drama but they can be resolved by adopting a conceptual framework that is clear about the learning intentions
- Research is a key element in planning roles from history
- Using a variety of sources helps to support the validity of the work
- It is important to be clear about what you mean when you use the word empa- thy in relation to drama and history teaching
- Using signifiers, not full costume, when taking on a role allows you to come in and out of role
- Reference to modern day parallels allows you to make the connections between then and now
7. How to Begin Using Assessment
of Speaking and Listening
(an Other English Skills) through Drama
Drama
as a
context for speaking
and listening
- Negotiating and co-operating with others in the creation of drama work and the roles within it
- Expressing imaginative ideas when contributing to the drama work devel- opment
- Taking and using effectively the opportunities within the drama that require oral and aural communication
- Modifying, selecting and relating language and vocabulary to the chang- ing roles, moods and situations in the drama work
- Controlling effectively oral and aural communication particularly in chal- lenging sequences of drama work, e.g. questioning, dilemmas, unfair or emotional situations
- Responding with enjoyment and enthusiasm to the exploration of speech, gesture and sound
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