Oh my, oh my.
Three weeks have gone by since my last post. I am here now to say the group has been busy and really
getting used to the idea of using drama to learn English. I’ve been thinking about narrative a
lot. In particular how all my
students, regardless of their cultural background, have a keen understanding of
story. Not just an understanding
but also a need. A need to use
language to story. To story in
order to make sense of experience.
I’ve told many stories in class that we then use to create tableaux
(still pictures) and build dialogue out of. I also play a game, almost daily, called freeze tag that
makes use of kids inherent need and desire to make a story out of what they
see. The basics are this:
We sit in a circle.
Two students enter the middle and move around the space—they walk, they
dance, they do whatever until I call freeze. They are now in a frozen pose, a tableau. I call freeze when I think they are in
some pose that “poses” interesting possibilities. I then ask the other students what is the story here. We build on this for awhile and then I
ask someone else to take over for one of the performers and create a new pose
that creates a new relationship and therefore a new story. And we continue. Lots more can be built from this basic
game: with students very new to English
I might ask them to tell me a word about what they see. To more experienced students I press
them and extend their language to build a fully formed narrative. It has become my favorite routine in
the class because it is filled with both theatrical and linguistic
possibilities.
