Enlivening Instruction with Drama and Improv


Book Description

This engaging and complete resource has everything you need to bring drama and theatre techniques into the ESL, EFL, or World Language Classroom. Are your students reluctant to speak out in class? Do they lack confidence in their language skills? The dynamic drama games in this book are the perfect catalyst to transform your students into engaged learners, and help them build confidence and language skills. The interactive theatre games and techniques are specifically designed for use in Second, Foreign, and World Language classrooms to empower students through meaningful, agentive language learning. With over 80 activities and games, and hundreds of extensions that can be catered to every level, this book provides teachers with clear, step-by-step instructions to teaching dramatic activities with L2 learners of all levels and backgrounds. The games and strategies in this book will enliven classrooms with communication that is creative, memorable, inspiring, and fun. Grounded in cutting-edge research, this book explains why teaching language through drama is effective and inspiring for teachers and students alike, directing readers to a wide array of resources and approaches to teaching language through theatre. You’ll also find guidance on leading drama games with language learners in a variety of online platforms, lesson planning models, and an example lesson plan for easy implementation in physical or virtual classroom spaces.




Inspired Drama Teaching


Book Description

Inspired Drama Teaching is packed full of practical ideas to inspire your students and colleagues. This book offers tips and ideas on everything a teacher of secondary drama needs to cover, including: • Explorative strategies, such as role play and forum-theatre • Activities for making use of stimuli, such as scripts and music • Ideas for incorporating the elements of drama, such as rhythm and characterisation • Approaching drama as a medium, through the use of mime and make-up. This book includes a chapter on getting the students to work collaboratively, and one on making use of ICT within drama on the companion website. There is also a chapter dedicated to embodying drama and dramatic techniques across the curriculum, so you can get your colleagues excited about drama as well. There's a handy exam specification matrix online too. Inspired Drama Teaching isn't only for teachers just beginning their careers on the school stage; even experienced drama and English teachers will find plenty of new ideas and activities.




Making Sense of Drama


Book Description

This book will give teachers from all subject areas the confidence to explore the possibilities of drama in the classroom.




A Teacher's Guide to Drama


Book Description

Gary Langford is the author of 33 books, including 2 previous textbooks, reflecting his talent as a teacher writer. The others are 10 novels, such as Vanities (Macmillan), Newlands (Penguin) and Sohrab (Amazon Kindle), 14 books of poetry, including The Sonnets of Gary Langford as his 14th collection, and 4 collections of his short stories. He has also written 5 musicals in the period he founded and ran a theatre, The Playhouse, at what was then the Macarthur College of Advanced Education, Sydney. In this period he directed around 75 shows, many of which he wrote. He was also the director of shows that toured schools, utilizing puppets, along with revues that played to schools, whether in a school hall or outside. A Teachers Guide to Drama grew from drama subjects he founded and ran, including Oral Communication, Drama in the Classroom, Childrens Theatre and Puppetry, along with Writing and Performance that culminated in shows that also toured schools, notably high schools in the south-west of Sydney. A key to open the door for you is his teacher writer background enabling him to try all the exercises that you will find in here. Some are old and traditional, others he originated and used in drama workshops that he ran. Rest assured, there will be something for you in this practical and amusing textbook. Hidden rooms of the mind are in a garden. Each one hears the language of the flowers.




Starting Drama Teaching


Book Description

Why teach drama? How can a newcomer teach drama successfully? How do we recognize quality in drama? Starting Drama Teaching is a comprehensive guide to the teaching of drama in schools. Exploring the aims and purposes of drama, it provides an insight into the theoretical perspectives that underpin practice alongside activities, example lesson plans and approaches to planning. Written in an accessible style, the book addresses such practical issues as setting up role play, how to inject depth into group drama, working with text, teaching playwriting, as well as common problems that arise in the drama classroom and how to avoid them. This fourth edition has been updated to reflect the latest educational thinking and developments in policy and includes: a new chapter on researching drama; an extra section on digital technology and drama; guidance on different approaches to drama; advice on how teachers can achieve and recognize quality work in drama; a discussion of drama concepts including applied theatre, ensemble and rehearsal approaches. Acting on the growing interest in drama both as a separate subject and as a teaching methodology, this book is full of sensible, practical advice for teachers using drama at all levels and in all kinds of different school contexts. Written by an internationally recognized leading name in drama education, this book is valuable reading for trainee teachers who are new to drama and teachers who wish to update and broaden their range.




The Drama Teacher's Survival Guide


Book Description

"This is a terrific and instructive book, and an essential reminder of how inspiring and empowering a good drama teacher can be. I hope it's read widely and that new generations of pupils and teachers benefit from its wisdom and its verve." Nick Hytner Drama teaching is at a critical juncture. With new qualifications in the market, changes in government approach to the arts in education and hundreds of thousands of students wanting to be part of the country's hugely successful performing arts industry, the pressures on drama teachers are enormous. Many don't have a specialist background in drama and theatre and end up taking on the role of drama teacher; others feel disconnected from current theatre practice because of the time-demands of teaching; plenty of drama teachers feel they could be serving their students better, if only they had the resources and the support. For all of those teachers, this book will come as welcome relief. The Drama Teacher's Survival Guide provides support, inspirational ideas and rock-solid guidance for secondary drama teachers. It outlines the fundamental principles of a creative drama curriculum, and looks at how teachers can facilitate this and deliver inspiring lessons to fulfill the potential of their learners. It addresses head-on the common and numerous challenges that drama teachers face, from having to design their own creative curriculum to understanding how students learn. The author's own advice and expertise is supplemented by case studies, thereby collating and offering up the best advice and experience available. Written by Matthew Nichols, drama teacher for 12 years, this book offers a range of strategies, case studies and methods that really work.




How To Teach Drama To Kids


Book Description

If you want to learn how to teach drama to kids, then get "How to Teach Drama To Kids" written by a person with real life experience teaching drama to children. This guide, “How to Teach Drama to Kids” will take someone unsure of the main principles of teaching theatre arts to various ages, through the basic categories and components principally considered to be the heart of the study of Drama. Whether you are a music or English teacher hired to teach a semester of Drama, or an actor commissioned to do a series of children’s workshops, this guide will take you through a stage-by-stage process including exercises for the under 10 age group, the pre-teens, and the high-school ages. The author adds her own tips for making particularly challenging games or exercises “work,” and presents her own hints for keeping your resources and equipment to an inexpensive and manageable budget. With chapters from the basics of “Movement,” “Voice,” “Improvisation,” “Role-Playing” and “Scene Work” to the more intricate additions of “Story-Telling,” “Puppetry” “Stage-Fighting” and “Chorus-Line Dancing Steps,” this guide is broken down so that you may choose to eliminate certain chapters from your planning or to add the author’s hints for extending an exercise to make it last longer and to be more enriching to the students. About the Expert With her first on-stage appearance at age 4, her first leading role at age 11 and her professional stage roles culminating primarily in character parts in comedies, and for troupes catering to parties and murder mystery dinner theatres, Julie Johnson decided in 1997 that she would be well-suited to TEACH Drama to others. After graduating with a four-year specialist degree in teaching the Performing Arts, she moved to England to further work in both schools and theater. While mostly teaching high school Theater Arts since then (in three different countries) she has also been a leader of workshops for pre-teens and adults, a guest-speaker at college level, an adjudicator for theatre festivals and a coach and judge for speech and debate competitions. Here, in this guide, she offers many of her tips, games and exercises for teaching three different age groups under 18 years. HowExpert publishes quick 'how to' guides on all topics from A to Z by everyday experts.




Teaching Primary Drama


Book Description

Assuming no prior knowledge or experience of drama teaching, Brian Woolland’sTeaching Primary Drama offers a comprehensive introduction to the teaching of drama in the primary school, and focuses on current initiatives in primary education including the primary literacy strategy. The text is an invaluable resource for any teacher wishing to adopt a creative approach to teaching in their classroom. It offers guidance on different drama methods, and each practical idea translates to all areas of the curriculum. “[Teaching Primary Drama] is written in simple terms, uncluttered by references, is refreshingly straightforward and succinct and does not fall into the trap of making a complex subject sound complex; a trait of some texts which can push non-specialists away.”Amanda Kipling, London Drama Magazine, Summer 2010 issue.




Teaching As Leadership


Book Description

A road map for teachers who strive to be highly effective leaders in our nation's classrooms Teach For America has fought the daunting battle of educational equity for the last twenty years. Based on evidence from classrooms across the country, they've discovered much about effective teaching practice, and distilled these findings into the six principles presented in this book. The Teaching As Leadership framework inspires teachers to: Set Big Goals; Invest Students and Their Families; Plan Purposefully; Execute Effectively; Continuously Increase Effectiveness; Work Relentlessly. The results are better educational outcomes for our nation's children, particularly those who live in low-income communities. Inspires educators to be leaders in their classrooms and schools Demystifies what it means to be an effective teacher, describes key elements of practice and provides a clear vision of success Addresses the challenges every teacher, in every classroom, faces on a daily basis An accompanying website includes a wealth of tools, videos, sample lessons, discussion boards, and case studies.




Making Theatre


Book Description

An inspiring, practical handbook for anyone working with young people to devise theatre. Provides a framework for a stress-free process.